This article argues that the social quality approach can be usefully applied to studying “models of elderly care“ that enhance the wellbeing of the elderly and empower them to participate in social activities. Examining three cases in Japan and another three cases in e Netherlands, the study identifies actors, institutions and processes that have provided services for the elderly, highlighting the importance of history and culture in influencing the “social“ of the elderly. The article deals with a range of opportunities (...) and possibilities for optimizing care for the elderly, both as individuals and as a group, through promoting their social inclusion, social cohesion, socio-economic security and social empowerment. Grounded in community networks, as well as in social and intergenerational interaction, these “models“ demonstrate how care-givers, including nurses and family members, are also empowered in these processes. These discussions, reflecting empirical reality and conceptual insights, provide the basis of sustainable welfare policies that improve the social quality of the elderly. (shrink)

Behavioral genetics and cultural evolution have both revolutionized our understanding of human behavior – largely independent of each other. Here, we reconcile these two fields under a dual inheritance framework, offering a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between genes and culture. Going beyond typical analyses of gene–environment interactions, we describe the cultural dynamics that shape these interactions by shaping the environment and population structure. A cultural evolutionary approach can explain, for example, how factors such as rates of innovation and (...) diffusion, density of cultural subgroups, and tolerance for behavioral diversity impact heritability estimates, thus yielding predictions for different social contexts. Moreover, when cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, and the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment. The manner of confounding is specific to a particular society at a particular time, but a WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) sampling problem obscures this boundedness. Cultural evolutionary dynamics are typically missing from models of gene-to-phenotype causality, hindering generalizability of genetic effects across societies and across time. We lay out a reconciled framework and use it to predict the ways in which heritability should differ between societies, between socioeconomic levels, and other groupings within some societies but not others, and over the life course. An integrated cultural evolutionary behavioral genetic approach cuts through the nature–nurture debate and helps resolve controversies in topics such as IQ. (shrink)

In addition to the many easily observable differences between people, there are also differences in people's subjective experiences that are harder to observe, and which, as a consequence, remain hidden. For example, people vary widely in how much visual imagery they experience. But those who cannot see in their mind's eye, tend to assume everyone is like them. Those who can, assume everyone else can as well. We argue that a study of such hidden phenomenal differences has much to teach (...) cognitive science. Uncovering and describing this variation (a search for unknown unknowns) may help predict otherwise puzzling differences in human behavior. The very existence of certain differences can also act as a stress test for some cognitive theories. Finally, studying hidden phenomenal differences is the first step toward understanding what kinds of environments may mask or unmask links between phenomenal experience and observable behavior. (shrink)

The industries of Japan have developed by learning from Western industries, especially the USA, and by implementing many of their concepts and technologies. However, Japanese industries have often implemented these concepts and technologies in a very different way from the USA. For example, while the USA uses information systems in retail industries as a tool by which data are collected and analysed to ‘control the market’, in Japan this same technology is considered rather as a learning device to ‘interpret the (...) market’. While in the USA the market is seen as a natural phenomenon capable of being controlled, the Japanese see it as an ambiguous phenomenon that is ever changing and is not capable of being controlled. Rather it is important to feel the change in the market itself. (shrink)

The 29 commentaries amplified our key arguments; offered extensions, implications, and applications of the framework; and pushed back and clarified. To help forge the path forward for cultural evolutionary behavioral genetics, we (1) focus on conceptual disagreements and misconceptions about the concepts of heritability and culture; (2) further discuss points raised about the intertwined relationship between culture and genes; and (3) address extensions to the proposed framework, particularly as it relates to cultural clusters, development, and power. These commentaries, and the (...) deep engagement they represent, reinforce the importance of integrating cultural evolution and behavioral genetics. (shrink)

Measuring processes of a single spin-1/2 object and of a pair of spin-1/2 objects in the EPR-Bohm state are modeled by systems of differential equations. The latter model is a local model with hidden variables of the EPR-Bohm gedanken experiment. Although there is no dynamical interaction between the pair of spin-1/2 objects, the model reproduces approximately the quantum-mechanical correlations by coincidence counting. Hence the Bell inequality is violated. This result supports the idea that the coincidence counting is the source of (...) the apparent nonlocality in the EPR-Bohm gedanken experiment. (shrink)

Is the state we experienced meditating a religious, philosophical, mystical experience? Or is it just a change in brain physiology? Is it possible to achieve a state "beyond the mind" (meditative state) through a technique that uses the mind (meditative technique)? This article explores these aspects by the perspective of neurobiology.

