In a recent article in Philosophy of Science Janet Travis [13] seeks to refute the argument for evolutionary progressivism which is based on a series of dominant life forms on the grounds that there is no rigorous definition of that concept. In particular she claims that the definitions formulated by Sir Julian Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson fail adequately to exclude any group of organisms. The concept of dominance is therefore alleged to be meaningless and the argument for progress invalid.

This article examines the political perspective of corporate social responsibility from the standpoint of normative Islam. We argue that large firms within Muslim majority countries have the moral obligation to assist governments in addressing challenges related to sustainable socioeconomic development and in advancing human rights. In substantiating our argument, we draw upon the Islamic business ethics, stakeholder theory, and corporate governance literatures, as well as the concepts of Maqasid al Shariah (the objectives of Islamic law) and fard al ‘ayn (obligation (...) upon all individuals within society) versus fard al kifayah (obligation upon some individuals within society) to introduce a normative model elucidating critical Islamic precepts. Finally, we propose an Islamic “political” corporate governance framework, which democratizes firm decision making by embedding “core” stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Shariah scholars in the corporate board, thereby enhancing the ability of businesses to respond to stakeholder concerns and priorities, while mitigating interstakeholder and intraboard power asymmetries. (shrink)

In the United States, a longstanding legal rule exists against patenting natural phenomena. The Supreme Court recently had an opportunity to help define the boundaries and clarify the implications of this “natural phenomenon doctrine” in Laboratory Corporation of America v. Metabolite Labs., dismissed as improvidently granted. This article argues that the natural phenomenon doctrine renders both the patent claim at issue in LabCorp, and the patents that directly or indirectly claim biological correlations between genotypes and medical phenotypes, invalid or unenforceable (...) under U.S. patent law. (shrink)

Molecular genetic testing has increasingly been incorporated into clinical medicine, and this trend is likely to accelerate in the future. The introduction of genetic testing into medical practice is beginning to collide head on with patents that claim ownership of correlations between human genetic variants and predisposition to disease, response to therapeutic drugs, and susceptibility to pharmacologic side effects. Patent holders or licensees of genes, genetic variants, and their genotype-phenotype correlations are already using the threat of litigation to monopolize genetic (...) tests for important well-known syndromes like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and inherited breast and ovarian cancer, in addition to a host of less commonly discussed conditions. (shrink)

Postnatally, heart muscle cells almost completely lose their ability to divide, which makes their loss after trauma irreversible. Potential repair by cell grafting or mobilizing endogenous cells is of particular interest for possible treatments for heart disease, where the poor capacity for cardiomyocyte proliferation probably contributes to the irreversibility of heart failure. Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that underly formation of heart muscle cells might provide opportunities to repair the diseased heart by induction of (trans) differentiation of endogenous or exogenous (...) cells into heart muscle cells. We briefly review the molecular mechanisms involved in early development of the linear heart tube by differentiation of mesodermal cells into heart muscle cells. Because the initial heart tube does not comprise all the cardiac compartments present in the adult heart, heart muscle cells are added to the distal borders of the tube and within the tube. At both distal borders, mesodermal cell are recruited into the cardiac lineage and, within the heart tube, muscular septa are formed. In this review, the relative late additions of heart muscle cells to the linear heart tube are described and the potential underlying molecular mechanisms are discussed. BioEssays 26:248–261, 2004. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This study investigates potential differences in attitudes towards corporate social responsibility between Saudis and Muslims from other predominately Islamic countries. We propose that Saudi Arabia’s unique rentier-state welfare and higher education systems account for these distinctions. In evaluating our propositions, we replicate Brammer et al. :229–243, 2007) survey on attitudes towards CSR using a sample of Saudi undergraduate and graduate business students and compare the results against data from subjects in other majority Muslim countries. In addition, this work examines possible (...) differences within the Saudi sample with respect to sex and academic level. Our results indicate that our Saudi subjects maintain higher expectations for corporations’ social responsibility within their supply chain than the Brammer et al.’s sample. In contrast, Muslims in the Brammer et al.’s sample hold higher expectations for corporations in supporting societal development and poverty alleviation in comparison to the Saudi sample. We also find within the Saudi sample that females and subjects at higher academic levels are more inclined to hold corporations responsible for social issues related to CSR than males and subjects in lower academic levels. We examine these findings, explore their implications, and propose areas for future research. (shrink)

