Recent interest in maximal proper acceleration as a possible principle generalizing the theory of relativity can draw on the differential geometry of tangent bundles, pioneered by K. Yano, E. T. Davies, and S. Ishihara. The differential equations of geodesics of the spacetime tangent bundle are reduced and investigated in the special case of a Riemannian spacetime base manifold. Simple relations are described between the natural lift of ordinary spacetime geodesics and geodesics in the spacetime tangent bundle.

Responding to a major pandemic and planning for allocation of scarce resources under crisis standards of care requires coordination and cooperation across federal, state and local governments in tandem with the larger societal infrastructure. Maryland remains one of the few states with no state-endorsed ASR plan, despite having a plan published in 2017 that was informed by public forums across the state. In this article, we review strengths and weaknesses of Maryland’s response to COVID-19 and the role of the Maryland (...) Healthcare Ethics Committee Network in bridging gaps in the state’s response to prepare health care facilities for potential implementation of ASR plans. Identified “lessons learned” include: Deliberative Democracy Provided a Strong Foundation for Maryland’s ASR Framework; Community Consensus is Informative, Not Normative; Hearing Community Voices Has Inherent Value; Lack of Transparency & Political Leadership Gaps Generate a Fragmented Response; Pandemic Politics Requires Diplomacy & Persistence; Strong Leadership is Needed to Avoid Implementing ASR … And to Plan for ASR; An Effective Pandemic Response Requires Coordination and Information-Sharing Beyond the Acute Care Hospital; and The Ability to Correct Course is Crucial: Reconsidering No-visitor Policies. (shrink)

I argue, in opposition, to the traditional approach that systematic psychological inquiry of a type frequently practiced by people like Edwards, Kahneman and Tversky, and Schum is relevant to the choice of the best inductive logic. In the paper, I present some provisional arguments against the traditional view and sketch some of the relevant evidence. This effort is made with the aim of aiding the development of a naturalistic epistemology.

Philosophers of science have recently been urged by Arthur Fine to collaborate with physicists and with other scientists in constructing scientific theories.2 What I am proposing is a collaboration at the other pole of scientific activity; the pole of experiment.I consider this effort to be part of a tendency within philosophy to naturalize epistemology. The banner of naturalistic epistemology has attracted such men as Quine and Goldman. I consider the effort as one small part of that program which involves not (...) only theoretical integration of at least portions of the two corpuses of knowledge, but the employment of methodologies which are common to them both.The theory of inductive logic today is in stasis. A number of highly ingenious and very sophisticated theories of inference vie for primacy. As in the case of many philosophical theses, no closure seems in sight. (shrink)

Since rationality is a normative ideal, it is difficult to see how a theory of rationality might be subjected to empirical evaluation. This paper explores various aspects of this problem in relation to the work of L. J. Cohen, Amos Tversky and Daviel Kahneman, Ellery Eells, Isaac Levi, and Henry Kyburg. Special consideration is given to its significance for testing systems of inductive logic.

The claim is made that the norms for justified belief in science require a complex structure of practices and institutional arrangements, that these arrangements have a history which, at crucial junctures, are subject to severe stress, that such severe stress puts at issue the whole epistemic structure of science, and that at present science faces one of these periods, and its future is in doubt.

Though it has become a commonplace that probabilistic contexts are intentional, the precise sense in which this is true has never, to my knowledge, been stated. By making use of a relatively non-controversial set of distinctions regarding the grades of modal involvement, I am able to state more exactly than has been done previously the grade of intensionality which probability statements have prima facie. The distinctions I employ are, with certain qualifications, those introduced by Quine in his wellknown paper, Three (...) Grades of Modal Involvement. By means of paraphrases, I am able to show that probability statements exemplify what Quine calls the third grade of modal involvement. Consequently, they are intensional in a way not acceptable to the majority of extensionalists. (shrink)

In 1945–46, representatives of the U.S. government made similar discoveries in both Germany and Japan, unearthing evidence of unethical experiments on human beings that could be viewed as war crimes. The outcomes in the two defeated nations, however, were strikingly different. In Germany, the United States, influenced by the Canadian physician John Thompson, played a key role in bringing Nazi physicians to trial and publicizing their misdeeds. In Japan, the United States played an equally key role in concealing information about (...) the biological warfare experiments and in securing immunity from prosecution for the perpetrators. The greater force of appeals to national security and wartime exigency help to explain these different outcomes. (shrink)

The present study applies a new method for investigating dynamic unconscious processes. The method consists of selection of words from patient interview and test protocols that in the clinicians' judgments capture the patients' conscious symptom experience and the hypothetical unconscious conflict related to the symptom, subliminal and supraliminal presentation of these words, signal analysis of event-related potentials obtained to the word presentations. Eight phobics and three patients suffering from pathological grief reactions served as subjects. A time-frequency ERP analysis revealed that (...) subjects' ERPs classified the unconscious conflict words better subliminally than supraliminally, while the reverse was true for the conscious symptom words = 2.82, p = .011). The relationship between frequency and latency revealed a similar mirror image pattern for the unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words . This method demonstrated that objective, brain-based evidence for unconscious conflict can be obtained. (shrink)

23andMe not only sells genetic testing but also uses customer data in its R&D activities and commercial partnerships. This raises questions about transparency and informed consent. Based on a online survey conducted in 2017–18, we examine attitudes of 368 customers of 23andMe toward the company's use of their data. Our findings point at divides in the context of customers' awareness of the two-sided business model of DTC genetics and their attitudes toward consent. While most of our respondents (68%) were aware (...) that 23andMe could store their data and use it for certain purposes without their consent, over 40% were not aware that using and sharing customer data was part of the business model. Views were also divided regarding what type of consent was most appropriate. We explore the implications of these divides for participatory research and for the importance of transparency and trust in commercially-driven scientific knowledge production. (shrink)

Until recently, psychologists have conceptualised and studied trust in God (TIG) largely in isolation from contemporary work in theology, philosophy, history, and biblical studies that has examined the topic with increasing clarity. In this article, we first review the primary ways that psychologists have conceptualised and measured TIG. Then, we draw on conceptualizations of TIG outside the psychology of religion to provide a conceptual map for how TIG might be related to theorised predictors and outcomes. Finally, we provide a research (...) agenda for future empirical work in this area, as well as practical applications for counsellors and religious leaders. (shrink)

Darwin himself suggested the idea of generalizing the core Darwinian principles to cover the evolution of social entities. Also in the nineteenth century, influential social scientists proposed their extension to political society and economic institutions. Nevertheless, misunderstanding and misrepresentation have hindered the realization of the powerful potential in this longstanding idea. Some critics confuse generalization with analogy. Others mistakenly presume that generalizing Darwinism necessarily involves biological reductionism. This essay outlines the types of phenomena to which a generalized Darwinism applies, and (...) upholds that there is no reason to exclude social or economic entities. (shrink)