Review of Leigh Eric Schmidt, Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation,.

This paper presents the manner in which the DNA, the molecule of life, was discovered. Unlike what many people, even biologists, believe, it was Johannes Friedrich Miescher who originally discovered and isolated nuclein, currently known as DNA, in 1869, 75 years before Watson and Crick unveiled its structure. Also, in this paper we show, and above all demonstrate, the serendipity of this major discovery. Like many of his contemporaries, Miescher set out to discover how cells worked by means of (...) studying and analysing their proteins. During this arduous task, he detected an unexpected substance of unpredicted properties. This new substance precipitated when he added acid to the solution and it dissolved again when adding alkali. Unexpectedly and by a mere fluke, Miescher was the first person to obtain a DNA precipitate. The paper then presents the term serendipity and discusses how it has influenced the discovery of other important scientific milestones. Finally, we address the question of whether serendipitous discoveries can be nurtured and what role the computer could play in this process. (shrink)

In this paper we argue the need to reimagine research ethics frameworks to include notions of environmental sustainability. While there have long been calls for healthcareethics frameworks and decision-making to include aspects of sustainability, less attention has focused on howresearchethics frameworks could address this. To do this, we first describe the traditional approach to research ethics, which often relies on individualised notions of risk. We argue that we need to broaden this notion of individual risk to consider issues associated with (...) environmental sustainability. This is because research is associated with carbon emissions and other environmental impacts, both of which cause climate change health hazards. We introduce how bioethics frameworks have considered notions of environmental sustainability and draw on these to help develop a framework suitable for researchers. We provide a case study of data-driven health research to apply our framework. (shrink)

In April 2020, close to the start of the first U.K. COVID-19 lockdown, the U.K. government announced the development of a COVID-19 contact tracing app, which was later trialled on the U.K. island, the Isle of Wight, in May/June 2020. United Kingdom surveys found general support for the development of such an app, which seemed strongly influenced by public trust. Institutions developing the app were called upon to fulfil the commitment to public trust by acting with trustworthiness. Such calls presuppose (...) that public trust associated with the app can emerge if the conditions for trustworthiness are met and that public trust is simplistic, i.e., linearly the sum of each member of the publics’ individual – U.K. government trust relationship. Drawing on a synthesis of the trust literature and fifteen interviews with members of the public trialling the app on the Isle of Wight, this paper aims to explore what trust mechanisms and relationships are at play when thinking about public trust in the context of the U.K. COVID-19 app. We argue that public trust is a complex social phenomenon and not linearly correlated with institutional trustworthiness. As such, attention needs to widen from calls for trustworthy infrastructures as a way to build public trust, to a deeper understanding of those doing the trusting; in particular, what or whom do people place their trust in when considering whether using the app and why. An understanding of this will help when trying to secure public trust during the implementation of necessary public health measures. (shrink)

Investigations of iconicity in language, whereby interactants coordinate meaningful bodily actions to create resemblances, are prevalent across the human communication sciences. However, when it comes to analysing and comparing iconicity across different interactions and modes of communication, it is not always clear we are looking at the same thing. For example, tokens of spoken ideophones and manual depicting actions may both be analysed as iconic forms. Yet spoken ideophones may signal depictive and descriptive qualities via speech, while manual actions may (...) signal depictive, descriptive, and indexical qualities via the shape, movement, and placement of the hands in space. Furthermore, each may co-occur with other semiotics articulated with the face, hands, and body within composite utterances. The paradigm of iconicity as a single property is too broad and coarse for comparative semiotics, as important details necessary for understanding the range of human communicative potentialities may be masked. Here, we draw on semiotic approaches to language and communication, including the model of language as signalled via describing, indicating and/or depicting and the notion of non-referential indexicality, to illustrate the multidimensionality of iconicity in co-present interactions. This builds on our earlier proposal for analysing how different methods of semiotic signalling are combined in multimodal language use. We discuss some implications for the language and communication sciences and explain how this approach may inform a theory of biosemiotics. (shrink)

