The calibration solution to the stability of the world despite eye movements depends, according to Bridgeman et al., upon a combination of three factors which presumably all need to operate to achieve the goal of stability. Although the authors admit (sect. 4.3, para. 5) that the relative contributions of retinal and extraretinal factors will depend on the particular viewing situation, Figure 5 (sect. 4.3) makes it clear in its representation that the role of perceptual factors is relatively minor compared to (...) extraretinal ones. It is with this representation that this commentary wishes to take issue, believing that it occurs as a result of some assumptions about terminology that may be ambiguous, as well as some misconceptions about the circumstances in which there is a need for stability. (shrink)

Multi-level selection can be understood via the Price equation or contextual analysis, which offer incompatible statistical decompositions of evolutionary change into components of group and individual selection. Okasha argued that each approach suffers from problem cases. I introduce further problem cases for the Price approach, arguing that it is appropriate for MLS 2 group selection but not MLS 1. I also show that the problem cases Okasha raises for contextual analysis can be resolved. For some such cases, however, it emerges (...) that there is no determinate answer to the question of how much of the total selective effect was due to group selection compared to individual selection. This suggests that when there is interaction between the effect of group character and individual character, one cannot separate selection into distinct ‘levels’ at all. (shrink)

In this article, ideas from St. Thomas Aquinas's neo-Aristotelian philosophy pertaining to the nature of human existence are used to arrive at a metapsychological orientation to child psychology. Four primary characteristics were identified as being fundamental to a Thomistic perspective on child development: anthropological holism, vitalistic integrative development, inherent sociality, and tactile interpersonal relatedness. These characteristics served as guiding themes for the articulation of a succinct, coherent narrative describing the nature of a Thomistic child psychology. Developmental insights from the works (...) of several psychologists were used to assist in the creation of this narrative. Associated characteristics of a Thomistic perspective on child psychology and some remarks concerning the future development of such an approach are provided at the conclusion of this analysis. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The CRISPR-Cas systems of bacterial and archaeal adaptive immunity have become a household name among biologists and even the general public thanks to the unprecedented success of the new generation of genome editing tools utilizing Cas proteins. However, the fundamental biological features of CRISPR-Cas are of no lesser interest and have major impacts on our understanding of the evolution of antivirus defense, host-parasite coevolution, self versus non-self discrimination and mechanisms of adaptation. CRISPR-Cas systems present the best known case in point (...) for Lamarckian evolution, i.e. generation of heritable, adaptive genomic changes in response to encounters with external factors, in this case, foreign nucleic acids. CRISPR-Cas systems employ multiple mechanisms of self versus non-self discrimination but, as is the case with immune systems in general, are nevertheless costly because autoimmunity cannot be eliminated completely. In addition to the autoimmunity, the fitness cost of CRISPR-Cas systems appears to be determined by their inhibitory effect on horizontal gene transfer, curtailing evolutionary innovation. Hence the dynamic evolution of CRISPR-Cas loci that are frequently lost and acquired by archaea and bacteria. Another fundamental biological feature of CRISPR-Cas is its intimate connection with programmed cell death and dormancy induction in microbes. In this and, possibly, other immune systems, active immune response appears to be coupled to a different form of defense, namely, “altruistic” shutdown of cellular functions resulting in protection of neighboring cells. Finally, analysis of the evolutionary connections of Cas proteins reveals multiple contributions of mobile genetic elements to the origin of various components of CRISPR-Cas systems, furthermore, different biological systems that function by genome manipulation appear to have evolved convergently from unrelated MGE. The shared features of adaptive defense systems and MGE, namely the ability to recognize and cleave unique sites in genomes, make them ideal candidates for genome editing and engineering tools. (shrink)

A simple quantum relativistic model of ν µ − ντ neutrino oscillations in the OPERA experiment is presented. This model suggests that the two components in the neutrino beam are separated in space. After being created in a meson decay, the µ-neutrino moves 18 meters ahead of the beam’s center of energy, while the τ -neutrino is behind. Both neutrinos have subluminal speeds, however the advanced start of the ν µ explains why it arrives in the detector 60 ns earlier (...) than expected. Our model does violate the special-relativistic ban on superluminal signals. However, usual arguments about violation of causality are not applicable here. The invalidity of standard special-relativistic arguments is related to the interaction-dependence of the boost operator, which implies that boost-transformed space-time coordinates of events with interacting particles do not obey linear and universal Lorentz formulas. (shrink)

TeSelle examines the theme of St. Augustine's "two cities" against the background of the ancient world's civic vision, with the polis as the chief model for political life. Against most interpreters' assumptions, TeSelle shows that the sojourner, while not fully at home in the earthly city, is nowhere understood as an "alien" and thus has certain rights and responsibilities in the earthly city.

