The motivation for this study originated from a review of literature which led the current researcher to the realisation that not much critical study has been performed on the theology and practice of Bible inspiration and its authority in Christ Apostolic Church. This article set out to identify the tenet of faith of the church on inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, locate this tenet in the context of Evangelical theology and compare the initial understanding of the concept of Bible (...) inspiration in CAC with the way it is perceived by the church members today. Primary sources of data for the work comprised the Bible, editions of CAC constitution and structured interviews. Secondary sources of data comprised Bible commentaries, books, journal articles and the Internet. Data collected were analysed using Conservative Evangelical theological framework. The study discovered that CAC held to word-for-word inerrancy of the Scriptures, even of its vernacular translations, and its binding authority on Christians in all areas of their lives. The study revealed that the belief of CAC on Bible inspiration and its authority located CAC at the centre of Evangelical theology which researchers have identified as inerrancy. Finally, the study discovered that the initial position of CAC on the inspiration and authority of the Bible remained the same as held by contemporary members of the church. The work provides theological relevance for the study of one of the doctrines of Pentecostalism in Nigeria. (shrink)

Once in a century an overview shakes the mold of preconception and makes a world model fall into shape. This is such a book—absorbing, provocative, original, skeptical, and often very funny in spite of formidable scholarship. The focus of the book is on the change in self-perception which physics might bring about if it were made in some way empathically real to non-physicists. The common man’s “existential” attitude is a product now of nineteenth-century, mechanistic models. But in pursuing this, the (...) author lays out a comprehensive survey of impending changes in the philosophy of science, and ranges through physics, biology, mathematics, Jungian psychology, and evolutionary theory, turning also to look at other, non-Western-scientific, world models. “In the task of reshaping the world model of scientists and others, only commitment to the discipline of science will do. It can be combined with enough controlled lunacy to bring conventionally self-evident ideas of reality into question , but it has to produce testable predictions.” “What we are now looking at is the prospect of ‘Jungian physics’: a physics model which also addresses the image-forming mechanism and possibly even the non-locality of mind.” “The hard-hat model of an objective reality has had to yield to a growing perception that the objective is, in form at least, a construct: what we appear to see is a function of the manner of seeing , but with the awkward complication that the cogitating I arises from the structures which it sees and orders.”. (shrink)

In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the project (...) and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoners time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten ones sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such mixed mechanisms in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a transparent and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Benthams architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Benthams model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

Originally published in 1961. The essays in this volume focus on the awareness of science and art, evolution and Freudian psychology. Besides the chapter on Darwin and Freud, the author discusses criticism, the fantasy element in drama and popular literature, the history of the novel, the motivation of science and the function of erotic art.

This study examines the changing role of art and artist during the turn-of-the-century period, offering a consideration of the multiple dichotomies of art and life, aesthetics and economics, production and consumption, and centre and periphery.

Originally published in 1961. The essays in this volume focus on the awareness of science and art, evolution and Freudian psychology. Besides the chapter on Darwin and Freud, the author discusses criticism, the fantasy element in drama and popular literature, the history of the novel, the motivation of science and the function of erotic art.

CONTENTS. - Is Christianity true? - The values of to-day. - Power and democracy. - The way ahead.

In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the project (...) and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoner’s time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten one’s sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such ‘mixed mechanisms’ in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a ‘transparent’ and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Bentham’s model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

The recent debate over Intelligent Design provides an opportunity to examine the pervasiveness and the meaning of Darwinian thinking in modern culture. The latest incarnation of a century-old critique of evolution, ID infuriated critics as a disease of scientific illiteracy. However, examining the debate as cultural history of science suggests that the IDers were not ignorant or stupid, but rather shrewd and disingenuous. They wielded scientific data as a rhetorical weapon, not as truth but as text, to be bent to (...) one's moral purpose—which in their case was an attack on science itself. In contrast to the scientific critics, I view ID as a symptom, a boil on the neck of a social body infected with anxiety over cultural Darwinism. Though the courts seem to have effectively lanced ID, the infection remains. In an age of Darwinian psychiatry, Darwinian business, Darwinian literature criticism, and even Darwinian anti-Darwinism, some boundary checks on cultural Darwinism would be salutary—not for advancing a conservative political agenda as the ID folks seek to do, but simply for reconciling a faith in reason with a rejection of biological determinism. (shrink)

