This chapter contains sections titled: Distributive Justice Nanotechnology and the Developing World Water Purification Solar Energy Medicine Nanotechnology, the Developing World, and Distributive Justice.

A well-developed perspective in the study of urban systems is that cities are complex systems that manifest as networks of interdependent economic units. These units might be occupations, industries, labor skills, patent technologies, etc. Much research has focused on describing the nature of these networks, quantifying their links, and suggesting applications for policymakers. In this paper, we examine the US skill network, focusing on the relationship between network centrality and economic performance. Here, nodes are represented by individual labor skills, and (...) edge weights are derived from the colocation pattern of skill pairs among 384 US metropolitan statistical areas. The centrality of skills, using three centrality measures, is then aggregated to the occupational and metropolitan level. We find that occupations with higher skill centrality are associated with greater annual salaries, and metropolitan areas with higher skill centrality have higher productivity rates. Overall, these results suggest that the application of traditional network metrics to this view of cities as complex networks can offer new insights into the dynamics of regional economies. (shrink)

In this paper, Waters introduces American Indians who hold a Ph.D. in philosophy. Waters explains that because American Indians are unable to garner the financial, collegial, and academic support needed to rise to inclusive positions in the philosophical profession, most of our colleagues and students remain uneducated and ignorant about indigenous people and our philosophies that are still alive today on this shared American continent. America’s indigenous philosophers have important contributions to make to philosophy and culture; yet our conceptual nonexistence (...) exacerbates our veridical non- integration. It is a cultural luxury for the APA to not address these problems. In some moral worlds, the APA Board might have a positive obligation to address the status of American Indian philosophy with all due haste. Three possible ways of indexing American Indian philosophy for inclusion in the discipline are presented, each raising unique and particular problems for the profession. It is suggested a field of Indigenous philosophy (global) could emerge over time, having subfields of diverse cultural philosophies, not necessarily linked to nation states or current geopolitical regions. Concluding, given issues of invisibility, alliances, and responsibility, the APA remains historically morally bound to address and perhaps even redress American Indian exclusionism in the profession upon which it acts, and in the culture it complicitly creates. (shrink)

BackgroundBiobanks are considered to be key infrastructures for research development and have generated a lot of debate about their ethical, legal and social implications. While the focus has been on human genomic research, rapid advances in human microbiome research further complicate the debate.DiscussionWe draw on two cystic fibrosis biobanks in Toronto, Canada, to illustrate our points. The biobanks have been established to facilitate sample and data sharing for research into the link between disease progression and microbial dynamics in the lungs (...) of pediatric and adult patients. We begin by providing an overview of some of the ELSI associated with human microbiome research, particularly on the implications for the broader society. We then discuss ethical considerations regarding the identifiability of samples biobanked for human microbiome research, and examine the issue of return of results and incidental findings. We argue that, for the purposes of research ethics oversight, human microbiome research samples should be treated with the same privacy considerations as human tissues samples. We also suggest that returning individual microbiome-related findings could provide a powerful clinical tool for care management, but highlight the need for a more grounded understanding of contextual factors that may be unique to human microbiome research.ConclusionsWe revisit the ELSI of biobanking and consider the impact that human microbiome research might have. Our discussion focuses on identifiability of human microbiome research samples, and return of research results and incidental findings for clinical management. (shrink)

Focusing on the recent explosion in the use of bottled water, this article—originally written for my NASTS conference presentation—will examine the rhetoric used by the bottled water industry and home purification system providers to affect the public’s idea of clean, pure, dirty, and polluted water. Bottlers argue that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides better regulation of bottled water than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could ever do for tap water, though the EPA (...) and the FDA use basically the same set of guidelines. The EPA and FDA definitions in terms of concentrations of specific substances are very different from the ideas of muddy or “dirty” water. This article will examine the impact of the public’s perception of good drinking water and the perception that if it is off the shelf, it is cleaner and tastier. (shrink)

