W ostatniej dekadzie można zaobserwować postępującą w naukach społecznych kodyfikację i instytucjonalizację etyki badań. Powstaje coraz więcej kodeksów etycznych, które standaryzują zasady etycznego prowadzenia badań oraz komisji etycznych kontrolujących projekty badawcze. Za kodyfikacją oraz instytucjonalizacją etyki naukowych badań społecznych stoi między innymi przekonanie, że kodeksy i komisje etyczne znacząco przyczynią się do etycznego postępowania badaczek i ochronią podmioty zaangażowane w badania, szczególnie ich uczestników, przed krzywdą. W artykule argumentuję, że to nie wystarczy, gdyż zarówno osoby prowadzące badania, jak i komisje (...) etyczne powinny kierować się w swoich decyzjach etycznych wyobraźnią moralną. (shrink)

This paper deals with Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces. Let \({\mathcal {S}}\) be a conceptual space consisting of 2-type fuzzy sets equipped with several kinds of metrics. Let a finite set of prototypes \(\tilde{P}_1,\ldots,\tilde{P}_n\in \mathcal {S}\) be given. Our main result is the construction of a classification algorithm. That is, given an element \({\tilde{A}}\in \mathcal {S},\) our algorithm classifies it into the conceptual field determined by one of the given prototypes \(\tilde{P}_i.\) The construction of our algorithm uses some physical analogies (...) and the Newton potential plays a significant role here. Importantly, the resulting conceptual fields are not convex in the Euclidean sense, which we believe is a reasonable departure from the assumptions of Gardenfors’ original definition of the conceptual space. A partitioning algorithm of the space \(\mathcal {S}\) is also considered in the paper. In the application section, we test our classification algorithm on real data and obtain very satisfactory results. Moreover, the example we consider is another argument against requiring convexity of conceptual fields. (shrink)

Confidentiality represents a core principle of research ethics and forms a standard practice in social research. However, what should a researcher do if they learn about illegal activities or harm during the research process? Few systematic studies consider researchers’ attitudes and reactions in such situations. This paper analyzes this issue on the basis of in-depth interviews with Polish sociologists and anthropologists who conduct qualitative research with vulnerable participants. It discusses the experiences and opinions of researchers concerning the maintenance or breaking (...) of confidentiality in the context of knowledge about illegal activities and harm. It also examines the ways in which the researchers justified their decisions. Most of my interviewees respected confidentiality in spite of knowledge of crime or harm, and referred to their epistemological perspectives regarding the role of the researcher, implicit consequentialist ethical reasoning and personal values. Where researchers did break confidentiality, this owed to their personal values and willingness to protect their informants, especially in cases of minor levels of harm as opposed to serious crime. Therefore, their experiences indicate the failure of both obligatory unconditional assurances of confidentiality and the requirement for researchers to assure confidentiality to the extent permitted by law. I argue that researchers do not need constrictive and potentially punitive rules about confidentiality, but rather sensitizing frameworks about how to contemplate and anticipate the many complexities and moral shadings of situations in the field. (shrink)

The importance of ethics in social research has increased in recent years, something reflected, among other things, in the progressive codification and institutionalization of research ethics and the growing literature on this topic. We argue that despite increasing ethical regulation and ethical reflection in social research, ethical challenges also arise, i.e., difficult situations connected with selecting ethically appropriate behavior. The aim of this special issue is to invite social researchers to reflect upon and discuss ethical challenges in contemporary social research. (...) The contributions in this issue concern vulnerability (one critically analyzing it, and another adapting the vulnerability concept to conducting research with people after a laryngectomy), the researcher and participant relationship, research ethics in multilingual world, and the ethicality of data representation where language plays a particular role in creating a form of activist research. (shrink)

Not all of the stimuli that we encounter are unequivocal; some of them may be ambiguous. In a series of two experiments, we investigated how people perceive and assess the emotionality of the words ambiguous on three emotional spaces: valence (dimensions of positivity and negativity), origin (automaticity and reflectiveness), and activation (arousal and subjective significance). Using two types of measurement – behavioural and webcam-based eye tracking – we compared words of moderate and high ambiguity on each of those spaces with (...) control (uniequivocal) words. The behavioural measurements indicated that reaction times were significantly longer for the control words than for all the ambiguous words; the emotionality of words of ambiguous valence and origin was rated as significantly lower than the control words and words of ambiguous activation. The eye-tracking measurements indicated that words of ambiguous valence and origin caused significantly more and longer eye fixations than control words and words of ambiguous activation. The results showed the visible distinctiveness of the ambiguous words compared with the control words; they also showed differences between words of various ambiguities, verifying the proposed new model for the emotional ambiguity and presenting the behavioral and eye tracking correlates for each of the three ambiguities. (shrink)