In our target article, we took the position that tenure conveys many important benefits but that its original justification – fostering academic freedom – is not one of them. Here we respond to various criticisms of our study as well as to proposals to remedy the current state of affairs. Undoubtedly, more research is needed to confirm and extend our findings, but the most reasonable conclusion remains the one we offered – that the original rationale for tenure is poorly served (...) by the current system as practiced at top-ranked colleges and universities. (Published Online February 8 2007). (shrink)

BackgroundKnowledge development depends on an unbiased representation of the available evidence. Selective citation may distort this representation. Recently, some controversy emerged regarding the possible impact of swimming on childhood asthma, raising the question about the role of selective citation in this field. Our objective was to assess the occurrence and determinants of selective citation in scientific publications on the relationship between swimming in chlorinated pools and childhood asthma.MethodsWe identified scientific journal articles on this relationship via a systematic literature search. The (...) following factors were taken into account: study outcome (authors’ conclusion, data-based conclusion), other content-related article characteristics (article type, sample size, research quality, specificity), content-unrelated article characteristics (language, publication title, funding source, number of authors, number of affiliations, number of references, journal impact factor), author characteristics (gender, country, affiliation), and citation characteristics (time to citation, authority, self-citation). To assess the impact of these factors on citation, we performed a series of univariate and adjusted random-effects logistic regressions, with potential citation path as unit of analysis.ResultsThirty-six articles were identified in this network, consisting of 570 potential citation paths of which 191 (34%) were realized. There was strong evidence that articles with at least one author in common, cited each other more often than articles that had no common authors (odds ratio (OR) 5.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.1–8.8). Similarly, the chance of being cited was higher for articles that were empirical rather than narrative (OR 4.2, CI 2.6–6.7), that reported a large sample size (OR 5.8, CI 2.9–11.6), and that were written by authors with a high authority within the network (OR 4.1, CI 2.1–8.0). Further, there was some evidence for citation bias: articles that confirmed the relation between swimming and asthma were cited more often (OR 1.8, CI 1.1–2.9), but this finding was not robust.ConclusionsThere is clear evidence of selective citation in this research field, but the evidence for citation bias is not very strong. (shrink)

Since William Jones announced the kinship of Sanskrit and the European languages, a massive body of scholarship has illuminated the development of the so-called "Indo-European" language group. This new historical philology has enormous technical achievements to its credit. But almost from the start, it became entangled with prejudices and myths--with efforts to recreate not only the lost language, but also the lost--and superior--civilization of the Indo-European ancestors. This drive to determine the identity and nature of the first language of humanity (...) was deeply rooted in both near eastern and western traditions. The Bible described the perfect, transparent language of Adam and followed its degeneration, caused by human sin, into the multiple, opaque languages of later nations. The three sons of Noah became, for Jewish and early Christian writers, the founders of three distinct human groups. By the sixth and seventh centuries, historians began to magnify the deeds of certain later peoples, such as the Scythians and Goths, and to connect them with the biblical genealogy of languages and races. And in the Renaissance, speculative historical etymology took root and flourished, as national pride led European intellectuals to assert that their own modern languages--for example, Flemish--either could be identified with the original one or offered the closest surviving approximation to it. Japheth, Noah's favorite son and the forefather of the Europeans, emerged as the hero who had preserved the original language in its purity. A new history of the European languages developed, one which traced them back to the language of the barbarian Scythians and emphasized the connections between Persian and European languages. It came to seem implausible that the European languages derived from Hebrew. By the eighteenth century, in short, all the preconditions were present for a discovery that the ancestors of the Europeans, like the common ancestor of their languages, had been independent of Semitic influence. A modern scholarly thesis whose political and intellectual consequences are still working themselves out reveals the continuing impact of a millennial tradition of speculation about language and history. (shrink)