Technological innovation in general, and nanotechnology development in particular, happens often disconnected from people and places where these technologies eventually play out. Over the last decade, a diversity of approaches have been proposed and developed to engage people in the innovation process of nanotechnology much earlier than in their conventional role as consumers. Such “upstream” engagements are conducted at stages when nanotechnology products and services are still amenable to reframing and modification. These engagement efforts have enhanced technological (...) literacy among stakeholders and the general public. Yet, there is still potential for other types of impacts by leveraging links between nanotechnology and people’s everyday experiences. The present study explores a novel approach for participatory nanotechnology assessment and design, called Collaborative On-site Technology Exploration. The approach allows nanoscale scientists and engineers to explore nanotechnologies where they matter to people and places. We conducted a series of COTEs in the Gateway district in Phoenix addressing community challenges of renewable energy supply, water contamination, and public health issues. COTEs are proposed as a step toward bringing together nanoscale scientists and engineers and community stakeholders in need for solutions to urban challenges. (shrink)

The aim of this paper was to analyze the relationship between attitudes toward physical activity and participation in water sports events and to recognize the main motives for involvement in these kinds of events. A written paper–pencil diagnostic survey was conducted among 394 participants in two traditional and two modern sports events on water held in Poland to ascertain whether innovative events are needed in society, and whether they cause an increase in interest in physical activity. The research (...) results showed that modern sports events on water did not have any more power to attract physically inactive people than traditional water events, did not produce a greater desire to lead an active lifestyle, and did not encourage people to more regularly practice water sports. Moreover, modern events, compared to traditional events, were only a one-time experience and the people who completed survey often wanted to return to traditional sports events which provided participants with greater positive emotions than a modern event. In the case of socio-demographical variables, there was no statistically significant relationship between gender and choice of modern or traditional event, but older people were more likely to choose a traditional event than younger people; modern water events were an attractive option primarily for young people under 30 years of age, furthermore, modern events more often attracted people who had completed higher education. However, it turned out that a modern event on water often attracted more people who had had no experience in this sport discipline rather than people who chose traditional water events. In a sense, modern events are therefore effective in promoting water sports in Polish society. We also distinguished five main groups of participants: healthy lifestyle managers, lovers of sports emotions, water sports malcontents, water sports enthusiasts, and neutrals to water sports. Additionally, we looked into gender-related motives for participation in modern and traditional water events: social and health-related motives proved to be more important for women and men who participated in modern water events. The research results presented in the article expand on the current state of knowledge about mass participation in sport, the impact of sporting events on the promotion of physical activity, and show the motivation behind participation in modern and traditional water sporting events. (shrink)

The genetically manipulated organism crisis demonstrated that technological development based solely on the law of the marketplace and State protection against serious risks to health and safety is no longer a warrant of ethical acceptability. In the first part of our paper, we critique the implicitly individualist social-acceptance model for State regulation of technology and recommend an interdisciplinary approach for comprehensive analysis of the impacts and ethical acceptability of technologies. In the second part, we present a framework for the analysis (...) of impacts and acceptability, devised—with the goal of supporting the development of specific nanotechnological applications—by a team of researchers from various disciplines. At the conceptual level, this analytic framework is intended to make explicit those various operations required in preparing a judgement about the acceptability of technologies that have been implicit in the classical analysis of toxicological risk. On a practical level, we present a reflective tool that makes it possible to take into account all the dimensions involved and understand the reasons invoked in determining impacts, assessing them, and arriving at a judgement about acceptability. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of water stress on plants production. We propose a mathematical model for the dynamics growth of plants that takes into account the concentration of available water in the soil, water stress, plant production and plants compensation. Sensitivity analysis of the model has been performed in order to determine the impact of related parameters on the dynamics growth of plants. We present the theoretical analysis of the model (...) with and without water stress. More precisely, we show that the full model is well-posedness. For each model, we compute the trivial equilibria and derive two thresholds parameters that determine the outcome of water stress within a plantation. Further, we perform numerical simulation on the case of banana-plantain simulations to support the theory. We found that the Hopf bifurcation occurs for a specific value of the water absorption rate of unstressed plants. The impact of the water stress on the banana-plantain production is also numerically investigated. After, the role of the water stress on the plant production is numerically investigated. We found that the water stress can cause about 68.16% of loss of banana-plantain production within a plantation with 1600 rejets initially planted. This suggests that climate change plays a detrimental role on banana-plantains production. (shrink)

