In this paper we describe a test for Nijhout's hypothesis that the eyespot patterns on butterfly wings are the result of a threshold reaction of the epidermal cells to a concentration gradient of a diffusing degradable morphogen produced by focal cells at the centre of the future eyespot. The wings of the nymphalid butterfly, Bicyclus anynana, have a series of eyespots, each composed of a white pupil, a black disc and a gold outer ring. In earlier extirpation and transplantation experiments (...) it has been established that these eyespots are indeed organised around groups of signalling cells active during the first hours of pupal development. If these cells were to supply the positional information for eyespot formation in accordance with Nijhout's diffusion-degradation gradient model, then, when two foci are close together, the signals should sum, and this effect should be apparent in the detailed shape of the resulting pigment pattern. We give an equation for the form of the contours that would be obtained in this manner. We use this to test the morphogen gradient hypothesis on measurements of the outlines of fused eyespots obtained either by grafting focal cells close together, or by using a mutation that produces adjacent fused eyespots. The contours of the fused patterns were found to satisfy our equation, thus corroborating Nijhout's hypothesis to the extent possible with this particular type of experiment. (shrink)

A popular goal in psychological science is to understand human cognition and behavior in the ‘real world’. In contrast, researchers have typically conducted their research in experimental research settings, a.k.a. the ‘psychologist’s laboratory’. Critics have often questioned whether psychology’s laboratory experiments permit generalizable results. This is known as the ‘real-world or the lab’-dilemma. To bridge the gap between lab and life, the concept of ecological validity has been widely used to evaluate whether laboratory experiments resemble and generalize to the ‘real (...) world’. However, researchers seldom define what they mean with this concept, nor are there any guidelines or criteria available for evaluating a study’s ecological validity. In our view, the popular concept of ecological validity is ill-formed, lacks specificity, and falls short of adequately addressing the fundamental problem of generalizability. In order to move beyond this ‘real-world or the lab’-dilemma, we believe that researchers should be more specific about the contexts of behaviors they are interested in, instead of aiming to understand human cognition and behavior in the ‘real world’. We argue that this is a more constructive way of uncovering the context-specific and context-generic principles of human cognition and behavior. (shrink)

People’s decisions and actions are informed, influenced, and constrained by socially constructed social arrangements. Usually, these social arrangements are pre-determined, and people joining institutions or organizations may have, at least initially, little control or influence over them. Occasionally, however, but increasingly commonly in the transition to the “Digital Society,” people have an opportunity to self-determine their social arrangements “from scratch.” The issues then are: how do people gain experience in such founding processes, experiment safely with alternative social arrangements, and gain (...) expertise so that they can participate meaningfully, for example in consultation events. In this research paper, we address these issues by presenting a framework for “computer-supported social arrangements” tools which would enable people to specify, learn, apply, evaluate, and innovate social arrangements. This would contribute to empowering people and communities with the necessary experience, experimentation, and expertise for effective and sustainable self-determination of their own social arrangements. (shrink)

We develop a vector space semantics for verb phrase ellipsis with anaphora using type-driven compositional distributional semantics based on the Lambek calculus with limited contraction of Jäger. Distributional semantics has a lot to say about the statistical collocation based meanings of content words, but provides little guidance on how to treat function words. Formal semantics on the other hand, has powerful mechanisms for dealing with relative pronouns, coordinators, and the like. Type-driven compositional distributional semantics brings these two models together. We (...) review previous compositional distributional models of relative pronouns, coordination and a restricted account of ellipsis in the DisCoCat framework of Coecke et al. :1079–1100, 2013). We show how DisCoCat cannot deal with general forms of ellipsis, which rely on copying of information, and develop a novel way of connecting typelogical grammar to distributional semantics by assigning vector interpretable lambda terms to derivations of LCC in the style of Muskens and Sadrzadeh Logical aspects of computational linguistics, Springer, Berlin, 2016). What follows is an account of ellipsis in which word meanings can be copied: the meaning of a sentence is now a program with non-linear access to individual word embeddings. We present the theoretical setting, work out examples, and demonstrate our results with a state of the art distributional model on an extended verb disambiguation dataset. (shrink)