The ability to detect deception is one of the most intriguing features of our minds. Cognitive load can surprisingly increase the accuracy of detection when there is a substantial load compared to when the detection is performed without cognitive load. This effect was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, the participants were asked to watch truth/lie videos while completing a concurrent task (N‐back in a 3‐back version; intuitive processing), providing verbal reasoning after watching each video (deliberative processing), or (...) watching the videos alone (control group). The cognitive load caused by the concurrent task led to a higher accuracy in deception detection compared to the other conditions. In the second experiment, we examined how this effect worked under various amounts of cognitive load. Participants watching truth/lie videos were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (N‐back in three versions: 1, 3, and 5‐back) or to a control group. The participants in the 3‐back and 5‐back conditions exhibited a significantly higher accuracy in deception detection than those in the 1‐back and control groups. Thus, the effect of increased accuracy in deception detection is due to cognitive load and is related to the amount of cognitive load present. (shrink)

Ethics committees enjoy both a long history and a strong presence in Anglophone countries, although simultaneously their functioning provokes debate in the social research community. In this paper, I analyse selected contested issues that revolve around three questions: 1) Who do ethics committees protect, and who should they? 2) Should ethics committees protect all research participants in the same way? 3) When can ethics committees intervene in the methodology of the research project under review? Analysing these disputes is important since (...) it may help to improve the functioning of ethics committees for social research in Poland. Their number has increased significantly in the last decade, but this has not been accompanied by a broader reflection on either their functioning or the concerns associated with this kind of control. (shrink)

“Normal science” is a concept introduced by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In Kuhn’s view, normal science means “puzzle solving”, solving problems within the paradigm—framework most successful in solving current major scientific problems—rather than producing major novelties. This paper examines Kuhnian and Popperian accounts of normal science and their criticisms to assess if normal science is good. The advantage of normal science according to Kuhn was “psychological”: subjective satisfaction from successful “puzzle solving”. Popper argues for an “intellectual” (...) science, one that consistently refutes conjectures and offers new ideas rather than focus on personal advantages. His account is criticized as too impersonal and idealistic. Feyerabend’s perspective seems more balanced; he argues for a community that would introduce new ideas, defend old ones, and enable scientists to develop in line with their subjective preferences. The paper concludes that normal science has no one clear-cut set of criteria encompassing its meaning and enabling clear assessment. (shrink)

The program of Evolutionary Ethics (EE) is based on the assumption that our moral features constitute adaptations and as such are to be explained in terms of the evolutionary process of natural selection. However, the fundamental assumption of EE was seriously put into question: the level of analysis relevant for moral features is essentially ontogeny and culture, while the explanation using natural selection applies to the level of phylogeny and genes (Sober, 1995; Ayala, 1995; Okasha, 2009). To the discussion on (...) the validity of the program of EE we propose to bring the recent program of Extended Synthesis (ES, Pigliucci & Muller, 2010), because it attempts to account for the role of the ontogeny in evolution. We conclude, nevertheless, that ES fails to properly account for the importance of ontogeny in evolutionary processes because by extending the notion of inheritance it (con-)fuses the notions of unit of inheritance and of unit of selection (against the well-known distinction made by Hull, 1980). (shrink)

This research addresses the questions: “How do ties to children and other family members influence Black drug offenders' likelihood of incarceration?” and “Is the influence similar for men and women?” Predictions were tested using 1991-1993 data for 2,785 men and 499 women convicted of cocaine offenses. Logistic regression models containing key legal and extralegal characteristics were estimated for men and women combined and separately. Measures of prior conviction and prior drug use were found to be powerful predictors of sentence for (...) both men and women. Findings suggest that judges consider “Does the offender live with a child or a family member?” and, possibly, “Is there a family member readily available to assume child care responsibilities if we incarcerate a mother who lives with a child?” when sentencing women. Among men, legal characteristics such as offense seriousness were more salient. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFew studies of Democracy in America give substantial weight to Tocqueville’s analysis of the United States Constitution in volume 1, part 1, chapter 8. In this article, I argue that Tocquev...