In the standard narrative of her life, Barbara McClintock discovered genetic transposition in the 1940s but no one believed her. She was ignored until molecular biologists of the 1970s "rediscovered" transposition and vindicated her heretical discovery. New archival documents, as well as interviews and close reading of published papers, belie this narrative. Transposition was accepted immediately by both maize and bacterial geneticists. Maize geneticists confirmed it repeatedly in the early 1950s and by the late 1950s it was considered a classic (...) discovery. But for McClintock, movable elements were part of an elaborate system of genetic control that she hypothesized to explain development and differentiation. This theory was highly speculative and was not widely accepted, even by those who had discovered transposition independently. When Jacob and Monod presented their alternative model for gene regulation, the operon, her controller argument was discarded as incorrect. Transposition, however, was soon discovered in microorganisms and by the late 1970s was recognized as a phenomenon of biomedical importance. For McClintock, the award of the 1983 Nobel Prize to her for the discovery of movable genetic elements, long treated as a legitimation, may well have been bittersweet. This new look at McClintock's experiments and theory has implications for the intellectual history of biology, the social history of American genetics, and McClintock's role in the historiography of women in science. (shrink)

Interviewing offers the biographer unique opportunities for gathering data. I offer three examples. The emphatic bacterial geneticist Norton Zinder confronted me with an interpretation of Barbara McClintock's science that was as surprising as it proved to be robust. The relaxed setting of the human geneticist Walter Nance's rural summer home contributed to an unusually improvisational oral history that produced insights into his experimental and thinking style. And "embedding" myself with the biochemical geneticist Charles Scriver in his home, workplace, and city (...) enabled me to experience the social networks that drive the practical events of his career, which in turn helped me explain the theoretical basis of his science. Face-to-face interaction and multisensory experience will shape each biographer's experience uniquely. Recent developments in sensory physiology suggest that the experience of integrating sense data encourages different patterns of observation and reflection. It is reasonable, then, to think that biography based on face-to-face interviews will, for a given author, have a different character than one based entirely on documents. I reflect on how interviewing shapes my own writing and I encourage the reader to do the same. (shrink)

Porter’s five forces model is an authoritative management tool used in analyzing the profitability and attractiveness of industries through an outside-in viewpoint. In the past decade, dramatic and rapid changes have prompted some criticism of the model. The comparison between new and old economy analysis makes the fundamentals of the model seem weak. Moreover, the past decade has shown that strategy and entrepreneurship in China are not completely dependent on the model. This study first aims to verify the sustainability of (...) the five forces model and analyze its integration into China’s entrepreneurial economy. By conducting in-depth interviews among the upper echelons from various industries, it was found that along with the competitive factors emphasized by the model, Chinese entrepreneurs attend to cooperative factors such as Guanxi, the Chinese term for relationship, and the possibilities of technology integration with the five forces. They also tend to enlarge the strategic view to consider factors such as how the market evaluates the forces. To verify these findings, the authors carried out a large-scale survey with a modified questionnaire analyzing the data collected using exploratory factor analysis with SPSS 22. The outcome shows that Porter’s model is still valid to some extent. Companies are still working in a network of buyers, suppliers, substitutes, new entrants, and competitors. However, reinventions are necessary to include the new factors of Guanxi, technology, and marketing and branding, which have changed the structure of the industry. These factors arise from the cooperative nature of Chinese culture and may have equal or even larger significance compared with their competitive counterparts in today’s business world. (shrink)

