Studies suggest that medical students and physicians have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation than their peers in the general population. Some authors have suggested that medical culture perpetuates these problems by erecting “barriers to treatment,” preventing students and physicians from getting the help they need. Here, the author begins a broader examination of the potential role of culture by examining the myths and symbols that form the basis for medical culture and the medical self-image. The author argues (...) that a medical self-image based on a de-contextualized medical mythology, the Asclepius myth, results in a sense of professional identity that is unbalanced, dehumanized, and characterized by unattainable expectations. The outward expression of this medical self-image, the medical culture, is often a-relational, unhealthy, stressed, or even toxic. The author suggests some ways of re-modeling medical culture, including its rituals and symbols, and medical education in ways that incorporate what is currently kept in its shadow. (shrink)

From Descartes to Hume, philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries developed a dialectic of radically conflicting claims about the nature of the self. In the Paralogisms of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant comes to terms with this dialectic, and with the character of theexperiencing self. Powell seeks to elucidate these difficult texts, in part by applying to the Paralogisms insights drawn from Kant's Transcendental Deduction. His reading shows that the structure of the Paralogisms provides an essential key to (...) understanding both Kant's critique of "rationalpsychology" and his theory of self-consciousness. As Kant realized, the ways in which we must represent ourselves to ourselves have import not only for epistemology, but for our view of persons and of our own immortality, and for moral philosophy as well. Kant's theory of self-consciousness is alsoshown to have implications for contemporary discussions of the problem of other minds, functionalism, and the problem of indexical self-reference. (shrink)

Fabi and Goldberg raised important considerations regarding both research and funding priorities in the field of bioethics and, in particular, the field’s misalignment with social justice. W...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Was Isaac Newton an Arian?Thomas C. PfizenmaierHistorians of Newton's thought have been wide ranging in their assessment of his conception of the trinity. David Brewster, in his The Life of Sir Isaac Newton (1831), was fully convinced that Newton was an orthodox trinitarian, although he recognized that "a traditionary belief has long prevailed that Newton was an Arian."1 Two reasons were used to defend his conclusion that Newton (...) was orthodox. The first was a letter from John Craig, a friend of Newton, written shortly after Newton's death to John Conduitt, the husband of Newton's niece. In this letter Craig remarked that Newton's theological opinions "were sometimes different from those which are commonly received" but that he hoped Conduitt would publish Newton's theological papers, "that the world may see that Sir Isaac Newton was as good a Christian as he was a mathematician and philosopher."2 The second reason with which Brewster defended his conclusion was his acknowledgment that the doctrine of the trinity itself had variations.I had no hesitation when writing the Life of Sir Isaac Newton in 1830, in coming to the conclusion that he was a believer in the Trinity; and in giving this opinion on the creed of so great a man, and so indefatigable a student of scripture, I was well aware that there are various forms of Trinitarian truth, and various modes of expressing it, which have been received as orthodox in the purest societies of the Christian Church.3L. T. More in his biography Isaac Newton gently chided Brewster for not publishing some of the crucial manuscripts, which eventually became [End Page 57] part of the Keynes collection.4 From these additional manuscripts More reached the conclusion that Newton was not orthodox but an Arian. He proceeded to say that Newton was not only an Arian but, because of the manner in which he understood Jesus' role as prophet, a Unitarian.5More recently the famous British economist John M. Keynes, who considered it a great "impiety" that the Portsmouth family's collection of Newton's non-scientific manuscripts were dispersed at the Sotheby's auction in 1936 and who recovered about half of them creating the "Keynes" collection at Cambridge, provided yet a third interpretation of Newton's thought.Very early in life Newton abandoned orthodox belief in the Trinity. At this time the Socinians were an important Arian sect amongst intellectual circles. It may be that Newton fell under Socinian influences, but I think not. He was rather a Judaic monotheist of the school of Maimonides. He arrived at this conclusion, not on so-to-speak rational or skeptical grounds, but entirely on the interpretation of ancient authority. He was persuaded that the revealed documents give no support to the Trinitarian doctrines which were due to late falsifications. The revealed God was one God.6Among contemporary scholars, the consensus is that Newton was an Arian rather than a Socinian.7 This view is clearly expressed by Richard [End Page 58] Westfall who writes, "Well before 1675, Newton had become an Arian in the original sense of the term. He recognized Christ as a divine mediator between God and man, who was subordinate to the Father who created him."8 Yet Frank Manuel, in his The Religion of Isaac Newton (1974), advises that we not try to push Newton into a theological categorization too quickly. He reminds us that Newton was, if nothing else, an original thinker.It is an error to seize upon his antitrinitrianism in order to pigeonhole him in one of the recognized categories of heresy—Arian, Socinian, Unitarian, or Deist.9So how did Isaac Newton conceive of the trinity? In exploring his writing on the subject we will be guided by two principles mentioned above. The first is Brewster's insight that the trinitarian doctrine has in fact been understood with a certain degree of variety within the sphere of orthodoxy. The second is from Manuel's reminder, that we must resist the temptation to make Newton "fit" some predetermined category or school of trinitarian thought. We will begin by looking at the resources available for studying... (shrink)