This paper reports on a case study which aims to recreate the hearing voices symptom in schizophrenia. The case study was submitted for a co-curricular module at King’s College London by a first-year undergraduate Music student, Bethany James, and was created using the web application, Mahara. The core of the case study consists of a soundscape of both everyday and unusual sounds, in conjunction with an original musical composition. The paper describes the case study and discusses it using chaos narrative (...) as an analytical lens. The paper argues that the case study effectively evokes the hearing voices symptom, conveying a lucid sense of the experience to non-sufferers and thus potentially creating use value for clinicians and care workers. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze those theories that interpret misidentification delusions in terms of mentalization. The hypothesis under examination holds that a mentalization framework is useful for describing misidentification delusions when identification is thought to be partially based on mentalization. The article provides both a characterization and possible interpretations of such delusions, and possible relations between misidentification and mentalization are scrutinized. Whether the mentalization approach may explain or describe such kinds of mental disorders is considered, with the (...) conclusion that while this approach is unsatisfactory, there is some room for future improvement. (shrink)

The text concerns the role of emotions in delusion formation. Provided are definitions from DSM-V and DSM-IV-R and the problems found in those definitions. One of them, the problem of delusion formation, is described when providing cognitive theories of delusions. The core of the paper is a presentation of the emotional and affective disorders in delusions, especially Capgras delusion and Cotard delusion. The author provides a comparison of the kinds of delusions and the conclusions taken from neuroimaging studies. As a (...) result of the fact that an explanation of delusion formation focusing on emotional problems turns out to be insufficient, the author provides examples of the reasoning impairments which coexist with them. At the end of the article, some hypotheses are proposed concerning the role of emotions and reasoning in delusion formation and the relation between belief disorders and emotional disorders. (shrink)

This article asks how people come to interpret themselves and others as autonomous given their multiple dependencies. We draw on a cross-case comparison of ethnographic studies with two populations for whom autonomy is both central and problematic: elderly patients in post-acute care, and young adults with disabilities in an independent living program. Analyzing the institutional efforts to make their clients “as independent as possible,” we find that staff members at each organization formulate autonomy as a temporal project through an ongoing (...) calibration of open futures, ideal pasts, and situational competence. Constantly adjusting and fine-tuning where in time autonomy “really” is, workers arrange present dependence so that the contours of the future remain open for their clients. In other words, they make use of temporal markers to produce recognizable autonomous subjects whose dependencies are momentary. Theorizing this temporal project enables us to see more clearly how all of us engage in the constant business of “doing” autonomy, and to better understand the role of institutions in producing autonomous selves. (shrink)

This book contains essays presented at a symposium on evidence and data presented by the America Philosophical Society. The essays discuss the role of evidence in interpreting anthropological fieldwork; human psychology; the mechanisms of artificial intelligence; and claims about the past. The natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities are all represented.

W niniejszym artykule proponujemy przegląd stanowisk wobec „ucieleśnienia” jako kategorii metodologicznej w humanistyce i naukach społecznych, rozważając, jak różnie bywa to pojęcie używane i co stanowi trzon „podejścia ucieleśnionego”. Teksty zebrane w niniejszym zbiorze egzemplifikują te historycznie rozbieżne tradycje, dając obraz badań nad ucieleśnieniem jako samodzielnego pola refleksji.

In this Matters Arising article, we outline how the recent article “The impact on patients of objections by institutions to assisted dying: a qualitative study of family caregivers’ perceptions” (White et al., 2023 Mar 13;24(1):22) informed Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) implementation in our large Australian public health setting, where objections do not emanate from, but within, the institution. In reporting the harms to patients and caregivers created by institutional objection, White et al. provide an evidenced-based road map for potential potholes (...) or risks associated with VAD implementation. We discuss the complexities emerging from the diverse views of health professionals and the ethical tensions arising from such, especially within certain specialties, and how we developed systemic strategies that support patients, caregivers and staff alike. We highlighted the need to shift from “Do you support VAD?“ to “How can we support you as healthcare professionals to integrate VAD into your practice, in a way that complies with the legislation, meets the needs of patients and caregivers, and feels safe and does not compromise your moral stance?“. (shrink)

