Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization’s “One Health” and the United Nations “Ocean Decade.” These agendas demand collaborative multisector interdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these agendas (...) from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model for interdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priority research areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies. We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward. (shrink)

Modified Theistic Activism is the view that abstract objects not essentially possessed by God fall under God’s creative activity in one way or another. Michelle Panchuk has argued that this position succumbs to the bootstrapping problem such that God is and is not logically prior to his properties—an incoherent and necessarily false state of affairs. In this essay we respond to Panchuk by arguing that our neo-Aristotelian account of substance and property possession successfully avoids the bootstrapping problem. Moreover, her own (...) neo-Augustinian account of universals contains many conceptual deficiencies and ultimately succumbs to an epistemic iteration of the bootstrapping problem. Finally, we argue that the reasons provided for thinking only created beings need universals to ground character is unmotivated. In clarifying and defending our position, our hope is to bury once and for all the familiar claim that traditional theists cannot be realists with respect to abstract objects because of divine bootstrapping. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to provide support for the validation of the Teammate Burnout Questionnaire. Athletes from a variety of team sports completed the TBQ and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed acceptable fit indexes for the three-dimensional models of the TBQ and the ABQ. Multi-trait multi-method analysis revealed that the TBQ and ABQ showed acceptable convergent and discriminant validity. The preliminary validation of the TBQ indicates the utility of the scale to reflect athletes’ perceptions (...) of their teammates’ burnout and offers researchers the opportunity to quantitatively assess an important aspect of the social environment in the development of athlete burnout. (shrink)

On May, 1996, two of the journalism profession's best known and most articulate speakers spent 90 minutes in what was billed as a Heavyweight Bout. The subject was public journalism; The audience, a Society of Professiona1 Journalists regional conference; the venue, Macon, Georgia.

Philosophy and Christianity make truth claims about many of the same things. They both claim to provide answers to the deep questions of life. But how are they related to one another? Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy introduces readers to four predominant views on the relationship between philosophy and the Christian faith and their implications for life. Each author identifies the propositional relation between philosophy and Christianity along with a section devoted to the implications for living a life devoted (...) to the pursuit of wisdom. -/- The contributors and views include: -/- Graham Oppy—Conflict: Philosophy Trumps Christianity K. Scott Oliphint—Covenant: Christianity Trumps Philosophy Timothy McGrew—Convergence: Philosophy Confirms Christianity Paul Moser—Conformation: Philosophy Reconceived Under Christianity. (shrink)

Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.

Being human while trying to scientifically study human nature confronts us with our most vexing problem. Efforts to explicate the human mind are thwarted by our cultural biases and entrenched infirmities; our first-person experiences as practical agents convince us that we have capacities beyond the reach of scientific explanation. What we need to move forward in our understanding of human agency, Paul Sheldon Davies argues, is a reform in the way we study ourselves and a long overdue break (...) with traditional humanist thinking. Davies locates a model for change in the rhetorical strategies employed by Charles Darwin in _On the Origin of Species_. Darwin worked hard to anticipate and diminish the anxieties and biases that his radically historical view of life was bound to provoke. Likewise, Davies draws from the history of science and contemporary psychology and neuroscience to build a framework for the study of human agency that identifies and diminishes outdated and limiting biases. The result is a heady, philosophically wide-ranging argument in favor of recognizing that humans are, like everything else, subjects of the natural world—an acknowledgement that may free us to see the world the way it actually is. (shrink)

Many scientists regard mass and energy as the primary currency of nature. In recent years, however, the concept of information has gained importance. In this book, eminent scientists, philosophers, and theologians chart various aspects of information, from quantum information to biological and digital information, in order to understand how nature works. Beginning with a historical treatment of the topic, the book also examines physical and biological approaches to information, and the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications.

A useful resource for students as well as a thought-provoking source of debate, this collection is the first of its kind.

Andrews et al. subscribe to the view that distinguishing selectionist from nonselectionist hypotheses – or, distinguishing adaptations from mere spandrels or exaptations – is important to the study of psychology. I offer three reasons for thinking that this view is false; that considerations of past selective efficacy have little to contribute to inquiry in psychology.

