BackgroundThe evolution of the female orgasm in humans and its role in romantic relationships is poorly understood. Whereas the male orgasm is inherently linked to reproduction, the female orgasm is not linked to obvious reproductive or survival benefits. It also occurs less consistently during penetrative sex than does the male orgasm. Mate-choice hypotheses posit that the wide variation in female orgasm frequency reflects a discriminatory mechanism designed to select high-quality mates.ObjectiveWe aimed to determine whether women report that their orgasm frequency (...) varies between partners, whether this variation reflects mates' personal characteristics, and whether this variation reflects own and partner sexual behaviour during intercourse.DesignWe collected survey data from 103 women who rated the extent to which their orgasm frequency varied between partners, the characteristics of previous sexual partners who induced high-orgasm frequency and those who induced low-orgasm frequency,... (shrink)

This essay critiques feminist treatments of maternal-fetal "relationality" that unwittingly replicate features of Western individualism (for example, the Cartesian division between the asocial body and the social-cognitive person, or the conflation of social and biological birth). I argue for a more reflexive perspective on relationality that would acknowledge how we produce persons through our actions and rhetoric. Personhood and relationality can be better analyzed as dynamic, negotiated qualities realized through social practice.

With a few notable exceptions disability studies has not taken account of intersexuality, and it is principally through the lenses of feminist and queer-theory oriented ethical discussions but not through ‘straight’ bioethics that modes valuing intersex difference have been proposed. Meanwhile, the medical presupposition that intersex characteristics are inherently disabling to social viability remains the taken-for-granted truth from which clinical practice proceeds. In this paper I argue against bioethical perspectives that justify extensive and invasive pre- and post-natal medical interference to (...) eradicate intersex. I argue instead that to constitute the necessary conditions for the recognition of the intersexed child as a person, a life valid in its own right, clinicians must refrain from aggressive interference. Clinical specialists presuppose that intersexed children will be socially disabled and unrecognizable as persons; frustrated by the general failure of traditional interventions to assign a sex, clinicians are now pursuing prenatal technologies, including selective termination, to erase intersex. (shrink)

There is more than enough evidence to show that cock-fighting, quail-fighting, and even partridge-fighting were favourite sports among the Greeks , no matter what part of the mediterranean world they inhabited. Whether Romans ever shared these passions is another question altogether. When Saglio contributed his article on cock-fighting to the Dictionnaire des antiquitis grecques et romaines, he limited himself to the transports it caused the Greeks. For this he was reprimanded, obliquely, by Schneider, asserting—but neglecting to support the assertion in (...) detail—that Romans also took a keen interest in Hahnenkämpfe. Subsequently, Magaldi set out to prove the existence of formal ludi gallinarii at Pompeii, while Jennison mustered such evidence as could be found for all three forms of avian combat in Rome. Hence, apparently, it has become the communis opinio that Romans shared the Greeks' taste for these ‘raffish’ amusements. (shrink)

Online gaming creates unique public spaces of interaction. These spaces are both highly controlled but also able to slip through the regulatory net, as domestic legislation struggles to respond to fast-changing interjurisdictional environments. Inter- and transdisciplinary research hold potential to respond to questions surrounding the regulation of these online spaces, by exploring multiple perspectives. The authors of this paper each come from a unique starting point in their exploration of these issues. The paper will examine three spaces of regulation in (...) online game world environments. It will look at (1) rules and regulations that governs online interaction in virtual spaces, (2) the ‘code’ that controls behaviour through game architecture, and (3) the laws that are developed by players inside the game world. The first part will analyse whether domestic law can be adequate to regulate a space that is not geographically fixed. The second will discuss how the coding of the game and its architecture regulate behaviours within the space. The last is a “bottom-up” regulatory system, originating within the gaming community. Where do these three layers of regulation interact with each other? What are the unique languages of these spaces? This paper is a starting point for further investigation into the regulation of online behaviours through interwoven rule systems. (shrink)

The consuls of 284, according to the Fasti Capitolini, were L. Caecilius Metellus Denter and C. Servilius Tucca. Of Tucca we know nothing else at all, and if the literary sources also tell us that Metellus Denter was defeated and killed by Gauls at Arretium, the date of this setback and Metellus' status at the time have long been matter for dispute. The surviving accounts of Rome's campaigns against the Gauls in this period fall into three categories. First, there is (...) Polybius, who apparently sets Metellus' death in 284 and terms him, prima facie consul. Then there are the sources which seem clearly to derive from a later, annalistic tradition; they describe Metellus as praetor and place his death in 283. And finally there is Appian, whose account represents an attempt to conflate these views and consequently falls between two stools; in his account Metellus is not even mentioned. (shrink)

It is not enough, says Quintilian , to assemble the various parts of a speech. The orator must arrange his points in the natural and logical order for his purposes, and he must unify the different sections so skilfully that no join will show , producing a single body instead of assorted limbs. If we define ascommissura the rhetorical device which welds together different themes or chapters with an associative link in word or thought , Tacitus already had this lesson (...) by heart when he wrote the Germania. That he exploited the same technique in his major works, concentrating on his transitions as hard as would Macaulay on his, appears not to have been noticed, and certainly has not received systematic study. (shrink)

In his magisterial Religion und Kultus der Römer Georg Wissowa made the statement that a Roman man or woman seeking a priesthood had, among other things, to be free of physical defects. This has since become the communis opinio, sometimes in the form in which Wissowa expressed it, sometimes involving rather the idea that a priest or priestess could be deposed for such defects acquired after entry into the priesthood, and sometimes embracing both concepts simultaneously.