With the rising influence of digitalization and its immense penetration intoeven everyday life, the last decade of the 20th Century addressed to a critical threshold in the successive transformation process of the spatiality in its long-term run. The advanced digital technologies of ubiquitous computing and generative design, as well as the invention of smart materials in late 90’s have all provoked the fluid characteristics of spatiality, and strengthen the transformative capacities of the architectural space through the emergence of computer-augmented territories. (...) Additionally, while they are becoming as the body extensions, the advent of novel apparatuses and gadgets further enhanced the inte- gration of the corporal and incorporal bodies with the spatio-temporal multiplicities, where the hyperdimensionality of the space has been triggered to its outmost range, in relation to the “soft and smart technologically augmented immanent millieu”, in Spuybroek terms. Thus, like Spuybroek points out as the “haptonomist” presence of the body merges itself with these diverse bodily extensions on one hand; and on the other hand, as the rising influence of nomadic view of the world further stimulates the unboundedness and endless fluidity of space, so that the spatiality becomes a landscape of successive transformations, a topology of emergence or a plane of becoming, which is merely defined by lines of forces, and occures as an alive territory rather than a limited space of predefined boarders. Therefore, this evolvable territory which is affectable and being affected by the lines of forces –inner and outer forces–, emerges as an animated existence, an interactive organism. So, by interacting with the Deleuzian Philosophy and their notions like lines of forces, folding, becoming, smooth space, territory, spatium, this article aims to reveal the relevance of these notions in architectural discourse, as well as the emergence of the smooth space in the contemporary architectural practice, by magnifiying one of the very initial examples of its kind; in terms of unfolding the Fresh Water Pavilion of NOX Architecture by Lars Spuybroek into question to reveal the essences of thecontemporary transformable-evolvable architectural spatiality. (shrink)

In Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city, engineers work hard to control water flows and provide different sectors with clean and sufficient water. In 2011, only 10 percent of the totality of water used daily by Arequipa’s then close to 1 million people—in households, tourism, industry, and mining—was treated before it was returned to the river where it continues its flow downstream towards cultivated fields and, finally, into the Pacific Ocean. It takes specialized knowledge and manifold technologies to (...) manage water and sustain life in Arequipa, and engineers are central actors for making water flow. Examining the ecology of water management, this article asks to what extent we can talk of a way of knowing and enacting water that is particular to engineers. Through engineering practices, a technical domain emerges as separate from and superior to political and social domains. This production of categories can be understood as practices of purification. However, a purely technical grip on water is never possible. Unruly elements, like weather, contamination, urban dwellers, and competing interests, interfere and make processes of intervention unstable. Water is never completely cleaned, and, equally, the continuous processes of purification of categories and domains take place while other processes work to blur their boundaries. (shrink)

The past 15 years of exceptionally severe water scarcity in the Islamic Republic of Iran have resulted in the desertification and salinity of formerly arable lands, drying out of Iranian lakes and rivers, and quickly shrinking groundwater resources, while water demand has risen, along with the size of the Iranian population, of which over 70% lives in urban areas now. We have aimed to discover the causes of water scarcity in the IR Iran and evaluated its social (...) and economic impacts. First, we computed the Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation (WASP) Index for the period of 1979-2014. To illustrate the social impact of water scarcity, we analyzed the current water risk for the twenty most populous Iranian cities, by employing the composite index approach to translate hydrological data into comprehensible indicators of water related risks, and made a projection for 2020-2030, by modeling potential changes in the future demand and supply of water. To demonstrate the economic impact of water scarcity, we evaluated the overall agricultural contribution to the IR Iran GDP. We have found that the 1999 severe drought in the IR Iran commenced a period of unusually dry conditions that is still ongoing. The rapidly growing Iranian urban populations presently experience a medium to extremely high overall water risk, with extremely high baseline water stress that, in part, is due to the lack of upstream protected lands. The relationship between baseline water stress and drought severity has been determined as weak, confirming that other factors than drought are equally or more important contributors to the existing water risk. Our projection calculations indicate that Iranian urban populations will continue to experience an extremely high water stress for the coming decade. Due to the fast growth of these populations as well as considerable rise of value added to the IR Iran GDP by other sectors of the national economy, the contribution of agricultural production to the national GDP has declined from about 25% to under 10% (although its total yield has risen considerably) during the past 30 years. This decrease has been directly proportional to the increased foreign food imports, dependency on the IR Iran oil exports and reduction in the non-oil exports. The main causes of water scarcity in the IR Iran appear to be due to climatic factors, insufficient environmental protection, and over-exploitation and mismanagement of water resources, especially by the agricultural sector. In conclusion, our study proposes anti-wasting water management action plan that recommends shifting the IR Iran government response to water scarcity from reactive survival strategies to proactive crisis prevention, with emphasis on safeguarding, monitoring, early warning, and effective step-by-step preparedness and readiness, and by laterally integrating water management between all levels of the IR Iran government, including local, regional and national, for a sustainable, resilient and prosperous economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran now and in the future. (shrink)

