This essay examines the role of social interactions in the search for blood stem cells, in a recent episode of biomedical research. Linked to mid-20th century cell biology, genetics and radiation research, the search for blood stem cells coalesced in the 1960s and took a developmental turn in the late 1980s, with significant ramifications for immunology, stem cell and cancer biology. Like much contemporary biomedical research, this line of inquiry exhibits a complex social structure and includes several prominent scientific successes, (...) recognized as such by participating researchers. I use personal interviews and the published record to trace the social interactions crucial for scientific success in this episode. All recognized successes in this episode have two aspects: improved models of blood cell development, and new interfaces with other lines of research. The narrative of the search for blood stem cells thus yields a robust account of scientific success in practice, which generalizes to other scientific episodes and lends itself to expansion to include wider social contexts. (shrink)

In a critical intervention into the bioethics debate over human enhancement, philosopher Melinda Hall tackles the claim that the expansion and development of human capacities is a moral obligation. Hall draws on French philosopher Michel Foucault to reveal and challenge the ways disability is central to the conversation. The Bioethics of Enhancement includes a close reading and analysis of the last century of enhancement thinking and contemporary transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of the obligation to pursue enhancement technology. With (...) specific attention to the work of bioethicists Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, the book challenges the rhetoric and strategies of enhancement thinking. These include the desire to transcend the body and decide who should live in future generations through emerging technologies such as genetic selection. Hall provides new analyses rethinking both the philosophy of enhancement and disability, arguing that enhancement should be a matter of social and political interventions, not genetic and biological interventions. Hall concludes that human vulnerability and difference should be cherished rather than extinguished. -/- This book will be of interest to academics working in bioethics and disability studies, along with those working in Continental philosophy (especially on Foucault). (shrink)

Stem cell biology and systems biology are two prominent new approaches to studying cell development. In stem cell biology, the predominant method is experimental manipulation of concrete cells and tissues. Systems biology, in contrast, emphasizes mathematical modeling of cellular systems. For scientists and philosophers interested in development, an important question arises: how should the two approaches relate? This essay proposes an answer, using the model of Waddington’s landscape to triangulate between stem cell and systems approaches. This simple abstract model represents (...) development as an undulating surface of hills and valleys. Originally constructed by C. H. Waddington to visually explicate an integrated theory of genetics, development and evolution, the landscape model can play an updated unificatory role. I examine this model’s structure, representational assumptions, and uses in all three contexts, and argue that explanations of cell development require both mathematical models and concrete experiments. On this view, the two approaches are interdependent, with mathematical models playing a crucial but circumscribed role in explanations of cell development. (shrink)

Overconfidence is typically damaging to one’s reputation as a trustworthy source of information. Previous research shows that the reputational cost associated with conveying a piece of false information is higher for confident than unconfident speakers. When judging speaker trustworthiness, individuals do not exclusively rely on past accuracy but consider the extent to which speakers expressed a degree of confidence that matched the accuracy of their claims (their “confidence-accuracy calibration”). The present study experimentally examines the interplay between confidence, accuracy and a (...) third factor, namely evidence, in the assessment of speaker trustworthiness. Experiment 1 probes the hypothesis that overconfidence does not backfire when a confident but inaccurate claim is justified: the trustworthiness of a confident speaker who turns out to be wrong is restored if the confidence expressed is based on strong evidence (good confidence-evidence calibration). Experiment 2 investigates the hypothesis that confidence can backfire if a confident and accurate claim is not justified: the trustworthiness of a confident speaker who turns out to be right is damaged if the confidence expressed is based on weak evidence (bad confidence-evidence calibration). Our results support both hypotheses and thus suggest that “confidence-evidence calibration” plays a crucial role in the assessment of speaker trustworthiness. (shrink)

