Ethical guidance for genomic research is increasingly sought and perceived to be necessary. Although there are pressing ethical issues in genomic research – concerning for example the recruitment of patients/participants; the process of taking consent; data sharing; and returning results to patients/participants – there is still limited useful guidance available for researchers/clinicians or for the research ethics committees who review such projects. This report outlines the ethical principles and guidance for genomic research co-produced with stakeholders during two workshops which took (...) place in the UK between November 2016 and May 2017. The stakeholders involved in these workshops included: healthcare professionals, genomic research teams, academics, patients, biobank managers, and representatives from the Health Research Authority, NHS Research Ethics Committees, patient support groups, pharmaceutical industry, and health policy think tanks. The co-produced principles and guidance are specifical... (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the (...) VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

While the Value-Free Ideal (VFI) had many precursors, it became a solidified bulwark of normative claims about scientific reasoning and practice in the mid-twentieth century. Since then, it has played a central role in the philosophy of science, first as a basic presupposition of how science should work, then as a target for critique, and now as a target for replacement. In this paper, we will argue that a narrow focus on the VFI is misguided, because the VFI coalesced in (...) the midst of other important shifts in the relationship between science and society. In particular, the mid-twentieth century saw the acceptance of the “social contract for science,” a tacit agreement between scientists and government officials, and more broadly between science and society. It was built around three core concepts: a distinction between basic and applied science, a conception of scientific freedom that limited social responsibility for scientists, and a justification for public funding of basic science in the form of the linear model. Within the conceptual framework of the social contract for science, it is clearer both (1) why the VFI was adopted, (2) why it is difficult to replace the VFI within the old social contract, and (3) how we need to revise the social contract for science in order to replace the VFI. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 114-116, April 2022. The question “what is emotion?” has long been at the core of theoretical debates. The IAC-E is a useful framework for understanding relationships among responses in emotional situations. However, this approach cannot address the nature of emotion. Researchers determine what counts as emotion in the IAC-E, and this decision impacts the relationships detected and inferences made. The assumptions of researchers about emotion change the output. Further, the model is not theoretically (...) agnostic and is best suited to examine emotion perception/knowledge, as in the simulations presented. According to some theories, experienced emotion is qualitatively different than situations that involve perceiving others' emotion or semantic knowledge. Addressing the nature of emotion requires empirical examination of the assumptions made in each theory. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Ahead of Print. The question “what is emotion?” has long been at the core of theoretical debates. The IAC-E is a useful framework for understanding relationships among responses in emotional situations. However, this approach cannot address the nature of emotion. Researchers determine what counts as emotion in the IAC-E, and this decision impacts the relationships detected and inferences made. The assumptions of researchers about emotion change the output. Further, the model is not theoretically agnostic and is best suited (...) to examine emotion perception/knowledge, as in the simulations presented. According to some theories, experienced emotion is qualitatively different than situations that involve perceiving others' emotion or semantic knowledge. Addressing the nature of emotion requires empirical examination of the assumptions made in each theory. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the psychosocial functioning of children and families. It is important to consider adversity in relation to processes of positive adaptation. To date, there are no empirically validated multi-item scales measuring COVID-related positive adaptation within families. The aim of the current study was to develop and validate a new measure: the Family Positive Adaptation during COVID-19 Scale. The sample included 372 female and 158 male caregivers of children ages 5–18 years old from the United Kingdom, (...) the United States, Canada, and Australia, who completed measures in May 2020. Participants responded to a 14-item survey indexing a range of perceived coping and adaptation behaviors at the beginning of the pandemic. An exploratory factor analysis yielded an optimal one-factor solution comprised of seven items related to family cohesion, flexibility, routines, and meaning-making. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated measurement invariance across female and male caregivers, demonstrating that the factor structure, loadings, and thresholds did not vary by caregiver sex. There was evidence for concurrent validity with significant bivariate correlations between the Family PACS scores and measures of caregiver positive coping, parenting practices, couple satisfaction, and family functioning, but not negatively-valenced constructs. Findings inform our conceptualization of how families have adapted to adverse pandemic-related conditions. Further, we provide preliminary support for the Family PACS as a practical tool for evaluating positive family adaptation during this global crisis, with implications for future widespread crises. (shrink)

