A difficult subject leavened with human interest Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9568-7 Authors Naomi Pasachoff, Williams College, 33 Lab Campus Drive, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Craig Nelson, the author of this unflaggingly engrossing book, comes from an impressive background in publishing, having been vice president and executive editor of Harper and Row, Hyperion, and Random House. In this respect, he reminds me of the better known Walter Isaacson, who was managing editor of Time magazine before turning his attention to writing biographies of Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Ben Franklin, and, most recently, a collective biography of the pioneers of the digital revolution. Although I reach this (...) conclusion on the basis of having read only one book by each, I would say that Isaacson’s oeuvre is more scholarly, Nelson’s more journalistic. A review in the New York Times of Nelson’s bestseller Rocket Men informs would-be readers that while the book “lacks the shapeliness and authority of some earlier lunar histories,…it ends up making an engaging contribution.” Comparing The Age of Radiance to the many similar histories of radioactivity and the making of the bomb that I .. (shrink)

Dan Falk, the author of this engaging if informal book, is a science journalist, broadcaster, and freelance writer, whose achievements merited him a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2011–2012. Full disclosure imperatives require me to acknowledge having met him on an eclipse expedition to Easter Island in 2010, where I recall learning about his interests in astrophotography. I am sure, however, that should we meet again, we are unlikely to recognize one another. Thus, as an unbiased reader , (...) I can report that The Science of Shakespeare is a testament to the thoroughness with which Falk has carried out his research, both in libraries and in the offices of everyone, it would appear, who has so much as dabbled in the question of whether Shakespeare knew anything about the scientific developments of his day and how, if he did, this .. (shrink)

This engaging book presents the history of the development of the science of electromagnetism through the lives of two of its founders. The first seven chapters of this seventeen-chapter book belong to Michael Faraday, the story of whose rise to scientific prominence from an unprivileged background is eternally appealing. Chapters eight through fifteen belong to James Clerk Maxwell, a truly great scientist whose name should be better known than it is. The book’s penultimate chapter introduces the “Maxwellians”—the Britons Oliver Heaviside, (...) Oliver Lodge, and George Francis Fitzgerald and their German colleague, Heinrich Hertz—and describes their achievements building on Maxwell’s and Faraday’s contributions. The final chapter takes us from Michelson and Morley’s 1887 experiment disproving the existence of the aether to Einstein’s annus mirabilis of 1905, in which, among other achievements, he explained the photoelectric effect, predicted the photon, and pub .. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author note: Naomi Zack is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Albany. She herself is of mixed race: Jewish, African American, and Native American.

It is commonly assumed that grounding relations are asymmetric. Here I develop and argue for a theory of metaphysical structure that takes grounding to be nonsymmetric rather than asymmetric. Even without infinite descending chains of dependence, it might be that every entity is grounded in some other entity. Having first addressed an immediate objection to the position under discussion, I introduce two examples of symmetric grounding. I give three arguments for the view that grounding is nonsymmetric (I call this view (...) ‘metaphysical interdependence’). These arguments are: (i) that metaphysical interdependence is the only theory able to reconcile competing intuitions about grounding; (ii) that it is the only theory consistent with both ‘gunk’ and ‘junk’; and (iii) that offers a satisfactory solution to the problem concerning whether or not grounding is itself grounded. (shrink)

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. -/- Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and (...) scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. -/- Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era. (shrink)

This introductory paper sets out a framework for approaching some of the claims about the second person made by the papers collected in the special edition of Philosophical Explorations on The Second Person . It does so by putting centre stage the notion of a ‘bipolar second person relation’, and examining ways of giving it substance suggested by the authors of these papers. In particular, it focuses on claims made in these papers about the existence and/or nature of second person (...) thought, second person reasons for action and second person reasons for belief and about possible connections among thought-theoretical, ethical and epistemological issues and debates in this area. (shrink)

Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don't? Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength--and the greatest reason we can trust it. Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late (...) nineteenth century to today, this timely and provocative book features a new preface by Oreskes and critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo. (shrink)