There is a morally questionable laxity in our practices of apologising. A genuine apology involves substantially more than regret about offence caused by one’s behaviour. I argue that it is in fact possible to unpack a normative paradigm (or essence) underlying the practice of apologising. This essence involves doxastic, affective, and dispositional elements, related at the moral phenomenological level. The Consummate apologiser believes that he has transgressed because of identifiable moral saliences of his conduct, feels reproachful towards himself as a (...) result, and as a result resolves to avoid repetition of the same conduct. The latter might require the cultivation of new dispostions or the sharpening of existing ones. It is rational to accept an apology insofar as the preceding doxastic, affective, and dispositional elements are believed to be present and rational in the apologiser. In accepting an apology, the recipient agrees to the attempt at normalisation of relations with the transgressor. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Clear guidelines addressing the ethically appropriate use of anti‐infectives in the setting of hospice care do not exist. There is lack of understanding about key treatment decisions related to infection treatment for patients who are eligible for hospice care. Ethical concerns about anti‐infective use at the end of life include: (1) delaying transition to hospice, (2) prolonging a dying process, (3) prescribing regimens incongruent with a short life expectancy and goals of care, (4) increasing the reservoir of potential resistant (...) pathogens, (5) placing unreasonable costs on a capitated hospice system. Although anti‐infectives are thought to be relatively safe, they can place a burden on patients and be inconsistent to particular care plans. The current complex, and at times fragmented, medical care often fails to address these issues in decision‐making. In many ways, the ethics governing the end of life decisions related to dialysis, hydration/nutrition, and hypercalcemia parallel those of anti‐infectives. In this article we articulate important elements in ethical decision‐making in the application of anti‐infectives for patients who are eligible for hospice care, and we point to the need for prospective studies to help refine particular guidelines in these cases. (shrink)

The physics of time asymmetry has never been a single well-defined subject, but more a collection of consistency problems which arise in almost all branches ...

For decades most scientists assumed that life emerged billions of years ago in a “primordial soup” somewhere on the Earth’s surface. Evidence is mounting, however, that life may have begun deep beneath the surface, perhaps near a volcanic ocean vent or even inside the hot crust itself. Since there are hints that life’s history on Earth extends back through the phase of massive cosmic bombardment, it may be that life started on Mars and came here later, perhaps inside rocks ejected (...) from the Red Planet by large impacts. The traffic of intact rocks between Mars and Earth is now an established fact, and experiments confirm that microbes could survive the rigours of the journey through space if cocooned within such material. Unfortunately, this planetary cross- contamination compromises astrobiologists’ hope of finding a second genesis in the solar system. (shrink)

There are robust consequences of the fact that football is football and not something else. The aesthetic personality of football does not submit to a template inappropriately borrowed from elsewhere. One consequence is that beauty should not be awarded privileged status. Any just aesthetics of the game must be properly hospitable to the game’s less hygienic and agonistic features, such as stolid defence, scuffling and scavenging, heroic goalkeeping, visible toil and strain, the intrinsic possibility of failure, the visibly strenuous working (...) with materials, one’s exposed vulnerability to conditions, luck, loss of form and the injured or ageing body, and the visible realisation of a plurality of life values in a self-enclosed domain. This gives football a deep affinity with a Modernist aesthetics. However, ‘traditional’ aesthetics might also have a substantive and precious input into the aesthetics of football. Indeed, it might be that beauty is a legitimate aesthetic category and.. (shrink)