Samuel H. Pillsbury, Judging Evil: Rethinking the Law of Murder and Manslaughter New York: New York University Press, 1998, vii + 264pp.

This article is an offshoot of a research project on lesbian and gay self-organization in the UK's public sector union UNISON. The site upon which lesbians and gay men ‘work together’ is a complex and contradictory one, located at the juncture of several pathways – women's and men's movements, gendered politics and sexual politics, purist ghettos and queer rainbows. The UNISON group furnishes an ideal site for a case-study of sexual and gendered dynamics in lesbian-and-gay politics by dint of institutional (...) arrangements whereby separate spaces for lesbians and gay men respectively encourage reflexivity in working through these hyphens. While reflections from the lesbian feminist mirror have been active ingredients in the ongoing resocialization of gay men, it is argued that reflections from a gay male mirror will also be necessary if we are to nurture greater wisdom and justice in gender relations. Since the lesbian and gay group co-exists with other self-organized groups for women, black people and disabled people within a broader pro-socialist movement, the potential for working across other sets of differences is also noteworthy. Nevertheless, it can be demonstrated that a sustained coalition between lesbians and gay men is not sufficient in bringing about coalitions with other oppressed minorities or majorities, and may even be at loggerheads with them. (shrink)

It has generally been observed that cells grow to a certain size before they divide. In the last few years, the PI3K signal transduction pathway has emerged as one of the main signaling routes utilized by cells to control their increase in size. Here we focus on two components of this pathway, PKB and S6K, and briefly review the experiments that initially uncovered their roles in cell size control. In addition, we discuss a number of recent observations suggesting that the (...) generic models used to describe this pathway to date may have been oversimplified. Indeed, recent observations in Drosophila and mouse support a more complex interaction between these signaling components in development. Finally, we have utilized two contemporary studies involving PKB‐ and S6K‐deficient mice as a paradigm to underscore the importance of cell size and to accurately delineate the connections between signaling pathways for human disease, such as diabetes mellitus. BioEssays 24:65–71, 2002. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a measure of analytical reasoning that cues an intuitive but incorrect response that must be rejected for successful performance to be attained. The CRT yields two types of errors: Intuitive errors, which are attributed to Type 1 processes; and non-intuitive errors, which result from poor numeracy skills or deficient reasoning. Past research shows that participants who commit the highest numbers of errors on the CRT overestimate their performance the most, whereas those with the lowest (...) error-rates tend to slightly underestimate. This is an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE). The present study examined how intuitive vs. non-intuitive errors contribute to overestimation in the CRT at different levels of performance. Female undergraduate students completed a seven-item CRT test and subsequently estimated their raw score. They also filled out the Faith in Intuition (FI) questionnaire, which is a dispositional measure of intuitive thinking. Data was separated into quartiles based on level of performance on the CRT. The results demonstrated the DKE. Additionally, intuitive and non-intuitive errors predicted miscalibration among low, but not high performers. However, intuitive errors were a stronger predictor of miscalibration. Finally, FI was positively correlated with CRT self-estimates and miscalibration, indicating that participants who perceived themselves to be more intuitive were worse at estimating their score. These results taken together suggest that participants who perform poorly in the CRT and also those who score higher in intuitive thinking disposition are more susceptible to the influences of heuristic-based cues, such as answer fluency, when judging their performance. (shrink)

ESTs or ‘expressed sequence tags’ are DNA sequences read from both ends of expressed gene fragments. The Merck‐WashU EST Project and several other public EST projects are being performed to rapidly discover the complement of human genes, and make them easily accessible. These ESTs are widely used to discover novel members of gene families, to map genes to chromosomes as ‘sequence‐tagged sites’ (STSs), and to identify mutations leading to heritable diseases. Informatic strategies for querying the EST databases are discussed, as (...) well as the strengths and weaknesses of the EST data. There is a compelling need to build on the informatic synthesis of human gene data, and to devise facile methods for determining gene functions. (shrink)

This book provides a broad survey of many of the major areas in neuroplasticity research by leading investigators in the field. The topics considered range across all levels of nervous system organization from the molecular to behavioral levels for species ranging from _C. elegans_ to humans. In addition, the effects of development and neuropathological events are discussed. A final summary chapter synthesizes the data gathered in this volume in order to provide the basis for a general theory of neuroplasticity.

