Acknowledgments 1. Culture Is Essential 2. Culture Exists 3. Culture Evolves 4. Culture Is an Adaptation 5. Culture Is Maladaptive 6. Culture and Genes Coevolve 7. Nothing about Culture Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution.

Biology and the social sciences share an interest in phylogeny. Biologists know that living species are descended from past species, and use the pattern of similarities among living species to reconstruct the history of phylogenetic branching. Social scientists know that the beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that characterize contemporary societies are descended from past societies, and some social science disciplines, linguistics and cross cultural anthropology for example, have made use of observed similarities to reconstruct cultural histories. Darwin appreciated that his (...) theory of descent with modification had many similarities of pattern and process to the already well developed field of historical linguistics. In many other areas of social science, however, phylogenetic reconstruction has not played a central role. (shrink)

Experiments are not models of cooperation; instead, they demonstrate the presence of the ethical and other-regarding predispositions that often motivate cooperation and the punishment of free-riders. Experimental behavior predicts subjects' cooperation in the field. Ethnographic studies in small-scale societies without formal coercive institutions demonstrate that disciplining defectors is both essential to cooperation and often costly to the punisher.

A history of science text imagining how evolutionary theory and biology would have been understood if Darwin had never published his "Origin of Species" and other works.--publisher summary.

Alan C. LoveDarwinian calisthenicsAn athlete engages in calisthenics as part of basic training and as a preliminary to more advanced or intense activity. Whether it is stretching, lunges, crunches, or push-ups, routine calisthenics provide a baseline of strength and flexibility that prevent a variety of injuries that might otherwise be incurred. Peter Bowler has spent 40 years doing Darwinian calisthenics, researching and writing on the development of evolutionary ideas with special attention to Darwin and subsequent filiations among scientists exploring (...) evolution . Therefore, we would expect that when Bowler engages in a counterfactual history—imagining a world without Darwin—he is able to avoid historical injury and generate novel insights. My assessment is that the results are mixed. Before we can see why, it is necessary to walk briskly through the main contours of his argument.Bowler begins with an apologia for a counterfactual appr .. (shrink)

Bifurcation analysis of a real-time implementation of an ART network, which is functionally similar to the generalized localist model discussed in Page's manifesto shows that it yields a phase transition from local to distributed representation owing to continuous variation of the range of inhibitory connections. Hence there appears to be a qualitative dichotomy between local and distributed representations at the level of connectionistic networks conceived of as instances of nonlinear dynamical systems.

Emotion influences parameters of goal-directed whole-body movements in several ways. For instance, previous research has shown that approaching (moving toward) pleasant stimuli is easier compared to approaching unpleasant stimuli. However, some studies found that when emotional pictures are viewed for a longer time, approaching unpleasant stimuli may in fact be facilitated. The effect of viewing duration may have modulated whole-body approach movement in previous research but this has not been investigated to date. In the current study, participants initiated a step (...) forward after viewing neutral, high-arousal pleasant and high-arousal unpleasant stimuli. The viewing duration of the stimuli was set to seven different durations, varying from 100 to 4000 ms. Valence and arousal scores were collected for all stimuli. The results indicate that both viewing duration and the arousal of the stimuli influence kinematic parameters in forward gait initiation. Specifically, longer viewing duration, compared to shorter viewing duration, (a) diminished the step length and peak velocity in both neutral and emotional stimuli, (b) increased reaction time in neutral stimuli and, (c) decreased reaction time in pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. Strikingly, no differences were found between high-arousal pleasant and high-arousal unpleasant stimuli. In other words, the valence of the stimuli did not influence kinematic parameters of forward step initiation. Instead the arousal level (neutral: low; pleasant and unpleasant: high) explained the variance found in the results. The kinematics of forward gait initiation seemed to be reflected in the subjective arousal scores, but not the valence scores. So it seems arousal affects forward gait initiation parameters more strongly than valence. In addition, longer viewing duration seemed to cause diminished alertness, affecting GI parameters. These results shed new light on the prevailing theoretical interpretations regarding approach motivation in the literature, which warrants further examination in future research. (shrink)

Realists and supporters of ‘democratic underlabouring’ have recently challenged the traditional separation between political theory and practice. Although both attack Jürgen Habermas for being an idealist whose philosophy is too removed from politics, I argue that this interpretation is inaccurate. While Habermas’s social and political theory is indeed oriented to truth and understanding, he has sought realize his communicative conception of democracy by increasing the quality of political debate as a public intellectual. Building on his approach, I argue that giving (...) the theorist a direct role in public policy undermines theory as an enterprise oriented towards truth while overlooking the contingency, participatory nature and complicated internal logics of social and political practice. My basic thesis is that Habermas’s understanding of the relationship between theory and practice overcomes these difficulties by providing an account of theory that is independent but simultaneously also allows philosophers to participate in politics as public intellectuals. (shrink)