De-extinction is the process through which extinct species can be brought back into existence. Although these projects have the potential to cause great harm to animal welfare, discussion on issues surrounding de-extinction have focussed primarily on other issues. In this paper, I examine the potential types of welfare harm that can arise through de-extinction programs, including problems with cloning, captive rearing and re-introduction. I argue that welfare harm should be an important consideration when making decisions on de-extinction projects. Though most (...) of the proposed benefits of these projects are insufficient to outweigh the current potential welfare harm, these problems may be overcome with further development of the technology and careful selection of appropriate species as de-extinction candidates. (shrink)

Preadolescence is an important period for the consolidation of certain arithmetic facts, and the development of problem-solving strategies. Obese subjects seem to have poorer academic performance in math than their normal-weight peers, suggesting a negative effect of obesity on math skills in critical developmental periods. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials were collected during a delayed-verification math task using simple addition and subtraction problems in obese [above 95th body mass index percentile] and non-obese preteens with different levels of math skill; (...) thirty-one with low math skills and thirty-one with high math skills. No significant differences between weight groups were observed in task accuracy regardless of their mathematical skill level. For ERPs, electrophysiological differences were found only in the subtraction condition; participants with obesity showed an electrophysiologic pattern associated with a reduced ability to allocate attention resources regardless of their math skill level, these differences were characterized by longer P300 latency than their normal-weight peers. Moreover, the participants with obesity with high math skills displayed hypoactivity in left superior parietal lobule compared with their normal-weight peers. Additionally, obese preteens with low math skills displayed smaller arithmetic N400 amplitude than non-obese participants, reflecting difficulties in retrieving visual, semantic, and lexical information about numbers. We conclude that participants with obesity are less able than their normal-weight peers to deploy their attention regardless of their behavioral performance, which seems to have a greater effect on obese participants with low math skills because they also show problems in the retrieval of solutions from working memory, resulting in a delay in the development of mathematical skills. (shrink)

Nurses have moral obligations incurred by membership in the profession to participate knowingly in health policy advocacy. Many barriers have historically hindered nurses from realizing their potential to advance health policy. The contemporary political context sets additional challenges to policy work due to polarization and conflict. Nursing education can help nurses recognize their role in advancing health through political advocacy in a manner that is consistent with disciplinary knowledge and ethical responsibilities. In this paper, the authors describe an exemplar of (...) Elizabeth Barrett's “Power as Knowing Participation in Change” theory as a disciplinary lens within a doctoral nursing health policy course. Barrett (radically) emphasizes “power as freedom” instead of “power as control.” This approach is congruent with nursing disciplinary values and enhances awareness of personal freedom and building collaborative relationships in the policy process. The theory was used in concert with other traditional policy content and frameworks from nursing and other disciplines. We discuss the role of nursing ethics viewed as professional responsibility for policy action, an overview of Barrett's theory, and the design of the course. Four student reflections on how the course influenced their thinking about policy advocacy are included. While not specific to policymaking, Barrett's theory provides a disciplinary grounding to increase students' awareness of freedom and choices in political advocacy participation. Our experience suggests that Barrett's work can be fruitful for enhancing nurses' awareness of choices to participate in change across settings. (shrink)

Human neural organoid research is advancing rapidly. As Greely notes in the target article, this progress presents an “onrushing ethical dilemma.” We can’t rule out the possibility that suff...