Using a Solomon four-group design, we investigate the effect of a case-based critical thinking intervention on students’ critical thinking skills. We randomly assign 31 sessions of business classes to four groups and collect data from three sources: in-class performance, university records, and Internet surveys. Our 2 × 2 ANOVA results showed no significant between-subjects differences. Contrary to our expectations, students improve their critical thinking skills, with or without the intervention. Female and Caucasian students improve their critical thinking skills, but males (...) and non-Caucasian do not. Positive performance goals and negative mastery goals enhance and decrease improvements of their CTA scores, respectively. ACT and age are related to pre- and post-test. Gender is related to pre-test. GPA is related to post-test. Results shed light on the Pygmalion effect, the Galatea effect, ability, motivation, and opportunity as signals for human capital, and business ethics. (shrink)

We investigate whether the disclosure of a firm’s decision to organize as a benefit corporation (BC) rather than a traditional C corporation (CC) influences investors. We survey 136 investors and 57 MBA students and find that they expect BCs to attain higher future corporate social responsibility (CSR) than CCs even when both have equal CSR ratings. Approximately one third of our sample prefers to invest in BCs when CCs have greater financial returns, indicating a willingness by some investors to sacrifice (...) personal financial gain for social good. Our results suggest that investors weight the information contained in BC disclosures as reliable and value-relevant in their investment decisions. We extend the CSR disclosure literature by indicating how investors weight this new type of CSR information, which may affect how BCs fare as publicly traded companies. (shrink)

Learners exposed to an artificial language recognize its abstract structural regularities when instantiated in a novel vocabulary (e.g., Gómez, Gerken, & Schvaneveldt, 2000; Tunney & Altmann, 2001). We asked whether such sensitivity accelerates subsequent learning, and enables acquisition of more complex structure. In Experiment 1, pre-exposure to a category-induction language of the form aX bY sped subsequent learning when the language is instantiated in a different vocabulary. In Experiment 2, while naíve learners did not acquire an acX bcY language, in (...) which aX and bY co-occurrence regularities were separated by a c-element, prior experience with an aX bY language provided some benefit. In Experiment 3 we replicated this finding with a 24-hour delay between learning phases, and controlled for prior experience with the aX bY language's prosodic and phonological characteristics. These findings suggest that learners, and the structure they can acquire, change as a function of experience. (shrink)

The Ethics Committee at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) developed a Bioethics Ambassador Program (BAP); a yearlong educational program to assist clinical and non-clinical staff develop the skills to identify and address common burgeoning ethical issues that can arise during the provision of care to patients with cancer. The goal was to provide greater awareness of the role and services of Ethics, particularly at the institution’s geographically-diverse outpatient care centers and to better-instill a culture of preventative ethics. This article (...) discusses the design and implementation of the first two years of the program and analyzes its strengths, weaknesses, and impact on MSK. (shrink)

In her book Forms in Early Modern Utopia: The Ethnography of Perfection, Nina Chordas challenges the idea that early modern utopia literature is a fictional literary genre. She argues that utopia literature should be considered a conglomeration of genres with a hybrid life, that is, as both fiction and real-life phenomenon in the early modern period. Her aim is to show that the development of utopia as a genre in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a response to the convergence (...) of specific social and historical forces and as such may be considered a social as well as a literary phenomenon. Chordas accomplishes this aim by considering prose texts written between 1516 and 1666. Her study begins with Thomas... (shrink)

Due to natural selection pressure, certain aspects of memory may have been selected to give humans a survival advantage. Research has demonstrated that processing information for survival relevance leads to better item memory (i.e., the content of information) compared to control conditions. The current study investigates the effects of survival processing on context memory (i.e., memory for peripheral episodic details) and item memory to better understand when the survival processing memory advantage emerges. In this study, participants viewed objects in either (...) a plausible color, for example a red apple, or in an implausible color, such as a green pie. We chose this color plausibility manipulation because color is a detail that conveys information about the fitness of an item. After studying items in either a survival or moving (control) condition, participants made item memory judgments (did you see this item before?), and two context memory judgments: color context (in which color did you see this item?), and source context (in which condition did you see this item?). Results indicated better item memory for materials processed in the survival relative to moving condition. Critically, for color context there was a condition by plausibility interaction, where memory was best for plausibly colored items in the survival processing condition. There was no difference, however, in source context memory between the survival and moving conditions. These results suggest the survival processing memory advantage extends to some contextual details, but only those details that tap into the survival utility of items, such as color. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Dark Brew: Traditional Existentialism and Community Coffee and Otherness: Community and Coffee Coffee, Community, and Hope.