The perfectly natural properties and relations are special—they are all and only those that "carve nature at its joints." They act as reference magnets, form a minimal supervenience base, figure in fundamental physics and in the laws of nature, and never divide duplicates within or between worlds. If the perfectly natural properties are the (metaphysically) important ones, we should expect being a perfectly natural property to itself be one of the (perfectly) natural properties. This paper argues that being a perfectly (...) natural property is not a very natural property, and examines the consequences. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of metaphysical explanation according to which metaphysical explanations are answers to what-makes-it-the-case-that questions. On this view, metaphysical explanations are not to be considered entirely objective, but are subject to epistemic constraints imposed by the context in which a relevant question is asked. The resultant account of metaphysical explanation is developed independently of any particular views about grounding. Toward the end of the paper an application of the view is proposed that takes metaphysical explanations conceived in (...) this way to characterize reality's structure. According to this proposal, reality's structure is partly constituted by a projection of our explanatory practices onto reality. (shrink)

Amid the highly industrialized, export-focused food system of the Canadian prairies, some farmers and consumers are turning to localized agriculture as an alternative—they are “going local”. Despite farmers’ obvious importance to the food system, surprisingly little research has examined their motivations and reasons for localization. To date, most local food scholarship in North America has focused on either consumers’ motivations to buy local or the systemic aspects of local food, such as regulations, infrastructure, and marketing arrangements. Existing research suggests that (...) local food systems are supported by consumers’ rejection of the industrial paradigm and desire to connect with their food and its source. But what drives farmers to localize, particularly when export-focused production is firmly entrenched as the status quo? Based on interviews and focus groups with 60 farmers, processors, policy experts, and retailers in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan, this paper examines local food systems from the producer perspective in a rural context of high industrialization and geographical dispersion. We examine what motivates farmers to produce for local markets, and what forces they must resist to do so. The findings indicate that farmers’ main motivations for localization are political and social in nature, and stem from a critique of the dominant neoliberal agri-food system. We map farmers’ agential responses to this dominant system on a spectrum that ranges from acceptance of a neoliberal “feed the world” ideology to promotion of food sovereignty. Drawing on farmers’ perspectives, our findings question the straightforward equation of local food with environmental sustainability and also challenge neoliberal economic assumptions of “scaling up”. (shrink)

This paper explores a middle way between realism and eliminativism about grounding. Grounding-talk is intelligible and useful, but it fails to pick out grounding relations that exist or obtain in reality. Instead, grounding-talk allows us to convey facts about what metaphysically explains what, and about the worldly dependence relations that give rise to those explanations.

Animal welfare in pig production is frequently a topic of debate and is sensitive in nature. This debate is partly due to differences in values, forms, convictions, interests and knowledge among the stakeholders that constitute differences among their frames of reference with respect to pigs and their welfare. Differences in frames of reference by stakeholder groups are studied widely, but not specifically with respect to animal behaviour or welfare. We explored this phenomenon using a qualitative behaviour assessment . Participating stakeholders (...) were classified into two expert groups consisting of pig farmers and animal scientists and a lay-group consisting of urban citizens . The stakeholders were asked to observe the behaviour of a specific pig in each of the nine videos and to assign a score for each video using 21 predefined terms describing the mood, such as ‘happy’ or ‘irritated’. They were asked to complete two additional questionnaires to obtain information on their frames of reference. Results from the QBA showed that the pig farmers observed the behaviour of pigs more positively than the urban citizens and the animal scientists. This was evident from the consistently higher scores on the positive terms to assess pig behaviour. The questionnaires revealed that the farmers had a different frames of reference regarding pigs and different understanding of welfare, which might explain the differences in assessment. In a follow-up stakeholder workshop, which focussed on differences in observation, QBA showed to be an effective tool to stimulate mutual learning among stakeholders, which is necessary to find shared solutions. (shrink)

Grounding talk has become increasingly familiar in contemporary philosophical discussion. Most discussants of grounding think that grounding talk is useful, intelligible, and accurately describes metaphysical reality. Call themrealistsabout grounding. Some dissenters reject grounding talk on the grounds that it is unintelligible, or unmotivated. They would prefer to eliminate grounding talk from philosophy, so we can call themeliminitivistsabout grounding. This paper outlines a new position in the debate about grounding, defending the view that grounding talk is intelligible and useful. Grounding talk (...) does not, however, provide a literal and veridical description of mind-independent metaphysical reality. This irrealismabout grounding treads a path between realism and eliminativism. (shrink)

Peopling the donor world -- The meaning of family in a changing world -- Creating families -- Creating communities across families -- The laws of the donor world: parents and children -- Law, adoption, and family secrets: disclosure and incest -- Reasons to regulate -- Regulating for connection -- Regulating for health and safety: setting limits in the gamete world -- Why not to regulate -- Conclusion: challenging and creating kinship.