What should philosophers of science accomplish when they analyze scientific concepts and interpret scientific knowledge? What is concept analysis if it is not a description of the way scientists actually think? I investigate these questions by using Hans Reichenbach's account of the descriptive, critical, and advisory tasks of philosophy of science to examine Karola Stotz and Paul Griffiths' idea that poll-based methodologies can test philosophical analyses of scientific concepts. Using Reichenbach's account as a point of departure, I argue that philosophy (...) of science should identify and clarify epistemic virtues and describe scientific knowledge in relation to these virtues. The role of concept analysis is to articulate scientific concepts in ways that help reveal epistemic virtues and limitations of particular sciences. This means an analysis of the gene concept should help clarify the explanatory power and limitations of gene-based explanations, and should help account for the investigative utility and biases of gene-centered sciences. I argue that a philosophical analysis of gene concept that helps achieve these critical aims should not be rejected on the basis of poll-based studies even if such studies could show that professional biologists don't actually use gene terminology in precise ways corresponding to the philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Ethical approaches and the right development framework are critical in water use and conservation. Water as a resource is not unlimited. Darryl Macer et al. point to the necessity of understanding the basics of water, uses of water, water resource availability, and conflict. Water is a very precious resource that in the future can be a source of tension due to unabated urbanization. In the Kaliwa Dam Project in the Philippines, the Dumagat Tribe is (...) at the heart of the issue. If the right policies are not in place, progress can have a severe impact on communities. Water has become a commodity because urbanization has resulted in massive water use in big cities that do not have their own source. This means that urban centers need to get their water from somewhere else resulting in social discord and disputes pertaining to water rights. In addressing the issue of water supply and use, this paper examines the role of policy, efficient infrastructure, and good governance. (shrink)

Biologists studying complex causal systems typically identify some factors as causes and treat other factors as background conditions. For example, when geneticists explain biological phenomena, they often foreground genes and relegate the cellular milieu to the background. But factors in the milieu are as causally necessary as genes for the production of phenotypic traits, even traits at the molecular level such as amino acid sequences. Gene-centered biology has been criticized on the grounds that because there is parity among causes, the (...) “privileging” of genes reflects a reductionist bias, not an ontological difference. The idea that there is an ontological parity among causes is related to a philosophical puzzle identified by John Stuart Mill: what, other than our interests or biases, could possibly justify identifying some causes as the actual or operative ones, and other causes as mere background? The aim of this paper is to solve this conceptual puzzle and to explain why there is not an ontological parity among genes and the other factors. It turns out that solving this puzzle helps answer a seemingly unrelated philosophical question: what kind of causal generality matters in biology? (shrink)

The coastal area of Bangladesh is one of the most ecologically productive and it contains a rich biodiversity which includes several species that are endemic to this region. Much attention has been focused on ship breaking industries in the coastal areas because of the threat they pose to this thriving biological communities along with their other environmental impacts and the perilous working environment of the workers. The coastal environment of Sitakunda is severely contaminated by various processes related to ship-breaking i.e. (...) the disposal of different toxic wastes into the sea water, deforestation by expanding ship breaking yard, changing land-use pattern and release of toxic substance into the soil. Moreover, the workers of this industry are exposed to an extremely risky and toxic working environment which makes them vulnerable to both physical and psychological disorder as well as to accidental deaths and injury. Still, workers embrace these risks for very poor wages and most of the profits go to the already rich businessmen. Despite various negativities, this industry has gained importance due to the increasing demand of raw material for re-rolling industries and employment opportunities for the people of the coastal areas. As this industry is indispensable due to its importance in the macro and micro economy of Bangladesh, a sustainable management approach should be taken to at least minimize the environmental and health impacts of ship breaking industries. The current paper aims to investigate the extent to which this industry is affecting the ship breaking yard labors and the environment, despite the growing concern nationally and internationally, and it uses both primary and secondary data. (shrink)