In ‘Exploitation, Labor, and Basic Income’ Michael Howard undertakes to defend an Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) as non-exploitative, and on a revised conception of what Marx called ‘exploitation’. Without taking issue with the revision itself, I point out that Howard, like many others, fails to defend UBI as non-exploitative. All his arguments fail to establish that the so-called ‘Surfer off Malibu’, a figure who is full-time dedicated to leisure, is not an exploiter in receiving UBI. The strategies to include him (...) as a rightful recipient of a labor-free income rely on the (sometimes far-fetched) attribution of certain contingent features to him that would entitle him to compensation or reward, but that he might also not have. I argue that the best strategy for UBI-advocates is to admit that ‘slackers’ should be merely tolerated as non-deserving recipients, because the UBI-policy will otherwise have good effects. Finally, I raise some questions about these good effects, as they are conceived by UBI-advocates such as Howard. (shrink)

When international relations scholars think about international law they either ignore culture or offer highly deterministic accounts of its role. For the majority of scholars, international law is a rational construction, an institutional solution to the problem of order in an anarchical system, a body of rules and practices that reflect the contending interests and capabilities of major states. Issues of culture barely rate a mention. For others, culture is the deep foundation of international law, the structuring “mentality” that gives (...) law its form and content. International law, from this perspective, is a Western cultural artifact, globalized through centuries of imperialism and hegemony. These contrasting views lead to different expectations about the future of international law in today's culturally diverse international order. For rationalists, law's fate will be determined by the shifting configuration of interests that accompany new functional challenges and great power transitions. For the more culturally attuned, there are two possibilities. One is that functional utility will replace culture as law's foundation. International law may well be a Western cultural artifact, but “rational buy-in” will sustain it in a multicultural world. The other, more pessimistic, expectation is that the rule of international law will be fundamentally undermined by cultural diversity, particularly as rising non-Western powers articulate and promote markedly different cultural norms and values. (shrink)

Can the law benefit from an evolutionary perspective? This little book shows how the idea of survival of the fittest can help explain legal development and the rise and fall of legal institutions. The reader is invited to join in on a journey of discovery in which the world of Darwin is connected to the topics of legal change, convergence of law, legal complexity, law in hip-hop music and the adoption of the price-payment rule. Exploring these five themes from an (...) evolutionary angle indisputably upsets our traditional view of the law, but it does fit the author's view of academia as a place for cross-disciplinary research steered by curiosity. (shrink)

We disagree with Almaatouq et al. that no realistic alternative exists to the “one-at-a-time” paradigm. Seventy years ago, Egon Brunswik introduced representative design, which offers a clear path to commensurability and generality. Almaatouq et al.'s integrative design cannot guarantee the external validity and generalizability of results which is sorely needed, while representative design tackles the problem head on.

Numerous studies have convincingly shown that prospect theory can better describe risky choice behavior than the classical expected utility model because it makes the plausible assumption that risk aversion is driven not only by the degree of sensitivity toward outcomes, but also by the degree of sensitivity toward probabilities. This article presents the results of an experiment aimed at testing whether agents become more sensitive toward probabilities over time when they repeatedly face similar decisions, receive feedback on the consequences of (...) their decisions, and are given ample incentives to reflect on their decisions, as predicted by Plott’s Discovered Preference Hypothesis (DPH). The results of a laboratory experiment with N = 62 participants support this hypothesis. The elicited subjective probability weighting function converges significantly toward linearity when respondents are asked to make repeated choices and are given direct feedback after each choice. Such convergence to linearity is absent in an experimental treatment where respondents are asked to make repeated choices but do not experience the resolution of risk directly after each choice, as predicted by the DPH. (shrink)