WHEN THE FIRST GIFFORD LECTURES were delivered in Scotland in 1888-89, the Scottish philosophical and theological worlds were undergoing significant changes. Through much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain, natural theology referred to the traditional arguments for the existence of God, particularly as put forth in the work of William Paley. But developments in the empirical sciences and in the empirical type of philosophy which dominated British thought during this period challenged these arguments and led to widespread religious (...) skepticism. Thomas Reid and William Hamilton were two Scots who had sought to overcome the religious skepticism of the empirical age, but the appeal to common sense belief on the one hand and to an unknowable absolute on the other hand provided little comfort for many who were dissatisfied with the options of religious scepticism and doctrinal orthodoxy. A new philosophical spirit, however, was making itself known. This is suggested in a note to the 1877 edition of David Masson's Recent British Philosophy, first published in 1865. (shrink)

Project Chariot, one of the first planned nuclear excavation experiments of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Plowshare program, touched off a controversy over its safety that drew in two prominent American biologists, Paul Sears and Barry Commoner, both now known mainly for their roles as environmental advocates. However, Sears, the ecologist and well-established conservationist, supported Project Chariot and the Plowshare program in general, while Commoner, unacquainted with ecology at the time, strongly opposed it. A close study of their different responses to (...) this project provides insights into the tensions and pressures on scientists during this critical period of the Cold War, 1960–1961, when fear of nuclear war and concerns over radioactive fallout from bomb tests mixed with hopes for peaceful applications of nuclear energy and the environmental movement had not yet begun. For Sears, the close connections in the United States between the science of ecology and the Atomic Energy Commission may well have played a significant role in his support for Chariot, while for Commoner, Project Chariot turned out to be his epiphany moment, the incident that transformed him from an antinuclear activist into an environmentalist. (shrink)

The paper suggests replacing the shareholder/stakeholder distinction with a “Dual-Investor” model of business: stockowners provide the specific capital for business ventures, while society provides the “opportunity capital.” Thus society is an investor in every business venture. Dual-Investor theory provides a response (based purely on the ethics of investment) to Milton Friedman’s arguments that executives should maximize profit by any legal means, avoids recent criticisms by Kenneth Goodpaster and Thomas McMahon, and suggests that the dichotomy between private and public ownership overlooks (...) several important alternatives. Some consequences of the theory are detailed and a sketch of a theory of property, based on Dual-Investor theory, is appended. (shrink)

A research forum published in Business & Society in 1995 (Issue 2) analyzed whether Fortune magazine's annual Reputation Survey (FRS) is viable as a corporate social performance (CSP) research database. We examine plausible alternative interpretations for a number of assertions and conclusions by the forum authors, including the premise for Brown and Perry's proposed transformation: that the Fortune data are confounded by the presence of a financial "halo," which biases ratings of nonfinancial attributes. Finally, we examine the appropriate roles of (...) the two primary corporate rating systems in the context of CSP. (shrink)

This article is an investigation into the ways in which anatomico-medical bodies are produced through means of public mediation and spectacle technologies. The examples of `RealVideo surgery' (surgical operations broadcast live over the Web) and the early modern anatomy theaters, provide two instances where `the body' enframed by science is mediated via technology. Referencing the genealogical work of Michel Foucault, and through an analysis of the anatomy theaters and RealVideo surgery, this article attempts to show how such institutionally framed and (...) legitimizing science practices do not simply produce `the body', but are rather involved in multiply articulating different types of technoscientific bodies. At issue in such instances are the ways in which practices and habits of reading, decoding and recognizing bodies are being reconfigured in the utilization of such technologies as the Internet and Web, and the possible modes of critical analysis which may develop from within such instances. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to introduce the concept of Cognitive Fitness (CF), identify its key ingredients underpinning both real-time task performance and career longevity in high-risk occupations, and to canvas a holistic framework for their assessment, training, and augmentation. CF as a capacity to deploy neurocognitive resources, knowledge and skills to meet the demands of operational task performance, is likely to be multi-faceted and differentially malleable. A taxonomy of CF constructs derived from Cognitive Readiness (CR) and Mental fitness (...) (MF) literature maps into phases of operational cycles from foundational to advanced, mission-ready and recovery. Foundational cognitive attributes, such as attention, executive control and co-action, were hypothesized to be trainable at the initial Cognitive Gym phase. More advanced training targets at the CR phase included stress and arousal regulation, adaptability, teamwork, situation awareness (including detection, sense-making and prediction) and decision making (de-biasing and confidence calibration). The mission-ready training phase is focused on tolerances (to sleep loss, monotony, pain, frustration, uncertainty) and resistance (to distraction, deception or manipulation). Operational Augmentation phase relies on support tools such as decision aids and fatigue countermeasures, while the Recovery phase employs reflexive (e.g., mindfulness), and restorative practices (e.g., nutrition and sleep hygiene). The periodization of cognitive training in this cycle is hypothesized to optimize both real-time cognitive performance and the resilience that enables life-long thriving. One of the most promising avenues of validating this hypothesis is by developing an expert consensus on the key CF ingredients and their relative importance in high-performance settings. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of mysticism in the work of François Laruelle. Focusing on Laruelle's book Mystique nonphilosophique à l'usage des contemporains, mysticism is discussed through the motif of the desert ? a motif found in Laruelle but also prevalent among a number of mystical authors, from the Desert Fathers to Meister Eckhart.

