Is there reason to be concerned about what has been seen as an increasing trend for discourse on complex issues to be confined to an “echo chamber” of like-minded individuals? To investigat...

According to the traditional account Mendel's paper on pea hybrids reported a study of inheritance and its laws. Hence, Mendel came to be known as The Father of Genetics. This paper demonstrates that, in fact, Mendel's objective in his research was finding the empirical laws which describe the formation of hybrids and the development of their offspring over several generations. Having found these laws (and not the laws of inheritance that he is generally credited with) he proposed a theoretical scheme (...) involving the formation of germinal and pollen cells in hybrids and their combination in fertilization competent to explain why his laws took the form that they did. Mendel's research shows a pattern of development closely paralleling the stages of empirical investigation beginning at the level of qualitative description in common language rising through four levels of increasing abstraction and culminating in a fifth level, his simple mechanical theory. This mechanism met all the tests that a theory of this type must pass. In that respect Mendel was highly successful and this success might be the reason why he did not push his theory to a higher level, a sixth level involving the use of particulate determiners; despite this fact, Mendel was credited with having taken exactly that step. (shrink)

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Purpose In 2006, the United Nations established the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Simultaneously, the UN has adopted the sustainable development goals in 2015 and the 17 goals must be achieved by member states by 2030. Regionally, countries within the Caribbean community have formulated the Kingston Accord and the Declaration of Petion Ville. Both of these two instruments outlined a regional framework on the issue of persons with disabilities. The media, therefore, have axiological roles to play in (...) educating and informing all the stakeholders of these programmes, policies and legislation. It is within this context that this researcher did a qualitative assessment of how the media within Caribbean societies have been aiding the process of developmental transformation for PWDs. The main purpose of this paper therefore; is to show that if the varied programmes and policies relating to PWDs within the Anglophone Caribbean are to be successfully implemented, digital and traditional media will have to play a lead role through their social and ethical responsibilities in changing attitudes of non-disabled individuals towards the members of this vulnerable group. The main purpose of this paper therefore; is to show that if the varied programmes and policies relating to PWDs within the Anglophone Caribbean are to be successfully implemented, digital and traditional media will have to play a lead role through their social and ethical responsibilities in changing attitudes of non-disabled individuals towards the members of this vulnerable group. Design/methodology/approach The central argument guiding this paper is that if the varied programmes and policies relating to PWDs within the Caribbean are to be successfully implemented, the media, in all its forms, will have to play a lead role through their social and ethical responsibilities in changing attitudes of non-disabled individuals towards the members of this vulnerable group. The unequivocal questions that have been answered are how and what are the media doing to aid in the transformation of the lives of PWDs in the Caribbean? Are they fulfiling their social and ethical responsibilities? Findings The major finding is that the media in the Anglophone Caribbean has significant work to do to fulfil one of its social and ethical responsibilities in aiding the developmental transformation of PWDs in the region. Research limitations/implications The research is limited by the fact that there is serious data scarcity on the population of PWDs in the region. Serious research on the population is just emerging and this will change significantly over the next few years. Practical implications The practical implication of this study is that it will bring to the forefront of the media in the Caribbean, the importance of placing issues relating to PWDs on the development agenda in a consistent manner. Social implications PWDs will be brought in the mainstream of Caribbean society over time. Originality/value This is an original study and will undoubtedly contribute to a greater understanding of the media and PWDs in the Caribbean. (shrink)

Why would a successful physician who has undergone seven years of rigorous medical training take the trouble to seek out and learn to practice alternative methods of healing such as homeopathy and Chinese medicine? From Doctor to Healer answers this question as it traces the transformational journeys of physicians who move across the philosophical spectrum of American medicine from doctor to healer. Robbie Davis-Floyd and Gloria St. John conducted extensive interviews to discover how and why physicians make the move (...) to alternative medicine, what sparks this shift, and what beliefs they abandon or embrace in the process. After outlining the basic models of American health care-the technocratic, humanistic, and holistic-the authors follow the thoughts and experiences of forty physicians as they expand their horizons in order to offer effective patient care. The book focuses on the radical shift from one end of the spectrum to the other-from the technocratic approach to holism-made by most of the interviewees. Because many American physicians find such a drastic change too threatening, the authors also address the less radical transition to humanism-a movement toward compassionate care arising from within the medical system. (shrink)