I develop an interpretation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of motor intentionality, one that emerges out of a reading of his presentation of a now classic case study in neuropathology—patient Johann Schneider—in Phenomenology of Perception. I begin with Merleau-Ponty's prescriptions for how we should use the pathological as a guide to the normal, a method I call triangulation. I then turn to his presentation of Schneider's unusual case. I argue that we should treat all of Schneider's behaviors as pathological, not only (...) his abstract movements, as is commonly acknowledged in the secondary literature, but also crucially his concrete movements. Using these facts of Schneider's illness, I reconstruct a ‘fundamental function’ of consciousness, as Merleau-Ponty called it, in which there are two kinds of bodily agency: the power of the body to be solicited by a situation and the power of the body to project a situation. I propose that these powers became dissociated in Schneider's case, as evidenced by his abstract and concrete movements, while in the normal case, these powers comprise a dynamic unity, enacted as motor intentionality. I also discuss how my interpretation complements Merleau-Ponty's assertion that motor intentions exist between mind and matter. (shrink)

BackgroundTrait anxiety is a pervasive tendency to attend to and experience fears and worries to a disproportionate degree, across various situations. Decreased vulnerability to trait anxiety has been linked to having higher working memory capacity and better emotion regulation; however, the relationship between these factors has not been well-established.ObjectiveThis study sought to determine if participants who undergo emotional working memory training will have significantly lower trait anxiety post-training. The study also sought to determine if emotion regulation mediated the relationship between (...) working memory training and trait anxiety.MethodAn experimental group comprising of 49 participants underwent 20 days of computerized emotional working memory training, which involved viewing a continuous stream of emotionally-charged content on a grid, and then remembering the location and color of items presented on the grid. The control group comprised of 51 participants.ResultsParticipants of the experimental group had significantly lower trait anxiety compared to controls, post-training. Subsequent mediation analysis determined that working memory training capacity gains were significantly related to anxiety reduction as measured by form Y2 of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Emotion regulation, as measured by the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, was found not to mediate between working memory capacity gains and trait anxiety reduction.ConclusionWorking memory capacity gains and reductions in levels of trait anxiety were observed following emotional working memory training. The study may therefore be useful in informing interventions targeted at improving working memory capacity, and reducing levels of trait anxiety. Moreover, it proposes for future research to further look into the mediating role of emotion regulation via the development or utilization of more comprehensive measures of emotion regulation. (shrink)

Justice must both be done and be seen to be done. A legal principle designed to give effect to this fundamental proposition is that a judge must not sit to determine a dispute if he or she is biased, or if there exists a reasonable perception that he or she is biased. Across many common law jurisdictions – including the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and many jurisdictions in the United States – the judge in question himself or herself is (...) required to undertake the assessment of whether bias, or an apprehension of bias, exists. Drawing on insights from behavioural psychology and a series of case studies from across these jurisdictions, this paper offers an extended analysis of this practice and identifies and evaluates alternative proposals. (shrink)

This paper assesses arguments that paying for housework compromises the moral integrity of either the buyer or seller or both. I find that none provides adequate justification for avoiding paying for housework. Instead, I argue that the vigorous pursuit of justice for women workers will best remedy injustice in service sector occupations, including paid housework.

This article investigates the differential structure and representation of time in memory and history. It examines two moments in Jewish historical thought--in the Middle Ages, and in works written within and after the Holocaust--and demonstrates the fundamentally liturgical nature of Jewish historical memory in selected texts from these two periods. Following the groundbreaking work of Yerushalmi, it seeks to demonstrate that for Jews, historical experience is incorporated into the cyclical reenactment of paradigmatic events in Jewish sacred ritual. Recent or contemporary (...) experiences acquire meaning only insofar as they can be subsumed within Biblical categories of events and their interpretation bequeathed to the community through the medium of Scripture, that is to say, only insofar as they can be transfigured, ritually and liturgically, into repetitions and reenactments of ancient happening. In such liturgical commemoration, the past exists only by means of recitation; the fundamental goal of such recitation is to make it live again in the present, to fuse past and present, chanter and hearer, into a single collective entity. History, in the sense that we understand it to consist of unique events unfolding within irreversible linear time, is absorbed into cyclical, liturgical memory.This article argues that the question of Jewish history--both medieval and post-Holocaust--poses in a compelling fashion the question of the relationship between memory and history more generally, and serves to contest the current tendency in academic historiography to collapse history into memory. It claims that to the extent that memory "resurrects," " re-cycles," and makes the past "reappear" and live again in the present, it cannot perform historically, since it refuses to keep the past in the past, to draw the line, as it were, that is constitutive of the modern enterprise of historiography. (shrink)

Peut-on comprendre la philosophie politique classique sans s’intéresser à la famille et à la place qu’elle tient entre les individus et l’État? Peut-on ignorer la manière dont les relations familiales et les relations politiques renvoient les unes aux autres? Justine Roulin répond par la négative dans cet ouvrage. Elle choisit un découpage historique particulièrement judicieux, qui s’étend de Thomas Hobbes à John Millar, et lui permet de considérer le passage des théories du droit naturel –...