The problem of life’s origin remains one of the great outstanding challenges to science. Ever since Charles Darwin mused about a “warm little pond” incubating life beneath sunny primeval skies, scientists have speculated about the exact location of this transforming event. Nearly a century and a half later, we remain almost completely ignorant of the physical processes that led from a nonliving chemical mixture to the first autonomous organism. However, some progress at least has been made on tracking down where (...) and when life first established itself on Earth. Fossil evidence suggests that the biological record extends back at least 3.5 billion years, pointing to a still earlier origin1. But this presents a problem. The cratering record of the moon implies that Earth was subjected to intense bombardment by large comets and asteroids over an extended duration until about 3.8 billion years ago. The largest of these impacts would have released enough energy to swathe the planet in incandescent rock vapour, boiling the oceans and sending sterilizing heat pulses a kilometre into the exposed crust2. This unpromising setting – hardly a secure one for warm little ponds – has prompted some astrobiologists to conjecture that life began somewhere else and came to Earth readymade3. Favourite among extraterrestrial originating locations is the planet Mars4. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that low-mass primordial black holes cannot constitute a significant fraction of the dark matter in our universe due to their predicted short lifetimes from the conventional Hawking radiation and evaporation process. Assuming physical black holes are nonsingular--likely due to quantum gravity or other high-energy physics--we demonstrate that a large class of nonsingular black holes have finite evaporation temperatures. This can lead to slowly evaporating low-mass black holes or to remnant mass states that circumvent traditional evaporation constraints. (...) As a proof of concept, we explore the limiting curvature hypothesis and the evaporation process of a nonsingular black hole solution in two-dimensional dilaton gravity. We identify generic features of the radiation profile and compare them with known regular black holes, such as the Bardeen solution in four dimensions. Remnant masses are proportional to the fundamental length scale, and we argue that slowly evaporating low-mass nonsingular black holes, or remnants, are viable dark matter candidates. (shrink)

The widespread effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have negatively impacted upon many athletes’ mental health and increased reports of depression as well as symptoms of anxiety. Disruptions to training and competition schedules can induce athletes’ emotional distress, while concomitant government-imposed restrictions (e.g., social isolation, quarantines) reduce the availability of athletes’ social and emotional support. Written Emotional Disclosure (WED) has been used extensively in a variety of settings with diverse populations as a means to promote emotional processing. The (...) expressive writing protocol has been used to a limited extent in the context of sport and predominantly in support of athletes’ emotional processing during injury rehabilitation. We propose that WED offers an evidence-based treatment that can promote athletes’ mental health and support their return to competition. Research exploring the efficacy of the expressive writing protocol highlights a number of theoretical models underpinning the positive effects of WED; we outline how each of these potential mechanisms can address the multidimensional complexity of the challenging circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., loss of earnings, returning to training and competition). Considerations and strategies for using WED to support athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic are presented. (shrink)

Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology ROBERT C. RICHARDSON Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007 248 pages, ISBN: 0-262-18260-2 (hbk); $30.00 “Just about anything is consistent with some evolut...

Astrobiologists are aware that extraterrestrial life might differ from known life, and considerable thought has been given to possible signatures associated with weird forms of life on other planets. So far, however, very little attention has been paid to the possibility that our own planet might also host communities of weird life. If life arises readily in Earth-like conditions, as many astrobiologists contend, then it may well have formed many times on Earth itself, which raises the question whether one or (...) more shadow biospheres have existed in the past or still exist today. In this paper, we discuss possible signatures of weird life and outline some simple strategies for seeking evidence of a shadow biosphere. Key Words: Weird life—Multiple origins of life—Biogenesis—Biomarkers—Extremophiles—Alternative biochemistry. Astrobiology 9, 241–249. (shrink)

The paper reflects on the experience of reading Levinas’s ‘God and Philosophy’ paying particular attention to the ways in which it would have us read the word ‘God.’ Levinas refuses to let the word become the property of even the most radical treatment of religious faith. The word, the biblical word, must never serve the self-consolation of philosophy. Many of Levinas’s readers regret this aspect of his writing, but the paper argues that ‘God and Philosophy’ offers an exemplary introduction to (...) Levinas’s most developed style of writing and thinking, and it does so while bringing to mind the question of the relation between Levinas’s philosophy and their religion. The second part of the essay considers possible contexts in which this question and ‘God and Philosophy’ itself can perhaps best be understood. (shrink)

Lacking in the philosophy of sport is discussion of the gendered numbers of sets played in Grand Slam tennis. We argue that the practice is indefensible. It can be upheld only through false beliefs about women or repressive femininity ideals. It treats male tennis players unfairly in forcing them to play more sets because of their sex. Its ideological consequences are pernicious, since it reinforces the respective identifications of the female and male with physical limitation and heroism. Both sexes have (...) compelling reason to reject the practice. (shrink)