The battle of Panormus, in which L. Caecilius Metellus decisively defeated the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal, was one of the major victories of the First Punic War. The year in which it took place, however, has long been matter for dispute, reasons being found for placing it in 251 or 250. There is now, it is true, a general preference for 250, so that there may seem to be little need to traverse this ground yet again. But there is also Polybius' (...) reputation to consider. Whichever dating scholars prefer, they invariably maintain that Polybius' account of the years 253–250 is more or less disfigured by confusion, contradiction, and inaccuracy; on either view he is accused, expressly or by implication, of making remarks which point to the wrong year. (shrink)

Today's personable, sanitized images of human embryos and fetuses require an audience that is literally and metaphorically distanced from dead specimens. Yet scientists must handle dead specimens to produce embryological knowledge, which only then can be transformed into beautiful photographs and talking fetuses. I begin with an account of Gertrude Stein's experience making a model of a fetal brain. Her tactile encounter is contrasted to the avant-garde artistic tradition that later came to dominate embryo imagery. This essay shows the embryo (...) visualizations portrayed in a contemporary coffee-table book about gestational development to be a remarkable political achievement predicated, in part, on keeping hidden the unsavory details of anatomical technique that transform dead specimens into icons of life. (shrink)

The consuls of 284, according to the Fasti Capitolini, were L. Caecilius Metellus Denter and C. Servilius Tucca. Of Tucca we know nothing else at all, and if the literary sources also tell us that Metellus Denter was defeated and killed by Gauls at Arretium, the date of this setback and Metellus' status at the time have long been matter for dispute. The surviving accounts of Rome's campaigns against the Gauls in this period fall into three categories. First, there is (...) Polybius, who apparently sets Metellus' death in 284 and terms him , prima facie consul. Then there are the sources which seem clearly to derive from a later, annalistic tradition; they describe Metellus as praetor and place his death in 283. And finally there is Appian, whose account represents an attempt to conflate these views and consequently falls between two stools; in his account Metellus is not even mentioned. (shrink)

For almost 30 years the ion channel that initiates the ON visual pathway in vertebrate vision has remained elusive. Recent findings now indicate that the pathway, which begins with unbinding of glutamate from the metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 (mGluR6), ends with the opening of the transient receptor potential (TRP)M1 cation channel. As a component of the mGluR6 signal transduction pathway, mutations in TRPM1 would be expected to cause congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB), and several such mutations have already been identified (...) in CSNB families. Furthermore, expression of TRPM1 in both the retina and skin raises the possibility that a genetic link exists between certain types of visual and skin disorders. (shrink)

A friend once told me I was wasting my time writing about cross-cultural perspectives on the beginnings of life. “Your work is interesting for its curiosity value,” he said, “but fundamentally worthless. What happens in other cultures is totally irrelevant to what is happening here.” Those were discouraging words, but as I followed the American debates about the beginnings and ends of life, it seemed he was right. Anthropologists have written a great deal about birth and death rites in other (...) societies and about non-western notions of personhood, but to date our findings have had little impact on American policy, ethics, or law. The recognized experts on contentious topics such as abortion and euthanasia tend to come from the fields of philosophy, bioethics, theology, law, and biology, but rarely from the social sciences. I was a bit surprised, therefore, to be invited to address the Thomas A. Pitts Memorial Lectureship on “Defining the Beginning and the End of Human Life.”. (shrink)

Artificial language learning experiments have become an important tool in exploring principles of language and language learning. A persistent question in all of this work, however, is whether ALL engages the linguistic system and whether ALL studies are ecologically valid assessments of natural language ability. In the present study, we considered these questions by examining the relationship between performance in an ALL task and second language learning ability. Participants enrolled in a Spanish language class were evaluated using a number of (...) different measures of Spanish ability and classroom performance, which was compared to IQ and a number of different measures of ALL performance. The results show that success in ALL experiments, particularly more complex artificial languages, correlates positively with indices of L2 learning even after controlling for IQ. These findings provide a key link between studies involving ALL and our understanding of second language learning in the classroom. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay reviews the 2013 Human Life International (HLI) propaganda video, Central America and Mexico: Fighting for Life, Faith, and Family, which, we argue, illustrates the well-orchestrated counteroffensive against reproductive and sexual rights movements occurring in the region. First we summarize the film's key themes, including the assertion that Catholicism is fundamental to Mexican and Central American identities and that the international “pro-abortion movement” is waging war against Catholics. Second, we note the development of a new strategic alliance between Catholics (...) and evangelicals that relies on lay religious activists working in the fields of medicine, bioethics, law, and government. Third, we show how the video appeals to HLI donors by asking them to support crisis pregnancy centres, homes for unwed mothers, adoption programs, and “natural” fertility assistance. We argue that the film conspicuously ignores the consequences of abortion bans already in place in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras, and does not consider that what it terms “international pressures” also includes treaty obligations with the United Nations and Organization of American States. This essay offers insights into the strategies used by opponents of reproductive and sexual rights movements in Mexico and Central America. (shrink)