This paper investigates what molecular biology has done for our understanding of the gene. I base a new account of the gene concept of classical genetics on the classical dogma that gene differences cause phenotypic differences. Although contemporary biologists often think of genes in terms of this concept, molecular biology provides a second way to understand genes. I clarify this second way by articulating a molecular gene concept. This concept unifies our understanding of the molecular basis of a wide variety (...) of phenomena, including the phenomena that classical genetics explains in terms of gene differences causing phenotypic differences. (shrink)

Former discussions of biological generalizations have focused on the question of whether there are universal laws of biology. These discussions typically analyzed generalizations out of their investigative and explanatory contexts and concluded that whatever biological generalizations are, they are not universal laws. The aim of this paper is to explain what biological generalizations are by shifting attention towards the contexts in which they are drawn. I argue that within the context of any particular biological explanation or investigation, biologists employ two (...) types of generations. One type identifies causal regularities exhibited by particular kinds of biological entities. The other type identifies how these entities are distributed in the biological world. (shrink)

Based on the results of open ended interviews with managers in a variety of organizational positions, moral questions encountered in everyday managerial life are described. These involve transactions with employees, peers and superiors, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. It is suggested that managers identify transactions as involving personal moral concern when they believe that a moral standard has a bearing on the situation and when they experience themselves as having the power to affect the transaction. This is the first in (...) a research series of three papers. (shrink)

This target article discusses the verbal working memory system used in sentence comprehension. We review the concept of working memory as a short-duration system in which small amounts of information are simultaneously stored and manipulated in the service of accomplishing a task. We summarize the argument that syntactic processing in sentence comprehension requires such a storage and computational system. We then ask whether the working memory system used in syntactic processing is the same as that used in verbally mediated tasks (...) that involve conscious controlled processing. Evidence is brought to bear from various sources: the relationship between individual differences in working memory and individual differences in the efficiency of syntactic processing; the effect of concurrent verbal memory load on syntactic processing; and syntactic processing in patients with poor short-term memory, patients with poor working memory, and patients with aphasia. Experimental results from these normal subjects and patients with various brain lesions converge on the conclusion that there is a specialization in the verbal working memory system for assigning the syntactic structure of a sentence and using that structure in determining sentence meaning that is separate from the working memory system underlying the use of sentence meaning to accomplish other functions. We present a theory of the divisions of the verbal working memory system and suggestions regarding its neural basis. (shrink)

Traditional approaches in philosophy of biology focus attention on biological concepts, explanations, and theories, on evidential support and inter-theoretical relations. Newer approaches shift attention from concepts to conceptual practices, from theories to practices of theorizing, and from theoretical reduction to reductive retooling. In this article, I describe the shift from theory-focused to practice-centered philosophy of science and explain how it is leading philosophers to abandon fundamentalist assumptions associated with traditional approaches in philosophy of science and to embrace scientific pluralism. This (...) article comes in three parts, each illustrating the shift from theory-focused to practice-centered epistemology. The first illustration shows how shifting philosophical attention to conceptual practice reveals how molecular biologists succeed in identifying coherent causal strands within systems of bewildering complexity. The second illustration suggests that analyzing how a multiplicity of alternative models function in practice provides an illuminating approach for understanding the nature of theoretical knowledge in evolutionary biology. The third illustration demonstrates how framing reductionism in terms of the reductive retooling of practice offers an informative perspective for understanding why putting DNA at the center of biological research has been incredibly productive throughout much of biology. Each illustration begins by describing how traditional theory-focused philosophical approaches are laden with fundamentalist assumptions and then proceeds to show that shifting attention to practice undermines these assumptions and motivates a philosophy of scientific pluralism. (shrink)

Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA led to developments that transformed many biological sciences. But what were the relevant developments and how did they transform biology? Much of the philosophical discussion concerning this question can be organized around two opposing views: theoretical reductionism and layer-cake antireductionism. Theoretical reductionist and their anti-reductionist foes hold two assumptions in common. First, both hold that biological knowledge is structured like a layer cake, with some biological sciences, such as molecular biology cast (...) at lower levels of organization, and others, such as classical genetics, cast at higher levels. Second, both assume that scientific knowledge is structured by theory and that the productivity of scientific research depends on whether the underlying theory identifies the fundamentals upon which the phenomena to be explained and investigated depend. In the first part of this paper, I challenge these assumptions. In the second part, I show how recasting the basic theory of classical genetics made it possible to retool the methodologies of genetics. It was the investigative power of these retooled methodologies, and not the explanatory power of a gene-based theory, that transformed biology. (shrink)

Philosophers’ traditional emphasis on theories, theoretical modeling, and explanation misguides research in philosophy of science. Articulating and applying core theories is part of scientific practice, but it is not the essence of scientific practice. Insofar as science has an essence, it is to systematically investigate and learn about what is not yet understood. This lecture analyzes genetics to articulate a broad-practice-centered approach to philosophy of science. It concludes by arguing that this approach can lead to richer, deeper, and more useful (...) philosophies of science, philosophies that can better inform science policy and the public’s understanding of science. (shrink)

The frequency of death from miscarriage is very high, greater than the number of deaths from induced abortion or major diseases.Berg (2017, Philosophical Studies 174:1217–26) argues that, given this, those who contend that personhood begins at conception (PAC) are obliged to reorient their resources accordingly—towards stopping miscarriage, in preference to stopping abortion or diseases. This argument depends on there being a basic moral similarity between these deaths. I argue that, for those that hold to PAC, there are good reasons to (...) think that there is no such similarity. There is a morally relevant difference between preventing killing and letting die, giving PAC supporters reasons to prioritize reducing abortion over reducing miscarriage. And the time-relative interest account provides a morally relevant difference in the badness of death of miscarriages and deaths of born adults, justifying attempts to combat major diseases over attempts to combat miscarriage. I consider recent developments in the literature and contend that these new arguments are unsuccessful in establishing moral similarities between deaths from miscarriage and abortion, and deaths from miscarriage and disease. (shrink)

At present, the feasibility of using self-purification mechanism to inhibit rumor spreading has been confirmed by studies from different perspectives. This paper improves the classical rumor spreading models with self-purification mechanism, analyzes the correlation between spreading threshold in the model and its self-purification level theoretically, and conducts numerical simulations to study the impact of the changes of model parameters on key indicators in the process of rumor spreading. The simulation results show that changes of model parameters, (...) including self-purification level and forgetting rate, exert significant influences on rumor spreading exactly. (shrink)

Based on analysis of interviews with managers about the ethical questions they face in their work, a typology of morally questionable managerial acts is developed. The typology distinguishes acts committed against-the-firm (non-role and role-failure acts) from those committed on-behalf-of-the-firm (role-distortion and role-as-sertion acts) and draws attention to the different nature of the four types of acts. The argument is made that senior management attention is typically focused on the types of acts which are least problematical for most managers, and that (...) the most troublesome types are relatively ignored. (shrink)

The move to remote learning during COVID-19 has impacted billions of students. While research shows that school closure, and the pandemic more generally, has led to student distress, the possibility that these disruptions can also prompt growth in is a worthwhile question to investigate. The current study examined stress-related growth (SRG) in a sample of students returning to campus after a period of COVID-19 remote learning (n= 404, age = 13–18). The degree to which well-being skills were taught at school (...) (i.e., positive education) before the COVID-19 outbreak and student levels of SRG upon returning to campus was testedviastructural equation modeling. Positive reappraisal, emotional processing, and strengths use in students were examined as mediators. The model provided a good fit [χ2= 5.37,df= 3,p= 0.146, RMSEA = 0.044 (90% CI = 0.00–0.10), SRMR = 0.012, CFI = 99, TLI = 0.99] with 56% of the variance in SRG explained. Positive education explained 15% of the variance in cognitive reappraisal, 7% in emotional processing, and 16% in student strengths use during remote learning. The results are discussed using a positive education paradigm with implications for teaching well-being skills at school to foster growth through adversity and assist in times of crisis. (shrink)