This book seeks to explain why different systems of sovereign states have built different types of fundamental institutions to govern interstate relations. Why, for example, did the ancient Greeks operate a successful system of third-party arbitration, while international society today rests on a combination of international law and multilateral diplomacy? Why did the city-states of Renaissance Italy develop a system of oratorical diplomacy, while the states of absolutist Europe relied on naturalist international law and "old diplomacy"? Conventional explanations of basic (...) institutional practices have difficulty accounting for such variation. Christian Reus-Smit addresses this problem by presenting an alternative, "constructivist" theory of international institutional development, one that emphasizes the relationship between the social identity of the state and the nature and origin of basic institutional practices. Reus-Smit argues that international societies are shaped by deep constitutional structures that are based on prevailing beliefs about the moral purpose of the state, the organizing principle of sovereignty, and the norm of procedural justice. These structures inform the imaginations of institutional architects as they develop and adjust institutional arrangements between states. As he shows with detailed reference to ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, absolutist Europe, and the modern world, different cultural and historical contexts lead to profoundly different constitutional structures and institutional practices. The first major study of its kind, this book is a significant addition to our theoretical and empirical understanding of international relations, past and present. (shrink)

We discuss the case against Factorism, which is the standard assumption in quantum mechanics that the labels of the $$\otimes$$ ⊗ -factor Hilbert-spaces in direct-product Hilbert-spaces of composite physical systems of similar particles refer to particles, either directly or descriptively. We distinguish different versions of Factorism and argue for their truth or falsehood. In particular, by introducing the concepts of snapshot Hilbert-space and Schrödinger-movie, we demonstrate that there are Hilbert-spaces and $$\otimes$$ ⊗ -factorisations where the labels do refer, even descriptively, (...) to similar particles, which renders them probabilistically absolutely discernible. (shrink)

We discuss the case against Factorism, which is the standard assumption in quantum mechanics that the labels of the ⊗\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\otimes$$\end{document}-factor Hilbert-spaces in direct-product Hilbert-spaces of composite physical systems of similar particles refer to particles, either directly or descriptively. We distinguish different versions of Factorism and argue for their truth or falsehood. In particular, by introducing the concepts of snapshot Hilbert-space and Schrödinger-movie, we demonstrate that there are Hilbert-spaces and ⊗\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} (...) \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\otimes$$\end{document}-factorisations where the labels do refer, even descriptively, to similar particles, which renders them probabilistically absolutely discernible. (shrink)

Human enhancement issues are not merely academic: the technologies and trends involved give rise to new needs and social demands, provide opportunities for individuals and society, and present new risks. They also challenge crucial cultural notions, social concepts and views of the human condition, and may cause new forms of social pressure and social exclusion. This chapter reports on a systematic attempt by the European Technology Assessment Group (ETAG), conducted on behalf of the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) panel (...) of the European Parliament, to suggest policy options on the issue of human enhancement. It outlines and discusses a number of strategies for dealing with the issue in a European policy context, identifying a reasoned pro‐enhancement approach, a reasoned restrictive approach, and a systematic case‐by‐case approach as viable options. (shrink)

Rahat Naqvi and Hans Smits' edited collection, "Thinking about and Enacting Curriculum in 'Frames of War'" is centered on the theme of how the current global order creates precarious conditions for human life. The contributors respond to the challenges Judith Butler posed about the fragility of life and questions about how we apprehend, and take up ethically, our responsibilities for those who are considered "Other." The overarching objective of the book is the meaning of a call to ethics, and how (...) discussion of framing and frames is a provocation to think about our responsibilities as curriculum scholars and practitioners"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

We live today in the first global system of sovereign states in history, encompassing all of the world's polities, peoples, religions and civilizations. Christian Reus-Smit presents a new account of how this system came to be, one in which struggles for individual rights play a central role. The international system expanded from its original European core in five great waves, each involving the fragmentation of one or more empires into a host of successor sovereign states. In the most important, (...) associated with the Westphalian settlement, the independence of Latin America, and post-1945 decolonization, the mobilization of new ideas about individual rights challenged imperial legitimacy, and when empires failed to recognize these new rights, subject peoples sought sovereign independence. Combining theoretical innovation with detailed historical case studies, this book advances a new understanding of human rights and world politics, with individual rights deeply implicated in the making of the global sovereign order. (shrink)

The quality of our theoretical argumentation, the diversity and insights of our methods, and our general level of understanding are markedly better than a generation ago. However, this progress has been driven by a division of labor with increased specialization that has led each part of the field to become narrower.

