Society has historically not taken a benign view of genetic disease. The laws permitting sterilization of the mentally re tarded~ and those proscribing consanguineous marriages are but two examples. Indeed as far back as the 5th-10th centuries, B.C.E., consanguineous unions were outlawed (Leviticus XVIII, 6). Case law has traditionally tended toward the conservative. It is reactive rather than directive, exerting its influence only after an individual or group has sustained injury and brought suit. In contrast, state legislatures have not (...) been inhibited in enacting statutes. Many of their products can be characterized as hasty, unnecessary, ill-conceived, and based on the heart rather than the head. Moreover the lack of expert consultation sought has also been remarkable. One state legislature, for example, has advocated immunization for sickle cell anemia! Many others have enacted laws for the screening of inborn errors of metabolism, e.g., phenylketon uria, but have poorly defined the lines of responsibility to secure compliance. A spate of specific disease-related bills has emerged in the u.S. Congress, each seeking recognition and appropriations. Sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, Cooley's anemia and Tay-Sachs disease have been among the front-runners for support. Finally, in 1975, Congress has begun to examine an omnibus bill concerning all forms of genetic disease. The bill, termed the National Genetic Diseases Act is, however, still far from being enacted. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971, this volume examines the relationship between the history and sociology of education. History does not stand in isolation, but has much to draw from and contribute to, other disciplines. The methods and concepts of sociology, in particular, are exerting increasing influence on historical studies, especially the history of education. Since education is considered to be part of the social system, historians and sociologists have come to survey similar fields; yet each discipline appears to have its (...) own aims and methodology. (shrink)

Celem niniejszego artykułu jest analiza odnalezionych przez autorkę rękopisów Augusta Antoniego Jakubowskiego, które są pierwszymi znanymi materiałami zapisanymi ręką poety. Do tej pory badacze dysponowali jedynie źródłami drukowanymi lub odpisami wykonanymi przez osoby trzecie. Rękopisy ujawnione w kolekcji Simona Gratza w zbiorach Historical Society of Pennsylvania składają się z dwóch części (czystopisu i brudnopisu), obejmując łącznie 5 stron wierszy podpisanych nazwiskiem Jakubowskiego. Omawiane rękopisy stanowią reprezentatywny przykład wszechstronnych umiejętności pisarskich i poetyckiej dykcji Jakubowskiego oraz pokazują jego osobowość (...) twórczą w nowym oświetleniu. Nie tylko przynoszą nową wiedzę o dorobku poety, jego zainteresowaniach lekturowych, wrażliwości i podjętym wysiłku adaptacji w USA, ale także umożliwiają usytuowanie znanych utworów w nowej perspektywie badawczej oraz odzyskanie utraconego sensu wierszy zagubionych lub przepisywanych obcą ręką. Robocze zapiski Jakubowskiego pozwalają „podejrzeć” poezję _in statu nascendi_, wniknąć w proces twórczy poety oraz dostarczyć nowych informacji o jego warsztacie pisarskim. (shrink)

Scholars have focused on algorithms used during sentencing, bail, and parole, but little work explores what we term “carceral algorithms” that are used during incarceration. This paper is focused on the Pennsylvania Additive Classification Tool used to classify prisoners’ custody levels while they are incarcerated. Algorithms that are used during incarceration warrant deeper attention by scholars because they have the power to enact the lived reality of the prisoner. The algorithm in this case determines the likelihood a person would (...) endure additional disciplinary actions, can complete required programming, and gain experiences that, among other things, are distilled into variables feeding into the parole algorithm. Given such power, examining algorithms used on people currently incarcerated offers a unique analytic view to think about the dialectic relationship between data and algorithms. Our examination of the PACT is two-fold and complementary. First, our qualitative overview of the historical context surrounding PACT reveals that it is designed to prioritize incapacitation and control over rehabilitation. While it closely informs prisoner rehabilitation plans and parole considerations, it is rooted in population management for prison securitization. Second, on analyzing data for 146,793 incarcerated people in PA, along with associated metadata related to the PACT, we find it is replete with racial bias as well as errors, omissions, and inaccuracies. Our findings to date further caution against data-driven criminal justice reforms that rely on pre-existing data infrastructures and expansive, uncritical, data-collection routines. (shrink)

Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits.

Steven ShapinThe Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. 552 pgs.