Stem cell biology is driven by experiment. Its major achievements are striking experimental productions: "immortal" human cell lines from spare embryos (Thomson et al. 1998); embryo-like cells from "reprogrammed" adult skin cells (Takahashi and Yamanaka 2006); muscle, blood and nerve tissue generated from stem cells in culture (Lanza et al. 2009, and references therein). Well-confirmed theories are not so prominent, though stem cell biologists do propose and test hypotheses at a profligate rate. 1 This paper aims to characterize the role (...) of experiment in stem cell biology, so as to answer the following question: how do experiments contribute to our knowledge of stem cells and related phenomena? The .. (shrink)

Examining stem cell biology from a philosophy of science perspective, this book clarifies the field's central concept, the stem cell, as well as its aims, methods, models, explanations and evidential challenges. The first chapters discuss what stem cells are, how experiments identify them, and why these two issues cannot be completely separated. The basic concepts, methods and structure of the field are set out, as well as key limitations and challenges. The second part of the book shows how rigorous explanations (...) emerge from stem cell experiments, and compares these to other kinds of scientific explanation. Model organisms, the role of genes, and the significance of collaboration are also discussed. The last part of the book considers relations to systems biology and clinical medicine, arguing that both the mathematical models of the former, and ethical principles of the latter, are necessary for stem cell biology to deliver on its promises. (shrink)

The identification and valorization of unacknowledged, feminized forms of economic productivity has been an important task for feminist theory. In this article, we expand and rethink existing definitions of labour, in order to recognize the essential economic role women play in the stem cell and regenerative medicine industries, new fields of biomedical research that are rapidly expanding throughout the world. Women constitute the primary tissue donors in the new stem cell industries, which require high volumes of human embryos, oöcytes, foetal (...) tissue and umbilical cord blood. Such material is generally given for free in the advanced industrial democracies, constituted as a surplus (‘spare’ embryos) or waste (umbilical cord ‘afterbirth’, cadaveric foetuses, poor quality oöcytes) whose generative powers should not be withheld from others. At the same time, among impoverished female populations in developing nations, such biological material is now often procured through frankly transactional relations, where women undertake risky procedures for small fees. In each case, female bodily productivity is mobilized to support bioeconomic research, yet the economic value involved in these relations is largely unacknowledged. In this article, we consider both the gift economy and the transactional economy for reproductive tissues as a form of labour. In order to fully conceptualize the specificities of feminized productivity in the bioeconomy, we distinguish between earlier feminist theories of reproductive labour and the emerging practices generated by stem cell research, which we term regenerative labour. We consider how historical transformations in the regulation of feminized labour and the technical repertoires of stem cell research renegotiate the productivity limits of female reproductive biology, opening it out to novel and profitable forms of surplus value and enrolling women in complex negotiations over their role in bioeconomic activity. (shrink)

Ontologies of living things are increasingly grounded on the concepts and practices of current life science. Biological development is a process, undergone by living things, which begins with a single cell and (in an important class of cases) ends with formation of a multicellular organism. The process of development is thus prima facie central for ideas about biological individuality and organismality. However, recent accounts of these concepts do not engage developmental biology. This paper aims to fill the gap, proposing the (...) lineage view of stem cells as an ontological framework for conceptualizing organismal development. This account is grounded on experimental practices of stem cell research, with emphasis on new techniques for generating biological organization in vitro. On the lineage view, a stem cell is the starting point of a cell lineage with a specific organismal source, time-interval of existence, and ‘tree topology’ of branch-points linking the stem to developmental termini. The concept of ‘enkapsis’ accommodates the cell-organism relation within the lineage view; this hierarchical notion is further explicated by considering the methods and results of stem cell experiments. Results of this examination include a (partial) characterization of stem cells’ developmental versatility, and the context-dependence of developmental processes involving stem cells. (shrink)

