The ability to make informative comparisons is central to human cognition. Comparison involves aligning two representations and placing their elements into correspondence. Detecting correspondences is a necessary component of analogical inference, recognition, categorization, schema formation, and similarity judgment. Connectionist Analogy Builder (CAB) determines correspondences through a simple iterative computation that matches elements in one representation with elements playing compatible roles in the other representation while simultaneously enforcing structural constraints. CAB shows promise as a process model of comparison as its performance (...) can be related to human performance (e.g., solution trajectory, error patterns, time‐on‐task). Furthermore, CAB's bounded working memory allows it to account for the inherent capacity limitations of human processing. CAB's strengths are its parsimony, transparency of operations, and ability to generate performance predictions. In this paper, CAB is evaluated against benchmark phenomena from the analogy literature. (shrink)

What mechanisms underlie children’s language production? Structural priming—the repetition of sentence structure across utterances—is an important measure of the developing production system. We propose its mechanism in children is the same as may underlie analogical reasoning: structure-mapping. Under this view, structural priming is the result of making an analogy between utterances, such that children map semantic and syntactic structure from previous to future utterances. Because the ability to map relationally complex structures develops with age, younger children are less successful than (...) older children at mapping both semantic and syntactic relations. Consistent with this account, 4-year-old children showed priming only of semantic relations when surface similarity across utterances was limited, whereas 5-year-olds showed priming of both semantic and syntactic structure regardless of shared surface similarity. The priming of semantic structure without syntactic structure is uniquely predicted by the structure-mapping account because others have interpreted structural priming as a reflection of developing syntactic knowledge. (shrink)

Model organisms are central to contemporary biology and studies of embryogenesis in particular. Biologists utilize only a small number of species to experimentally elucidate the phenomena and mechanisms of development. Critics have questioned whether these experimental models are good representatives of their targets because of the inherent biases involved in their selection (e.g., rapid development and short generation time). A standard response is that the manipulative molecular techniques available for experimental analysis mitigate, if not counterbalance, this concern. But the most (...) powerful investigative techniques and molecular methods are applicable to single-celled organisms (‘microbes’). Why not use unicellular rather than multicellular model organisms, which are the standard for developmental biology? To claim that microbes are not good representatives takes us back to the original criticism leveled against model organisms. Using empirical case studies of microbes modeling ontogeny, we break out of this circle of reasoning by showing: (a) that the criterion of representation is more complex than earlier discussions have emphasized; and, (b) that different aspects of manipulability are comparable in importance to representation when deciding if a model organism is a good model. These aspects of manipulability harbor the prospect of enhancing representation. The result is a better understanding of how developmental biologists conceptualize research using experimental models and suggestions for underappreciated avenues of inquiry using microbes. More generally, it demonstrates how the practical aspects of experimental biology must be scrutinized in order to understand the associated scientific reasoning. (shrink)

Idealization is a reasoning strategy that biologists use to describe, model and explain that purposefully departs from features known to be present in nature. Similar to other strategies of scientific reasoning, idealization combines distinctive strengths alongside of latent weaknesses. The study of ontogeny in model organisms is usually executed by establishing a set of normal stages for embryonic development, which enables researchers in different laboratory contexts to have standardized comparisons of experimental results. Normal stages are a form of idealization because (...) they intentionally ignore known variation in development, including variation associated with phenotypic plasticity (e.g. via strict control of environmental variables). This is a tension between the phenomenon of plasticity and the practice of staging that has consequences for evolutionary developmental investigation because variation is conceptually removed as a part of rendering model organisms experimentally tractable. Two compensatory tactics for mitigating these consequences are discussed: employing a diversity of model organisms and adopting alternative periodizations. (shrink)

Contributors: Sabina Leonelli Nancy J. Nersessian Michel Janssen Jacob G. Foster James A. Evans Mark A. Bedau Marshall Abrams Gilbert B. Tostevin Salikoko S. Mufwene Massimo Maiocchi Joseph D. Martin Paul E. Smaldino Claes Andersson Anton Törnberg Petter Törnberg Beyond the Meme assembles interdisciplinary perspectives on cultural evolution, providing a nuanced understanding of it as a process in which dynamic structures interact on different scales of size and time. The volume demonstrates how a thick understanding of change in culture emerges (...) from multiple disciplinary vantage points, each of which is required to understand cultural evolution in all its complexity. (shrink)