To be sure, I agree that Nabokov creates a "sense of dizzying complexity," but I don't see how Dowling accounts for it at all. First of all, the passage he cites from Pnin is not an instance of the Liar's Paradox. The Liar's Paradox occurs when a single person claims that he or she always lies—for in that case, there is no logically consistent way to call the claim either true or false. In Pnin, however, we have something quite different: (...) a person, whom we suspect of often filtering the truth to serve his own ends, claims that someone else has called him a liar. That's confusing, perhaps, but not logically inconsistent; for instance, it would be logically inconsistent to say that Pnin is wrong, or is at least exaggerating, when he says that you shouldn't believe anything that the narrator says. Indeed, Pnin is wrong, and the careful reader can sort out the narrator's claims with a fair degree of accuracy, at least on the second reading. The odd sensation that Pnin inspires comes not because there's no logically consistent way to determine the truth or falsity if the narrative but rather because we can figure out when and how the narrator has slanted his statements only once we have finished the book, for only the last chapter gives us the evidence we need to interpret the earlier chapters properly. Peter J. Rabinowitz, assistant professor of comparative literature at Hamilton College, is the author of articles on Raymond Chandler, Faulkner and Dostoyevsky, and literary borrowing and is, as well, a music critic for Fanfare. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInfants readily re-enact others’ intended actions during the second year of life. However, the role of emotion in appreciating others’ intentions and how this understanding develops in infa...

The theory of scale-covariant gravity is extended to include charged matter and electromagnetism at the classical level. The possibility of charge creation exists and the creation rate of charge differs from the creation rate of matter. A variational principle for scale-covariant gravity and electromagnetism coupled to a charged perfect fluid is given.

The problem of political action has its roots, arguably, in the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle seeks to describe an intellectual virtue – phronêsis – that is different from the faculty of theoretical reason but that is nonetheless capable of producing genuinely objective, rational knowledge, i.e., knowledge of what is true. The problem, specifically, is to understand how such a thing is possible, and much of the recent literature appears to suggest that perhaps it’s not. Since rhetoric, (...) persuasion, interest and emotion are obviously central features of political life, it may seem that some kind of non-intellectualist and non-rationalist perspective must be the way to go. I argue, nonetheless, that any such account is, and cannot but be, deeply problematic; and I defend, by way of contrast, a decidedly intellectualistic understanding of political enterprise. (shrink)

J. H. van 't Hoff's 1874 Dutch pamphlet, in which he proposed the spatial arrangement of atoms in a molecule, is one of the most significant documents in the history of chemistry. This essay presents a new narrative of Van 't Hoff's early life and places the appearance of the pamphlet within the context of the 'second golden age' of Dutch science. We argue that the combination of the reformed educational system in The Netherlands, the emergence of graphical molecular modelling (...) within the theoretical and practical culture of chemistry during the 1860s and 1870s, as well as Van 't Hoff's own personal research trajectory, formed the background to his unprecedented attribution of spatial meaning to the traditional concept of atomic 'arrangement'. We also present a new English translation of the pamphlet, for we have found that the existing translation, published by G. M. Richardson in 1901, contains many errors, changes and omissions. The new version offers a more accurate rendition in English of Van 't Hoff's style and argument. (shrink)

Despite his hostility to religion in his early career, since the turn of the century Habermas has devoted his research to the relationship between faith and knowledge. His two-volume Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie is the culmination of this project. Spurred by the attacks of 9/11 and the growing conflict between religion and the forces of secularization, I argue that this philosophy of history is the centerpiece of an important turning point in Habermas’s intellectual development. Instead of interpreting religion merely (...) as part of the history of postmetaphysical thinking, Habermas now sees it as a crucial normative resource for both philosophy and social cohesion in the future aswell. Despite its backward-looking approach,my basic thesis is that this book is best understood as a forward-looking appeal for a tolerant, self-reflective democratic politics that brings religious and secular citizens together dialogically through the cooperative use of their rational freedom. (shrink)

Physician Assisted Suicide is illegal in Rhode Island. The Lila Manfield Sapinsley Compassionate Care Act would make PAS legal if passed into law and it was reintroduced in 2021 in the General Assembly of Rhode Island. This guest editorial was published in The Rhode Island Catholic in Newport, Rhode Island, on May 20, 2021.