In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often‐ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science—including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes—can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of responsible behavior in the context of SBG research. (...) SBG research that compares individuals within a group according to a “sensitive” phenotype requires extra attention to responsible conduct and to responsible communication about the research and its findings. SBG research (1) on sensitive phenotypes that (2) compares two or more groups defined by (a) race, (b) ethnicity, or (c) genetic ancestry (where genetic ancestry could easily be misunderstood as race or ethnicity) requires a compelling justification to be conducted, funded, or published. All authors agree that this justification at least requires a convincing argument that a study's design could yield scientifically valid results; some authors would additionally require the study to have a socially favorable risk‐benefit profile. (shrink)

Members of the Student Clinical Ethics Committee discussed the ethical and legal issues arising in a case referred for consideration – a female patient in her mid-60s, who had a very long history of multiple sclerosis, withdrew her previous consent to treatment following discussion with her son. The case study summarises the reflections of the Committee and focusses on: the meaning and practical application of respect for patient autonomy; whether a refusal of clinically indicated treatment may challenge the notion of (...) capacity; the role of others in the process of decision-making; if the current decision to refuse treatment was the patient’s own and whether, in the circumstances, it should be respected. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the unique challenges faced by choir directors in Ghana and provide recommendations for managing and thriving in this context. It aims to highlight the importance of resilience, resourcefulness, and cultural sensitivity in navigating the funding constraints, limited resources, intense competition, and cultural expectations that characterize the Ghanaian choir environment. Methodology: The methodology used in this article is not explicitly stated. However, the recommendations and insights provided are based on a combination of (...) scholarly research, professional experiences, and observations related to choir management in Ghana. The authors gathered data through a literature review, interviews, and observations to understand the challenges faced by choir directors and identify effective strategies for managing them. Findings: The findings of this study suggest that choir directors in Ghana can overcome challenges and contribute to the country's musical heritage by implementing specific strategies. These include seeking diverse funding sources, engaging with local businesses, cultural organizations, and government agencies for financial support, promoting the unique qualities of their choirs, and emphasizing cultural authenticity, repertoire diversity, and innovative performances to attract audiences and sponsors. Recommendations: The theoretical ideas that informed this article's recommendations and the actual experiences that took place in the Ghanaian choir context validated them. The authors likely drew upon their expertise, scholarly research, and consultation with practitioners to develop and validate these recommendations. They should seek diverse funding sources, engage with local businesses and organizations, and promote the unique qualities of their choirs to attract audiences and sponsors. Policymakers are encouraged to support the development and sustainability of choirs in Ghana by recognizing their cultural significance and providing financial and logistical support. Policies that promote the arts, cultural preservation, and community engagement can contribute to the growth and success of choirs. Additionally, policies addressing funding constraints and resource limitations can alleviate some of the challenges faced by choir directors, enabling them to thrive and contribute to Ghana's musical landscape. The article aims to inspire and guide directors in managing choirs in Ghana, highlighting the potential for cultural enrichment and artistic excellence within this unique context. (shrink)

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted theory (...) of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

In this article, I trouble the pedagogical practice of comforting discomfort in the social-justice classroom. Is it possible to support white students, for instance, and not comfort them? Is it possible to support white students without recentering the emotional crisis of white students, without disregarding the needs and interests of students of color, and without reproducing the violence that students of color endure? First I address the dangers of comforting discomfort and discuss Robin DiAngelo's notion of white fragility, which (...) has been used to explain the tendency of white people to flee discomfort rather than tarry with it. Employing Erinn Gilson's work on vulnerability, I argue that white fragility is not a weakness but an active performance of invulnerability. I conclude by arguing that developing vulnerability is a counter to white fragility, and that one way such vulnerability can be encouraged is through offering critical hope, which I maintain is a type of support that does not comfort. (shrink)