If there is collective scientific knowledge, then at least some scientific groups have beliefs over and above the personal beliefs of their members. Gilbert's plural-subjects theory makes precise the notion of ‘over and above’ here. Some philosophers have used plural-subjects theory to argue that philosophical, historical and sociological studies of science should take account of collective beliefs of scientific groups. Their claims rest on the premise that our best explanations of scientific change include these collective beliefs. I argue that Gilbert's (...) account of collective scientific belief does not provide a better explanation of scientific change than a non-collective alternative. A different defence of collective scientific belief and knowledge is needed. (shrink)

What things count as individuals, and how do we individuate them? It is a classic philosophical question often tackled from the perspective of analytic metaphysics. This volume proposes that there is another channel by which to approach individuation -- from that of scientific practices. From this perspective, the question then becomes: How do scientists individuate things and, therefore, count them as individuals? This volume collects the work of philosophers of science to engage with this central philosophical conundrum from a new (...) angle, highlighting the crucial topic of experimental individuation and building upon recent, pioneering work in the philosophy of science. An introductory chapter foregrounds the problem of individuation, arguing it should be considered prior to the topic of individuality. The following chapters address individuation and individuality from a variety of perspectives, with prominent themes being the importance of experimentation, individuation as a process, and pluralism in individuation's criteria. Contributions examine individuation in a wide range of sciences, including stem cell biology, particle physics, and community ecology. Other chapters examine the metaphysics of individuation, its bearing on realism/antirealism debates, and interrogate epistemic aspects of individuation in scientific practice. In exploring individuation from the philosophy of biology, physics, and other scientific subjects, this volume ultimately argues for the possibility of several criteria of individuation, upending the tenets of traditional metaphysics. It provides insights for philosophers of science, but also for scientists interested in the conceptual foundations of their work. (shrink)

There is by now broad consensus in the critical literature that neoliberalism and social conservatism have frequently coexisted in practice. Yet the alt-right fits none of the previously identified alliances: this is not the neoliberal neoconservatism of the Reagan and Bush years, nor the neoliberal communitarianism of the Third Way, nor even a form of neoliberal authoritarianism. Instead, the alt-right claims intellectual descent from economic libertarianism, on the one hand, and paleo- (as opposed to neo-) conservatism on the other. This (...) paper traces the contours of this ‘paleolibertarian’ alliance, first by following the volatile political trajectory of Murray Rothbard, the foremost philosopher of American libertarianism, and, second, by uncovering precedents in the longer history of the American far right. It will be argued that paleoconservatism makes for a uniquely powerful ally because it offers a workable response to libertarianism’s intrinsic contradictions. (shrink)

This review surveys three central issues in philosophy of stem cell biology: the nature of stem cells, stem cell experiments, and explanations of stem cell capacities. First, I argue that the fundamental question ‘what is a stem cell?’ has no single substantive answer. Instead, the core idea is explicated via an abstract model, which accounts for many features of stem cell experiments. The second part of this essay examines several of these features: uncertainty, model organisms, and manipulability. The results shed (...) light on the form of our emerging knowledge of stem cells: mechanistic explanations. The third part of the essay sketches some key features of these explanations, which are constructed by a collaborative experimenting community. (shrink)

This volume aimed to highlight narrative identities of European cities or city neighbourhoods that have been overlooked, such as mid-sized cities. These cities are neither small towns nor metropolises, cities that are now unveiling their appeal or specificity. The present special issue thus covers a range of representations of cities. The articles investigate more systematically how different texts deal with various cities from different experiential and fictional perspectives. The issue covers the geographical scope across Europe, from east to west or (...) vice versa, as well as a range of different works of national literature(s), but with a clear emphasis on mid-sized European cities that have until now been deemed as lesser-known, secondary, peripheral, ‘other’ cities that are in the focus of the research of the COST project Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, within which this journal issue is being published. (shrink)

Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thought-styles has been hailed as a pioneer of constructivist science studies and sociology of scientific knowledge. But this consensus ignores an important feature of Fleck’s epistemology. At the core of his account is the ideal of ‘objective truth, clarity, and accuracy’. I begin with Fleck’s account of modern natural science, locating the ideal of scientific objectivity within his general social epistemology. I then draw on Fleck’s view of scientific objectivity to improve upon reflexive accounts of the (...) origin and development of the theory of thought-styles, and reply to objections that Fleck’s epistemological stance is self-undermining or inconsistent. Explicating the role of scientific objectivity in Fleck’s epistemology reveals his view to be an internally consistent alternative to recent social accounts of scientific objectivity by Harding, Daston and Galison. I use these contrasts to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of Fleck’s innovative social epistemology, and propose modifications to address the latter. The result is a renewed version of Fleck’s social epistemology, which reconciles commitment to scientific objectivity with integrated sociology, history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Epistemology of science is currently polarized. Descriptive accounts of the social aspects of science coexist uneasily with normative accounts of scientific knowledge. This tension leads students of science to privilege one of these important aspects over the other. I use an episode of recent immunology research to develop an integrative account of scientific inquiry that resolves the tension between sociality and epistemic success. The search for the hematopoietic stem cell by members of Irving Weissman’s laboratory at Stanford University Medical Center (...) exhibits both the goal-oriented character of contemporary immunology and the importance of social interactions in successful achievement of those goals. This episode includes three kinds of epistemic success: characterization of HSC, formation of new interdisciplinary interfaces, and reconciliation of apparently incompatible models. All three depend on coordinating the work of diverse participants via social interactions. Together, they reveal the crucial role of social interactions within and between research groups in producing epistemic success. These features of the search for the HSC generalize to immunology as a whole, and plausibly to other disciplines. This account thus resolves the polarizing tension in epistemology of science, and complements individualistic accounts of scientific knowledge and rationality. (shrink)

Stem cells are defined as having capacities for both self-renewal and differentiation. Many different entities satisfy this working definition. I show that this general stem cell concept is relative to a cell lineage, temporal duration, and characters of interest. Experiments specify values for these variables. So claims about stem cells must be understood in terms of experimental methods used to identify them. Furthermore, the stem cell concept imposes evidential constraints on interpretation of experimental results. From these constraints, it follows that (...) claims about stem cell capacities are inherently uncertain. This result has important implications for stem cell research. (shrink)

Focusing on the speculative methodologies used to generate models of the financial and meteorological future, this article develops a series of theses on the ‘evental’ and ‘atmospheric’ quality of contemporary power. What is at stake in the circulation of capital today, I argue, is not so much the exchange of equivalents as the universal transmutability of fluctutation. Whether we are dealing with the turbulence of world financial markets or that of complex earth systems, the non-dialectical relation can itself be extracted, (...) recombined and liquefied, as it were, in a dimension of its own. In the same way that financial derivatives price the variable relation between and across national currencies, weather derivatives now make it possible to issue contracts on the unknowable contingencies embedded in complex atmospheric relations. This reconfiguration of value requires a thorough rethinking of classical sociological conceptions of debt, promise and political violence. (shrink)

This paper examines a case of failed interdisciplinary collaboration, between experimental stem cell research and theoretical systems biology. Recently, two groups of theoretical biologists have proposed dynamical systems models as a basis for understanding stem cells and their distinctive capacities. Experimental stem cell biologists, whose work focuses on manipulation of concrete cells, tissues and organisms, have largely ignored these proposals. I argue that ‘failure to communicate’ in this case is rooted in divergent views of explanation: the theoretically-inclined modelers are committed (...) to a version of the covering-law view, while experimental stem cell biologists aim at mechanistic explanations. I propose a way to reconcile these two explanatory approaches to cell development, and discuss the significance of this result for interdisciplinary collaboration in systems biology and beyond. (shrink)