Some of the students in our classrooms doubt their intellectual strengths—their knowledge, abilities, and skills. They may be unaware of the intellectual strengths they have, or may ignore, lack confidence in, or under-estimate them. They may even incorrectly judge themselves to be intellectually inferior to their peers. Students who do such things consistently are deficient in the virtue of intellectual pride—in appropriately ‘owning’ their intellectual strengths—and are on their way to developing a form of intellectual servility. Can the ‘standard approach’ (...) to intellectual character education help these students make progress toward intellectual pride? This article argues that there are two limitations in its ability to help. First, the standard approach isn’t likely to help unless it is combined with classroom strategies for ameliorating servility. Second, even when it is combined with ameliorative strategies, any progress it might make in the classroom is likely to be fleeting when a student’s servility is caused by systemic epistemic injustice. This article suggests that rather than prioritize the standard approach, we prioritize strategies that aim at systemic change and amelioration. (shrink)

Acute exercise consistently benefits both emotion and cognition, particularly cognitive control. We evaluated acute endurance exercise influences on emotion, domain-general cognitive control, and the cognitive control of emotion, specifically cognitive reappraisal. Thirty-six endurance runners, defined as running at least 30 miles per week with one weekly run of at least 9 miles (21 female, age 18-30 years) participated. In a repeated measures design, participants walked at 57% age-adjusted maximum heart rate (HRmax) (range 51-63%) and ran at 70% HRmax (range 64-76%) (...) for 90 minutes on two separate days. Participants completed measures of emotional state and the Stroop test of domain-general cognitive control before, every 30 minutes during, and 30 minutes after exercise. Participants also completed a cognitive reappraisal task after exercise. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy tracked changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin levels in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Endurance exercise elevated positive emotion and cognitive reappraisal success. Endurance exercise reduced Stroop response time and test-evoked PFC oxygenation during exercise. Results suggest that even at relatively moderate intensities, endurance athletes benefit emotionally from running both during and after exercise, and task-related prefrontal cortex oxygenation reductions do not appear to hinder prefrontal-dependent cognitive control. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Views on addiction are often polarised - either addiction is a matter of choice, or addicts simply can't help themselves. But perhaps addiction falls between the two? This book contains views from philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and the law exploring this middle ground between free choice and no choice.

Metacognition, otherwise known as ‘thinking about one’s thinking,’ leads to greater academic success and is foundational. Given this importance, metacognitive behaviors need to be developed within early years contexts to provide young children the opportunity to practice these behaviors and receive feedback. However, literature continues to focus on the development of metacognition in later grades. This mixed methods study explored metacognition in eight Kindergarten classrooms. Participants included eight Kindergarten teachers, six early childhood educators (ECEs), and 80 students. Data collection was (...) conducted at two time periods separated by 12 weeks. Data collection included the Children’s Independent Learning Development (CHILD) measure, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. The quantitative data from the CHILD were analyzed using a paired samplest-test in SPSS. All qualitative data were analyzed thematically. Qualitatively, three themes were identified: (1) Conceptualization of metacognition, (2) Barriers to developing metacognition, and (3) Operationalization of strategies to facilitate metacognitive development. Evidence demonstrated that participants had incomplete conceptualizations of metacognition. Some articulated simple understandings by reporting the literal translation and were unable to articulate more fulsome conceptions. However, some teachers had more developed conceptions of metacognition that included different facets such as planning and reflective thinking. All participants were forthcoming with identifying ways in which they struggled with implementing metacognitive practices or encouraging the development of metacognition. These barriers included large classroom sizes, developmental readiness, and wide student ability. Despite having an incomplete understanding of metacognition, early years educators were trying a variety of different strategies to help promote metacognitive thinking within their Kindergarten classrooms. Surprisingly, teacher ratings using the CHILD did not change significantly from Time 1 (M= 1.88, SD = 0.744) to Time 2 (M= 1.85, SD = 0.66),t(72) = 0.72,p> 0.05. A similar trend was observed for ECE ratings using the CHILD as they did not change significantly from Time 1 (M= 1.89, SD = 0.70) to Time 2 (M= 1.80, SD = 0.79),t(52) = 1.36,p> 0.05. This research highlights empirical practices that Kindergarten educators can use to help facilitate metacognitive thinking. Furthermore, it identifies a need to better support Kindergarten educators by integrating practices aimed at developing metacognitive thinking in their students through explicit examples of strategies. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam (Cassam, Extremism, Routledge, 2022a) and Paul Katsafanas (Katsafanas, Philosopher’s Imprint 19:1–20, 2019) have argued that fanaticism and extremism are morally and epistemically vicious. I suggest an alternative approach that: (i) explains what makes fanaticism and extremism vicious in the very many cases in which they are; but also (ii) allows for cases in which fanaticism and extremism aren’t vices and may even be liberatory-virtues. My hope is that this approach might serve as a resource for those in liberatory (...) struggles. (shrink)

