The sharp increase in the human population of Vancouver Island; the urban development policy favoring forest fragmentation and smaller, scattered settlements; and the relatively sizable population of large predatory mammals have contributed to one of the highest human-large predator contact zones in North America. Although some studies have evaluated public attitudes toward larger carnivores from urban/rural, gender, and generational perspectives, few have focused on black bears and cougars on the British Columbia coast. In this study, four hundred people in the (...) densely populated southeast corner of Vancouver Island were interviewed about their attitudes toward black bear and cougar presence and behavior. The majority of interviewees had positive attitudes toward both bears and cougars, and were opposed to the shooting of carnivores, preferring trapping and removal. Contrary to expectation, few respondents saw carnivores as threats to livestock, companion animals, or children. Both black bears and cougars were perceived as serving useful functions as part of the island’s heritage and cultural development. (shrink)

Galit Wellner’s exploration of new kinds of digital technologies employing AI algorithms that simulate features and functions of the human imagination leads her to propose a conceptual analysis of the imagination as a composite of perception and memory. Wellner poses the question of whether the output of such technological applications might be regarded as not merely simulating creative activity but as truly imaginative in their own right. Wellner concludes with a qualified “no.” The use of AI algorithms in conjunction with (...) human cognitive activity, conceived in terms of a layered architecture of the faculties in question, can in fact be understood as an essential component of imaginative, and thus creative, production, but humans are still needed in the mix. To the extent that the AI-algorithm-enhanced human system is capable of imagining and creating works of art, imagination can be extended to AI algorithms. But, the algorithms sans humans are not themselves imaginers. For Wellner, AI algorithms can augment and enhance human imaginative efforts, equipping us with a richer and vastly wider array of possibilities and options for aesthetic consideration, but ultimately, the human is the essential element. However, once the door is opened to accepting algorithmically determined alternatives as capable of successfully achieving desired results within a field of possible outcomes, it seems possible that the activities of connecting, coordinating, or meaningfully linking, combining, and establishing new imaginative layers that Wellner reserves as requiring humans to enact might also be programmable, algorithmically achievable tasks that instantiate genuine aesthetic decision making. (shrink)

Spectrum inversion is a thought experiment, and I would wager that there is no better diagnostic test to the disciplinary affiliation of a randomly selected member of the audience than your reaction to a thought experiment. It is a litmus test. If you find that you are paying close attention, subvocalizing objections, and that your heart-rate and metabolism go up, you have turned pink: you are a philosopher. If on the other hand the thought experiment leaves you cold, and you (...) wonder why otherwise sensible people would worry about such things, you have turned blue and you are a psychologist. (shrink)

Sensory experience seems to be the basis of our knowledge of mind-independent things. The puzzle is to understand how that can be: how does our sensory experience enable us to conceive of them as mind-independent? This book is a debate between two rival approaches to understanding the relationship between concepts and sensory experience.

Ordinarily, if you say something like “I see a comet,” you might make a mistake about whether it is a comet that you see, but you could not be right about whether it is a comet but wrong about who is seeing it. There cannot be an “error of identification” in this case. In making a judgement like, “I see a comet,” there are not two steps, finding out who is seeing the thing and finding out what it is that (...) is being seen, so that you could go wrong at either step. The only place to go wrong is in your description of what is being seen. We usually take it that the same point applies to present-tense ascriptions to oneself of psychological states in general. You can get it wrong about which psychological state you are in, but you cannot get it right about the psychological state but wrong about whose psychological state it is. In contrast, in a room full of people, I might hear a noise and conclude, “Bill sneezed,” and in this case I could be wrong either about who it was that sneezed or about whether it was a sneeze, rather than say a death-rattle. (shrink)