According to many biologists, explaining the evolution of morphological novelty and behavioral innovation are central endeavors in contemporary evolutionary biology. These endeavors are inherently multidisciplinary but also have involved a high degree of controversy. One key source of controversy is the definitional diversity associated with the concept of evolutionary novelty, which can lead to contradictory claims (a novel trait according to one definition is not a novel trait according to another). We argue that this diversity should be interpreted in light (...) of a different epistemic role played by the concept of evolutionary novelty—the structuring of a problem space or setting of an explanatory agenda—rather than the concept’s capacity to categorize traits as novel. This distinctive role is consistent with the definitional diversity and shows that the concept of novelty benefits ongoing investigation by focusing attention on answering different questions related to comprehending the origins of novelty. A review of recent theoretical and empirical work on evolutionary novelty confirms this interpretation. (shrink)

Joan of Arc was as a mere 13-year-old girl when she first heard voices and saw visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch in her fathers garden. Both of her female saints were popular in the Middle Ages when these hallucinations began and she would have been familiar with their images as displayed in the local church in Domremy. But it is difficult to understand how a young and inexperienced girl could produce, accept, (...) and follow through on the daunting charge to save France from English incursion during the Hundred Years War, notably in the Battle of Orleans. Was she divinely inspired, mentally ill, or an intuitive genius with paranormal powers of perception? This paper will discuss previous theories by literary figures, as well as by scientists, both past and present, to shed modern neuroscientific insights onto her powers of perception. (shrink)

A Review of Darwin in Galápagos: Footsteps to a New World by K. Thalia Grant and Gregory B. Estes, [2009].

Our goal is to use prototype analysis to distinguish the folk or culturally held understandings of love, romantic love, and sex and to specify, from the obtained data, the semantic relationship among these three associated concepts. By considering the semantic distinctions between these three concepts, we come to an unintended insight: if romantic love is a socio-cultural universal it does not appear to have the same evolutionary history as love or sex and this may account for (...) its somewhat ambiguous status in the scholarly literature on romantic love. We demonstrate that, in the United States, sex, in and of itself, is seldom conceived of as a relationship while love and romantic love are primarily viewed as relational. Our findings, though preliminary, strongly suggest that romantic love is a synthesis of two evolutionary drives: love and sex. (shrink)

The famous eastern tour of inspection undertaken by Scipio Aemilianus, L. Metellus Calvus and Sp. Mummius is now generally dated 140/39 b.c., where Diodorus seems to put it. The accepted view, however, involves discounting an explicit statement by Cicero. It also presents historical difficulties. In 140 b.c. there was no need for such a high-powered Roman initiative, and scholars can discover only very minor political results. Sherwin-White indeed criticised the envoys severely, especially Scipio; they were culpably blind to the new (...) menace of Parthia, which was steadily dismembering the Seleucid Empire east of the Euphrates. This is fair criticism only on the 140/39 b.c. dating. Did Scipio and his colleagues fail to see what is patent to us today? It is time to reexamine rigorously the underlying assumption. In Acad. prior. 2.5 Cicero defends a Roman noble's love of Greek learning in the following terms: ego autem cum Graecas litteras M. Catonem in senectute didicisse acceperim, P. autem Africani historiae loquantur in legatione illa nobili, quam ante censuram obiit, Panaetium unum omnino comitem fuisse, nec litterarum Graecarum nee philosophiae iam ullum auctorem requiro. The date of the embassy must be 144/3 b.c., if we follow the logic of this passage. Scipio was censor with L. Mummius in 142/1 b.c. and their public quarrel was hardly less notable than the embassy, in which L. Mummius' brother shared. Another Ciceronian passage – written some six years earlier – seems to contradict the dating offered in 45 b.c. In de republica 6.11 the elder Africanus prophesies his grandson's future greatness in the famous dream. (shrink)

Originally published in 1967 as the fifth edition of a 1935 original, this book addresses the teaching of various kinds of geography to secondary school students. The text includes suggestions for classwork and possible field courses, in order that geography may have 'its maximum educational effect'. This book will be of value to anyone interested in the history of geography education in Britain.