Valuable insights into eukaryotic regulatory circuits can emerge from studying interactions of bacterial pathogens such as Helicobacter pylori with host tissues. H. pylori uses a type IV secretion system (T4SS) to deliver its CagA virulence protein to epithelial cells, where much of it becomes phosphorylated. CagA's phosphorylated and non‐phosphorylated forms each interact with host regulatory proteins to alter cell structure and cell fate. Kwok and colleagues1 showed that CagA destined for phosphorylation is delivered using host integrin as receptor and H. (...) pylori's CagL protein as an integrin‐specific adhesin, and that CagL–integrin‐binding activates the kinase cascade responsible for CagA phosphorylation. This research contributes to understanding infectious disease and the control of cell fates. BioEssays 30:515–520, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. propose a unified model linking cultural evolutionary theory to behavior genetics (BG) to enhance generalizability, enrich explanation, and predict how social factors shape heritability estimates. A consideration of culture evolution is beneficial but insufficient for purpose. I submit that their proposed model is underdeveloped and their emphasis on heritability estimates misguided. I discuss their ambiguous conception of culture, neglect of social structure, and the lack of a general theory in BG.

Uchiyama et al. describe how a more complete measurement of the dynamic nature of culture could help us unmask the true richness of genetic effects on behaviour. I underscore this notion here by reflecting on the role that the dynamic relationship between culture and DNA has played in our evolutionary history and will play in our evolutionary future.

Uchiyama et al. present a dual inheritance framework for conceptualizing how behavioural genetics and cultural evolution interact and affect heritability. We posit that to achieve a holistic and nuanced representation of the cultural environment and evolution against which genetic effects should be evaluated, it is imperative to consider the multiple geographic cultural layers impacting individuals and genetic heritability.

Uchiyama et al. question heritability estimates in a convincing manner. We offer additional arguments to further bolster their claims, highlighting methodological issues in heritability coefficients' derivation, their misuse in various contexts, and their potential contributions to exacerbating common erroneous intuitions that have been shown to lead to deleterious social phenomena. We conclude that science should move away from using them.

Uchiyama et al. provide a compelling analysis of cultural influences on estimates of the genetic contribution to psychological and behavioral traits. Their focus is on the relevance of their arguments for behavioral genetics and their work resonates with other contemporary approaches that emphasize extra-genetic influences on phenotype. I extend their analysis to consider its relevance for evolutionary psychology.

Uchiyama et al. reveal how group-structured cultural variation influences measurements of trait heritability. We argue that understanding culture's influence on phenotypic heritability can clarify the impact of culture on genetic inheritance, which has implications for long-term gene–culture coevolution. Their analysis may provide guidance for testing our hypothesis that cultural adaptation is superseding genetic adaptation in the long term.

Uchiyama et al. productively discuss how culture can influence genetic heritability and, by modifying environmental conditions, limit the generalizability of genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Here, we supplement their account by highlighting how recent changes in culture and institutions in industrialized, westernized societies – such as increased female workforce participation – may have increased assortative mating. This alters the distribution of genotypes themselves, increasing heritability and phenotypic variance, and may be detectable using the latest methods.

Uchiyama et al. emphasize that culture evolves directionally and differentially as a function of selective pressures in different populations. Extending these principles to the level of families, lineages, and individuals exposes additional challenges to estimating heritability. Cultural traits expressed differentially as a function of the genetics whose influence they mask or unmask render inseparable the influences of culture and genetics.