Evolutionary systems biology (ESB) aims to integrate methods from systems biology and evolutionary biology to go beyond the current limitations in both fields. This article clarifies some conceptual difficulties of this integration project, and shows how they can be overcome. The main challenge we consider involves the integration of evolutionary biology with developmental dynamics, illustrated with two examples. First, we examine historical tensions between efforts to define general evolutionary principles and articulation of detailed mechanistic explanations of specific traits. Next, these (...) tensions are further clarified by considering a recent case from another field focused on developmental dynamics: stem cell biology. In the stem cell case, incompatible explanatory aims block integration. Experimental approaches aim at mechanistic explanation while dynamical system models offer explanation in terms of general principles. We then discuss an ESB case in which integration succeeds: search for general attractors using a dynamical systems framework synergizes with the experimental search for detailed mechanisms. Contrasts between the positive and negative cases suggest general lessons for achieving an integrated understanding of developmental and evolutionary dynamics. The key integrative move is to acknowledge two complementary aims, both relevant to explanation: identifying the space of possible dynamic states and trajectories, and mechanistic understanding of causal interactions underlying a specific phenomenon of interest. These two aims can support one another in a joint project characterizing dynamic aspects of evolving lineages. This more inclusive project can lead to insights that cannot be reached by either approach in isolation. (shrink)

Despite tendencies to compete for a prime place in moral theory, neither virtue ethics nor the four principles approach should claim to be superior to, or logically prior to, the other. Together they provide a more adequate account of the moral life than either can offer on its own. The virtues of principlism are clarity, simplicity and (to some extent) universality. These are well illustrated by Ranaan Gillon’s masterly analysis of the cases he has provided. But the vices of this (...) approach are the converse of its virtues: neglect of emotional and personal factors, oversimplification of the issues, and excessive claims to universality. Virtue ethics offers a complementary approach, providing insights into moral character, offering a blend of reason and emotion, and paying attention to the context of decisions. The cases provided can be more adequately understood if we combine the approaches. Both should foster the virtues of humility and magnanimity. (shrink)

This chapter makes the case for a relational version of an experientialist view of joint attention. On an experientialist view of joint attention, shifting from solitary attention to joint attention involves a shift in the nature of your perceptual experience of the object attended to. A relational analysis of such a view explains the latter shift in terms of the idea that, in joint attention, it is a constituent of your experience that the other person is, with you, jointly attending (...) to the object. We need such an analysis of joint attention to explain the possibility of success in tasks such as coordinated attack. (shrink)

Many explanations in molecular biology, neuroscience, and other fields of experimental biology describe mechanisms underlying phenomena of interest. These mechanistic explanations account for higher-level phenomena in terms of causally active parts and their spatiotemporal organization. What makes such a mechanistic description explanatory? The best-developed answer, Craver's causal-mechanical account, has several weaknesses. It does not fully explicate the target of explanation, interlevel relation, or interactive nonmodular character of many biological mechanisms as we understand them. An alternative account of MEx, emphasizing interdependence (...) among a mechanism's components, remedies these difficulties. (shrink)

In 1947 Donald Cary Williams claimed in The Ground of Induction to have solved the Humean problem of induction, by means of an adaptation of reasoning first advanced by Bernoulli in 1713. Later on David Stove defended and improved upon Williams’ argument in The Rational- ity of Induction (1986). We call this proposed solution of induction the ‘Williams-Stove sampling thesis’. There has been no lack of objections raised to the sampling thesis, and it has not been widely accepted. In our (...) opinion, though, none of these objections has the slightest force, and, moreover, the sampling thesis is undoubtedly true. What we will argue in this paper is that one particular objection that has been raised on numerous occasions is misguided. This concerns the randomness of the sample on which the inductive extrapolation is based. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the ethical and moral implications of findings from the authors? national survey of television news directors? policies, practices, and perceptions of good/bad news. In light of the potentially negative effects of excessive amounts of bad news on individuals and society, the authors ask whether television journalists have an ethical responsibility?beyond legal constraints and professional criteria?in the selection and presentation of bad news and good news. An earlier version of this paper, detailing the findings of the survey, (...) was presented to the Radio?TV Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in August, 1986. (shrink)

Although the overwhelming majority of terminally ill patients in Oregon who seek a physician's aid in dying are enrolled in hospice programs, hospices do not take a major role in this practice. An examination of fifty‐five Oregon hospices reveals that both legal and moral questions prevent hospices from collaborating fully with physician‐assisted death.

