Biblical ethics -- The insights of history.

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has caused shortages of life-sustaining medical resources, and future waves of the virus may cause further scarcity. The Yale New Haven Health System developed a triage protocol to allocate scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the primary goal of saving the most lives possible, and a secondary goal of making triage assessments and decisions consistent, transparent, and fair. We outline the process of developing the protocol, summarize the protocol, and discuss the major ethical challenges (...) encountered, along with our answers to the challenges. These challenges include (1) the role of age and chronic comorbidities; (2) evaluating children and pregnant patients; (3) racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health; (4) prioritization of healthcare workers; and (5) balancing clinical judgment versus protocolized assessments.We conclude with a review of the limitations of our protocol and the lessons learned. We hope that a robust public discussion of such protocols and the ethical challenges they raise will result in the fairest possible processes, less need for triage, and more lives saved during future waves of the pandemic and similar public health emergencies. (shrink)

In a recent paper, William K. Goosens objects to the arguments I set out some time ago attacking the logical empiricist analysis of reduction as applied to genetics. In these works I did not argue against the claim that Mendelian genetics was being reduced to molecular biology. Nor did I conclude, as Goosens asserts, that in the case of genetics, “reduction is insignificant”. To the contrary, I repeatedly stated that, “given our pre-analytic intuitions about reduction,” the reduction of Mendelian to (...) molecular genetics “is a case of reduction, a paradigm case”. And in agreement with Kenneth Schaffner I argued that reduction “in some very important, pre-analytic sense has taken place and is taking place in genetics”. The target of my objections to reduction in genetics was not “reduction” in some pre-analytic sense. Nor was it the various explications which have appeared since. Rather it was the notion of theory reduction set out a generation ago by such logical empiricists as Ernest Nagel, The particular version of this analysis which I chose to attack was that presented by Schaffner ; for Schaffner's later views, see his. I chose Schaffner's explication to attack because I thought it was the best of its kind and because it was the only defense of the logical empiricist analysis at the time which used genetics as one of its chief examples. Contrary to Goosens' assumption, in criticizing Schaffner's explication, I did not thereby “endorse” it. (shrink)

Compares classic and contemporary theories of genetics and evolution and explores the role of teleological thought in biology.

Authors frequently refer to gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, and operant learning as exemplifying selection processes in the same sense of this term. However, as obvious as this claim may seem on the surface, setting out an account of “selection” that is general enough to incorporate all three of these processes without becoming so general as to be vacuous is far from easy. In this target article, we set out such a general (...) account of selection to see how well it accommodates these very different sorts of selection. The three fundamental elements of this account are replication, variation, and environmental interaction. For selection to occur, these three processes must be related in a very specific way. In particular, replication must alternate with environmental interaction so that any changes that occur in replication are passed on differentially because of environmental interaction. One of the main differences among the three sorts of selection that we investigate concerns the role of organisms. In traditional biological evolution, organisms play a central role with respect to environmental interaction. Although environmental interaction can occur at other levels of the organizational hierarchy, organisms are the primary focus of environmental interaction. In the functioning of the immune system, organisms function as containers. The interactions that result in selection of antibodies during a lifetime are between entities (antibodies and antigens) contained within the organism. Resulting changes in the immune system of one organism are not passed on to later organisms. Nor are changes in operant behavior resulting from behavioral selection passed on to later organisms. But operant behavior is not contained in the organism because most of the interactions that lead to differential replication include parts of the world outside the organism. Changes in the organism's nervous system are the effects of those interactions. The role of genes also varies in these three systems. Biological evolution is gene-based (i.e., genes are the primary replicators). Genes play very different roles in operant behavior and the immune system. However, in all three systems, iteration is central. All three selection processes are also incredibly wasteful and inefficient. They can generate complexity and novelty primarily because they are so wasteful and inefficient. Key Words: evolution; immunology; interaction; operant behavior; operant learning; replication; selection; variation. (shrink)

Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages offers scholars of Dante's Divine Comedy an integral understanding of the political, philosophical, and religious context of the medieval masterwork. First penned in French by Ernest L. Fortin, one of America's foremost thinkers in the fields of philosophy and theology, Dissidence et philosophie au moyen-âge brings to light the complexity of Dante's thought and art, and its relation to the central themes of Western civilization. Available in English for the first time through (...) this superb translation by Marc A. LePain, Dissent and Philosophy will make a supremely important contribution to the discussion of Dante as poet, theologian, and philosopher. (shrink)

Chapter One THE MAN-APES A Lesson for Thomas Hobbes Probably the most exciting development in modern anthropology is the discovery of the australopithecines ...