People regularly make decisions about how often and with whom to interact. During an epidemic of communicable disease, these decisions gain new weight, as individual choices exert more direct influence on collective health and wellbeing. While much attention has been paid to how people’s concerns about the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affect their engagement in behaviors that could curb the spread of the disease, less is understood about how people’s concerns about the pandemic’s impact on their social lives (...) affect these outcomes. Across three studies, we find that individuals’ estimates of the pandemic’s social impact are associated with an unwillingness to curtail social interaction and follow other Centers for Disease Control guidelines as the pandemic spreads. First, these associations are present in self-report data of participants’ own behaviors and behavior across hypothetical scenarios; second, participants’ estimates of the pandemic’s impact on social life in their location of residence are associated with movement data collected unobtrusively from mobile phones in those locations. We suggest that perceptions of social impact could be a potential mechanism underlying, and therefore potential intervention target for addressing, disease-preventing behavior during a pandemic. (shrink)

This article presents the ethical implications for social science research emerging from our study on interpersonal communication after a laryngectomy. By tracing the evolution of our approach through specific research experiences and participant feedback, we provide empirical support for a flexible, multidimensional, and relational understanding of key ethical concepts, such as vulnerability and the researcher-participant relationship. Our approach has shifted from institutionally imposed rigid categorizations and somewhat stereotypical treatment of both the research group and the researcher-participant relationship to an emphasis (...) on building relationships founded on mutual care and rapport. We argue that this revised perspective fosters ethical collaboration that is beneficial and secure for all parties involved, and we offer practical examples of its implementation in research practice. (shrink)

Infertility is a global problem affecting 48 to 186 million couples of reproductive age. In Poland, it concerns approx. 1.5 million couples, which amounts to 20% of the population capable of reproducing. One of the factors influencing the incidence of fertility disorders may be lifestyle, understood as a multi-disciplinary accumulation of everyday behaviours and habits. In the study, a group of 201 young adults, students of medical and related faculties, were surveyed in order to check the actual level of knowledge (...) about the impact of lifestyle on reproductive health. The Kohonen network, which is an example of a self-learning neural network, was used to find non-obvious connections between the data. The trained Kohonen neural network formed 4 clusters with different characteristics. Based on analyses of the structure of each cluster, it was found that 2nd year students of Medicine are internally divided into 3 fractions. The first fraction declared a high level of knowledge, but did not have real knowledge. The second fraction was aware of their ignorance, as confirmed by the knowledge test. The last fraction was characterized by a high level of self-confidence regarding their knowledge about reproductive health and obtained a high result in the knowledge test. It was confirmed that people studying at the Medical faculty know more than students of the same year at faculties other than Medicine. Interesting results were obtained for a group of 3rd year students of first-cycle studies in Dietetics. They did not obtain a significantly better result in the knowledge test concerning the influence of diet and lifestyle on reproductive health. It would seem that one could expect at least a few highly knowledgeable students in a group of 3rd year students, but this was not confirmed by the study. In view of the obtained results, it was concluded that the Kohonen neural network is applicable to the analysis of data on the actual state of knowledge about the impact of lifestyle on reproductive health. (shrink)

A medical student's ability to present a case history is a critical skill that is difficult to teach. Case histories presented without theatrical engagement may fail to catch the attention of their intended recipients. More engaging presentations incorporate ‘stage presence’, eye contact, vocal inflection, interesting detail and succinct, well organised performances. They convey stories effectively without wasting time. To address the didactic challenge for instructing future doctors in how to ‘act’, the Mayo Medical School and The Mayo Clinic Center for (...) Humanities in Medicine partnered with the Guthrie Theater to pilot the programme ‘Telling the Patient's Story’. Guthrie teaching artists taught storytelling skills to medical students through improvisation, writing, movement and acting exercises. Mayo Clinic doctors participated and provided students with feedback on presentations and stories from their own experiences in patient care. The course's primary objective was to build students' confidence and expertise in storytelling. These skills were then applied to presenting cases and communicating with patients in a fresher, more engaging way. This paper outlines the instructional activities as aligned with course objectives. Progress was tracked by comparing pre-course and post-course surveys from the seven participating students. All agreed that the theatrical techniques were effective teaching methods. Moreover, this project can serve as an innovative model for how arts and humanities professionals can be incorporated for teaching and professional development initiatives at all levels of medical education. (shrink)