On March 23rd, 2020, elite soccer academies in the UK closed in compliance with the government enforced lockdown intended to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. This forced parents, players, and coaches to reconsider how they interacted with, and supported, one another. The aims of the present study were to explore the perceptions of players, parents, and coaches regarding how they interacted and collaborated with one another during the COVID-19 pandemic to support wellbeing and performance, and; to identify opportunities to enhance workings (...) of those within the athletic triangle resulting from adaptions made following enforced lockdown. Using an interpretive description methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five coaches, six players, and six parents from an English elite academy soccer club. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings highlighted the importance of support and the different means of communication used between members of the athletic triangle to facilitate such support; the increased understanding of each member of the athletic triangle, leading to enhanced relationships, and; how members of the athletic triangle adapted practice to facilitate relationship development during the pandemic and beyond. The identification of these considerations has implications for coach and parent education initiatives to allow for optimal functioning of the athletic triangle as elite academy soccer clubs return from lockdown. These include the importance of continued communication between coach, athlete and parent; increasing understanding of each individual within the athletic triangle; and utilizing key interpersonal and technological skills learnt during the lockdown to further facilitate engagement within the athletic triangle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung1Laura J. Mueller (bio)Michael Hogue’s American Immanence draws from some of the fundamental features of American philosophy: philosophy is not alienated from life, but rather, part and parcel of the structure of our experiences, a way of living. His notion of “resilient democracy” is particularly representative of this tradition of thought. Resilient democracy is, first of (...) all, an ethos, grounded in “the collective experience of uncertainty and animated by the living desire to bring about a more beautiful world.”2 This ethos is an associational, relational one, and it is democratic because, for Hogue, it must be “empathetic, emancipatory, and equitable,” assuming that each member of the association can be enriched by other members” (AI, 172–73). Vital to this democratic ethos is its anti-foundational politics; we start not with an immutable reality, but rather with the vulnerable reality of our actual, political, experiences (AI, 176). We start with where we are, not where some abstract ideal demands we should be. Democracy, for Hogue, is not just a certain political ideal for which to aim, but rather a way of being, a way of life. Dewey writes:A democracy is more than an associated form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.... These more numerous and more varied points of contact denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to respond... They secure a liberation of his powers which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests.3Throughout this paper, I use “democracy” in this sense; as a way of life, as a relational ethos, not as any particular political system. [End Page 40]As a way of life, democracy is both the process—the struggle—and that which we aim for. This feature of democracy is similar to the structure of Bildung, in which self-cultivation is both the process and the product.4 For example, for Wilhelm von Humboldt, an individual is in “continuing activity,” whose powers are never stagnant; humankind is always progressing, an infinite object.5 This is an end-in-view, not a fixed end.6 Humboldt “did not formulate a catalogue which prescribed what a person should know, what a person should read, what a person should have heard, what a person should have concerned himself with, so that one can say: this person has Bildung.”7 For Humboldt, Bildung is “the development of the capacities of the individual into a harmonious whole.”8 This paper, in part, looks at Hogue’s resilient democracy as a cultivation of both the individual and the group, as Bildung of both self and culture. In particular, the individual and culture that are being cultivated are relational, grounded in an emancipatory, equitable, and empathetic ethos, with a democratic way of life.Similar to the traditional Bildungstradition, education plays a vital role in this kind of democratic cultivation. If our end-in-view is a democratic society, then the method to reach that end must also be democratically ordered. Myles [End Page 41] Horton put it best: “When you believe in a democratic society, you provide a setting for education that is democratic.”9Modern Socratic Dialogue (MSD) is a particular method of philosophical dialogue that engages in and cultivates the ethos of resilient democracy. It cultivates empathy (in listening), pluralism (difference is accommodated and incorporated) and equity (insofar as no special knowledge is required), and anti-foundationalism (participants approach the conversation with epistemic humility, not trying to grasp a Truth as the ground of knowledge, but rather work together to form a common truth that comes out of their situatedness). These are all traits of Hogue’s resilient democracy, and all traits of an American Bildung, our self-correcting vulnerability, a way of being that replaces an unattainable ideal without sacrificing amelioration.Much like the tradition it addresses, this paper is layered; it is polyphonically pluralistic in method and structure. The many voices of this paper are first stratified and folded in... (shrink)

Marx’s theory of ground rent has been widely used to help understand the trinity of land, labor, and capital. However, limited attention has been paid to the role of water within the Marxian rent framework. This lack of attention proves troubling due to the role of surface waters as an essential means of production throughout capitalism. Here I restate Marxian ground rent in the form of water rent and discuss the function of water-rent in the two dominant surface water rights (...) doctrines of the United States—the riparian doctrine and the doctrine of prior appropriation. In doing so, I revise the distinction between differential rent 1 and differential rent 2 to provide more analytically useful categories. Paying special attention to issues of drought and scarcity, I fully articulate the function of Marxian rent and its four forms for both surface water rights doctrines, while clearly stating where they do and do not differ. (shrink)