This book breaks new ground in the study of Judaism, in philosophy, and in comparative ethics. It demonstrates that the assumption that Judaism has no natural law theory to speak of, held by the vast majority of scholars, is simply wrong. The book shows how natural law theory, using a variety of different terms for itself throughout the ages, has been a constant element in Jewish thought. The book sorts out the varieties of Jewish natural law theory, illuminating their strengths (...) and weaknesses. It also presents a case for utilising natural law theory in order to deal with current theological and philosophical questions in Judaism's ongoing reflection on its own meaning and its meaning for the wider world. David Novak combines great erudition in the Jewish tradition, the history of philosophy and law, and the imagination to argue for Judaism in the context of current debates, both theoretical and practical. (shrink)

The present study investigated whether humans are more likely to trust people who are coordinated with them. We examined a well-known type of linguistic coordination, lexical entrainment, typically involving the elaboration of “conceptual pacts,” or partner-specific agreements on how to conceptualize objects. In two experiments, we manipulated lexical entrainment in a referential communication task and measured the effect of this manipulation on epistemic and practical trust. Our results showed that participants were more likely to trust a coordinated partner than an (...) uncoordinated one, but only when the latter broke previously established conceptual pacts. (shrink)

What is a stem cell? The answer is seemingly obvious: a cell that is also a stem, or point of origin, for something else. Upon closer examination, however, this combination of ideas leads directly to fundamental questions about biological development. A cell is a basic category of living thing; a fundamental 'unit of life.' A stem is a site of growth; an active source that supports or gives rise to something else. Both concepts are deeply rooted in biological thought, with (...) rich and complex histories. The idea of a stem cell unites them, but the union is neither simple nor straightforward. This book traces the origins of the stem cell concept, its use in stem cell research today, and implications of the idea for stem cell experiments, their concrete results, and hoped-for clinical advances. (shrink)

"What is the relation of philosophy and theology? This question has been a matter of perennial concern in the history of Western thought. Written by one of the premier philosophers in the areas of Jewish ethics and interfaith issues between Judaism and Christianity, Athens and Jerusalem contends that philosophy and theology are not mutually exclusive. Based on the Gifford Lectures David Novak delivered at the University of Aberdeen in 2017, this book explores the commonalities and common concerns that exist (...) between philosophy and theology on metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions. Where are they different and where are they the same? And, how can they speak to one another?"--. (shrink)

This article looks at the history of the stem cell as an experimental life-form and situates it within the context of biological theories of cellular ageing which emerged in the 1960s, under the banner of ‘biogerontology’. The field of biogerontology, I argue, is crucially concerned not only with the internal limits to a cell's lifespan, but also with the possibility of overcoming limits. Hence, the sense of ‘revolution’ that has surrounded the isolation of human embryonic stem cells. The article goes (...) on to situate the problematic of cellular ageing within the larger historical transition from Fordist to post-Fordist modes of production – a transition whose effects on the life sciences have been insufficiently theorized – and points to resonances between the concerns of biogerontology and an emerging political rhetoric on the crisis of ageing and limits to growth. Having surfaced in parallel with the neo-liberal euphoria of the 1990s, the field of regenerative medicine presents itself as a biomedical solution to the problem of limits to growth. What is at stake in the contemporary biosciences, I suggest, is not so much the mass commodification of life itself as its transformation into a source of speculative surplus value. (shrink)