This article is a systematic critical survey of work done in the philosophy of biology within the logical empiricist tradition, beginning in the 1930s and until the end of the 1950s. It challenges a popular view that the logical empiricists either ignored biology altogether or produced analyses of little value. The earliest work on the philosophy of biology within the logical empiricist corpus was that of Philipp Frank, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, and Felix Mainx. Mainx, in particular, provided a detailed analysis (...) of biology in the 1930s and 1940s in his contribution to the logical empiricists’ Encyclopedia of Unified Science. However, the most important contributions to the philosophy of biology were those of Joseph Henry Woodger and Ernest Nagel. Woodger is primarily remembered for deploying the axiomatic method in biology but he also used semiformal methods for the analysis of many biological problems. While Woodger’s axiomatic work was often derided by some later philosophers of biology (e.g., David Hull and Michael Ruse), this article defends both the biological and the philosophical significance of some of that work, for instance, those aspects that led to the recognition of the conceptual complexity of mereology and temporal identity in biological systems. Woodger’s semiformal analyses were even more important, for instance, his explication of the concepts of the Bauplan and of innateness. Nagel’s importance lies in his analyses of reduction and emergence in the context of all empirical sciences and his use of these analyses in a careful exploration of biological problems. While Nagel’s model of reduction was generally rejected by philosophers of science in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly for biological contexts, it has recently been sympathetically reconstructed by many commentators; this article defends its continued relevance for the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 34 (winter 2014–15): 131–4 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036–01631; online 1913–8032 c:\users\ken\documents\type3402\rj 3402 050 red.docx 2015-02-04 9:19 PM _ibliography NEW PERIODICAL ARTICLES BY RUSSELL Kenneth Blackwell here are 35 new C entries since 1993 for A Bibliography of Bertrand Russell, and more for all Parts of Vol. 2. With many thanks to several readers. C15.18a [RECONSTRUCTION OF (...) INTELLECTUAL INTERNATIONALISM AFTER THE WAR]. Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, 18 July 1915, sec. b, p. 5. Published under the general title “Det kulturella samarbetets återupptagande efter kriget” [The re-establishment of cultural cooperation after the war]. There is a subtitle : “Tre nya svar på Svenska Dagbladets världsenquête” [Three new responses to Svenska Dagbladet’s world enquiry].—Ms. (ra3 rec. acq. 1,325).—In English in Russell, n.s. 18 (1998): 141–3 (ed. K. Blackwell). C16.07a THE CASE OF MR. E. CHAPPELOW. The Manchester Guardian, 19 April 1916, p. 6. Six sentences, introduced thus: “The Hon. Bertrand Russell writes”.—Russell makes reference to the Everett case. C16.10a THE CASE OF THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. The Freethinker, 36 (14 May 1916): 310. “… the country is drifting into the infliction of serious persecution upon a large number of young men.…”—Reprinted, with two-thirds omitted, in Jim Herrick, Vision and Realism: a Hundred years of The Freethinker (London: Foote, 1982), pp. 51–2. C22.39 INSTINCT, HABIT, AND INTELLIGENCE. Hull Weekly Recorder, no. 1 (16 Dec. 1922): 6–9. Reprinted in Collected Papers 16 (in preparation). C23.10a BERTRAND RUSSELL PREDICTS U.S. WILL EVENTUALLY CONTROL THE ENTIRE WORLD. The Daily Argus, Mt. Vernon, ny, 7 March 1923, p. 3. Subtitled “Famous British Philosopher Declares America Will Conquer through Economic Causes What Others Have Tried to Win by Force”.—A note states: “Written exclusively for I.N.S.” (International News Service).—Reprinted in Collected Papers 16 (in preparation). C28.02a WHAT I THINK OF COMPANIONATE MARRIAGE. Children, the Magazine for Parents, Chicago, 3 (Feb. 1928): 17. Russell’s contribution—one of four under the title, the others being by Ernest R. Groves, Stephen S. Wise, and Anna Garlin Spencer, pp. 17, 47—is five sentences long.—Reprinted in Collected Papers 18 (in preparation). C28.02b [ADVICE ON WRITING]. The Daily Illini (U. of Illinois), Champaign, il, 12 Feb. 1928, p. 15. Letter to the author on developing a writing style, quoted fully in Newton York, q= 132 kenneth blackwell c:\users\ken\documents\type3402\rj 3402 050 red.docx 2015-02-04 9:19 PM “What Authors Advise”, ibid.—Part of Russell’s advice is to “read Gibbon all through, at least twice.” —Reprinted in Collected Papers 18 (in preparation). C32.39a MR. BERTRAND RUSSELL’S QUESTIONS. The Manchester Guardian, 27 June 1932, p. 10. Letter to a Coventry correspondent, under the title, “The Dismissed Teacher”. C34.36a ROMAN-CELTIC FARM SITE. The Times, 18 Sept. 1934, p. 7. Letter in “Points from Letters”, signed by John Russell, Telegraph House, Harting, Petersfield, referring to S. E. Winbolt’s “A Roman-Celtic Farm Site; Discovery near Harting, Sussex”, ibid., 10 Sept. 1934, p. 7. The writer states that his part was “not so great” as it appears in the account.—The composition of the letter is ascribed here to Bertrand Russell because a draft, with the exception of a phrase added later, is entirely in his fluent hand. That of his 13-year-old son is not present.—The draft was crossed out, and the verso became folio 1 of the ms. of “On Ceremony” (C34.48). C34.55a [THE AMERICAN LIBRARY OF NAZI BANNED BOOKS]. Jewish Daily Bulletin, New York, 11, no. 3,030 (23 Dec. 1934): 1. A telegram congratulating the Brooklyn Jewish Center for “inaugurating an American Library for Nazi burnt books”.—The allusion is to the Nazi bonfire of banned books on 10 May 1933.—The dinner celebrating the Library and mentioned in Russell’s telegram is the subject of Joseph Goldberg, “ ‘A Splendid and Historic Gathering’: Brooklyn Jewish Center Inaugurates Library of Nazi Banned books”, Brooklyn Jewish Center Review... (shrink)