Background Studies have shown that medical students and residents believe that their ethics preparation has been inadequate for handling ethical conflicts. The objective of this study was to determine the self-perceived comfort level of medical students and residents in confronting clinical ethics issues. Methods Clinical medical students and residents at the University of Maryland School of Medicine completed a web-based survey between September 2009 and February 2010. The survey consisted of a demographic section, questions regarding the respondents’ sense of (...) comfort in handling a variety of clinical ethics issues, and a set of knowledge-type questions in ethics. Results Survey respondents included 129 medical students (response rate of 40.7%) and 207 residents (response rate of 52.7%). There were only a few clinical ethics issues with which more than 70% of the respondents felt comfortable in addressing. Only a slight majority (60.8%) felt prepared, in general, to handle clinical situations involving ethics issues, and only 44.1% and 53.2% agreed that medical school and residency training, respectively, helped prepare them to handle such issues. Prior ethics training was not associated with these responses, but there was an association between the level of training (medical students vs residents) and the comfort level with many of the clinical ethics issues. Conclusions Medical educators should include ethics educational methods within the context of real-time exposure to medical ethics dilemmas experienced by physicians-in-training. (shrink)

It is 2 a.m. I am very sick. I am not sure how long I have been hospitalized. The last two or three days have been a blur, a parade of procedures and people. I had a bloody debridement for a severe, large, and grossly infected stage four wound‐the first wound I have had since I was paralyzed in 1978. I know the next six months or longer are going to be exceedingly difficult. I will be bedbound for months, dependent (...) upon others for the first time in my adult life. As these thoughts are coursing through my mind, a physician I have never met and the registered nurse on duty appear at my door. As they put on their gowns I am weary but hopeful. Surely there is something that can be done to stop the vomiting. The physician examines me with the nurse's help. Like many other hospitalists that have examined me, he is coldly efficient. At some point, he asks the nurse to get a new medication. What transpired after the nurse exited the room has haunted me. Paralyzed me with fear. The hospitalist asked me if I understood the gravity of my condition. He grimly told me I would be bedbound for at least six months and most likely a year or more. That there was a good chance the wound would never heal. If this happened, I would never sit in my wheelchair. I would never be able to work again. Not close to done, he told me I was looking at a life of complete and utter dependence. He went on to tell me I was on powerful antibiotics that could cause significant organ damage. He informed me I had the right to forego any medication, including the lifesaving antibiotics. If I chose not to continue with the current therapy, I could be made very comfortable. I would feel no pain or discomfort at all. Although not explicitly stated, the message was loud and clear. I can help you die peacefully. (shrink)

In The Good Place, the characters’ attempts to find “marginal comforts” worsen their suffering by lulling them into a false sense of security and keeping them from fully resisting or rebelling against their situation. People will justify the worst and most hellish marriages, jobs, and living situations, if they can find small marginal comforts that keep them stable. Being comfortable is not a “why” in life, and it's really just a good way to hurt oneself all the more. But as (...) much as marginal comforts provide for complacency, too much comfort and guaranteed pleasure can undermine what it means to be human. Suffering, to some extent, appears to give and shape meaning in our lives. The lack of suffering and the lack of the absurdity of death keep the residents of The Good Place from being able to do new and interesting things. (shrink)

We typically think of emotional states as highly individualised and subjective. But visceral gut feelings like discomfort can be better understood as collective and public, when they reflect implicit biases that an individual has internalised. Most of us evade discomfort in favour of comfort, often unconsciously. This inclination, innocent in most cases, also has social and political consequences. Research has established that it is easier to interact with people who resemble us and that such in-group favouritism contributes to subtle (...) forms of discrimination. If we want a more equal and unbiased society, we have a duty to expose ourselves to more discomfort. Living up to this duty requires an enhanced emotional vocabulary that captures the political dimensions of physiological affect. I argue that a better understanding of what I call interaction discomfort can mitigate subtle forms of discrimination. (shrink)

