Doping can be both of chemical and protein nature or may involve prohibited methods, such as illegal blood transfusions. The rapidly increasing number of genetic therapies as a promising new branch of regular medicine, has raised the issue whether these techniques might be abused in the field of sports. The risks involved in gene doping are several, and are related both to the vector protein used (DNA, chemical, viral) and to the encoded transgene. A concern in the athletic community is (...) that no one knows how easily gene doping can be detected. The DNA used for gene transfer is of human origin, and not different from that of the person applying gene doping. A combination of developing detection methods based on gene arrays or proteomics and a clear education program on the associated risks seems to be the most promising preventive method to counteract the possible application of gene doping. (shrink)

Resolving conflicts between different measurements ofa property of a physical system may be a key step in a discoveryprocess. With the emergence of large-scale databases and knowledgebases with property measurements, computer support for the task ofconflict resolution has become highly desirable. We will describe amethod for model-based conflict resolution and the accompanyingcomputer tool KIMA, which have been applied in a case-study inmaterials science. In order to be a useful aid to scientists, the toolneeds to be integrated with other tools in (...) a computer-supporteddiscovery environment. We will give an outline of such acomputer-supported discovery environment and argue that its use mightlead to new ways of doing science, so-called computer regimes. (shrink)

The idea that religious belief is ‘almost inevitable’ is so forcefully argued by Justin Barrett that it can warrant justifiable concern – especially since he claims atheism is an unnatural handicap. In this article, I argue that religious belief in Homo sapiens isn’t inevitable – and that Barrett does agree when pushed. I describe the role played by a Hyperactive Agency Detection Device in the generation of belief in God as necessary but insufficient in explaining religious culture – I distance (...) myself from some common conceptions of HADD and the view I take of it is unorthodox. I point out that the conclusion to Barrett’s book, ‘Why Would Anyone Believe in God?’ is a fine example of the very hyperactive agency detection Barrett himself describes, and is therefore highly suspect. (shrink)

This is a 5,000 word article on divine hiddeness, with special attention to John Schellenberg's work on the topic.

ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag konzentriert sich auf eine starke und auf eine schwache Seite von Bayers Zugang zu Luthers Theologie. So wird als Stärke angesehen, dass das Thema der Rechtfertigung in Luthers Theologie als allumfassend angesetzt wird. Dagegen besteht eine Schwäche in der Art und Weise, wie Bayer durch Luthers Dialektik der zwei Arten, in denen Gott sich verbirgt – also verborgen »unter dem Gegenteil« und absolut verborgen – hindurch bricht, indem er die beiden trennt und diese Aufteilung als Kriterium verwendet, um (...) zwischen einer Periode, in der Luther die reformatorische Einsicht vollständig ausarbeitet, und einem vor-reformatorischen Luther zu unterscheiden. Diese Luther-Interpretation sollte nochmals überdacht werden, denn sie verneint die Entsprechung und die kontrapunktisch zu verstehende Beziehung zwischen dieser doppelten Verborgenheit im Lichte des »offenbaren Gottes«. Ein ähnliches Problem taucht dann auf, wenn Bayer die Rede vom dreieinigen Gott, die ausschließlich am Evangelium orientiert ist, unterscheidet von einer allgemeinen Art und Weise, von Gott zu reden, die allein auf dem Gesetz basiert. Luthers Vorstellung, dass die Unterscheidung zwischen Gesetz und Evangelium vollständig in Gottes Offenbarung des Evangeliums integriert ist, widerspricht einer solchen Unterscheidung. Dieser Beitrag betrachtet nicht nur die Unterscheidung zwischen einem unreifen und einem reifen Luther, der alle Implikationen der reformatorischen Einsicht ausgearbeitet hat, als unnötig, sondern er würdigt den jungen Luther als einen Theologen, der in der Lage ist, dasjenige zusammen zu halten, was beim späten Luther auseinander zu fallen droht. Glücklicherweise beinhaltet Bayers Studie auch Anknüpfungsmöglichkeiten für eine solche Interpretation Luthers, die die positiven ebenso wie die negativen Aspekte beider Arten der Verborgenheit ebenso wie Gesetz und Evangelium in einem einzigen kontinuierlichen Prozess integriert.SummaryThis contribution concentrates on one strong and one weak side of Bayer's approach to Luther's theology. It finds a strength in the universally implemented theme of justification in Luther's theological thought. A weakness is however found in the way Bayer breaks through Luther's dialectics concerning the dual way God hides himself – i. e. hidden ‘under the opposite’ and absolutely hidden – by separating them and using this division as a criterion to distinguish between the period where Luther had fully worked out the insight of the Reformation and the pre-Reformation Luther. Such an interpretation of Luther needs to be reconsidered because it neglects the correspondence and the contrapuntal relation between this double hiddeness in the light of the ‘revealed God’.A similar problem arises when Bayer divides speaking about the triune God, which is exclusively orientated towards the Gospel, from a general way of speaking about God, which is only based on the Law. Luther's idea that the distinction between Law and Gospel is fully integrated into God's revelation of the Gospel contradicts such a division.This contribution considers not only a distinction between an immature and a mature Luther who has worked out all the implications of the reformation insight unnecessary, but appreciates the young Luther as a theologian who is capable of holding together what the later Luther is in danger of letting fall apart. Fortunately, in Bayer's study there are also openings for a Luther interpretation that includes the positive as well as the negative aspect of both kinds of hiddeness and of Law and Gospel in a single continuous process. (shrink)

Figure 1: A pr ototyp ical exa mple of a three-layer feed forward network, used by Plunkett and M archm an (1 991 ) to simulate learning the past-tense of En glish verbs. The inpu t units encode representations of the three phonemes of the present tense of the artificial words used in this simulation. Th e netwo rk is trained to produce a representation of the phonemes employed in the past tense form and the suffix (/d/, /ed/, or /t/) (...) used on regular verbs. To run the network, each input unit is assigned an activation value o f 0 or 1 , dep ending on whethe r the featu re is present or not. Eac h input unit is conne cted to each of the 30 hidden units by a we ighted conn ection and p rovid es an inp ut to each hidden unit equal to the product of the input unit's activation and the weight. Each hidd en unit's activation is then determined by summing ov er the va lues co ming fro m each inp ut unit to deter mine a netinput, and then applying a non-linear function (e.g., the logistic function 1/(1+e^netinput). Th is whole proced ure is. (shrink)

I mostly agree with most of what Paul Moser has said in his books in the Philosophy of Religion. The views he has defended are a needed corrective to the evidentialist paradigm in the philosophy of religion. At the same time, his development of his central ideas has resulted in views that are, somewhat idiosyncratic and extreme. In this essay I hope to present a different articulation of those ideas, also defensible from within a Christian perspective, that preserves their central (...) thrust without being so extreme. (shrink)