Philosophy of scientific practice aims to critically evaluate as well as describe scientific inquiry. Epistemic norms are required for such evaluation. Social constructivism is widely thought to oppose this critical project. I argue, however, that one variety of social constructivism, focused on epistemic justification, can be a basis for critical epistemology of scientific practice, while normative accounts that reject this variety of social constructivism cannot., idealized epistemic norms cannot ground effective critique of our practices. I propose a new approach, placing (...) SCj within a general framework of social action theory. This framework can be used to explicate epistemic norms implicit in our scientific practices. *Received July 2009; revised July 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: MS 14, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251‐1892; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault’s work, in the early iterations of the Abnormal lecture series, on the concept of (...) vile sovereignty. Foucault used the concept of vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses that had been utilized in mid twentieth-century French courts of law. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze transhumanist discourse on the basis of Foucault’s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body—especially the disabled body—and pose the question of what lives are worth living, as well as attempt to answer it. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body), to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus’s famous doctrine of the formal distinction has a twofold justification: a theological one, stemming from the necessity to express coherently the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and a metaphysical one, according to which formal distinction is a necessary condition of the abstraction of universal (objective) concepts from individuals. This paper is a detailed analysis of this latter argument, presented by Scotus in Questions on Metaphysics VII, q. 19. Scotus apparently demolishes the alternative theory of intentional distinction (...) proposed by Henry of Ghent, but not without first attempting to defend it in as refined and powerful form as possible. Given that Henry’s notion of intentional distinction is substantially the same as later Thomits’s “distinctio rationis ratiocinatae”, this rises questions about the validity about the latter notion, both in the context of Scotism (such as in the thought of Bartolomeo Mastri) and in genereal. (shrink)

The disability critique of negative genetic selection is frequently accused of threatening reproductive liberty. This paper describes the disability critique and defends it against that objection. It also contends that the critique can work to deflate belief in genetic determinism. Recognizing the influence of genetic determinism helps advocate for existing persons in the disability community and protects reproductive liberty. The disability critique can point to genetic determinism but does not suggest a ban or obstacles to the choice of negative genetic (...) selection; therefore, it is not antithetical to reproductive liberty, as has been charged. (shrink)

In Defense of Religious Liberty contains David Novak’s vigorous—and paradoxical—argument that the primacy of divine law is the best foundation for a secular, multicultural democracy. Novak presents his claim, which will astound both liberal and conservative advocates of democracy, in political, philosophical, and theological terms. He shows how the universal norms of divine law are knowable as natural law, that they are the best formulations of the human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that (...) their assertion includes an explicit recognition of God as cosmic lawgiver. Furthermore, Novak maintains that the seemingly disparate ideas of divine command, natural law, and human rights can be integrated into one overall political theory. Novak reveals this integration at work in the classical texts of his own Jewish tradition, as well as in the canonical philosophical tradition of the West, from Plato to the Stoics to Grotius to Kant. He also convincingly makes the case that those who reject any legitimate role for religion in discussions of public morality inevitably substitute arbitrary human power for divine command, arbitrary positive law for natural law, and arbitrary governmental entitlements for human rights that exist prior to the establishment of the state. Novak concludes that religious traditions like Judaism, precisely because they incorporate the doctrines of God the cosmic lawgiver, natural law, and human rights, provide the most coherent ontological foundation for democracy in today’s world. (shrink)

Leading contemporary Jewish thinker David Novak has here compiled ten of his essays on a variety of issues in Jewish ethics. Drawing constantly on classical Jewish tradition, Novak also looks at a wide range of modern critical scholarship on the ancient sources. He aims to point out certain common features of Jewish and Christian ethics and the normative implications of this overlapping of traditions; he assumes the reality of a "Judeo-Christian ethic," while refusing to minimize the doctrinal differences (...) between the two traditions. The essays address such major normative issues in social justice as ecology, war and peace, the treatment of minorities, and the approach to AIDS patients. This combination of theoretical reflection and practical application, along with careful and detailed analysis of classical Jewish texts, makes the book a welcome contribution to contemporary ethical theory and normative ethics as well as a work of original Jewish theology. (shrink)

Science is increasingly interdisciplinary, as evidenced by empirical measures, funding initiatives, and the rise of integrative fields such as systems biology and cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, I motivate and outline an account of explanation for interdisciplinary contexts, building on recent debates about scientific perspectivism. Insights from these debates yield an inclusive list of relations between models constructed from different perspectives, which I then refine and generalize into a simple taxonomy. Within this taxonomy of relations among models, I identify the (...) set of relations applicable to interdisciplinary contexts, discuss concepts of unification associated with each, and introduce three further constraints which furnish norms for this variety of explanation. Finally, I discuss implications of this account for a recent debate about understanding and explanation. One important consequence of my view is that explanation in interdisciplinary contexts and understanding of individual agents in those contexts are not equivalent. (shrink)