With the centenary of the publication of William James's Pragmatism (1907) fast approaching, this paper explores two questions. First: what role did James's volume play in the development of the Pragmatic movement?; second: how powerful a force was that movement within American academic philosophy? With regard to the first question, this paper suggests that Pragmatism was not the font of the movement, but in fact appeared near its end; with regard to the second question, this paper suggests that the Pragmatic (...) movement, while of great importance in American society, was itself only a minor moment within professionalizing American philosophy. (shrink)

Studies of the association between wealth and fertility in industrial populations have a rich history in the evolutionary literature, and they have been used to argue both for and against a behavioral ecological approach to explaining human variability. We consider that there are strong arguments in favor of measuring fertility (and proxies thereof) in industrial populations, not least because of the wide availability of large-scale secondary databases. Such data sources bring challenges as well as advantages, however. The purpose of this (...) article is to illustrate these by examining the association between wealth and reproductive success in the United States, using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979. We conduct a broad-based exploratory analysis of the relationship between wealth and fertility, employing both cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches, and multiple measures of both wealth (income and net worth) and fertility (lifetime reproductive success and transitions to first, second and third births). We highlight the kinds of decisions that have to be made regarding sample selection, along with the selection and construction of explanatory variables and control measures. Based on our analyses, we find a positive effect of both income and net worth on fertility for men, which is more pronounced for white men and for transitions to first and second births. Income tends to have a negative effect on fertility for women, while net worth is more likely to positively predict fertility. Different reproductive strategies among different groups within the same population highlight the complexity of the reproductive ecology of industrial societies. These results differ in a number of respects from other analyses using the same database. We suggest this reflects the impossibility of producing a definitive analysis, rather than a failure to identify the “correct” analytical strategy. Finally, we discuss how these findings inform us about (mal)adaptive decision-making. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

It seems a compelling idea that experience of colour plays some role in our having concepts of the various colours, but in trying to explain the role experience plays the first thing we have to describe is what sort of colour experience matters here. I will argue that the kind of experience that matters is conscious attention to the colours of objects as an aspect of them on which direct intervention is selectively possible. As I will explain this idea, it (...) is a matter of being able to use experience to inform linguistic or conceptual thought about what would happen were there to be various interventions on an object. Against this background, I will review Locke’s fundamental argument that since we can change the colour of an almond by pounding it, there must be an error embodied in our ordinary concepts of colour: there is no such thing as intervening directly on the colour of an object. The analysis I present brings out the force of Locke’s argument. But I will propose a vindication of our commonsense conception of colour as an aspect of objects on which direct intervention is selectively possible. (shrink)

Ordinary common sense suggests that we have just one set of shape concepts that we apply indifferently on the bases of sight and touch. Yet we understand the shape concepts, we know what shape properties are, only because we have experience of shapes. And phenomenal experience of shape in vision and phenomenal experience of shape in touch seem to be quite different. So how can the shape concepts we grasp and use on the basis of vision be the same as (...) the shape concepts we grasp and use on the basis of touch? I think this is the intuitive puzzle that underlies the question sent by the Dublin lawyer Molyneux to John Locke. This concerns a man born blind, who learns by the use of his touch to discriminate cubes from spheres. Suppose him now to gain the use of his sight. And suppose him to be presented with a cube and a sphere, of nighly the same bigness. Quaere, will he be able to tell, by the use of his vision alone, which is the sphere, and which the cube? (Locke 1975, II/ix/8.). (shrink)