PurposeSocial exclusion as a result of gender, race, and class inequality is perhaps one of the most pressing challenges associated with the development of a diverse information technology workforce. Women remain under represented in the IT workforce and college majors that prepare students for IT careers. Research on the under representation of women in IT typically assumes women to be homogeneous in nature, something that blinds the research to variation that exists among women. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe (...) paper challenges the assumption of heterogeneity by investigating how the intersection of gender, race, and class identities shape the experiences of Black female IT workers and learners in the USA.FindingsThe results of this meta‐analysis offer new ways of theorizing that provide nuanced understanding of social exclusion and varied emancipatory practices in reaction to shared group exposure to oppression.Originality/valueThis study on the under‐representation of women as IT workers and learners in the USA considers race and class as equally important factors for understanding variation among women. In addition, this paper provides rich insights into the experiences of Black women, a group that is largely absent from the research on gender and IT. (shrink)

It is frequently noted that a “crisis in language” accompanied the profound changes in human consciousness everywhere evident near the turn of the century. As the nature of reality itself became problematic—or at least suspect, distrusted for its imposition of limits upon individual imagination—so, necessarily, did the relationship of language to reality. Thus in the later nineteenth century, the adequacy of an essentially standardized form of “classical” writing was increasingly questioned as an effective vehicle for artistic expression: even though often (...) in “elevated” form, such writing bore too close a connection to ordinary discourse. Indeed, it was precisely the mutually shared, conventional aspects of language that came to be most deeply distrusted for their failure to mirror the more subjective, obscure, and improbable manifestations of a transcendent reality or, rather, realities—the plural reflecting an insistence upon the optional and provisional nature of human experience. Language in its normal manifestations—with its conventionalized vocabulary and standardized rules for syntactical combination—proved inadequate for an artistic sensibility demanding, in Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “a world of abnormally drawn perspectives.”This dissatisfaction with “normal” language received its classic statement through Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Lord Chandos. Writing in 1902, Hofmannsthal conveys through the figure of the aristocratic Chandos the loss of an encompassing framework within which the various objects of external reality are connected with one another and integrated with the internal reality of human feelings. Chandos’ world has become one of disparate, disconnected fragments, resistant to the abstractions of ordinary language. It is a world characterized by “a sort of feverish thought, but thought in a material that is more immediate, more fluid, and more intense than that of language.” Chandos longs for a new language in which not a single word is known to me, a language in which mute objects speak to me and in which perhaps one day, in the grave, I will give account of myself before an unknown judge.”2 The content and forms of art thus shifted away from exterior reality, which no longer provided a stable, “given” material, toward language itself—to “pure” language in a sense closely related to the symbolists’ “pure” poetry. “No artist tolerates reality,” Nietzsche proclaimed.3 And Gustave Flaubert’s farsighted advice to himself was that he should write “a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the internal strength of its style.”4 2. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, “Ein Brief,” Gesammelte Werke, ed. Bernd Schoeller with Rudolf Hirsch, 10 vols. , 7:471-72; my translation. All further translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.3. Friedrich Nitzsche, Complete Works, ed. Oscar Levy, 18 vols. , vol. 15, The Will to Power, trans. Anthony M. Ludovici, p. 74.4. Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert to Louise Colet, 16 Jan. 1852, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830-1857, ed. and trans. Francis Steegmuller , p. 154. Other passages in this letter are equally remarkable for their “modernist” tone. Flaubert argues that from the standpoint of l’Art pur, “one might almost establish the axiom that there is no such thing as subject—style in itself being an absolute manner of seeing things” . Further:The finest works are those that contain the least matter; the closer expression comes to thought, the closer language comes to coinciding and merging with it, the finer the result. I believe the future of Art lies in this direction. I see it, as it has developed from its beginnings, growing progressively more ethereal …. Form, in becoming more skillful, becomes attenuated, it leaves behind all liturgy, rule, measure; the epic is discarded in favor of the novel, verse in favor of prose; there is no longer any orthodoxy, and form is as free as the will of its creator. This progressive shedding of the burden of tradition can be observed everywhere: governments have gone through similar evolution, from oriental despotisms to the socialisms of the future. [P. 154] Robert P. Morgan, professor of music at the University of Chicago, is currently writing a history of twentieth-century music and working on a study of form in nineteenth-century music. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “On the Analysis of Recent Music” and “Musical Time/Musical Space”. (shrink)