This paper connects ideas from twentieth century Gestalt psychology, experiments in vision science, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. I propose that when we engage in simple sensorimotor tasks whose successful completion is open, our behavior may be motivated by practical perceptual awareness alone, responding to invariant features of the perceptual field that are invisible to other forms of perceptual awareness. On this view, we see more than we think we see, as evidenced by our skillful bodily behavior.

Digital phenotyping for mental health is an emerging trend which uses digital data, derived from mobile applications, wearable technologies and digital sensors, to measure, track and predict the mental health of an individual. Digital phenotyping for mental health is a growing, but as yet underexamined, field. As we will show, the rapid growth of digital phenotyping for mental health raises crucial questions about the values that underpin and are reinforced by this technology, as well as regarding to whom it may (...) become valuable. In this commentary, we explore these questions by focusing on the construction of value across two interrelated domains: user experience and epistemologies on the one hand, and issues of data and ownership on the other. In doing so, we demonstrate the need for a deeper ethical and epistemological engagement with the value assumptions that underpin the promise of digital phenotyping for mental health. (shrink)

The moral standing of involuntary sterilization has long been subject to debate but has only recently been looked upon with disfavor. When sterilization of a mentally handicapped minor is entertained, issues of eugenics, medical ethics, and legal precedent specially arise. Ethics consultants and ethics committees have been asked to consider such cases.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Socratic Discourses" by Plato, Xenophon. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

What things make a state “nuclear,” what makes things “nuclear,” and how do we know? The degree to which—and purpose for which—a nation, a program, a technology, or a material counts as “nuclear” is not always a matter of consensus. Nuclearity depends on history and geography, science and technology, bodies and politics, radiation and race, states and capitalism. It is not so much an essential property of things, as it is distributed in things. Settlements about degrees of nuclearity structure global (...) control over the flow of radioactive materials; they constitute the conceptual bedrock of antinuclear movements and nuclear power industries; they affect regulatory frameworks for occupational health and compensation for work‐related illnesses. This essay explores these themes by contemplating the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty, the implementation of safeguards, and a few other nuclear things. (shrink)

In this article, I link the empirical hypothesis that neural representations of sensory stimulation near the body involve a unique motor component to the idea that the perceptual field is structured by skillful bodily activity. The neurophenomenological view that emerges is illuminating in its own right, though it may also have practical consequences. I argue that recent experiments attempting to alter the scope of these near space sensorimotor representations are actually equivocal in what they show. I propose resolving this ambiguity (...) by treating these representations as responsive to the development or degeneration of know-how—which can be isolated as an appropriate object for scientific investigation. (shrink)

History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. By Elizabeth A. Clark.

The study of literary texts appears at the moment to stand at a decisive juncture. Trends in critical thinking over the last decades have questioned the possibility of recovering a text's historical meaning. At the same time, there is a newly insistent plea for a return to “history” in the interpretation of literature. Before a rapprochement can occur, however, we need to have a clearer understanding of how both historians and critics understand “history” and of the ways in which postmodernist (...) thought positions history and the role of the historian with respect to issues of literary interpretation at the forefront of contemporary critical debate. (shrink)

The emerging discipline of educational neuroscience stands at a crossroads between those who see great promise in integrating neuroscience and education and those who see the disciplinary divide as insurmountable. However, such tension is at least partly due to the hitherto predominance of philosophy and theory over the establishment of concrete mechanisms and agents of change. If educational neuroscience is to move forward and emerge as a distinct discipline in its own right, the traditional boundaries and methods must be bridged, (...) and an infrastructure must be in place that allows for collaborative and productive exchange. In the present paper, we argue that school psychologists have the potential to fulfill this need and represent important agents of change in establishing better connections between research and practice. More specifically, we use theNational Association of School Psychologists (NASP) (2020)Domains of Practice to highlight several areas where school psychology can actively support forging connections between neuroscience and educational practice. School psychologists represent untapped potential in their knowledge, skillset, and placement to serve a vital role in building the bridge between neuroscience and education. (shrink)