In §66 ofPhilosophical Investigations Wittgenstein looks for something common to various games and finds only an interconnecting network of resemblances. These are family resemblances. Sympathetic as well as unsympathetic readers have interpreted him as claiming that games form a family in virtue of these resemblances. This assumes Wittgenstein inverted the relation between being a member of a family and bearing family resemblances to others of that family. (The Churchills bear family resemblances to one another because they belong to the same (...) family, they don't belong to the same family because they resemble one another.) A close reading ofInvestigations gives no evidence that Wittgenstein made this mistake. Rather, family resemblances may play a role like the one criteria play for psychological terms. They give excellent but fallible evidence for membership in the extensions of some terms. (shrink)

One branch of virtue epistemology, Virtue-Responsibilism, has argued that the intellectual virtues are analogous in structure to Aristotelian moral virtues. Like Aristotelian moral virtues, intellectual virtues are acquired dispositions of motivation, emotion, action, and perception. Responsibilists argue that intellectual virtues, e.g., open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual autonomy, are praiseworthy character traits, over which we have some control and for which we are responsible. If Responsibilism is correct, is there a distinction between moral virtues and intellectual virtues? I address two different (...) arguments for the claim that there is a distinction, in the sense that the intellectual virtues are a special subset of the moral virtues. Both Linda Zagzebski and Jason Baehr have argued that the criteria for intellectual virtue include all of the criteria for moral virtue, but also include additional criteria that set the intellectual virtues apart from other moral virtues. I contend that Zagzebski’s and Baehr’s arguments fail. Ultimately, we won’t be able to determine whether Responsibilist intellectual virtues are distinct from moral virtues until we decide on the scope of ‘the moral’ and ‘moral virtue’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The 12–Minute JourneyHeather A. CarlsonI met Jack for the first time when he was in the intensive care unit as he was just waking up from his emergent tracheostomy surgery. As I walked into his room he opened his eyes in panic and he struggled to take in a deep breath, fighting the ventilator that was trying to deliver slow steady breaths for him. His face was flooded with (...) fear and the ventilator alarms were blaring. He was surrounded by nurses and respiratory technicians all trying to calm him down, while adjusting the settings on the machine. “Just try and breathe slowly,” they instructed him, though this seemed to be impossible for him as he continued to try and suck in as much air as possible through the new hole in his throat. As his arm flailed out I grabbed his hand and while holding it in mine I just tried to emulate tranquility for him. I thought to myself this is exactly how I would react if I woke up in this condition and could imagine the fear that he was now feeling. While nurses rushed around with suction equipment and the respiratory technicians made adjustments and monitored the results I stood there holding his hand silently praying that he become calm. With all of our support he did eventually relax and find the ability to sync his breathing with the ventilator settings.I am a palliative care nurse practitioner and had been asked to see Jack to help with symptom management and establishing his goals of care as he had recently been diagnosed with head and neck cancer. He had presented to the hospital with complaints of difficulty breathing and it didn’t take long for the emergency room physician to determine that his airway was almost completely occluded by tumor. Jack had actually been diagnosed with this cancer the month before, and had met with a radiation oncologist who planned to start radiation as soon as possible to avoid tumor growth that could impair his breathing. Unfortunately Jack was so anxious and scared about this treatment plan that he never went back to the cancer center. Instead, he stayed in his room in the boarding house that he lived in, smoking cigarettes to calm his nerves. Jack was a recovering alcoholic who had previously been homeless and out on the streets for many years before becoming sober and finding shelter at the boarding house where he now lived. He was a heavy smoker and found that it was one thing that helped to ease his anxiety. The thought of being strapped down to a table with a tight mask over his head while radiation zapped the cancer in his neck had terrified him. His anxiety and claustrophobia had prevented him from following through with his cancer treatment.My initial visits with Jack were spent trying to treat his anxiety as well as the pain he experienced in his neck and head.Because he had undergone a tracheostomy and was now on a ventilator he was unable to speak. To communicate he pointed to a picture board that had common sayings on it, like “I have pain” and “I have to go to the bathroom”. He also used a clipboard with paper and pen and could write what he wanted to say, but this was a time consuming endeavor. Despite this, he was a very animated gentleman who had a lot to say and he wasn’t going to let the loss of his voice impair him. I found myself enjoying my visits with him each day, as he would tell me more about himself. I quickly discovered that he was a very spiritual man and his faith was his inspiration. He wrote on his clipboard “this cancer is actually a gift” and went on to explain that he had been on a fast track toward self destruction, but now feels as though he has been given another chance at life. He spent his time in the hospital reflecting on his life’s journey and how he would be able to help others in similar circumstances. He wrote on his [End Page 192] clipboard multiple... (shrink)