Traumatic events happen in every age, yet there is a particularly cataclysmic feeling to our own epoch that is so attractive to some and so terrifying to others. The terrible events of September 11th 2001 still resonate and the repercussions continue to this day: the desperation of immigrants fleeing terror, the uncertainty of Brexit, Donald Trump in the White House, the rise of the alt-right and hard left, increasing fundamentalism, and terror groups intent on causing destruction to the Western way (...) of life. If that were not enough, we also have to grapple with the enormity of climate change and the charge that if we do not act now, it will be too late. Is it any wonder many are left overwhelmed by the events they see on the news? Galvanised by the events outside of his consulting room, in 2015, David Morgan began The Political Mind seminars at the British Psychoanalytical Society and their successful run continues today. A series of superlative seminars, mostly presented by colleagues from the British Society plus a few select external experts, that examine a dazzling array of relevant topics to provide a psychoanalytic understanding of just what is going on in our world. This book is the first in The Political Mind series to bring these seminars to a wider audience. The Unconscious in Political and Social Life contains compelling contributions from Christopher Bollas, Michael Rustin, Jonathan Sklar, David Bell, Philip Stokoe, Roger Kennedy, David Morgan, M. Fakhry Davids, Ruth McCall, R. D. Hinshelwood, Renée Danziger, Josh Cohen, Sally Weintrobe, and Margot Waddell. They investigate so many vital issues affecting us today: the evolution of democracy, right-wing populism, prejudice, the rise of the far right, attitudes to refugees and migrants, neoliberalism, fundamentalism, terrorism, the Palestine-Israel situation, political change, feminism, austerity in the UK, financial globalisation, and climate change. This book needs to be read by all who are concerned by the state of the world today. Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts with their awareness of what motivates human beings bring clarity and fresh insight to these matters. A deeper understanding of humanity awaits the reader of The Unconscious in Political and Social Life. (shrink)

κ-M-proper forcing, introduced in [K00] when κ = ω1, is a very powerful new technique for generic stepping up, subsuming all previous generic steppings up using auxiliary functions. A general framework for using κ-M-proper forcing is set out, and a couple of examples of such forcings, adding κ−-thin-very tall scattered spaces and long chains in P(κ) modulo <κ−, are given. These objects are not currently obtainable by the previously known techniques.

The following statement is a report of the Committee on Philosophy in Education of the American Philosophical Association and was approved by the Association's Board of Officers in December, 1958. The Committee was composed of the following: C. W. Hendel, Chairman, H. G. Alexander, R. M. Chisholm, Max Fisch, Lucius Garvin, Douglas Morgan, A. E. Murphy, Charner Perry and R. G. Turnbull. Primary responsibility for the preparation of this report belonged to a subcommittee composed of Douglas N. Morgan, (...) Chairman, and Charner Perry. (shrink)

Local connectedness functions for (κ, 1)-simplified morasses, localisations of the coupling function c studied in [M96, §1], are defined and their elementary properties discussed. Several different, useful, canonical ways of arriving at the functions are examined. This analysis is then used to give explicit formulae for generalisations of the local distance functions which were defined recursively in [K00], leading to simple proofs of the principal properties of those functions. It is then extended to the properties of local connectedness functions in (...) the context of κ-M-proper forcing for sucessor κ. The functions are shown to enjoy substantial strengthenings of the properties (particularly the ∆-properties) hitherto proved for both c and for Todorcevic’s ρ-functions in the special case κ = ω1. A couple of examples of the use of local connectedness functions in consort with κ-M-proper forcing are then given. (shrink)

In an essay entitled ‘Cinna the Poet’ published in 1974, T. P. Wiseman forcefully countered the arguments of Monroe E. Deutsch and others against the identification of the ‘neoteric’ poet Cinna with the tribune Gaius Helvius Cinna, who after Caesar's funeral was torn to pieces by an enraged mob, mistaken by it for the praetor Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who had applauded Caesar's murder. The identification of the poet with the tribune is supported by Plutarch, Brutus 20.4, where the murdered tribune (...) is called a ποιητικ⋯ς ⋯ν⋯ρ. As Wiseman says, ‘there are six other ancient accounts of the murder, drawn from a source or sources unknown; five of them call the victim a tribune of the plebs, and none of them says he was a poet. Impressed by this, many scholars have thought that the victim was not in fact the poet Helvius Cinna, and M. E. Deutsch suggested in 1925 that either the phrase in the Brutus describing him as a poet is a gloss, or “the tribune also dabbled in verse but was not the famous poet”.’ Wiseman's refutation of the various arguments of Deutsch and his followers against the identity of the poet and the tribune seems to me quite cogent, but the debate shows no sign of having been brought to a close: G. V. Sumner concludes his review of Wiseman's essay with an argument that the tribune was probably somewhat younger than the poet, and the suggestion that the tribune may have been ‘the adoptive, and hence homonymous, son of the poet’. (shrink)