Approx. 60–80 million couples globally are affected by the problem of infertility. The issue is important both for the couple trying to conceive and for the whole society in which the couple lives. Lifestyle, including nutrition, may have both a positive and a negative impact on the outcomes of infertility treatment. The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between knowledge in the area of fertility diet and its actual use, and types of fertility disorders among women undergoing (...) treatment in a fertility clinic. A group of women was analyzed statistically, divided into 3 groups according to their couple’s cause of infertility – the causes of infertility were described as: the male factor, the female factor, and the idiopathic factor. The study group answered questions that comprised a fertility diet knowledge test; the frequency of consumption of particular food products in a individual groups was also analyzed. Correspondence analysis showed differences between the groups in the number of points scored in the fertility diet knowledge test, as well as in the consumption of sweets, crisps and sticks, and nuts and seeds. Women among whom the main cause of infertility was defined as the male factor scored the highest numbers of points in the fertility diet knowledge test, women with the idiopathic cause of infertility scored slightly lower numbers of points, while women whose main cause of infertility was defined as the female factor scored the lowest numbers of points. Women from couples with idiopathic infertility consumed sweets, crisps and sticks the most often, followed by women with the cause of infertility identified on their side, with the lowest frequency of consumption of sweets identified among women whose partner was infertile. Nuts and seeds were consumed the most frequently by women whose partners were infertile, followed by women with the cause of infertility identified on their side, while women with the idiopathic cause of infertility consumed nuts and seeds the least frequently. These examples show that correspondence analysis is well suited to the assessment of the influence of lifestyle on fertility; in addition, it makes it possible to recognize certain correlations that may not be observed in standard statistical tests. (shrink)

The paper presents a comparison of the two most commonly used diagnostic tests for orthorexia – ORTO-15 Questionnaire and BOT (Bratman Orthorexia Test) – that use data-mining methods. Orthorexia nervosa is perceived as a new, unclassified eating disorder, which is characterized with pathological fixation on the consumption of healthy foods. In order to assess the coherence of the aforementioned tests, a method from the data-mining group, i.e. correspondence analysis, was used in addition to traditional statistical methods. On the basis of (...) the obtained results, only average correlation between ORTO-15 Questionnaire and BOT test was found. More cases of orthorexia were diagnosed with the use of ORTO-15 Questionnaire, which may result from its higher sensitivity. It was also noted that the coherence of tests increases with increasing BMI values, despite no relationship between BMI and the presence of orthorexia having been proved. Diagnosis of an orthorexia case with the use of BOT test implies that there is a high probability that it will also be diagnosed with the use of ORTO-15 test, but not necessarily the other way around. The performed correspondence analysis confirmed a not very strong coherence of the results of both tests. (shrink)

Many studies confirm the fact that women do not have sufficient knowledge about reproductive health, which is a significant problem nowadays due to the large percentage of people who suffer from infertility. A sources of knowledge from which information about health, including reproductive health, is obtained have various levels of reliability. The aim of the study was to use regression trees to find which of the analysed parameters had the greatest impact on the level of respondents’ knowledge about fertility and (...) the impact of diet on fertility. The study was conducted among women who practice dance in Max Dance studio in Białystok. The group consisted of 42 women with an average age of 26.3 years, dancing in various dance styles at various levels of proficiency. A questionnaire on lifestyle and a sources of information on fertility was used; the questionnaire also contained a knowledge test focused on reproductive health and the impact of diet on fertility, in which the questions were based on information from the latest research. Three regression trees were created for three indicators determining the level of respondents’ knowledge. The obtained results revealed certain areas that have a significant impact on the level of knowledge about reproductive health, which may require additional education. The use of the regression trees method made it possible to determine the relationships between the analysed data that were not fully visible after standard biostatistical analyses had been performed. The created trees can be useful in improving the process of disseminating knowledge about reproductive health among women of childbearing age. (shrink)