Uchiyama et al. rightly consider how cultural variation may influence estimates of heritability by contributing to environmental sources of variation. We disagree, however, with the idea that generalisable estimates of heritability are ever a plausible aim. Heritability estimates are always context-specific, and to suggest otherwise is to misunderstand what heritability can and cannot tell us.

Uchiyama et al. provide a theoretical framework to explain the gap between reported gene–environment interactions and real-life epidemiological statistics. Through cultural evolution, informed behavioral approaches mitigate the impact of environmental risk on disease onset. Similarly, here we propose that fostering certain behavioral traits, transmitted culturally or through access to scientific knowledge, could confer resilience to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

We support Uchiyama et al. in the value of genetics, sample diversification, and context measurement. Against the example of vitamins, we highlight the intransigence of many phenotypes. We caution that while culture can mask genetic differences, the dependence of behaviour on genetics is reinvented and unmasked by novel challenges across generations.

In the early twentieth century, Uchiyama Gudō, Seno’o Girō, Lin Qiuwu, and others advocated a Buddhism that was radical in two respects. Firstly, they adopted a more or less naturalist stance with respect to Buddhist doctrine and related matters, rejecting karma or other supernatural beliefs. And secondly, they held political and economic views that were radically anti-hegemonic, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary. Taking the idea of such a “radical Buddhism” seriously, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (...) asks whether it is possible to develop a philosophy that is simultaneously naturalist, anti-capitalist, Buddhist, and consistent. Rather than a study of radical Buddhism, then, this book is an attempt to radicalize it. The foundations of this “radicalized radical Buddhism” are provided by a realist interpretation of Yogācāra, elucidated and elaborated with some help from thinkers in the broader Tiantai/Tendai tradition and American philosophers Donald Davidson and W.V.O. Quine. A key implication of this foundation is that only this world and only this life are real, from which it follows that if Buddhism aims to alleviate suffering, it has to do so in this world and in this life. Twentieth-century radical Buddhists (as well as some engaged Buddhists) came to a similar conclusion, often expressed in their aim to realize “a Buddha land in this world.” Building on this foundation, but also on Mahāyāna moral philosophy, this book argues for an ethics and social philosophy based on a definition of evil as that what is or should be expected to cause death or suffering. On that ground, capitalism should be rejected indeed, but utopianism must be treated with caution as well, which raises questions about what it means – from a radicalized radical Buddhist perspective – to aim for a Buddha land in this world. (shrink)

Commentary on a beloved ancient philosopher of Zen by a beloved contemporary master of Zen. Eihei Dogen was a thirteenth-century Buddhist poet-philosopher and founder of the Soto school of Zen. Famously insightful and famously complex, his writings have been studied and puzzled over by generations of students. Kosho Uchiyama was a beloved twentieth-century Zen teacher and author of over twenty books, who here addressed himself head-on to unpacking Dogen's wisdom for a modern audience. Translators Tom Wright and Shohaku Okumura (...) present three fascicles of Dogen's monumental Shobogenzo, or Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: "Shoaku Makusa" or "Refraining from Evil," "Maka Hannya Haramitsu" or "Practicing Deepest Wisdom," and "Uji" or "Living Time." For each one, they lovingly translate Uchiyama's thoughtful commentary on the piece. At turns poetic and funny, always insightful, this is Zen wisdom for the ages. (shrink)

A story for all ages about interconnection and learning to live in harmony amid differences, from a leading light of contemporary Zen-based on a parable from Kosho Uchiyama's classic bestseller Opening the Hand of Thought. Features a contextualizing afterword by Shohaku Okumura. [Amplify what kids will benefit from reading this book] "It's true that we are all different squashes... some are bigger and some are smaller... some are rounder and some are longer. But even if we are different, we (...) are all connected. We are all growing together. We don't have to be such squabbling squashes.". (shrink)