TheJournal of Religious Ethicshas published only two full‐length articles focusing on American Indian religious ethics in the last decade. This may signal that the field is uneasy about integrating American Indian religious ethics into its broader discourse. To fill this research lacuna and take a step toward normalizing religious‐ethical engagement with American Indian ethics, this article argues that the field needs an intentionally anticolonial, self‐aware approach to understanding American Indian religious ethics—one that decenters methods and approaches that may facilitate the (...) analysis of Christian texts, groups, and phenomena, yet limit insights into the religious‐moral beliefs and practices of Native Americans. The article first shows examples of how religious‐ethical methods, definitions, and epistemological starting points can obfuscate rich and accurate understandings of Native American religious‐ethical systems and phenomena. Next, it turns to historical and anthropological studies and Native American philosophy and ethics to outline an interdisciplinary framework for integrating American Indian traditions into the discourses of religious ethics. (shrink)

What is Christian about Christian bioethics? The short answer to this question is that the Incarnation should shape the form and content of Christian bioethics. In explicating this answer it is argued that contemporary medicine is unwittingly embracing and implementing the transhumanist dream of transforming humans into posthumans. Contemporary medicine does not admit that there are any limits in principle to the extent to which it should intervene to improve the quality of human life. This largely inarticulate, yet ambitious, agenda (...) is derived first in late modernity's failed, but nonetheless ongoing, attempt to transform necessity into goodness, and second the loss of any viable concept of eternity, thereby stripping temporal existence of any normative significance. In short, medicine has become the vanguard of a profane attempt to save humankind by extracting data from flesh. In response, it is contended that an alternative Christian bioethics must be shaped by the Incarnation, the Word made flesh. This assertion does not entitle Christians to oppose the posthuman trajectory of contemporary medicine on the basis of any natural or biological essentialism. Rather, it is an evangelical witness to the grace of Christ's redemption instead of the work of self-transformation. It is Christ alone who thereby makes the vulnerability and mortality of finitude a gift and blessing. Specifically, it is maintained that the chasm separating necessity and goodness cannot be filled but only bridged through the suffering entailed in Christ's cross, and through Christ's resurrection eternity becomes the standard against which the temporal lives of human creatures are properly formed and measured. Consequently, Christian bioethics should help us become conformed to Christ rather than enabling selftransformation. (shrink)

A questionnaire on the attitudes towards the functions of research ethical committees was sent to members of selected research ethical committees in Wessex and some controls. Almost all respondents felt there was a need for ethical review of research projects; 42 per cent thought there was a need for some training before joining a committee; 67 per cent thought the system could be improved and 47 per cent thought that monitoring or follow-up procedures should be adopted. Ethical committees were thought (...) to be purely advisory, as opposed to mandatory, by 33 per cent, and 63 per cent thought they should restrict their review to ethical problems as opposed to scientific or design problems. Views about the function of non-medical members ranged from 'none at all' to 'very important'. Of the 10 controls who were asked whether they would become a member of an ethical committee if asked, seven said that on balance they would and the reasons stated varied from the view that it was a 'very important committee' to the feeling that it was 'a necessary but irksome job'. (shrink)

Anticipate that this volume will nourish discussions in Native American, Indigenous, and Women's Studies, as well as in interdisciplinary courses. In respecting all of our relations, we present this journal in the spirit of healing the earth.The second theme is the incredible violence committed against Native women in the name of a continuing manifest destiny. Internalized oppression, violence turned against oneself, is devastating our communities as elders and youth stand by and watch generations of our people get lost in the (...) confusion of cultural dissonance.A third theme is the overlapping of racism, sexism, and capitalism to create an imperial system of domination over the earth's resources. Fourth, there is a need to heal ourselves and our communities. The call to know and learn from our elders the traditional understandings of our relations with all things of the universe, and how sustainable cultures may be able to offer an alternative to capitalism, remains a challenge. We must understand the need and the ways to balance ourselves with all of our relations to stop the subjugation of earth's resources, so that the "age of global imperialism" will hopefully one day be a thing of history, or at least a thing of the past in the Americas. (shrink)