In his exemplary edition of the papyrus fragments of Callimachus' Victoria Berenices, P. J. Parsons briefly considered the spelling of the name of Hercules' host, who played such a major role in Callimachus' ατιον on the founding of the Nemean games. At B iii 2 the papyrus has M[λ]ορκοϲ. On this Professor Parsons noted ‘elsewhere Mλορχοϲ: the unusual spelling, which no doubt comes from the text, reappears in Apollodorus, Bibl. 2.5.1 , Nonnus, Dion. 17.52 and Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Mολορκα (...) ’. (shrink)

In his prefatory epistle dedicating his Naturalis Historia to Vespasian, the elder Pliny takes great pains to plead that his magnum opus is unworthy of the emperor: ‘maiorem te sciebam, quam ut descensurum hue putarem’ . Continuing in this vein, Pliny goes on to say ‘praeterea est quaedam publica etiam eruditorum reiectio’, and appeals for support to the great Cicero: ‘utitur ilia et M. Tullius extra omnem ingenii aleam positus, et, quod miremur, per aduocatum defenditur’ . Cicero's aduocatus is the (...) satirist Lucilius, from whom a mangled fragment in trochaic septenarii is then quoted: ‘nec doctissimis. Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Iunium Congum uolo.’ The sense of this fragment, which Pliny very probably quoted from the now-lost beginning of Cicero's preface to his De Re Publica, can be restored from Cicero, De Oratore 2.25: ‘nam ut C. Lucilius…dicere solebat ea quae scriberet neque ab indoctissimis se neque a doctissimis legi uelle, quod alteri nihil intelligerent, alteri plus fortasse quam ipse; quo etiam scripsit “Persium non curo legere” , “Laelium Decimum uolo” : sic ego…’. This latter passage has allowed the former to be restored, to some extent exempli gratia, to the following form in Warmington's and Krenkel's editions of Lucilius. (shrink)

The question I want to pursue here is one that I have lifted from Harry Frankfurt’s recent surprising best-selling book, On Bullshit, in which he asks why there is so much bullshit today in Western cultures like the U. S. The scope of Frankfurt’s charge was deliberately broad. It’s not just that people bullshit about how much money they make or how important their jobs are, but that public discourse about just any topic of consequence in American culture is filled (...) with, one is even tempted to say consists of, such unseemly speech. Such is the case, I want to claim here, about public discourse about sport in the print and visual media, in everyday life, and even, as I will shortly comment upon, in so-called academic and civic forums. So I don’t think it is a stretch at all, nor do I believe Frankfurtwould regard it as such, to include sport among the topics about which bullshit abounds. He might, however, quibble with my claim that the preponderance of bullshit in and outside of sport circles has mainly to do with the incursion of the market into most of the social practices that people hold dear in our culture. This despite the fact that Frankfurt does recognize that one primary reason why bullshit dominates so much of our contemporary discourse is that people are frequently called upon to speak about things that exceed their grasp, their knowledge of the subject. What he seems not to appreciate in this regard, however, is that one especially important reason why people’s grasp of what they say and do leaves much to be desired is because more often than not it is market actors that are doing all the talking here, whether the topic be sports, or politics, or even science. And the reason they are doing all the talking is the same reason they are mostly responsible for what actually goes on in these disparate spheres, namely, they hold and control the purse strings. So I’m persuaded, more than Frankfurt apparently is, that it is because the money-changers dominate sports, as I have insinuated they dominate most everything else, that what gets said in and about sports is mostly bullshit. Convincing you that I’m right about this will be my aim today, and that’s no bullshit, I think. (shrink)

How does microbiota research impact our understanding of biological individuality? We summarize the interdisciplinary summer school on "Microbiota, Symbiosis and Individuality: Conceptual and Philosophical Issues" (July 2019), which was supported by a European Research Council starting grant project "Immunity, DEvelopment, and the Microbiota" (IDEM). The summer school centered around interdisciplinary group work on four facets of microbiota research: holobionts, individuality, causation, and human health. The conceptual discussion of cutting-edge empirical research provided new insights into microbiota and highlights the value of (...) incorporating into meetings experts from other disciplines, such as philosophy and history of science. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Professor Margaret Archer discusses a variety of aspects of her work, academic career and influences, beginning with the role the study of education systems played in...

The use of Big Data—however the term is defined—involves a wide array of issues and stakeholders, thereby increasing numbers of complex decisions around issues including data acquisition, use, and sharing. Big Data is becoming a significant component of practice in an ever-increasing range of disciplines; however, since it is not a coherent “discipline” itself, specific codes of conduct for Big Data users and researchers do not exist. While many institutions have created, or will create, training opportunities to prepare people to (...) work in and around Big Data, insufficient time, space, and thought have been dedicated to training these people to engage with the ethical, legal, and social issues in this new domain. Since Big Data practitioners come from, and work in, diverse contexts, neither a relevant professional code of conduct nor specific formal ethics training are likely to be readily available. This normative paper describes an approach to conceptualizing ethical reasoning and integrating it into training for Big Data use and research. Our approach is based on a published framework that emphasizes ethical reasoning rather than topical knowledge. We describe the formation of professional community norms from two key disciplines that contribute to the emergent field of Big Data: computer science and statistics. Historical analogies from these professions suggest strategies for introducing trainees and orienting practitioners both to ethical reasoning and to a code of professional conduct itself. We include two semester course syllabi to strengthen our thesis that codes of conduct can be harnessed to support the development of ethical reasoning in, and a sense of professional identity among, Big Data practitioners. (shrink)