It is popularly believed within sport's practice communities that a contest fails if the competitor who performs most skilfully in it does not win. The belief is rarely acknowledged explicitly, and therefore deserves to be considered ideological in a sense. In this paper I challenge that belief. For conceptual reasons, I confine the discussion to the purposive sports, e.g. football and tennis. The concept of skill is approached by articulation of a set of platitudes about skill in the purposive sports. (...) The first is the conceptual wedge between skill and success. The second is the distinction between skill and other performance-relevant qualities such as courage, strength and luck. The third is the fact that skill deficits can be compensated by sufficient amounts of the other performance relevant qualities. The fourth is the dispositional and dynamic character of skill. The relation between skill and final objectives in the purposive sports means that (i) qualities such as nerve and courage can trump the more skilful performance; and (ii) poor execution of a narrow range of skills can result in the competitive failure of the more skilful performance. There is no viable ideal of sport that would ground regret about the realisation of the immediately preceding possibilities. The inclination towards such regret might be partly motivated by the wish to take a gratifying view of ourselves. An end to this response, and a more inclusive, less hierarchical conception of sport skills, is worth recommending. (shrink)

Over the past twenty-five years, no one has done more than J. P. Moreland to equip Christians to love God with their minds. In his work as a Christian philosopher, scholar, and apologist, he has influenced thousands of students, written groundbreaking books, and taught multitudes of Christians to defend their faith. -/- In honor of Moreland's ministry, general editors Paul M. Gould and Richard Brian Davis have assembled a team of friends and colleagues to celebrate his work. In three (...) major parts devoted to philosophy, apologetics, and spiritual formation, scholars such as Stewart Goetz, Paul Copan, Douglas Groothuis, Scott Rae, and Klaus Issler interact with Moreland's thought and make their own contributions to these important subjects. Moreland concludes the volume with his own essay, "Reflections on the Journey Ahead.". (shrink)

In this chapter, we attempt to show that J.P. Moreland's understanding of apologetics is beautifully positioned to counter resistance to a rationally defensible Christianity—resistance arising from the mistaken idea that any rational defense will fail to support or even undermine relationship. We look first at Paul Moser's complaint that since rational apologetics doesn’t prove the God of Christianity, it falls short of delivering what matters most—a personal agent worthy of worship and relationship. We then consider John Wilkinson's charge that (...) the use of reason and argument in evangelistic contexts is relationally futile. Since people aren’t looking for arguments, and logic is an arbitrary human invention, we should present Christianity to others as an irrational faith story. (shrink)

Clear guidelines addressing the ethically appropriate use of anti-infectives in the setting of hospice care do not exist. There is lack of understanding about key treatment decisions related to infection treatment for patients who are eligible for hospice care. Ethical concerns about anti-infective use at the end of life include: (1) delaying transition to hospice, (2) prolonging a dying process, (3) prescribing regimens incongruent with a short life expectancy and goals of care, (4) increasing the reservoir of potential resistant pathogens, (...) (5) placing unreasonable costs on a capitated hospice system. Although anti-infectives are thought to be relatively safe, they can place a burden on patients and be inconsistent to particular care plans. The current complex, and at times fragmented, medical care often fails to address these issues in decision-making. In many ways, the ethics governing the end of life decisions related to dialysis, hydration/nutrition, and hypercalcemia parallel those of anti-infectives. In this article we articulate important elements in ethical decision-making in the application of anti-infectives for patients who are eligible for hospice care, and we point to the need for prospective studies to help refine particular guidelines in these cases. (shrink)

The paper notes the tendency and temptation for scholars and critics to find a justification in the novel for silencing or categorising Locke, and for lampooning or reducing to absurdity the project and the arguments of the Essay. It argues that such approaches can miss what is most interesting in the novel’s indebtedness to the Essay, and offers a reading of a famous sequence where Walter, Toby, and Tristram mention, quote, present, rearrange and redistribute one of Locke’s key doctrines, the (...) succession of ideas. It then takes a closer look at the Essay and asks how the focus on uneasiness in Book II might qualify both the argument against innateness in Book I and the treatment of the doctrine of the succession of ideas. It re-interprets that doctrine, with Locke’s conditional support as a “succession of uneasinesses”, and makes one final visit to Shandy Hall to consider the critical role of conscience. (shrink)