Under poor circumstances, co-residence of a grandmother is generally considered to be beneficial for children. Empirical evidence does not unequivocally support this expectation and suggests that the grandmother’s importance depends on the family’s circumstances. We study the relationship between grandmother’s co-residence and children’s schooling in sub-Saharan Africa under a broad range of circumstances. Results make clear that the effect of a co-residing grandmother varies but is almost always positive. Grandmothers over age 60 are most effective in helping their children. They (...) are particularly important for girls, and when the mother is deceased or not living in the household. Grandmothers are less effective in situations with few opportunities, as in very poor regions or in communities with few schooling opportunities. Our findings indicate that providing support to grandmothers should not be overlooked when designing policies aimed at strengthening the position of women and children in the sub-Saharan African context. (shrink)

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle develops a theory of institutional facts and objects, of which money, borders and property are presented as prime examples. These objects are the result of us collectively intending certain natural objects to have a certain status, i.e. to ‘count as’ being certain social objects. This view renders such objects irreducible to natural objects. In this paper we propose a radically different approach that is more compatible with standard economic theory. We claim that (...) such institutional objects can be fully understood in terms of actions and incentives, and hence the Searlean apparatus solves a non-existent problem. (shrink)

Contemporary theories of institutions as clusters of stable solutions to recurrent coordination problems can illuminate and explain some unresolved difficulties and problems adhering to institutional definitions of art initiated by George Dickie and Arthur Danto. Their account of what confers upon objects their institutional character does not fit well with current work on institutions and social ontology. The claim that “the artworld” confers the status of “art” onto objects remains utterly mysterious. The “artworld” is a generic notion that designates a (...) sphere of human activity that involves practices that create goals that have led to the emergence of formal and informal institutions. But those institutions, rather than magically “creating” objects subjected to esthetic appreciation, merely solve familiar and ubiquitous coordination problems created by artistic activity in ways other institutions in other areas solve similar and/or analogous coordination problems. (shrink)

Presentation times of study words presented in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott (DRM) paradigm varied from 20 to 2000 ms per word in an attempt to replicate the false memory effect following extremely short presentations reported by . Both in a within-subjects design (Experiment 1) and in a between-subjects design (Experiment 2) subjects showed memory for studied words as well as a false memory effect for related critical lures in the 2000-ms condition. However, in the conditions with shorter presentation times (20 (...) ms in Experiment 1; 20 and 40 ms in Experiment 2) no memory for studied words, nor a false memory effect was found. We argue that there is at present no strong evidence supporting the claim for a nonconscious basis of the false memory effect. (shrink)

Most analyses of whistleblowing are concerned with the whistleblower as an actor or with the act of whistleblowing itself. However, as soon as the whistleblower enters the public arena, a social dynamic emerges of interdependent actors with different responsibilities and different interests.Such a dynamic demands a more comprehensive approach in which the motives of the different actors in the public debate are taken into account.This approach is developed here using an exemplary case of whistleblowing that took place in a Dutch (...) research institute.The intensive media attention damaged both the institute and the whistleblower.In retrospect this could have been avoided.In our analysis we give extra attention to the motives involved and to the inevitability of media logic.In order to avoid unnecessary damage we recommend guidelines to the three basic actors:the whistleblower, the organization and the media. (shrink)

If someone commits the mereological fallacy, then he ascribes psychological predicates to parts of an animal that apply only to the (behaving) animal as a whole. This incoherence is not strictly speaking a fallacy, i.e. an invalid argument, since it is not an argument but an illicit predication. However, it leads to invalid inferences and arguments, and so can loosely be called a fallacy. However, discussions of this particular illicit predication, the mereological fallacy, show that it is often misunderstood. Many (...) misunderstandings concern the use of this illicit predication in the course of discussions of understanding the mind/body problem. Our aim here is to provide an accessible overview through discussing common misconceptions of the fallacy. We also discuss how conceptual investigations of the relation between living organisms and their parts fit within the framework of modern evolutionary theory, i.e. inclusive fitness theory. (shrink)