In the subsequent pages, I want to develop a distinction between wanting and valuing which will enable the familiar view of freedom to make sense of the notion of an unfree action. The contention will be that, in the case of actions that are unfree, the agent is unable to get what he most wants, or values, and this inability is due to his own "motivational system." In this case the obstruction to the action that he most wants to do (...) is his own will. It is in this respect that the action is unfree: the agent is obstructed in and by the very performance of the action. (shrink)

BackgroundThe health sector aims to improve health outcomes and access to healthcare. At the same time, the sector relies on unsustainable environmental practices that are increasingly recognised to be catastrophic threats to human health and health inequities. As such, a moral imperative exists for the sector to address these practices. While strides are currently underway to mitigate the environmental impacts of healthcare, less is known about how health researchers are addressing these issues, if at all.MethodsThis paper uses an interview methodology (...) to explore the attitudes of UK health researchers using data-intensive methodologies about the adverse environmental impacts of their practices, and how they view the importance of these considerations within wider health goals.ResultsInterviews with 26 researchers showed that participants wanted to address the environmental and related health harms associated with their research and they reflected on how they could do so in alignment with their own research goals. However, when tensions emerged, their own research was prioritised. This was related to their own desires as researchers and driven by the broader socio-political context of their research endeavours.ConclusionTo help mitigate the environmental and health harms associated with data-intensive health research, the socio-political context of research culture must be addressed. (shrink)

This article aims to show how the changes to NEPA by the Trump Administration are an act of environmental racism, defined as “[i]ntentional or unintentional racial discrimination in environmental policy‐making, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting of communities for the disposal of toxic waste and siting of polluting industries.”.

The UK’s 100,000 Genomes Project has the aim of sequencing 100,000 genomes from UK National Health Service (NHS) patients while concomitantly transforming clinical care such that whole genome sequencing becomes routine clinical practice in the UK. Policymakers claim that the project will revolutionize NHS care. We wished to explore the 100,000 Genomes Project, and in particular, the extent to which policymaker claims have helped or hindered the work of those associated with Genomics England – the company established by the Department (...) of Health to deliver the project. We interviewed 20 individuals linked to, or working for Genomics England. Interviewees had double-edged views about the context within which they were working. On the one hand, policymakers’ expectations attached to the venture were considered vacuous “genohype”; on the other hand, they were considered the impetus needed for those trying to advance genomic research into clinical practice. Findings should be considered for future genomes projects. (shrink)

Sally Haslanger offers the following concept of “woman”: If one is perceived as being biologically female and, in that context, one is subordinated owing to the background ideology, then one “functions” as a woman (2012b, 235). An implication of this account is that if someone is not regarded by others as their self-identified gender, they do not function as that gender socially. Therefore, one objection to this ascriptive account of gender is that it wrongly undermines the gender identities of some (...) trans people. In this paper, I will argue that Haslanger’s definition can be defended against this objection and that her account inevitably aids in liberatory efforts not only for cisgender women, but for all sexual and gender minorities. While Katharine Jenkins’s dual account of gender aims to rectify this objection (2016, 407), I will point out two important problems with her argument: “the inclusion dilemma” and “the abolition problem.” Finally, I will argue that Haslanger’s account of gender is preferable to Jenkins’s because it outlines the reality of gender as an oppressive, hierarchical system whose categories ought to be dismantled. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle famously wrote that practical knowledge (knowing how) is distinct from propositional knowledge (knowing that). This claim continues to have broad philosophical appeal, and yet there are many unsettled questions surrounding Ryle’s basic proposal. In this article, I return to his original work in order to perform some intellectual archeology. I offer an interpretation of Ryle’s concept of action that I call ‘adverbialism’. Actions are constituted by bodily behaviours performed in a certain mode, style or manner. I present various (...) challenges to adverbialism – scenarios in which it seems we publicly behave one way, but privately feel another. And I offer a response – Ryle’s stated practice of re-describing those situations in ways that pose no threat to his adverbialism. I also present an interpretation of practical knowledge in Ryle’s work. Knowing how is a special kind of action, undertaken only when we progressively self-modify our behaviours in the presence of new challenges or opportunities. (shrink)