Notwithstanding the numerous critiques that have been leveled at the field of positive psychology over its short history, the field and its practitioners continue to enjoy substantial growth and popularity. Although several factors have no doubt contributed to their advancement, work in the field of science studies suggests that rhetorical demarcation in scientific writing, by which scientific fields establish their domains and distinguish themselves from other forms of intellectual activity, may be equally significant. Such “boundary work” is an important means (...) through which fields defeat their competitors, persuade their public, and compete for legitimacy. In light of this, I examine the discursive demarcation and legitimization of positive psychology as performed through historical narratives of its origins in its own writings. I offer an analysis of the ways in which these narratives exploit alternating and contradictory images of scientists, legitimate scientific activity, and in particular, images of American society, to perform the ideological and rhetorical work of describing, and making visible, the kinds of issues and problems for which positive psychology presents itself as the natural solution. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Islamic family law plays a significant role in minimizing the unpleasant effects of the family break up faced by the divorced women and their children by protecting their rights to financial support after divorce. This study undertakes to discuss the historical development of the financial rights after divorce applicable among the Muslims in the pre and post colonial periods, particularly with reference to the iddah maintenance, mut’ah, arrears of maintenance, and child maintenance. The study indicates that despite the provisions (...) were inconformity with the Islamic principles, the applications were restricted and influenced by the Shafi’i madhhab. However, the amount of iddah maintenance and mut’ah were substantial taking into account the standard of living of the Malay society in the 15th and 16th century. This means that the welfare of the divorced women was taken care of since the codification of the Islamic law and its implementation in the Malay society. (shrink)

Endangered species are objects of intense scientific scrutiny and political conflict. This article focuses on the interplay among human-nonhuman relations, knowledge production, and the politics of endangerment. Advancing a historical ontology of endangerment, it highlights the role of transforming the nonhuman world in the coming to be of new objects of environmental knowledge. Such knowledge can provide the basis for credible claims of endangerment, facilitating mobilizations against the very human-nonhuman relations that produced it. An in-depth case study of the (...) delta smelt, an endangered species of fish caught in the center of California’s “water wars,” shows how changes in the instrumentalization of the nonhuman environment can produce new knowledge of nature that allows actors to make claims and form coalitions that would be otherwise inconceivable. Because its sole habitat is the hub of California’s water delivery system, efforts to save the species from extinction have reduced flows to farms and cities, fomenting conflict between environmentalists and water users. This article demonstrates that the taxonomic classification of the delta smelt as a species and evidence of its decline arose directly from the reengineering of California’s rivers for extractive ends. Ironically, the knowledge on which environmental advocates relied was a product of the instrumental relation to nature that they sought to transform. (shrink)

In the perspective of cultural history, "health" is a late 18th century construct. It appears as a term that legitimates the organized concern for the well-being of others. Under the banner of health, institutionalized intervention related to the redefinition and management of women's bodies multiply during the 19th century. Recent women's studies have amply documented the sexist use to which the new health-related concepts have been put. But the semantic reconstruction of the female body as an implicit result of the (...) new scientific concepts has unfortunately attracted less attention. Because it is precisely in the mirror of gynecology that the insidious new dependence of the citizen's well-being from professional management can be best studied. The historical study of body images and related scientific themes is fundamental to the critique of the now prevalent ideology of "health.". (shrink)

In recent decades, the development of sciences and technologies had a significant impact in society. This impact has been object of analysis from several standpoints, i.e., scientific, communication, historical and anthropological. Consequently, serious changes were required by the society. One of these has been the emerging relationship science in society and its foundations of applied sciences. A related foundational challenging is the educational process, which was and still is an unlimited challenge for teachers and professors: i.e., (...) levels of understanding, curricula, activing critical engagement, transfer knowledge—and—skills, management, classroom and subsequently pre-service teachers need special teacher education. Taking into account Joule’s bicentenary commemoration in physics and Nature of Science teaching this paper introduces to a level of inquiring within historical and NoS approaches in the pre-service teachers, typically science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In particular, history and historiography of Joule’s physics are dealt with. (shrink)

In recent decades, the development of sciences and technologies had a significant impact in society. This impact has been object of analysis from several standpoints, i.e., scientific, communication, historical and anthropological. Consequently, serious changes were required by the society. One of these has been the emerging relationship science in society and its foundations of applied sciences. A related foundational challenging is the educational process, which was and still is an unlimited challenge for teachers and professors: i.e., (...) levels of understanding, curricula, activing critical engagement, transfer knowledge—and—skills, management, classroom and subsequently pre-service teachers need special teacher education. Taking into account Joule’s bicentenary commemoration in physics and Nature of Science teaching (NoS) this paper introduces to a level of inquiring within historical and NoS approaches in the pre-service teachers, typically science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In particular, history and historiography of Joule’s physics (e.g., his arguments on electric–magnetic engine, mechanical equivalent of heat and free expansion) are dealt with. (shrink)