RNA localization is a powerful strategy used by cells to localize proteins to subcellular domains and to control protein synthesis regionally. In germ cells, RNA targeting has profound implications for development, setting up polarities in genetic information that drive cell fate during embryogenesis. The frog oocyte offers a useful system for studying the mechanism of RNA localization. Here, we discuss critically the process of RNA localization during frog oogenesis. Three major pathways have been identified that are temporally and spatially separated (...) in oogenesis. Each pathway uses a different mechanism to effect RNA localization. In some cases, localization elements within the 3' untranslated region have been identified and have provided unique insights into the localization process. This important field is still in its infancy, however, and much remains to be learned. BioEssays 21:546–557, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Following the socialist revolution, a colossal shift in everyday realities began in the 1920s and '30s in the former Russian empire. Faced with the Siberian North, a vast territory considered culturally and technologically backward by the revolutionary government, the Soviets confidently undertook the project of reshaping the ordinary lives of the indigenous peoples in order to fold them into the Soviet state. In Agitating Images, Craig Campbell draws a rich and unsettling cultural portrait of the encounter between indigenous Siberians (...) and Russian communists and reveals how photographs from this period complicate our understanding of this history. Agitating Images provides a glimpse into the first moments of cultural engineering in remote areas of Soviet Siberia. The territories were perceived by outsiders to be on the margins of civilization, replete with shamanic rituals and inhabited by exiles, criminals, and "primitive" indigenous peoples. The Soviets hoped to permanently transform the mythologized landscape by establishing socialist utopian developments designed to incorporate minority cultures into the communist state. This book delves deep into photographic archives from these Soviet programs, but rather than using the photographs to complement an official history, Campbell presents them as anti-illustrations, or intrusions, that confound simple narratives of Soviet bureaucracy and power. Meant to agitate, these images offer critiques that cannot be explained in text alone and, in turn, put into question the nature of photographs as historical artifacts. An innovative approach to challenging historical interpretation, Agitating Images demonstrates how photographs go against accepted premises of Soviet Siberia. All photographs, Campbell argues, communicate in unique ways that present new and even contrary possibilities to the text they illustrate. Ultimately, Agitating Images dissects our very understanding of the production of historical knowledge. (shrink)

It is argued that those who accept the psychological criterion of personal identity, such as Parfit and Shoemaker, should accept what I call the 'series' view of a person, according to which a person is a unified aggregate of mental events and states. As well as defending this view against objections, I argue that it allows the psychological theorist to avoid the two lives objection which the 'animalist' theorists have raised against it, an objection which causes great difficulties for the (...) conception of a person that most psychological theorists favour, the constitution view. It is also argued that the series view allows that people can body swap and teleport, which the constitution view—which takes a person to be a physical object (but a distinct physical object from the human being)—has great trouble with. (shrink)

A substantial portion of the developed world's population is increasingly dependent on machines to make their way in the everyday world. For certain privileged groups, computers, cell phones, PDAs, Blackberries, and IPODs, all permitting the faster processing of information, are commonplace. In these populations, even exercise can be automated as persons try to achieve good physical fitness by riding stationary bikes, running on treadmills, and working out on cross-trainers that send information about performance and heart rate.

Background: Mild traumatic brain injury results from an external force to the head or body causing neurophysiological changes within the brain. The number and severity of symptoms can vary, with some individuals experiencing rapid recovery, and others having persistent symptoms for months to years, impacting their quality of life. Current rehabilitation is limited in its ability to treat persistent symptoms and novel approaches are being sought to improve outcomes following mTBI. Neuromodulation is one technique used to encourage adaptive neuroplasticity within (...) the brain.Objective: To systematically review the literature on the efficacy of neuromodulation in the mTBI population.Method: A systematic review was conducted using Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES and EBM Review. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis reporting guidelines were used and a narrative review of the selected studies was completed. Fourteen articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria which were published in English, investigating an adult sample and using a pre- and post-intervention design. Studies were excluded if they included non-mild TBI severities, pediatric or older adult populations.Results: Thirteen of fourteen studies reported positive reductions in mTBI symptomatology following neuromodulation. Specifically, improvements were reported in post-concussion symptom ratings, headaches, dizziness, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, general disability, cognition, return to work and quality of life. Normalization of working memory activation patterns, vestibular field potentials, hemodynamics of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and excessive delta wave activity were also seen. The studies reviewed had several methodological limitations including small, heterogenous samples and varied intervention protocols, limiting generalisability. Further research is required to understand the context in which neuromodulation may be beneficial.Conclusions: While these positive effects are observed, limitations included unequal representation of neuromodulation modalities in the literature, and lack of literature describing the efficacy of neuromodulation on the development or duration of persistent mTBI symptoms. Better clarity regarding neuromodulation efficacy could have a significant impact on mTBI patients, researchers, clinicians, and policy makers, facilitating a more productive post-mTBI population. Despite the limitations, the literature indicates that neuromodulation warrants further investigation. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020161279. (shrink)

