McCoy and colleagues (2023) offer a reflective framework for data ethics and governance with several historical bioethics principles as a foundation. Their framework is one among a plethora of othe...

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly dominated by humans. Consequently, the human dimensions of sustainability science have become an integral part of emerging coastal governance and management practices. But if we are to avoid the harsh lessons of land management, coastal decision makers must recognize that humans are one of the more coastally dependent species in the biosphere. Management responses must therefore confront both the temporal urgency and the very real compromises and sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve a sustainable coastal (...) ecosystem, one that is economically feasible, socially just, and ecologically sound. (shrink)

We report here on an ongoing study of a self-defining community of physicists whose work spans an interestingly diverse set of subjects, typically in the borderland between macroscopic and microscopic description and between quantum and classical domains. Its methods are typically semi-classical. It is this borderland—of people, subject, and methods—in which we are primarily interested and which we will attempt to characterise. For concreteness, we will focus on the subset of ‘quantum chaos’ and more particularly on the work that the (...) physicists Eric Heller and Steven Tomsovic have called ‘postmodern quantum mechanics’, using their characterisation to ground a somewhat more expansive interpretation. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe societal context within which science is pursued generally acts as a productive force in the generation of knowledge. To analyze this action it is helpful to consider particular modes of mediation through which societal concerns are projected into the very local and esoteric concerns of a particular domain of research. One such mode of mediation occurs through material systems. Here I treat two such systems – the steam engine and the electric telegraph – in the natural philosophy of (...) William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).The steam engine illustratesconceptualmediation. It simultaneously instantiates “labor value” in political economy and “work” in engineering mechanics, thereby identifying the two concepts in the region of their common reference. The partial identification carries with it a structural analogy between a network of concepts from political economy and a similar network in natural philosophy, providing a potent heuristic for the reformulation and further development of dynamics.The electric telegraph illustratesmethodologicalmediation. It projects the interests of engineering and industry into the interests of electromagnetic theory and vice versa, thereby establishing, in Thomson's view, a Baconian unity of truth and utility. As the common reference of theory and practice, the telegraph locates the truth of theoretical knowledge in its utility and the utility of practical knowledge in its truth.These particular cases of conceptual and methodological mediation indicate how the local practices, concepts, and interests of a research specialty, or subculture, draw on and are adapted to those of the larger culture within which they develop. Thus the analysis of mediation leads to an ecological model of the social construction of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An overview of some of the main modes of making images of natural objects and processes, as they have appeared in the history of science, leads to two main conclusions. First, the dichotomies that have traditionally distinguished, for example, art from science, museums from laboratories, and geometrical from algebraic methods have produced a poverty of understanding of visualization. It is at the intersections of these dichotomies where much of the creative work of science occurs, and it is into those (...) intersections that this Focus section leads us. Second, the section suggests that we need to understand images as arguments. Generalizing, we need to develop a “materialized epistemology” that reunites sensual with ideational knowing. Recent work in the history of science is already pointing the way and producing a dramatically new historiography. (shrink)

The traditional mode of explanation in physics via deduction from partial differential equations is contrasted here with explanation via simulations. I argue that the different technologies employed constitute different languages, which support different sorts of narratives. The narratives that accompany simulations and articulate their meaning are typically historical or natural historical in kind. They explain complex phenomena by growing them rather than by referring them to general laws. Examples of such growth simulations and growth narratives come from the evolution of (...) wave functions in quantum chaos, snowflake formation, and Etruscan genetics. The examples suggest a few concluding remarks on historical explanation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An overview of some of the main modes of making images of natural objects and processes, as they have appeared in the history of science, leads to two main conclusions. First, the dichotomies that have traditionally distinguished, for example, art from science, museums from laboratories, and geometrical from algebraic methods have produced a poverty of understanding of visualization. It is at the intersections of these dichotomies where much of the creative work of science occurs, and it is into those (...) intersections that this Focus section leads us. Second, the section suggests that we need to understand images as arguments. Generalizing, we need to develop a “materialized epistemology” that reunites sensual with ideational knowing. Recent work in the history of science is already pointing the way and producing a dramatically new historiography. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

We used Nunez's physiologically based dynamic theory of EEG to make predictions about a clinical population of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) known to have neuronanatomical abnormalities. Analysis of high-density EEG data (long-range coherence) showed expected age-related differences and surprising regional specificity that is consistent with some of the literature in this clinical area.

In the article, the author studies the Russian influence on the literary, philosophical and critical works of Mikhail Naimy, the world renowned figure in modern Arabic literature. His writings contributed to changing its topics, language and style. Numerous researchers have studied the impact of British, American and French cultures and literatures on the writings of Naimy and his colleagues from the Pen Association, the literary league founded in New York by several young Arab-American emigrants. Meanwhile, it was Russian literature that (...) had the most important impact on Naimy, especially at the earliest stages of his world formation. Scholars have only studied this influence superficially, or bring up specific Russian writers’ influence, without generalization of all the Russian factors. The current work shows how Naimy incorporates Russian viewpoints on critical social reform, anticlericalism and mysticism as well as Russian literary criticism into his works. The author sums up the previous researches, generalizes all the factors, and significantly deepens the materials of the previous researches. This paper has an important methodological value, as it identifies the typology and significance of cultural contacts between the East and the West. It also contributes to an important topic that has received renewed interest from the academy - Russian influences on the Arabic world in general and on Arabic literature in particular. (shrink)

This study offers a new perspective on the much-discussed debate between French phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion and postructuralist theorist Jacques Derrida on the question of ‘negative theology’ and the Christian mystical tradition. It argues that Marion's critique of Derrida betrays a fundamental misunderstanding, specifically, that it fails to recognise that Derrida is not interested in negative theology qua theology, but rather as a discursive practice with certain resources for the performative ‘unsaying’ of logocentric systems. It continues to show that Derrida's principal (...) object is not the God of apophatic theology, but the broader, juridico-political implications of all ‘transcendental signifieds’. Finally, it suggests that Marion's oversight of these facts in his defence of the apophatic tradition unwittingly legitimates Derrida's critique, to the extent that it insulates the Christian tradition from external criticism, and thereby limits the responsiveness of that tradition to the demands of justice. (shrink)

Tant qu'il y aura des cages est la traduction de Rattling the Cage de Steven Wise, contribution majeure au droit animalier. L'auteur, qui enseigne notamment à la Harvard Law School, est connu pour plaider comme avocat en faveur des droits fondamentaux des grands singes devant la Cour suprême aux États-Unis. Dans un style clair, accessible et...