The article summarizes the content of Andreas Reckwitz’s book The Society of Singularities in 10 theses and briefly links it to the author’s overall work. The Society of Singularities applies a practice theory approach in order to outline a theory of Western (late-)modernity which recognizes in it a basic rivalry between two logics of social evaluation: a social logic of the general and a social logic of the particular/ singular. The question arises which historical causes for the (...) surge of the social logic of uniqueness since the 1980s can be discerned, which structural features this type of society unfolds and which social and political consequences it has. (shrink)

El artículo describe aspectos significativos de la conformación histórica del método clínico y hace referencia a personalidades que influyeron desde la medicina hipocrática hasta el siglo XX, detallándose los valores éticos y morales que lo caracterizaban y sus desafíos ante la sociedad. Se significa la necesidad de una reforma de pensamiento de los profesionales de la Medicina, que permita abrir nuevas perspectivas y contribuya a la reflexión siendo revertido en una conducta humanista y atención médica con calidad, con la respectiva (...) satisfacción de la población tal como se pide en los lineamientos del Partido. The article describes significant aspects of the historical formation of the clinical method and refers to personalities that influenced since The Hippocratic Medicine until the 20th Century, making emphasis on the ethical and moral values that characterized it and its challenges before the society. The need for a reform of the medical professionals thinking is meant, which allows to open new perspectives and contributes to the reflection being reversed in a humanist behaviour and a qualified medical care, with the respective satisfaction of the population as requested in the guidelines of the party. (shrink)

This Dictionary provides a wide range of coverage on a topic that has played a significant role in human society, from the early theoreticians and thinkers who proposed republican, democratic, and authoritarian innovations; to those who sought equality of classes, races, and genders; to those who insisted on hierarchy under a supreme leader, or god; and to those who had more practical economic, social, and ethical plans. This historical dictionary covers the most vital information on the persons, plans, (...) and attempts associated with utopianism that have been seen since ancient times. An introductory essay, chronology, 600 dictionary entries, an extensive bibliography, and an appendix listing the names and locations of utopian communities worldwide enable the reader to explore the Western mind's desire to improve the world and the lives of the people within it as utopianism has persisted over the centuries. (shrink)

Historical Aspects of Standard Negation in Semitic. By Ambjörn Sjörs. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 91. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xv + 478. $140.

Changes in society lead to changes in science, changing its fundamental foundations - ideological and value, methodological and instrumental foundations. In turn, a change in the scientific paradigm leads to social change. A situation of this kind is especially evident in the socio-political sciences, since it is they who are more affected by social reality. The nature of postmodern societies is such that its economic component generates a huge number of subcultures, in the scientific world it is called "subcultural (...) explosion." Postmodern societies are societies of permanent changes: consumer standards, moral values, political structure, and so on, repeatedly change during the life of one generation, significantly affect the search for the truth of science and its understanding. In the list of various questions of truth, its character, origin, postmodern departs from objective truth, therefore it becomes contextual and consensus. Theories are replaced by approaches, views, points of view, thoughts. Scientific concepts with their strict certainty change concepts, in which under the same name everyone puts their own meaning and essence. According to this, in postmodernism, not only the scientific paradigm as a model of scientific activity is changing, but the purpose of science, its understanding as a special activity with the search for truth, is changing. This implies a review of the attitude to the "organizational forms" of science, that is, the way in which scientific knowledge is disseminated to the professional scientific community to search for truth, which in its classical understanding no longer exists. (shrink)

Growing awareness of the ethical implications of neuroscience in the early years of the 21st century led to the emergence of the new academic field of “neuroethics,” which studies the ethical implications of developments in the neurosciences. However, despite the acceleration and evolution of neuroscience research on nonhuman animals, the unique ethical issues connected with neuroscience research involving nonhuman animals remain underdiscussed. This is a significant oversight given the central place of animal models in neuroscience. To respond to these concerns, (...) the Center for Neuroscience and Society and the Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of Pennsylvania hosted a workshop on the “Neuroethics of Animal Research” in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the workshop, expert speakers and attendees discussed ethical issues arising from neuroscience research involving nonhuman animals, including the use of animal models in the study of pain and psychiatric conditions, animal brain-machine interfaces, animal–animal chimeras, cerebral organoids, and the relevance of neuroscience to debates about personhood. This paper highlights important emerging ethical issues based on the discussions at the workshop. This paper includes recommendations for research in the United States from the authors based on the discussions at the workshop, loosely following the format of the 2 Gray Matters reports on neuroethics published by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. (shrink)