Increasing globalization of the nursing workforce and the desire for migrants to realize their full potential in their host country is an important public policy and management issue. Several studies have examined the challenges migrant nurses face as they seek licensure and access to international work. However, fewer studies examine the barriers and challenges internationally educated nurses (IEN) experience transitioning into the workforces after they achieve initial registration in their adopted country. In this article, the authors report findings from an (...) empirically grounded study that examines the experience of IENs who entered Ontario’s workforce between 2003 and 2005. We found that migrant nurses unanimously described nursing as ‘different’ from that in their country of origin. Specifically, IENs reported differences in the expectations of professional nursing practice and the role of patients and families in decision‐making. In addition, problems with English language fluency cause work‐related stress and cognitive fatigue. Finally, the experience of being the outsider is a reality for many IENs. This study provides important insights as policy and management decision‐makers balance the tension between increasing the IEN workforce and the delivery of safe patient care. (shrink)

This paper explores the state of teacher training in philosophy graduate programs in the English-speaking world. Do philosophy graduate programs offer training regarding teaching? If so, what is the nature of the training that is offered? Who offers it? How valuable is it? We conclude that philosophers want more and better teaching training, and that collectively we know how to deliver and support it.

This paper considers the impact which developments in neuroscience seem likely to have on our inherited, intuitive psychology ? the system of beliefs called ?folk psychology? by enthusiasts for its elimination. The paper argues that while closer relations between a developing genuinely scientific cognitive psychology and a burgeoning neurological understanding are to be welcomed, physiology will not reduce psychology, and the concepts belonging to intuitive psychology will be transformed and enriched, but not discredited or discarded, when psychology, in its cognitive (...) form, emerges as a science with genuine explanatory power. The analogy between belief and desire, on one hand, and witches and phlogiston, on the other, is rejected. So is the parallel between folk psychology and folk physics. We face the choice, on Churchland's principles, between the rejection of historical, literary, and moral culture, and accepting a dualism in human thought which despairs of a comprehensively naturalistic vision of ourselves. (shrink)

This chapter shows that the combination of mathematical and chemical thinking in particular, as evidenced by Charles Sanders Peirce’s chemical training at Harvard, formed a solid conceptual basis for his account of diagrams. The connection between the Lawrence school and the chemical tradition established by Justus von Liebig in Giessen is of crucial importance to understand the context of Peirce’s own chemistry training. A completely different picture emerges if one pays greater attention to the nature of the chemistry curriculum in (...) Harvard at the time, and in particular to the pedagogical innovations introduced by Peirce’s chemistry teacher, Josiah Parsons Cooke. Historians of science have investigated the rise of institutional scientific laboratories from a range of perspectives. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for further investigation into the role of chemistry in Peirce’s philosophical system more broadly and the potential this new avenue of inquiry might have for the direction of Peirce scholarship. (shrink)

As a physicist‐theologian, John Polkinghorne has done a great service for the community of scholars engaged in the theology‐and‐science dialogue as well as for a broader audience of interested persons. We examine Polkinghorne's theological method to see what it suggests about his understanding of the function of systematic theology and his philosophy of science. His strong emphasis on rationality in theology corresponds to his epistemological discussions. Polkinghorne links his methodology to “thinking,” so “experience” seems relegated to the minds, and not (...) the lives, of the believers. Consequently, his theology does not easily engage ethical, political, and cultural landscapes where the concrete contexts of particular people's lives engage their faith. The challenge for those of us in religion‐and‐science is to come to grips with this messy, complicated world. (shrink)

In summer 2022, six points of consensus emerged from a symposium addressing the question, “In the context of U.S. pediatric care, what moral precepts ought to guide parents and clinicians in medical decision making for children?” (Salter et al. 2023). The authors of this statement wrote, however, that the points of consensus may require modification or may not apply in their entirety to children in state custody. This article addresses the consensus recommendations in the context of the thousands of children (...) removed annually from the custody of their parents. While the consensus statements developed at the symposium provide a good starting point for decision-making in the context of these children, some alterations and nuance must be applied to attend to the specific needs of this population. The article works through what special considerations and changes ought to be made to expand the reach of the original points of consensus without neglecting the particular conditions of children in state custody, as well as their parents and caregivers. (shrink)