This paper investigates whether search engines and other new modes of online communication should be covered by free speech principles. It criticizes the analogical reason-ing that contemporary American courts and scholars have used to liken search engines to newspapers, and to extend free speech coverage to them based on that likeness. There are dissimilarities between search engines and newspapers that undermine the key analogy, and also rival analogies that can be drawn which don’t recommend free speech protection for search engines. (...) Partly on these bases, we argue that an analogical approach to questions of free speech coverage is of limited use in this context. Credible verdicts about how free speech principles should apply to new modes of online com-munication require us to re-excavate the normative foundations of free speech. This method for deciding free speech coverage suggests that only a subset of search engine outputs and similar online communication should receive special protection against government regulation. (shrink)

In Coming to Our Senses, Michael Devitt insists that if we are going to argue about what meanings are, we should know why we care. He reasonably observes that unless we agree about this, we are likely to be arguing past one another. The meanings Devitt discusses are token meanings of individual thoughts and utterances. He holds that these meanings are properties, and that we have two purposes for attributing them to thoughts and utterances: to predict and explain a subject’s (...) behavior, and to learn about the world. If a property attributed to a thought by means of a t-clause serves either of these purposes then that property plays a semantic role. A meaning is any property that plays a semantic role. (shrink)

Damon Tweedy is a psychiatrist, lawyer, and writer. He's also Black. While in his first year as a medical student at Duke University, one of his professors approached him in the classroom and asked why the light bulb in the room hadn't been changed, as requested. Tweedy realized that his professor assumed he was a maintenance worker, not a student. Tweedy never took up this incident with the professor, nor did the professor ever apologize. Tweedy recounts that his best "revenge" (...) would be to excel in the class, which he ultimately did. At the end of the semester, upon learning that Tweedy received the second highest grade of over one hundred students, this professor invited him to work as a research assistant in his... (shrink)

I’m sick of being treated like a dumb Mum who doesn’t understand the science. As far as I’m concerned, my family’s health is just too important. … If the government can’t protect the safety of my family, then I will.Recent Greenpeace activism in Australia resulted in the destruction of a field trial of a line of wheat “designed” to improve human nutrition. This incident demonstrates that, while there is significant ongoing public and private investment in genetically modified crop research and (...) development in Australia, many people continue to oppose GM foods strongly. We noted with interest that Greenpeace described this activism with language that explicitly connected the actions to the gender.. (shrink)

In her impressive book, looking at the philosophy and science of well-being, Anna Alexandrova argues for the strong claim that we possess no stable, unified concept of well-being. Instead, she thinks the word “well-being” only comes to have a specific meaning in particular contexts, and has a quite different meaning in different contexts. I take issue with (1) her claim that we do not possess a unified, all-things-considered concept of well-being as well as with (2) her failure to consider why (...) we might want a unified concept. I grant that Alexandrova is probably correct that the word “well-being” is used differently in different contexts. But this only shows that one word can come to be used to express different concepts. Moreover, noting that several concepts exist that are picked out by “well-being” doesn’t establish that we lack altogether a notion of all-things-considered well-being. I believe we have such a concept, even though it is not always the concept in play. Moreover, I think we need such a concept. The conceptual muddles Alexandrova highlights—muddles that result from a single word being used to express multiple ideas—remind us how important it is to be able to distinguish different concepts from one another, as well as how important it is to periodically remind ourselves of how various forms of specialist dialogue relate back to the broader, more general notion of “well-being.”. (shrink)