People are motivated to acquire self-evaluative information that favours themselves or information that confirms their present self-views. We proposed that par...

Spanning thirty years of intensive research, this book proves what many scholars could not explain: that today’s Western world must be considered the product of both Greek and Indian thought—Western and Eastern philosophies. Thomas McEvilley explores how trade, imperialism, and migration currents allowed cultural philosophies to intermingle freely throughout India, Egypt, Greece, and the ancient Near East. This groundbreaking reference will stir relentless debate among philosophers, art historians, and students.

This book is a stimulating and engaging discussion of philosophical issues in the foundations of classical electromagnetism. In the rst half, Frisch argues against the standard conception of the theory as consistent and local. The second half is devoted to the puzzle of the arrow of radiation: the fact that waves behave asymmetrically in time, though the laws governing their evolution are temporally symmetric. The book is worthwhile for anyone interested in understanding the physical theory of electromagnetism, as well for (...) the views it presents on philosophical issues such as causation, counterfactuals, laws, scienti c theories, models, and explanation. While philosophers of physics tend to focus on quantum mechanics and relativity, Frisch’s book shows that there are deep foundational issues in classical physics, equally worthy of attention. That said, let me lodge disagreement on some key points. Frisch argues from an alleged inconsistency in classical electromagnetism— that Maxwell’s equations, the Lorentz force law, and the conservation of energy cannot be jointly true—to the conclusion that the standard view of scienti c theories as a formalism plus an interpretation is incorrect. Consistency is a necessary condition of any view on which scienti c theories give us an account of “ways the world could be” (Frisch, , ). Since classical electromagnetism is successfully used by practicing physicists, consistency must be just one criterion of theory choice weighed equally among others. This is an intriguing idea, but I am not sure that consistency can be given up so easily. That road leads dangerously close to accepting orthodox ‘Copenhagen’ quantum mechanics. Surely the inconsistency of.. (shrink)

Although several theories of online syntactic processing assume the parallel activation of multiple syntactic representations, evidence supporting simultaneous activation has been inconclusive. Here, the continuous and non‐ballistic properties of computer mouse movements are exploited, by recording their streaming x, y coordinates to procure evidence regarding parallel versus serial processing. Participants heard structurally ambiguous sentences while viewing scenes with properties either supporting or not supporting the difficult modifier interpretation. The curvatures of the elicited trajectories revealed both an effect of visual context (...) and graded competition between simultaneously active syntactic representations. The results are discussed in the context of 3 major groups of theories within the domain of sentence processing. (shrink)

The philosophy of biology is witnessing an increasing enthusiasm for what can be called “individuals thinking”. Individuals thinking is a perspective on the metaphysics of biological entities according to which conceiving of them as individuals rather than kinds enables us to expose ongoing metaphysical debates as focusing on the wrong question, and to achieve better accounts of the metaphysics of biological entities. In this paper, I examine two cases of individuals thinking, the claim that species are individuals and the claim (...) that life on Earth is an individual. I argue that these claims fail to do the metaphysical work that one would want them to do. I highlight problems with the specific claims as well as with the general notion of ‘individual’, and argue that naturalistic metaphysicians of biology should think of the metaphysical status of theoretical entities, such as species and life, as fundamentally theory-dependent. This implies a metaphysical pluralism, that allows that in some theories species, life, and other such entities may feature as individuals, whereas in others they may feature as kinds. (shrink)

The taxa that appear in biological classifications are commonly seen as representing information about the traits of their member organisms. This paper examines in what way taxa feature in the storage and retrieval of such information. I will argue that taxa do not actually store much information about the traits of their member organisms. Rather, I want to suggest, taxa should be understood as functioning to localize organisms in the genealogical network of life on Earth. Taxa store information about where (...) organisms are localized in the network, which is important background information when it comes to establishing knowledge about organismal traits, but it is not itself information about these traits. The view of species and higher taxa that is proposed here follows from examining three problems that occur in contemporary biological systematics and are discussed here: the problem of generalization over taxa, the problem of phylogenetic inference, and the problematic nature of the Tree of Life. (shrink)