The article explores E.M. Forster’s story The Machine Stops as an example of dystopian literature and its possible associations with the use of technology and with today’s cyber culture. Dystopian societies are often characterized by dehumanization and Forster’s novel raises questions about how we live in time and space; and how we establish relationships with the Other and with the world through technology. We suggest that the fear of technology depicted in dystopian literature indicates a fear that machines are mimicking (...) the roles that humans already play in relational encounters. Our relationship with machines frequently suggests a classical “I-it” situation. However, a genuine dialogue is where there is no master and where communication and understanding are achieved through the encounter and through openness to difference and to change. The article examines the ways machines and automata are imagined and become part of lived human existence, in the light of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and otherness. The problem seems to be how everyday technological interfaces can change the way we first perceive the world and the possibility that with certain types of mediation there is a loss of connection with the Other. It is argued that understanding dialogical conditions could help turn the relationship with technology into something more humane. Literature such as Forster’s is considered as an example of such a dialogical condition, suggesting ways of dealing with human dilemmas by exploring the field of possibilities. (shrink)

I PSYCHOLOGY 5 The Probabilistic Revolution in Psychology--an Overview Gerd Gigerenzer 7 1 Probabilistic Thinking and the Fight against Subjectivity Gerd Gigerenzer 11 2 Statistical Method and the Historical Development of Research Practice in American Psychology Kurt Danziger 35 3 Survival of the Fittest Probabilist: Brunswik, Thurstone, and the Two Disciplines of Psychology Gerd Gigerenzer 49 4 A Perspective for Viewing the Integration of Probability Theory in Psychology David J. Murray 73 II SOCIOLOGY 101 5 The Two Empirical Roots of (...) Social Theory and the Probability Revolution Anthony Oberschall 103 III ECONOMICS 133 The Probabilistic Revolution in Economics--an Overview Mary S. Morgan 135 6 Why Was There No Probabilistic Revolution in Economic Thought? Claude Mènard 139 7 The Rise of Macroeconomic Calculations in Economic Statistics Robert A. Horváth 147 8 Statistics without Probability and Haavelmo’s Revolution in Econometrics Mary S. Morgan 171 IV PHYSIOLOGY 199 9 Experimental Physiology and Statistical Inference: The Therapeutic Trial in Nineteenth-Century Germany William Coleman 201 V EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 227 The Probabilistic Revolution in Evolutionary Biology--an Overview John H. Beatty 229 10 Natural Selection as a Causal, Empirical, and Probabilistic Theory M. J. S. Hodge 233 11 Dobzhansky and Drift: Facts, Values, and Chance in Evolutionary Biology John H. Beatty 271 12 Random Genetic Drift, R. A. Fisher, and the Oxford School of Ecological Genetics John R. G. Turner 313 13 On the Prior Probability of the Existence of Life Bernd-Olaf Küppers 355 VI PHYSICS 371 The Probabilistic Revolution in Physics--an Overview Lorenz Krüger 373 14 Probabilistic Physics the Classical Way Jan von Plato 379 15 Max Born and the Reality of Quantum Probabilities Nancy Cartwright 409 16 Philosophical Problems of Quantum Theory: The Response of American Physicists Nancy Cartwright. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Egg Takes Flight: The Once and Future Life of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission*Alexander Morgan Capron (bio)Attempting to describe the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) is comparable to the surreal feat performed by the artist in a famous painting by René Magritte. The artist (Magritte himself) sits with his back to the viewer, a palette in his left hand. The brush in his right hand is raised (...) to a canvas, blank except for a bird in flight that he is in the process of painting. The artist is looking to his left at a tabletop, bare except for a single, plain egg.Having held its second formal meeting in mid-January, NBAC is certainly still embryonic, its future mysterious within its shell. Yet answers to four major questions that will determine not just what kind of bird the Commission turns out to be but the heights to which it will fly should be evident by April or May 1997. First, will the White House take the sort of interest in NBAC that is needed if it is to succeed? Second, will the Commission’s term be extended beyond October 1997—and will the decision come early enough to allow it to start soon on projects that will take more than a single year to complete? Third, will the Commission take a broad view of the issues it addresses, reexamining widely accepted assumptions and going back to basic premises, or will it respond primarily in bureaucratic terms, guided by its charter’s focus on improving the policies and practices of federal departments and agencies? Fourth, will the Commission move beyond its initially mandated topics—the rights and welfare of human research subjects and the management and use of genetic information—and become what its name promises, the nation’s advisory body on the full range of bioethical issues that arise in the organization and management of health services and research?The Origins of the Egg: NBAC’s PredecessorsThe creation of a national bioethics commission has been demanded for years, at the least since its most recent predecessor, the Biomedical Ethics [End Page 63] Advisory Committee (BEAC) finally expired in 1990. BEAC’s statutory authority lapsed after the hapless committee had spent several years itself like an in vitro embryo in a vat of liquid nitrogen. BEAC’s opponents in Congress froze its appropriation and forbad it to meet until the Biomedical Ethics Board of six senators and six representatives to which it was supposed to report resolved the chaos resulting from the Board members’ ideological differences and personal distrust; this never occurred, and the Board proved unable even to choose its chairman. 1 BEAC, which met only twice, had laid preliminary plans to study the issues raised by the new genetics, but the politics of abortion—which had greatly complicated and slowed the Board’s naming of the BEAC members—was strong enough to interfere even with the topic of genetics, on which the difference among committee members actually gave no sign of dividing on pro-life/pro-choice grounds.The disappearance of BEAC left the nation without a mechanism for “public bioethics,” and several efforts were undertaken in the early 1990s to generate a new commission that could carry on in the tradition of the two previous, successful bioethics commissions. (The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research operated under a Congressional mandate in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1974 to 1978, and the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which had been authorized by Congress in 1978, actually operated as an independent body with government-wide purview from January 1980 to March 1983.) The Institute of Medicine established a committee to assess the mechanisms available not only to the federal government but also to states, professional bodies, and the public for deliberating about and resolving ethical issues stemming from developments in biomedicine (Bulger, Bobby, and Fineberg 1995). In September 1992, Senators Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) requested that the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) evaluate the... (shrink)