The intersection of ethics, religion, theology, and peace studies is intensifying through increasingly multi‐disciplinary, contextual, explicitly normative scholarship. This book discussion demonstrates this claim through its profiles of an introduction to Christian ethics by Ellen Ott Marshall, a case study of the School of the Americas Watch by Kyle B. T. Lambelet, a case study of the American Jewish Palestine solidarity movement by Atalia Omer, and a global, historical study of Christian ethics by Cecilia Lynch. Though their methods and subjects (...) vary, these authors are collectively renewing a history of mutual enrichment between religious ethics and peace studies, employing theories of lived, ambivalent religion. To begin, this essay provides introductory remarks about the field of peace studies, highlighting the evolving involvement of religious actors. To conclude, it makes a plea for greater use of conflict theory and peace practice in religious ethics. (shrink)

The ethics of biobanking is one of the most controversial issues in current bioethics and public health debates. For some, biobanks offer the possibility of unprecedented advances which will revolutionise research and improve the health of future generations. For others they are worrying repositories of personal information and tissue which will be used without sufficient respect for those from whom they came. Wherever one stands on this spectrum, from an ethics perspective biobanks are revolutionary. Traditional ethical safeguards of informed consent (...) and confidentiality, for example, simply don’t work for the governance of biobanks and as a result new ethical structures are required. Thus it is not too great a claim to say that biobanks require a rethinking of our ethical assumptions and frameworks which we have applied generally to other issues in ethics. This paper maps the key challenges and controversies of biobanking ethics; it considers; informed consent (its problems in biobanking and possibilities of participants’ withdrawal), broad consent, the problems of confidentiality, ownership, property and comercialisation issues, feedback to participants and the ethics of re-contact. (shrink)

Abstract:John Dewey argued that for education to be democratic, it is important for students to be not merely spectators but also participants in learning. Teachers sometimes find personal computing devices to be distracting or to contribute to passivity rather than activity in the classroom. In this essay we examine the question of whether a student’s Google search on a subject matter discussed in class is participatory or passive. We argue that with proper guidance students’ use of online searches and related (...) tools can empower students democratically as sources of ideas, conceptualizations, information, and insight while emphasizing participation in deliberation and judgment in the classroom. We begin with a look at the criticisms and then defenses of using online tools in the classroom. Finally, we examine Dewey’s distinction between the spectator versus the participant models of learning to apply his insights to the use of online tools in the classroom. (shrink)

With increasing appreciation that the Y2K problem may turn out to have unpredictable and potentially far-reaching effects, we are faced with what in some ways resembles the looming global ecological crisis, only this time what is at stake are not vital ecosystem services but rather the vital structures of our highly complex socially constructed reality—and this time we have a date-certain deadline for the onset of the crisis. Regardless of what actually happens when the calendar turns from 1999 to 2000, (...) this period of waiting for the millennium bug can be a productive one if it induces some of us to contemplate what things we actually depend upon to sustain our lives and, utilizing John Searle's analysis, in what ways we might reconstruct our social reality if faced with the opportunity—and why we haven't begun to do so sooner. (shrink)

With increasing appreciation that the Y2K problem may turn out to have unpredictable and potentially far-reaching effects, we are faced with what in some ways resembles the looming global ecological crisis, only this time what is at stake are not vital ecosystem services but rather the vital structures of our highly complex socially constructed reality—and this time we have a date-certain deadline for the onset of the crisis. Regardless of what actually happens when the calendar turns from 1999 to 2000, (...) this period of waiting for the millennium bug can be a productive one if it induces some of us to contemplate what things we actually depend upon to sustain our lives and, utilizing John Searle's analysis, in what ways we might reconstruct our social reality if faced with the opportunity—and why we haven't begun to do so sooner. (shrink)