In their article, de Groot et al respond to a call to bring investigative genetic genealogy i to the bioethical debate.1 They explore the extent to which the ethical approach used in the medical clinical genetics context can be helpful for conceptualising the ethical issues associated with IGG. They conclude that such an individual-based model, which revolves around notions of consent and privacy, has significant limitations in the IGG context. The authors call for a broader balancing of the benefits and (...) risks of IGG, and the need for collective democratic engagement. de Groot et al ’s paper is a welcome addition to the literature—not only because it is an interesting and important analysis in its own right, but also because it foregrounds the importance of bringing forensic genetic debate to the bioethical audience. While forensic genetics has become increasingly widespread in the criminal justice system, bioethicists have often shied away from engaging with the ethical issues these practices raise.ii Perhaps this relates to the narrowing of bioethics debate over the past half a century to focus primarily on health-related issues,iii or to the techno-legal normative separation of DNA analysis in these two sectors, or perhaps both. Either way, as our desire for an ever-increasing collection and analysis of genetic data continues—and as we have seen in the IGG context—the lines between health, forensics and recreational associated DNA analysis and use are set to become …. (shrink)

L’article s’intéresse aux hommes et aux femmes passés dans l’histoire à l’ombre de la figure « hermaphrodite ». Pour ce faire, il s’intéresse à eux dans le cadre familial, en cessant de les réduire à leurs particularités corporelles et génitales pour les replacer dans une perspective sociale. L’état hermaphrodite permet en effet d’interroger doublement la famille : d’une part parce qu’il brouille le jeu des projections identitaires habituellement à l’œuvre entre parents et enfants et entre membres de la fratrie, de (...) l’autre parce qu’il pose le problème majeur de l’infécondité et du mariage aussi bien pour celui ou celle qui en est victime que pour la cellule familiale dans son ensemble. L’extrême diversité des relations et des affects intrafamiliaux rencontrés rappelle que si l’hermaphrodisme a été puissamment structuré au xixe siècle en catégorie médicale, il ne peut être opérant en catégorie sociale. (shrink)

Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) is an emerging technology that seeks to make probabilistic inferences regarding a person’s observable characteristics (“phenotype”) from DNA. The aim is to aid criminal investigations by helping to identify unknown suspected perpetrators, or to help with non-criminal missing persons cases. Here we provide results from the analysis of 36 interviews with those who have a professional stake in FDP, including forensic scientists, police officers, lawyers, government agencies and social scientists. Located in eight EU countries, these individuals (...) were asked for their views on the benefits and problems associated with the prospective use of FDP. While all interviewees distinguished between those phenotypic tests perceived to either raise ethical, social or political concerns from those tests viewed as less ethically and socially problematic, there was wide variation regarding the criteria they used to make this distinction. We discuss the implications of this in terms of responsible technology development. (shrink)

In this paper we contribute to “sociology in bioethics” and help clarify the range of ways sociological work can contribute to ethics scholarship. We do this using a case study of an innovative neurotechnology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and its use to attempt to diagnose and communicate with severely brain-injured patients. We compare empirical data from interviews with relatives of patients who have a severe brain injury with perspectives from mainstream bioethics scholars. We use the notion of an “ethical landscape” (...) as an analogy for the different ethical positions subjects can take—whereby a person’s position relative to the landscape makes a difference to the way they experience and interact with it. We show that, in comparison to studying abstract ethics “from above” the ethical landscape, which involves universal generalizations and global judgements, studying ethics empirically “from the ground,” within the ethical landscape foregrounds a more plural and differentiated picture. We argue it is important not to treat empirical ethics as secondary to abstract ethics, to treat on-the-ground perspectives as useful only insofar as they can inform ethics from above. Rather, empirical perspectives can illuminate the plural vantage points in ethical judgments, highlight the “lived” nature of ethical reasoning, and point to all ethical vantage points as being significant. This is of epistemic importance to normative ethics, since researchers who pay attention to the various positions in and trajectories through the ethical landscape are unlikely to think about ethics in terms of abstract agency—as can happen with top-down ethics—or to elide agency with the agency of policymakers. Moreover, empirical perspectives may have transformative implications for people on the ground, especially where focus on the potential harms and benefits they face brings their experiences and interests to the forefront of ethical and policy discussion. (shrink)