Imprinted genes are monoallelically expressed in a parent‐of‐origin‐dependent manner and can affect brain and behavioural phenotypes. The X chromosome is enriched for genes affecting neurodevelopment and is donated asymmetrically to male and female progeny. Hence, X‐linked imprinted genes could potentially influence sexually dimorphic neurobiology. Consequently, investigations into such loci may provide new insights into the biological basis of behavioural differences between the sexes and into why men and women show different vulnerabilities to certain mental disorders. In this review, we summarise (...) recent advances in our knowledge of X‐linked imprinted genes and the brain substrates that they may act upon. In addition, we suggest strategies for identifying novel X‐linked imprinted genes and their downstream effects and discuss evolutionary theories regarding the origin and maintenance of X‐linked imprinting. BioEssays 28:35–44, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Patience has generally been regarded as a virtue, but it has proved very difficult to say why it should be so. A phenomenology of patience quickly turns into ambiguity and confusion, and it does so in a way that seems to hinder any straightforward ethical evaluation of the term. Kant suggests that patience’s moral status can only be recognized if it is supplemented by a less problematic virtue such as, say, courage. Kierkegaard in contrast keeps the focus on patience itself (...) but argues that to do so we need a radical change in our conceptions of time and the self. With those changes in place, however, we can re-evaluate patience as an end rather than a means to an end. Levinas’s cryptic remarks on patience and passivity can seem to cohere with this Kierkegaardian move. But by reading them in the context of his accounts of aging, the passing of time, and the despite oneself (malgré soi), this paper will argue that their real significance lies elsewhere. Even Kierkegaard’s patience relies on a distinction between a bad or problematically passive patience and a good patience. Levinas consistently, and especially in Otherwise than Being, draws our attention back to that excessive, non-redeemable, and “absolute” passivity. (shrink)

Teleosemantics asserts that mental content is determined by natural selection. The thesis is that content is fixed by the historical conditions under which certain cognitive mechanisms—those that produce and those that interpret representational states—were selectively successful. Content is fixed by conditions of selective success. The thesis of this paper is that teleosemantics is mistaken, that content cannot be fixed by conditions of selective success, because those conditions typically outnumber the intentional objects within a given representational state. To defend against this (...) excess, advocates of teleosemantics must attempt to privilege some conditions of success while ignoring others. This results in selective explanations that are ad hoc, thereby depriving teleosemantics of the virtues it hoped to inherit from the theory of evolution by natural selection, including its alleged naturalistic credentials. (shrink)

I had imagined this article beginning quite straightforwardly, if somewhat hyperbolically, with the following assertion and answer: The critical essays of Maurice Blanchot constitute one of the twentieth century's profoundest and most significant philosophical reflections on literature and literary language. This is, after all, not only what I believe to be the case but also an assertion and a belief whose plausibility this article would like to demonstrate. What makes it impossible simply to begin in this fashion is the manner (...) in which such an opening seems to require that the conceptions of literature, of philosophy, and of the relations and tensions between them be fixed in advance. If Blanchot's writing is, to an arguably interesting degree, marginal to and deliberately other than philosophy, then our account of it would seem to require an account of that marginality and its significance. To consider Blanchot in relation to philosophy is to find oneself in danger of being faced with two unsatisfactory and constricting ways of proceeding, although neither is obviously wrong. (shrink)

In this paper we respond to three objections raised by Joshua Harris to our article, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” in which we express misgivings about the conjunction of Pentecostalism with James K. A. Smith’s postmodern, story-based epistemolo- gy. According to Harris, our critique: 1) problematically assumes a correspondence theory of truth, 2) invalidly concludes that “Derrida’s Axiom” conflicts with “Peter’s Axiom,” and 3) fails to consider an alternative account of the universality of Christian truth claims. We argue that Harris’s (...) objections either demonstrate a deficient interpretation of the relevant biblical pas- sages or are not directed at us at all. (shrink)