Although the Neo-Darwin Theory of Evolution is one of the most celebrated theories in science, nonetheless it has received many criticisms. These criticisms are documented and a new transdisciplinary theory of origin is introduced. Darwin's original argument was that natural selection, through heritable changes, changed simple organisms over time. These heritable changes are responsible for the complex plethora of life seen around us today. Darwin's original theory, however, was deconstructed after the fact into a mutation-based theory. This mutation-based theory in (...) its current form is an insufficient and indeed unnecessary transdisciplinary explanation. A subsequent statistical comparison between the six extant scientifically based primary theories of origin was undertaken and based on current biological knowledge a statistically significantly best fit phenotypic model emerged. (shrink)

C P Ormell; Ideology and the Reform of School Mathematics, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 3, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 37–54, https://doi.org/10.1.

: The principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) says that doing something freely implies being able to do otherwise. I show that Descartes consistently believed not only in PAP, but also in clear and distinct determinism (CDD), which claims that we sometimes cannot but judge true what we clearly perceive. Because Descartes thinks judgment is always a free act, PAP and CDD seem contradictory, but Descartes consistently resolved this apparent contradiction by distinguishing between two senses of 'could have done otherwise.' In (...) one sense alternative possibilities are necessary for freedom and in another they are not. I discuss three possible interpretations of the two senses. (shrink)

According to “hard” compatibilists, we can be responsible for our actions not only when they are determined by mindless natural causes, but also when some agent other than ourselves intentionally determines us to act as we do. “Soft” compatibilists consider freedom compatible with merely natural determinism, but not with intentional determinism (e.g., theological determinism). Because he believes there is no relevant difference (NRD) between a naturally determined agent and a relevantly similar intentionally determined agent, John Martin Fischer is a hard (...) compatibilist. However, he argues for “historical” compatibilism by appealing to the intuition that certain manipulated agents are not responsible. By considering a new type of manipulation case, I show that Fischer’s appeal to ordinary intuitions about manipulation conflicts with NRD, so that he must choose between the two. The closing section explains why I think going “soft” is Fischer’s better option. (shrink)

The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand and the sciences on the other – has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This fiftieth anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A Second (...) Look features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed. (shrink)

Dan Baras has recently argued for the claim that Theistic Mathematical Platonism fares no better than Mathematical Platonism with respect to explaining why our mathematical beliefs are correlated with mind-independent mathematical truths. In this paper I argue that, insofar as TMP provides a proximate or local explanation for this truth-tracking correlation whereas MP fails to offer any corresponding explanation, Baras’s claim that TMP fares no better than MP with respect to explaining this correlation is false.

Transplantation continues to push the frontiers of medicine into domains that summon forth troublesome ethical questions. Looming on the frontier today is human facial transplantation. We develop criteria that, we maintain, must be satisfied in order to ethically undertake this as-yet-untried transplant procedure. We draw on the criteria advanced by Dr. Francis Moore in the late 1980s for introducing innovative procedures in transplant surgery. In addition to these we also insist that human face transplantation must meet all the ethical requirements (...) usually applied to health care research. We summarize the achievements of transplant surgery to date, focusing in particular on the safety and efficacy of immunosuppressive medications. We also emphasize the importance of risk/benefit assessments that take into account the physical, aesthetic, psychological, and social dimensions of facial disfiguration, reconstruction, and transplantation. Finally, we maintain that the time has come to move facial transplantation research into the clinical phase. (shrink)

Between 1069, the year of his arrival at St. Martin in Mainz, where he spent the rest of his life in voluntary enclosure in a cell, and his death in 1082, the Irish monk Marianus Scottus dedicated countless hours to assembling the most sophisticated and comprehensive work on historical chronology that had ever been produced by a Latin writer up to that time. The fruits of his labors became a massive world chronicle, completed in 1076, whose most famous innovation consisted (...) in a far-reaching correction to the Christian, or “common,” era, which had been introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century. Having compared the data of the Easter computus with the chronological parameters traditionally associated with the passion of Christ—the fifteenth day of the moon on Friday, 25 March—Marianus found that the only year in which the numbers could be made to fit was AD 12 rather than the traditionally accepted AD 34. As a result, he decided to predate the life of Jesus by twenty-two years, assigning his birth to the year corresponding to 22 BC. This gave rise to a new “corrected” era , which he used alongside its Dionysiac equivalent. (shrink)

In this interview, C. P. Goodman invites British Polanyi scholar Richard T. Allen to reflect on his interest in Polanyi’s philosophical ideas and share what he believes is valuable in his thought.

In the Fourth Meditation, Descartes asks: 'If God is no deceiver, why do we sometimes err?' Descartes's answer (despite initial appearances) is both systematic and necessary for his epistemological project. Two atheistic arguments from error purport to show that reason both proves and disproves God's existence. Descartes must block them to escape scepticism. He offers a mixed theodicy: the value of free will justifies God in allowing our actual errors, and the perfection of the universe may justify God in making (...) us able to err. Though internally coherent, Descartes's theodicy conflicts with his view of divine providence. (shrink)

Hsiao has recently developed what he considers a ‘simple and straightforward’ argument for the moral permissibility of corporal punishment. In this article we argue that Hsiao's argument is seriously flawed for at least two reasons. Specifically, we argue that a key premise of Hsiao's argument is question-begging, and Hsiao's argument depends upon a pair of false underlying assumptions, namely, the assumption that children are moral agents, and the assumption that all forms of wrongdoing demand retribution.