A system of natural deduction rules is proposed for an idealized form of English. The rules presuppose a sharp distinction between proper names and such expressions as the c, a (an) c, some c, any c, and every c, where c represents a common noun. These latter expressions are called quantifiers, and other expressions of the form that c or that c itself, are called quantified terms. Introduction and elimination rules are presented for any, every, some, a (an), and the, (...) and also for any which, every which, and so on, as well as rules for some other concepts. One outcome of these rules is that Every man loves some woman is implied by, but does not imply, Some woman is loved by every man, since the latter is taken to mean the same as Some woman is loved by all men. Also, Jack knows which woman came is implied by Some woman is known by Jack to have come, but not by Jack knows that some woman came. (shrink)

The famous eastern tour of inspection undertaken by Scipio Aemilianus, L. Metellus Calvus and Sp. Mummius is now generally dated 140/39 b.c., where Diodorus seems to put it. The accepted view, however, involves discounting an explicit statement by Cicero. It also presents historical difficulties. In 140 b.c. there was no need for such a high-powered Roman initiative, and scholars can discover only very minor political results. Sherwin-White indeed criticised the envoys severely, especially Scipio; they were culpably blind to the new (...) menace of Parthia, which was steadily dismembering the Seleucid Empire east of the Euphrates. This is fair criticism only on the 140/39 b.c. dating. Did Scipio and his colleagues fail to see what is patent to us today? It is time to reexamine rigorously the underlying assumption. In Acad. prior. 2.5 Cicero defends a Roman noble's love of Greek learning in the following terms: ego autem cum Graecas litteras M. Catonem in senectute didicisse acceperim, P. autem Africani historiae loquantur in legatione illa nobili, quam ante censuram obiit, Panaetium unum omnino comitem fuisse, nec litterarum Graecarum nee philosophiae iam ullum auctorem requiro. The date of the embassy must be 144/3 b.c., if we follow the logic of this passage. Scipio was censor with L. Mummius in 142/1 b.c. and their public quarrel was hardly less notable than the embassy, in which L. Mummius' brother shared. Another Ciceronian passage – written some six years earlier – seems to contradict the dating offered in 45 b.c. In de republica 6.11 the elder Africanus prophesies his grandson's future greatness in the famous dream. (shrink)

The social, educational and political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau have become enormously influential in the 200 years since his death. But the breadth as well as the depth of Rousseau's achievement - he was amongst other things a creative writer and musical composer as well as a philosopher - is not always appreciated. In around 100 articles, alphabetically arranged and fully cross-referenced, N. J. H. Dent explores all facets of Rousseau's work and thoughts, while his subject's remarkable life is summarized (...) in a biographical introduction. Details of works by and about Rousseau are listed in an extensive bibliography. For students or general readers seeking an introduction to Rousseau's work, and for those already familiar with the material who require a convenient reference source, this dictionary is essential reading. (shrink)

The systems approach to niche presented herein stands as an example of the unifying potential of mathematical system theory when applied to concepts and principles of ecology. Beginning with subjective concepts from the naturalistic tradition, the niche was framed in the formalism of general system theory. So modeled, it appeared as a restriction of a more general construct, the environ. Both niches and environs are implementable in the context of ecosystem models, and with the growing ability of ecologists to construct (...) such models, system theoretic niches and environs both should serve in the future to clarify old problems of ecology, and make it possible to raise new classes of problems. The nature of niches, always difficult conceptually for the ecologist, may now give way to further development, both theoretical and empirical. (shrink)

B C Hurst; Cooper on Equality and Excellence in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 119–124, https://doi.org/1.

B C Hurst; Cooper on Equality and Excellence in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 119–124, https://doi.org/1.

According to both deontologists and consequentialists, if there is a reason to promote the general happiness – or to promote any other state of affairs unrelated to one's own projects or self-interest – then the reason must apply to everyone. This view seems almost self-evident; to challenge it is to challenge the way we think of moral reasons. I contend, however, that the view depends on the unwarranted assumption that the only way to restrict the application scope of a reason (...) for action is by restricting it to those agents whose interests or projects are involved in the reason. In fact normative theories may coherently restrict application scopes in other ways. Thus we must take seriously the possibility that the reason to promote the general happiness, although genuine, does not apply to everyone. (shrink)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child risks harm to adolescents insofar as it encourages not only poor decision making by adolescents but also parenting styles that will have an adverse impact on the development of mature decision-making capacities in them. The empirical psychological and neurophysiological data weigh against augmenting and expression of the rights of children. Indeed, the data suggest grounds for expanding parental authority, not limiting its scope. At the very least, any adequate appreciation of (...) the moral claims regarding the authority of parents with respect to the decision-making capacity of adolescents needs to be set within an understanding of the psychological and neurophysiological facts regarding the development of adolescent decision-making capacity. (shrink)

B C Hurst; Means, Ends, Content and Objectives in Curriculum Planning: a critique of Sockett and Hirst, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 1.

B C Hurst; Means, Ends, Content and Objectives in Curriculum Planning: a critique of Sockett and Hirst, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 1.