Anyone reading Yuval Shany’s response to my article, “The Blessing of Departure—Exchange of Populated Territories The Lieberman Plan as anExercise in Demographic Transformation,” would hardly characterize it as “agreement.” In part this is because Shany builds his case by assuming I am saying something about self-determination that misses—at least misplaces—my real point. This is unfortunate, both as it masks the fact that Shany and I actually agree transfers can be legal, and it distracts attention from the points of real, substantive (...) disagreement. The misreading is not an accident, rather the product of a patterned view. The points of disagreement, center on: whether transfer is a harm per se; whether the presence of a minority affects the state’s power to transfer; whether there is a positive right not to be denationalized; and whether there is a hierarchy of rights. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss how we used institutional ethnography (Institutional ethnography as practice, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD and 2006) to map out powerful ruling relations that organize nurses’ wound care work. In recent years, the growing number of people living with wounds that heal slowly or not at all has presented substantial challenges for those managing the demands on Canada's publicly insured health‐care system. In efforts to address this burden, Canadian health‐care administrators and policy‐makers rely on scientific evidence (...) about how wounds heal and what treatments are most effective. Advanced wound care exemplifies the growing authorization of particular forms of evidence that change the ways in which nurses come to know about and conduct their work. The focus of this paper's nursing inquiry is a critique of registered nurses’ wound work as it arises within the established uptake of scientific evidence. (shrink)

Growth in racial and ethnic diversity among public school P-12 students stands in stark contrast to the teaching population who tend to be monolingual, White females. Secondary social studies teachers defy demographic teacher trends, as they tend to be male, albeit White males who still are not representative of the students they teach. What is missing from the discourse of student–teacher imbalance however is discussion surrounding diversity among social studies teacher educators. The purpose of this study was to examine racial, (...) ethnic, and gender demographics for social studies teacher educators using a framework of critical teacher demography. Findings revealed that social studies teacher educators tend to reflect the population of social studies teachers with many being White males. Furthermore, social studies teacher educators tend to focus their research on concepts such as democratic citizenship with little focus dedicated to critical multicultural issues. The paucity of diversity in demographics and research is critical for social studies teacher educators to consider if we are to reflect multiculturalism in 21st century schools. (shrink)

“Virtual water,” water needed for crop production, is now being mainstreamed in the water policy world. Relying on virtual water in the form of food imports is increasingly recommended as good policy for water-scarce areas. Virtual water globalizes discussions on water scarcity, ecological sustainability, food security and consumption. Presently the concept is creating much noise in the water and food policy world, which contributes to its politicization. We will argue that the virtual (...) water debate is also a “real water” and food and agricultural policy debate and hence has political effects. Decisions about food strategies and resource allocation play out on the national political economy, benefiting some while harming others. Therefore, a policy choice for virtual water is not politically neutral. “Real␣water” interventions are, likewise, inspired by economic as well as political considerations like control of the countryside, geopolitical strategy, and food sovereignty (independence from international political conditionality and market uncertainties). To illustrate these ideas, we look into case studies of Egypt and the State of Punjab in India. In India, a debate on the merits and demerits of a virtual water strategy is now emerging. In Egypt, which switched to food imports in the early 1970s, a long-standing taboo on debating virtual water is now being relaxed. (shrink)

Preface -- How brave a new world? : God, technology, and medicine -- A theological reflection on reproductive medicine -- Are our genes our fate? : genomics and Christian theology -- Persons, neighbors, and embryos : some ethical reflections on human cloning and stem cell research -- Extending human life : to what end? -- What is Christian about Christian bioethics? -- Revitalizing medicine : empowering natality vs. fearing mortality -- The future of the human species -- Creation, creatures, and (...) creativity : the Word and the final Word. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Using Nanomaterials Nanotechnology Computing and Robotics Predicting the Future of Technology.

Waters aries that the demands of indigenous bio-prospecting programs need to be considered against the needs of indigenous communities. Issues of sovereignty and rights to self-determination need to be resolved in the context of negotiating bio-prospecting plans. By setting out clear guidelines and priorities, as determined through the eyes and values of indigenous peoples, indigenous communities may have an opportunity to participate in the global sharing of biomedical information and healing for all our relations. Before any projects get underway, however, (...) social, political, and legal issues ought to be settled so that informed decision can be made on the part of indigenous communities to partake of the invitation to bio-prospecting, or not. (shrink)