This study investigates how students’ national identity affects their historical understanding by mediating their use of affective historical empathy. The research focuses on the case of “comfort women” (women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during WWII) in South Korea—a topic in which a strong nationalist narrative dominates social and educational discourses. I conducted semi-structured, task-based group interviews with 16 high school students in South Korea. In interviews, students’ national identity mediated how they utilized four types of affective (...) historical empathy: Students as ethnic Koreans cared more about “our” Korean comfort women over others; cared that Korean comfort women and others suffered from what “we” and “they” did as nations; cared for those women's voices from a humanitarian perspective beyond their ethnic and national boundaries; and cared to make social changes for those women and themselves as future citizens of their democratic nation. These findings help us understand how students’ emotional attachment to “our” nation and its members can mediate their historical understanding through affective historical empathy as well as how affective historical empathy can motivate students to move beyond purely nationalistic concerns. This case study also stimulates reflection on historical empathy's implications for students’ democratic civic participation. (shrink)

On the reality TV program Long Island Medium and in public performances, professional spirit medium Theresa Caputo interprets messages she says she receives from the spirits of the deceased. Based on interviews with people who have seen her on television or in a live stage performance, I sought to learn more about how viewers experience, interpret, and are affected by these readings and by her presentation of life after death. For viewers who believed in this television medium's abilities, I was (...) interested in how her interpretation of the spirit world corresponded with theirs. While some viewers were quite skeptical, for others the program provided a level of comfort about lost relatives and/or offered a means of validating or further understanding their own personal experiences with nonempirical phenomena. In this article, I explore how Long Island Medium may offer a cultural framework for interpreting perceptions of spirit entities that is not available in mainstream U.S. culture or religion. (shrink)

A unique take on death and bereavement without a belief in God or an afterlife Accepting death is never easy, but we don't need religion to find peace, comfort, and solace in the face of death. In this inspiring and life-affirming collection of short essays, prominent atheist author Greta Christina offers secular ways to handle your own mortality and the death of those you love.

The comfort women case in South Korea has been a polemic issue in the context of inherited responsibility. The Japanese government who emphasizes on state as an agent for taking the responsibility tends either to deny collective responsibility of historic wrongdoings or to limit the scope of its roles to superficial ways such as reparation. Meanwhile South Korea demands not only reparation but official apology, emotional compassion, and material compensation on the ground that nation, not state, should be accountable (...) for historic injustice, but this claim still encounters a difficulty of application to cases originated in multinational countries. Based on these observations, I will develop two arguments: (1) that reciprocal nondomination conceptualized with civic responsibility will better the comfort women case in the context of inherited responsibility because this contains full ground of deliberation in which those who come from regardless of state or nation can participate; (2) that reciprocal nondomination embodied with civic responsibility can be operated as a regulative principle which prompts both victims and wrongdoers to have their deliberative stances and to reach an agreement conducive to transitional justice. (shrink)

The Comfort of the Mystics: A Manual and Anthology of Early Sufism. Edited by Gerhard Böwering and Bilal Orfali. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 98. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Pp. ix + 34 + 686. $282.

People maintain systems of beliefs that provide them with a sense of belongingness, control, identity, and meaning, more generally. Recent research shows that when these beliefs are threatened a syndrome of negatively valenced arousal is evoked that motivates people to seek comfort in their ideologies or other personally valued beliefs. In this paper we will provide an overview of this process and discuss areas for future research. Beginning with the neural foundations of meaning violations, we review findings that show (...) the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is responsible for detecting inconsistencies, and importantly, that this is experienced as aversive. Next, we evaluate the evidential support for a psychophysiological arousal response as measured by cardiography and skin conductance. We discuss how current theorizing proposes that subsequent behavioral approach ameliorates the negative arousal and serves as an effective, well-adapted coping response, but we also aim to further integrate this process in the existing threat-compensation literature. Finally, we speculate on whether approach motivation is likely to result when one feels capable of handling the threat, thereby incorporating the biopsychosocial model that distinguishes between challenge and threat into the motivational threat-response literature. We believe the current literature on threat and meaning has much to offer and we aim to provide new incentives for further development. (shrink)