This article reflects on the convergence of revolutionary anti-capitalism and moral fundamentalism in the contemporary Islamic revival. It is concerned more generally with the recurrent appeal to fundamental value — of a sexual, genealogical or economic kind — in the history of anti-imperial and anti-capitalist movements. Exploring the tradition of Islamist philosophies of finance, the article suggests that Islamic political theology is unique in its ability to separate absolute law from territory ( pace Schmitt). Transgressing the boundaries of nation-state postcolonialism, (...) it thereby relocates absolute value, and hence absolute prohibition, in the realm of the sexual and the divine. (shrink)

Motile bacteria respond to environmental cues to move to more favorable locations. The components of the chemotaxis signal transduction systems that mediate these responses are highly conserved among prokaryotes including both eubacterial and archael species. The best‐studied system is that found in Escherichia coli. Attractant and repellant chemicals are sensed through their interactions with transmembrane chemoreceptor proteins that are localized in multimeric assemblies at one or both cell poles together with a histidine protein kinase, CheA, an SH3‐like adaptor protein, CheW, (...) and a phosphoprotein phosphatase, CheZ. These multimeric protein assemblies act to control the level of phosphorylation of a response regulator, CheY, which dictates flagellar motion. Bacterial chemotaxis is one of the most‐understood signal transduction systems, and many biochemical and structural details of this system have been elucidated. This is an exciting field of study because the depth of knowledge now allows the detailed molecular mechanisms of transmembrane signaling and signal processing to be investigated. BioEssays 28:9–22, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This article addresses the rise of faith-based emergency relief by examining the US President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS (PEPFAR), a public health intervention focused on the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that the theological turn in humanitarian aid serves to amplify ongoing dynamics in the domestic politics of sub-Saharan African states, where social services have assumed the form of chronic emergency relief and religious organizations have come to play an increasingly prominent role in the provision of such services. (...) In the context of an ongoing public health crisis, PEPFAR has institutionalized the social authority of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches, leading to a semantic confluence between the postcolonial politics of emergency and the Pentecostal/Pauline theology of kairos or event. Far from being confined to the space of foreign aid, however, the faith-based turn in humanitarianism is in keeping with ongoing reforms in domestic social policy in the United States. While on the one hand the sustained welfare programmes of the New Deal and Great Society have been dismantled in favour of a system of emergency relief, on the other hand the federal government has intensified its moral, pedagogical and punitive interventions into the lives of the poor. The wilful transfer of welfare services to overtly religious service providers has played a decisive role in this process. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of the links between African and North American Pentecostal-evangelical churches and questions the revolutionary mission ascribed to Pauline political theology in recent political theory. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche's notion of the agon (Greek for contest) and the construction of athletic ability. In 'Homer's contest', Nietzsche claims that the ancient Greek agon was a contest that included only the most qualified competitors battling each other for honour and victory. Nietzsche seeks to restore the agon in contemporary society. Nietzsche believes that contests have lost this agonistic meaning since they are no more than contrived competitions between underqualified (...) opponents. I am extending the discussion to the domain of sport. If we stage an agon reminiscent of Greek antiquity, we could have a genuine competition between the most qualified athletes. (shrink)

Imagine that you are a teenager and have cancer. You undergo a year of chemotherapy and after a brief return to normal life, you have a relapse. Your physician says that chemotherapy and radiation therapy could be tried, but a bone marrow transplant is your only chance of a real cure. He tells you and your parents that you could die as a result of complications from the transplant, but without it you would only be expected to live one year. (...) You and your family discuss the alternatives and decide to have the transplant. You ask what will happen if the BMT fails, but both your physician and your family tell you that right now you must fight to get better and not think negative thoughts. You do not ask any more questions. (shrink)