Finding a powerful ally in Bertrand Russell, who provided the foreword for this book, Gellner embarked on the project that was to put him on the intellectual ...

Now I may not be an educated man . . . But it seems to me to go against common sense to ask what the poet is ‘trying to say’. The poem isn’t a code for something easily understood. The poem is what he is trying to say.

This paper is inter-disciplinary. Its disadvantage is that the author is not sufficiently conversant with the disciplines it is inter. He may however, like Lord Wavell, claim that at least the thread that binds them is his own.The paper is of philosophic interest in that it is inspired by, and hopes to shed some light on, the notion of an ideal language. It is of interest to social anthropology in that its main subject is kinship structure. It may be of (...) interest to mathematicians in setting a task. (shrink)

O‐glycosylation is the post‐translational process whereby carbohydrate is added to hydroxylated amino acids of proteins. The major O‐glycosylation pathway in animal cells is involved in the synthesis of oligosaccharides linked by N‐acetylgalactosamine to serine or threonine residues in ‘mucin‐type’ proteins or their analogs. In this review, we discuss the evidence for the cellular localization of the biosynthetic steps in this pathway and propose a simplified, consensus version. We also propose variations of the simple pathway to account for its heterogeneity and (...) variability in different cell types and differentiation states. (shrink)

These forms would result regularly from the longer forms, audivisti, etc. The v drops out between two like vowels, and these then contract immediately . Both the long and the short forms are used, but the intervening forms audiisti, etc., do not occur in early Latin, just as diitis is not found.

Great Systems of Yoga is a short review of the major schools of yoga, including Hindu, Buddhist and Sufi varieties. Chapters include: The Ten Oriental Yogas; Patanjali's Raja Yoga; Shri Krishna's Gita-Yoga; Shankaracharya's Gnyana-Yoga; The Hatha and Laya Yogas; The Bhakti And Mantra Yogas; The Occult Path of Buddha; The Chinese Yoga; and, The Sufi Yogis.