The following is a joint report of the Committee on Philosophy in Education of the American Philosophical Association and of the Committee on Cooperation with the American Philosophical Association of the Philosophy of Education Society. The report has been approved by the Executive Committee of the Philosophy of Education Society and by the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association. The Committee of the American Philosophical Association was composed of the following: C. W. Hendel, Chairman, H. G. Alexander, R. (...) M. Chisholm, Max Fisch, Lucius Garvin, Douglas Morgan, A. E. Murphy, Charner Perry and R. G. Turnbull. The Committee of the Philosophy of Education Society consisted of Fr. R. J. Henle, S.J., Chairman, and Professors Barton, Clayton, Drake, and Hullfish. The American Philosophical Association subcommittee with primary responsibility for this report was composed of Charner Perry, Chairman, and Douglas Morgan. (shrink)

This study explores gratitude as a multidimensional and work-specific construct. Utilizing a sample of 625 employees from a variety of positions in a medium-sized school district in the United States, we developed and evaluated a new measure, namely the Work Gratitude Scale, which encompasses recognized conative, cognitive, affective, and social aspects of gratitude. A systematic, six-phased approach through structural equation modeling was used to explore and confirm the factorial structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance, concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity of the (...) WGS. The results supported a 10-item measure with three dimensions: “grateful appraisals”, “gratitude toward others”, and “intentional attitude of gratitude”. Thereafter, first-order, second-order, and bifactor confirmatory models were estimated and compared. Work gratitude was found to be best described by a second-order construct with three underlying first-order dimensions. Measurement invariance was supported in relation to gender. Concurrent validity was supported in relation to two existing dispositional gratitude scales, namely the Gratitude Questionnaire and the Gratitude, Resentment, and Appreciation Scale. Convergent validity was supported in relation to the Core Self-Evaluations Scale and the Psychological Capital Questionnaire. Discriminant validity was supported in relation to various demographic factors such as age, gender, occupation, and tenure. The findings support the WGS as a multidimensional measure that can be used in practice to measure overall work-related gratitude and to track the effectiveness of gratitude-related workplace interventions. (shrink)