Modern aesthetic Minimalism is neither a flight to abstract spirituality, nor an extracting process of a primordial essence. It is concerned, rather, with the aesthetic object as pure refiguration and the production of “concrete universality”, of form as content and possibility of itself. This becomes especially apparent in the Minimalism of the 1960s. The main focus of this paper will be on Dan Flavin’s luminous minimalism. The latter is characterised by a style that, though simple in appearance, introduced a (...) higher level of complexity with regard to the relation between form and matter, concept and thing, in artistic production. Neither sculptures nor paintings, Flavin’s works fall right under Donald Judd’s category of “specific objects”. Nevertheless, his luminous creations are not particularly specific, just as they are not strictly speaking objects. Their main material – colour-light – is as intangible and diffuse, as its origin – the fluorescent lamp – is commonplace and artificial. Drawing on such influential theorists of art as Theodor W. Adorno, Peter Bürger, Clement Greenberg and Jacques Rancière, this paper studies the lessons that philosophy can learn from Flavin's light minimalism, most notably in relation to the notions of aesthetic materiality and sublimation. (shrink)

Abstractα/β barrels have an ill‐defined origin. Evidence exists which favours their divergent evolution from a common ancestral barrel and convergent evolution to a stable fold. However, recent sequence and structural information for the flavin oxidase/dehydrogenase family of barrel enzymes indicate that sub‐families of α/β barrels have evolved divergently. The modular fusion of barrel domains with core structures from other gene families has also contributed to the evolution of related but catalytically distinct enzyme molecules within each sub‐family of the (...) class='Hi'>flavin oxidases/dehydrogenases. An analysis of the structures and sequences of the flavin oxidases/dehydrogenases has now enabled studies focusing on the evolutionary origins and modular assembly of this important family of proteins to be initiated. (shrink)

Contributors are Susan Bordo, Stanley Clarke, Erica Harth, Leslie Heywood, Luce Irigaray, Genevieve Lloyd, Mario Moussa, Eileen O'Neill, Adrianna Paliyenko, Ruth Perry, Mario Sáenz, Karl Stern, Thomas Wartenberg, and James Winders.

François Laruelle emerged from the hallowed generation of French postwar philosophers that included luminaries such as Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Luce Irigaray, and Jean Baudrillard, yet his thinking differs radically from that of his better-known contemporaries. In Laruelle and Art, Jonathan Fardy provides the first academic monograph dedicated solely to Laruelle's unique contribution to aesthetic theory and specifically the 'non-philosophical' project he terms 'non-aesthetics'. This undertaking allows Laruelle to think about art outside the boundaries of standard philosophy, an approach that (...) Fardy explicates through a series of case studies. By analysing the art of figures such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Anish Kapoor, Dan Flavin, and James Turrell as well as the drama of Michael Frayn, Fardy's new book enables new and experienced readers of Laruelle to understand how the philosopher's thinking can open up new vistas of art and criticism. (shrink)

Most artworks—or at least most among those standardly subject to philosophical scrutiny—appear to be singular, stand-alone works. However, some artworks (indeed, perhaps a good many) are by contrast best viewed in terms of some larger grouping or ordering of artworks. i.e., as a series. The operative art-theoretic notion of series in which I am interested here is that of an individual and distinct artwork that is itself non-trivially composed of a non-trivial sequence of artworks (e.g., Walter de Maria’s Statement Series, (...) Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors)—as opposed to an art-historically informative or art critically productive thematically, stylistically, or formally unified ordering or grouping of individual and distinct artworks within an artist’s larger body of work (e.g., Kiki Smith’s Blue Print series, Dan Flavin’s Monuments to V. Tatlin series, Jeff Koons’ Made in Heaven series, Robert Rauschenberg’s Tribute 21 series). Given this, my aim is simply to sketch a minimal descriptive and classificatory framework for serial art within which certain informative distinctions may be made and further philosophical enquiry may productively take place. (shrink)

Auxin is a plant growth regulator involved in diverse fundamental developmental responses. Much is now known about auxin transport, via influx and efflux carriers, and about auxin perception and its role in gene regulation. Many developmental processes are dependent on peaks of auxin concentration and, to date, attention has been directed at the role of polar auxin transport in generating and maintaining auxin gradients. However, surprisingly little attention has focussed on the role and significance of auxin biosynthesis, which should be (...) expected to contribute to active auxin pools. Recent reports on the function of the YUCCA flavin monooxygenases and a tryptophan aminotransferase in Arabidopsis have caused us to look again at the importance of local biosynthesis in developmental processes. Many alternative and redundant pathways of auxin synthesis exist in many plants and it is emerging that they may function in response to environmental cues. (shrink)