A common belief is that evolution generally proceeds towards greater complexity at both the organismal and the genomic level, numerous examples of reductive evolution of parasites and symbionts notwithstanding. However, recent evolutionary reconstructions challenge this notion. Two notable examples are the reconstruction of the complex archaeal ancestor and the intron‐rich ancestor of eukaryotes. In both cases, evolution in most of the lineages was apparently dominated by extensive loss of genes and introns, respectively. These and many other cases of reductive evolution (...) are consistent with a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases: the short, explosive, innovation phase that leads to an abrupt increase in genome complexity, followed by a much longer reductive phase, which encompasses either a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or adaptive genome streamlining. Quantitatively, the evolution of genomes appears to be dominated by reduction and simplification, punctuated by episodes of complexification. (shrink)

The publication is dedicated to Diogenes of Apollonia, the "last Presocratic cosmologist". Building upon the great edition by André Laks it contains a Russian translation and commentaries on the few extant fragments of Diogenes’ writing and more extensive ancient testimonia about his life and teachings. The main body of the publication comprises the fragments, doxographical testimonia and doubtful testimonia. The texts are arranged according to the principles proposed by A. Laks and differ from what we find in Diels-Kranz both in (...) terms of their order and their content, with a few new pieces of evidence added and the context of the fragments and testimonia considerably expanded. The first section contains Fragments 1-12. Doxographical testimonia are subdivided in 1. Biographical evidence ; 2. The principle ; 3. Life and consciousness ; 4. Semen and embryo ; 5. The Universe, and Dubia. Variant doxographical testimonia are usually quoted in full and discussed at some length in the commentary. The paper contains Appendices and Index locorum. The publication will be useful for specialists in ancient cosmology, medicine, and other areas of early philosophy and science, as well as researchers with an interest in doxography. (shrink)

Nelson and Winter’s An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982) was the foundational work of what has become the thriving sub-discipline of evolutionary economics. In attempting to develop an alternative to neoclassical economics, the authors looked to borrow basic ideas from biology, in particular a concept of economic “natural selection.” However, the evolutionary models they construct in their seminal work are in many respects quite different from the models of evolutionary biology. There is no reproduction in any usual sense, “mutation” (...) is directed as opposed to blind, and there is no meaningful distinction between phenotype and genotype. Despite these substantial departures from the conceptions of evolutionary biology, I argue that the “evolutionary” economics of Nelson and Winter is indeed a legitimate extension of Darwinian evolutionary principles to a novel domain, and that the traditional conception of evolution by natural selection must be revised. The novel features of evolutionary economics models reflect the distinctive theoretical requirements faced by economists. I further contend that reproduction, heredity, blind variation, and the genotype/phenotype distinction are all inessential to evolutionary theory, and that their role in evolutionary biology is a domain-specific feature of biological theory. (shrink)

Ethical Engineering: A Practical Guide with Case Studies provides detailed and practical guidance in making decisions about the many ethical issues practicing engineers may face in their professional lives. It outlines a decision-making procedure and helps engineers construct an ethics toolkit consisting of professional models, a comprehensive set of ethical considerations and factors that help in weighing those considerations, and analyses of particular issues, such as reverse engineering a patented process. Illustrating case studies, both brief and detailed, are provided. Features: (...) Introduces the nature of ethical decision making as applied to engineering values and issues. Helps readers develop a detailed ethics toolkit that identifies options and solutions and allows them to monitor and adjust as necessary. Features topics such as safety, sustainability, bioethics, diversity and equality, information technology and AI, as well as critical areas often overlooked in engineering texts, such as mentoring, advertising (for consulting firms), engineering sales, and much more. Includes more than 50 case studies to illustrate a variety of scenarios. Offers an international perspective with codes of ethics from around the world, including Saudi Arabia, India, New Zealand, Chile, and Japan. Adds further cases and samples for discussion and a summary of key ideas. Emphasizing the importance of the moral life and of engineering as an occupation with high ideals, this book helps readers navigate a variety of real-world ethical issues they are likely to face in this increasingly interdisciplinary, global, and diverse profession. (shrink)

Insufficient attention has been paid to the ethics of distributing costs of insurance risk. Seven approaches are articulated: the egalitarian model, the needs/ability model, the loss history model, the statistical model, the causality model, the moral fault model (avoidability interpretation and worldview interpretation), and eclectic models. The ethical dimensions of each model are explored. Although some reasons are given for preferring the eclectic model, the main purpose of the paper is to provide an ethical framework for further discussion of an (...) oft-neglected issue. (shrink)