Background: Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups have a high need for organ transplantation but deceased donation is low. This restricts the availability of well-matched organs and results in relatively long waiting times for transplantation, with increased mortality risks. Objective: To identify barriers to organ donor registration and family consent among the BAME population, and to develop and evaluate a training intervention to enhance communication with ethnic minority families and identify impacts on family consent. Methods: Three-phase programme comprising community-based research (...) involving two systematic reviews examining attitudes and barriers to organ donation and effective interventions followed by 22 focus groups with minority ethnic groups; hospital-based research examining staff practices and influences on family consent through ethics discussion groups with staff, a study on intensive care units and interviews with bereaved ethnic minority families; and development and evaluation of a training package to enhance cultural competence among ICU staff. Setting: Community focus group study in eight London boroughs with high prevalence of ethnic minority populations. Hospital studies at five NHS hospital trusts. Participants: Community studies: 228 focus group participants; hospital studies: 35 nurses, 28 clinicians, 19 hospital chaplains, 25 members of local Organ Donation Committees, 17 bereaved family members; and evaluation: 66 health professionals. Data sources: Focus groups with community residents, systematic reviews, qualitative interviews and observation in ICUs, EDGs with ICU staff, bereaved family interviews and questionnaires for trial evaluation. Review methods: Systematic review and narrative synthesis. Results: Community studies: Organ Donor Register – different ethnic/faith and age groups were at varying points on the ‘pathway’ to organ donor registration, with large numbers lacking knowledge and remaining at a pre-contemplation stage. Key attitudinal barriers were uncertainties regarding religious permissibility, bodily concerns, lack of trust in health professionals and little priority given to registration, with the varying significance of these factors varying by ethnicity/faith and age. National campaigns focusing on ethnic minorities have had limited impact, whereas characteristics of effective educational interventions are being conducted in a familiar environment; addressing the groups’ particular concerns; delivery by trained members of the lay community; and providing immediate access to registration. Interventions are also required to target those at specific stages of the donation pathway. Hospital studies: family consent to donation – many ICU staff, especially junior nurses, described a lack of confidence in communication and supporting ethnic minority families, often reflecting differences in emotional expression, faith and cultural beliefs, and language difficulties. The continuing high proportion of family donation discussions that take place without the collaboration of a specialist nurse for organ donation reflected consultants’ views of their own role in family consent to donation, a lack of trust in SNODs and uncertainties surrounding controlled donations after circulatory death. Hospital chaplains differed in their involvement in ICUs, reflecting their availability/employment status, personal interests and the practices of ICU staff. Evaluation: professional development package – a digital versatile disk-based training package was developed to promote confidence and skills in cross-cultural communication. Initial evaluation produced positive feedback and significant affirmative attitudinal change but no significant difference in consent rate over the short follow-up period with requirements for longer-term evaluation. Limitations: Participants in the focus group study were mainly first-generation migrants of manual socioeconomic groups. It was not permitted to identify non-consenting families for interview with data regarding the consent process were therefore limited to consenting families. Conclusions: The research presents guidance for the effective targeting of donation campaigns focusing on minority ethnic groups and provides the first training package in cultural competence in the NHS. Future work: Greater evaluation is required of community interventions in the UK to enhance knowledge of effective practice and analysis of the experiences of non-consenting ethnic minority families. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research programme. (shrink)

In order to address the influence of unethical leader behaviors in the form of abusive supervision on subordinates’ retaliatory responses, we meta-analytically examined the impact of abusive supervision on subordinate deviance, inclusive of the role of justice and power distance. Specifically, we investigated the mediating role of supervisory- and organizationally focused justice and the moderating role of power distance as one model explaining why and when abusive supervision is related to subordinate deviance toward supervisors and organizations. With 79 independent sample (...) studies, we found that abusive supervision was more strongly related to supervisory-focused justice, compared to organizationally focused justice perceptions, and both types of justice perceptions were related to target-similar deviance. Finally, our results showed that the negative implications of abusive supervision were stronger in lower power distance cultures compared to higher power distance cultures. (shrink)

O objetivo do estudo foi investigar a prevalência e motivos do uso de álcool, tabaco e outras drogas por acadêmicos. A amostra foi composta por 560 estudantes, entre 17 e 74 anos ( M = 31,16, DP = 11,10). As substâncias com maior prevalência de uso na vida foram álcool e tabaco. Dentre as drogas ilí..

Sacred Harp singers the world over gather weekly to sing out ofThe Sacred Harp, a collection of shape-note songs first published in 1844. Their tradition is highly ritualized, and it plays an important role in the lives of many participants. Following the implementation of lockdown protocols to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, groups of Sacred Harp singers quickly and independently devised a variety of means by which to sing together online using Zoom, Jamulus, and Facebook Live. The rapidity and creativity with (...) which Sacred Harp singers developed ways to sustain their activities attests to the strength and significance of this community of practice, and in this article I describe each modality and provide an account of how it came to be developed and widely used. As a participant-observer, I completed extensive fieldwork across these digital sites and conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 other singers. I found that online singing practices have reshaped the Sacred Harp community. Many singers who did not previously have the opportunity to participate now have access, while others have lost access due to technological barriers or lack of interest in online activities. At the same time, geographical barriers have disintegrated, and singing organizers must make an effort to maintain local identity. A stable community of singers has emerged in the digital realm, but it is by no means identical to the community that predated the pandemic. I also identify the ways in which online singing has proven meaningful to participants by providing continuity in their personal and communal practice. Specifically, online singing allows participants to access and celebrate their collective memories of the Sacred Harp community, carry out significant rituals, and continue to grow as singers. While no single modality replicates the complete Sacred Harp singing experience, together they function “like pieces in a puzzle”, allowing individual participants to access many of the elements of Sacred Harp singing that are most meaningful to them. (shrink)

Sylvan and Plumwood’s is the relevant De Morgan minimal logic in the Routley-Meyer semantics with a set of designated points. The aim of this paper is to define the logic and some of its extensions. The logic is the non-relevant De Morgan minimal logic in the Routley-Meyer semantics without a set of designated points.

Catullus 6 is a short poem addressed to a certain Flavius, otherwise unknown. Flavius, so we are told, refuses to say anything about his girlfriend, and the poet can explain this only by assuming that he has taken up with a mistress who is singularly unrefined . It is certainly clear that Flavius is not spending his nights alone; the state of his bedroom proves that much . But, says Catullus, there is no reason for Flavius to remain silent, no (...) matter what folly he is engaging in. He should confide in the poet, whose only wish is to praise him and his mistress in witty verse. (shrink)