In this introduction we present the principal themes of the special issue and highlight the main interpretive theses of the contributions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Got Ethics? Envisioning and Evaluating the Future of Our Guild and DisciplineStacey M. Floyd-Thomas (bio)IN LIGHT OF THE SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS’ TWENTY-First Century and 2020 Initiatives, several ad hoc committees and working groups have examined the fate and future of both the Society and the field of Christian ethics. The stated purposes of these initiatives and their correlative task forces were to think about a new era (...) that is ostensibly different from the state of the discipline of Christian ethics and the demographics of the Society in the past. In effect, each initiative was charged with addressing the evolving needs of our field, particularly giving attention to our mission, membership, meeting, media, management, and mass appeal. There has also been considerable attention paid to our relevance in an academy and society where underrepresented groups of color are no longer minorities in the demographic composition of the United States. Further, numerous discussions have focused on the shifting dynamics of a global and postsecular age. Each initiative therefore chose to focus its attention on the practices of the Society in order to expand our ethical conversations with ethicists in other cultures, traditions, and institutional settings. Finally, each initiative executed its own inventory, and recommendations to the board and membership emerged.The 2016 preconference workshop titled “Got Ethics?” was a roundtable discussion that was an effort to make good on the hard work of those initiatives and the good intentions of the SCE board. Herein four ethicists—namely, Gloria Albrecht, Agnes Chiu, Gary Dorrien, and Miguel De La Torre, joined me in the quest to revisit the implications that a diverse demographic and discipline as well as the developing global context may pose for the future of our scholarship and society. Each panelist stated hard truths for these troubling times that poignantly mark both the crises of theological education and the church, and even more urgently for the future of our discipline and our Society as Christian ethicists. [End Page 195]Gary Dorrien offered a rigorous overview of the history of Christian social ethics that coalesced around the ever-growing gap that threatens its viability:Today, as in previous generations, some ethicists work hard at straddling the divide between social justice activism and disciplinary scholarship. For many of us, our purview consists entirely of ethicists fitting this description. All of us up here work hard at doing both things and we struggle with the trade-offs of doing so. I have completed my assignment and my time is up, but I have a cautionary conclusion. Unlike previous generations of social ethicists, we cannot assume that our field has a future. The existence of our field is in jeopardy except in Catholic institutions. On the road I have talked with many academic administrators who are skeptical that their schools need to teach anything called Christian ethics or comparative religious ethics or social ethics. We cannot settle for merely asserting that our work is relevant and that our field has an established standing. The weight of presumption is shifting against us. The field is shrinking, and we must prove that our work is substantial and relevant.1As Dorrien traces the history of social ethics as a discipline, beginning with the rise of the Social Gospel and its modern social consciousness, he also causes us to reflect on our postmodern consciousness as well. Social ethics began with black and white Social Gospel ministers who preached radical social change; however, Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism tempered this radical vision, moving the discipline in a more moderate direction. Today social ethics remains in a crisis of identity and relevance, caught between the need to establish itself as a discipline in its own right and the ethical exigency of speaking directly to social injustices.As an emerging moral theologian, Agnes Chiu echoes Dorrien’s perspective by asserting thatChristian ethics is a discipline that intersects and calls for Christian engagement with the world. It enables Christianity to be relevant because it deals with issues with which the world wrestles such as justice, conflicts, and human dignity. Theologians have long warned against the danger of irrelevancy and indifference by both our discipline and the... (shrink)

NATURALLY. DEVELOPED. THOUGHT. Figure i these two construcrs to define a sprctrum of modes of thought, ranging ftom analytical (inrensive checking and nattow focus) to intuitive (minimal checking and btoad focus). He develops the ...

Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism is a groundbreaking examination of the artistic technique of "divisionism" in terms of modern scientific theory of color. Truly interdisciplinary in his approach, Floyd Ratliff treats the evolution of both color theory and artistic practice in an integrated way. Signac was the principal advocate for the new movement launched by Georges Seurat in the 1880s. The book is handsomely illustrated with both Neo-Impressionist paintings and scientific drawings and diagrams. Ratliff's five-part essay provides an (...) extended introduction to a translation of Signac's monograph, From Eugene Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, widely regarded as the basic document of the movement, but never before available in English. This will be an invaluable reference for scholars in art and design, as well as students of the psychology and neurophysiology of color vision and those interested in the relation between the arts and the sciences. Its clarity of style also makes it accessible to the general reader interested in art history, painting, or the perception of color, particularly with its glossary of technical and art terms, index, and bibliography. (shrink)

Originally published in 1952. This volume, by discussing significant insights of Hinduism and Buddhism, answers the question "What is the meaning of life?" It illustrates the importance of Buddhist and Hindu teachings and their relevance to the West, as well as clarifying some of the religious and philosophical problems Western readers must grapple with.

The accusation that contemporary political philosophy is carried out in too ahistorical a fashion depends upon it being possible for historical facts to ground normative political principles. This they cannot do. Each of the seven ways in which it might be thought possible for them to do so fails for one or more of four reasons: History yields no timeless set of universal moral values; it displays no convergence upon such a set; it reveals no univocal moral or cultural context (...) in the present; the failure of an ethical tradition to successfully respond to criticism over a long period of time is no guarantee of its inability to do so. Because historical critiques of contemporary normative thought rely upon one or more of these things holding true, they are, as a class of arguments, to be rejected. (shrink)