In this paper I explore irrealist alternatives to orthodox realism about grounding, and claim that at least some of these alternatives represent fertile areas for future discussion.

Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The (...) primary value of models is heuristic. (shrink)

Currently, value sensitive design (VSD) does not commit to a particular ethical theory. Critiques contend that without such an explicit commitment, VSD lacks a methodology for distinguishing genuine moral values from mere stakeholders-preferences and runs the risk of attending to a set of values that is unprincipled or unbounded. We argue that VSD practitioners need to complement it with an ethical theory. We argue in favour of a mid-level ethical theory to fulfil this role.

In 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced that anthropogenic climate change had become discernible. Since then, numerous independent studies have affirmed that anthropogenic climate change is underway, and the meta-conclusion that there is a broad expert consensus on this point. It has also been demonstrated that most of the challenges to this claim come from interested parties outside the scientific community. But even if we allow that the challenges to climate science are politically or economically motivated, it does (...) not prove that the scientific consensus is correct. In other words, even if we accept the fact of scientific consensus, how do we know that this consensus is not wrong? This chapter addresses this question by examining a set of criteria that philosophers have traditionally or recently identified as possible bases for trust in scientific conclusions, and shows that climate science meets all of these criteria. Thus, while there is no way to know for sure that scientists are correct in their conclusions, the various means we have to test and evaluate scientific claims lead to the conclusion that, so far as we are able to tell, it is most likely that scientists are not wrong about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. (shrink)

Using a multimethod approach, this article examines the link between class and masculinities by comparing the way two groups—professional men and working-class men —practice fatherhood. First, the authors show that these two groups practice different types of masculinity as they engage in different kinds of fatherhood. Physicians emphasize “public fatherhood,” which entails attendance at public events but little involvement in the daily care of their children. In contrast, EMTs are not only involved in their children's public events but also emphasize (...) “private fatherhood,” which entails involvement in their daily care. Second, the authors suggest that these differing types of involvement can be explained by the contrasting employment conditions of each group as well the gender order of their families, especially the divergent labor market positions of spouses and the division of parenting. The authors conclude by arguing that these working-class fathers are “undoing gender” while professional fathers reproduce the conventional gender order. (shrink)

Buddhism and Jainism share the concepts of karma, rebirth, and the desirability of escaping from rebirth. The literature of both traditions contains many stories about past, and sometimes future, lives which reveal much about these foundational doctrines. Naomi Appleton carefully explores how multi-life stories served to construct, communicate, and challenge ideas about karma and rebirth within early South Asia, examining portrayals of the different realms of rebirth, the potential paths and goals of human beings, and the biographies of ideal (...) religious figures. Appleton also deftly surveys the ability of karma to bind individuals together over multiple lives, and the nature of the supernormal memory that makes multi-life stories available in the first place. This original study not only sheds light on the individual preoccupations of Buddhist and Jain tradition, but contributes to a more complete history of religious thought in South Asia, and brings to the foreground long-neglected narrative sources. (shrink)

Sometime around their first birthday most infants begin to engage in relatively sustained bouts of attending together with their caretakers to objects in their environment. By the age of 18 months, on most accounts, they are engaging in full-blown episodes of joint attention. As developmental psychologists (usually) use the term, for such joint attention to be in play, it is not sufficient that the infant and the adult are in fact attending to the same object, nor that the one’s attention (...) cause the other’s. The latter can and does happen much earlier, whenever the adult follows the baby’s gaze and homes in on the same object as the baby is attending to; or, from the age of six months, when babies begin to follow the gaze of an adult. We have the relevant sense of joint attention in play only when the fact that both child and adult are attending to the same object is, to use Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) phrase, ‘mutually manifest’. Psychologists sometimes speak of such jointness as a case of attention being ‘shared’ by infant and adult, or of a ‘meeting of minds’ between infant and adult, all phrases intended to capture the idea that when joint attention occurs everything about the fact that both subjects are attending to the same object is out in the open, manifest to both participants. (shrink)