Understanding disability requires understanding its social construction, and social construction can be read in cultural products. In this essay, I look to one major locus for images of persons with disabilities—horror. Horror films and fiction use disability imagery to create and augment horror. I first situate my understanding of disability imagery in the horror genre using a case study read through the work of Julia Kristeva. But, I go on to argue that trademark moves in the horror genre, which typically (...) support ableist assumptions, can be used to subvert ableism and open space for alternative social and political thinking about disability. I point to the work of Tim Burton and Stephen King to demonstrate these possibilities in horror. (shrink)

I have previously argued that stem cell experiments cannot demonstrate that a single cell is a stem cell. Laplane and others dispute this claim, citing experiments that identify stem cells at the single-cell level. This paper rebuts the counterexample, arguing that the alleged ‘crucial stem cell experiments’ do not measure self-renewal for a single cell, do not establish a single cell’s differentiation potential, and, if interpreted as providing results about single cells, fall into epistemic circularity. I then discuss the source (...) of the dispute, locating it in differences between philosophical and experimental perspectives. (shrink)

In this series of eight articles, the Australian Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (AUS-TBI) consortium describes the Australian approach used to select the common data elements collected acutely that have been shown to predict outcome following moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) across the lifespan. This article presents the unified single data dictionary, together with additional measures chosen to facilitate comparative effectiveness research and data linkage. Consultations with the AUS-TBI Lived Experience Expert Group provided insights on the merits and considerations regarding data (...) elements for some of the study areas, as well as more general principles to guide the collection of data and the selection of meaningful measures. These are presented as a series of guiding principles and themes. The AUS-TBI Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group identified a number of key points and considerations for the project approach specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including key issues of data sovereignty and community involvement. These are outlined in the form of principles to guide selection of appropriate methodologies, data management, and governance. Implementation of the AUS-TBI approach aims to maximize ongoing data collection and linkage, to facilitate personalization of care and improved outcomes for people who experience moderate-severe TBI. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to explicate, using the method of conceptual reconstruction rather than historical, text-oriented analysis, the plurality of meanings of two connected terms that play an important role in scholastic thought: “confusio” and “praecisio”. These terms are used in a plurality of meanings by the scholastics, and sometimes even in one and the same context. The aim of this paper is to disentangle these various meanings from each other, offer their precise definitions and explore not only their (...) interrelations, but also their role and impact in such crucial matters as theory of abstraction, realism-nominalism dispute, theory of science, or theory of analogy. (shrink)

In 2007, Song-Ming Ang initiated Guilty Pleasures, a series of listening parties dedicated to sharing beloved “bad songs” and facilitating critical discussions about complex desires and hierarchies of taste. In this article, I extend on these discussions and offer a theory of guilty pleasures. Informed by queer and critical approaches to affect and minor aesthetic categories, I argue that guilty pleasures are characterized not by a specific medium or style, but rather by their ability to evoke pleasure interrupted by a (...) meta-response of guilt. This experience is activated by the outmoded, saccharine, or naff qualities of an object. I contrast guilty pleasures with good-bad art, painful art, and objects that foster akrasia, and provide an extended examination of naff, another minor aesthetic category with roots in Polari that intersects aspects of camp, heteronormativity, and Lauren Berlant’s notion of “cruel optimism.” I ultimately argue that guilty pleasures are far from a simplistic category of low art enjoyed with indifference. Instead, I perceive guilty pleasures as always enjoyed with a degree of criticality or skepticism that is tethered to the beholder’s taste, life experiences, and values. (shrink)

This paper first reviews key Buddhist concepts of time anicca , khanavada and uji and then describes the way in which a particular form of Bhuddist meditation, vipassana, may be thought to actualize them in human experience. The chief aim of the paper is to present a heuristic model of how vipassana meditation, by eroding dispositional tendencies rooted in the body-unconscious alters psychological time, transforming our felt-experience of time from a binding to a liberating force.