The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 562-563, July 2012.

Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life's history, essences, and future. "A masterpiece of scientific writing. You will cherish "What Is Life?" because it is so rich in poetry and science in the service of profound philosophical questions".--Mitchell Thomashow, "Orion". 9 photos. 11 line illustrations.

SummaryA sample of 104 British parents with criminal convictions had an average fertility of 3·91 children as compared with 2·21 for the general population. The result suggests that fertility for criminal behaviour is dysgenic involving an increase in the genes underlying criminal behaviour in the population.

Building on developments in feminist science scholarship and the philosophy of science, I advocate two methodological principles as elements of a naturalized philosophy of science. One principle incorporates a holistic account of evidence inclusive of claims and theories informed by and/or expressive of politics and non-constitutive values; the second takes communities, rather than individual scientists, to be the primary loci of scientific knowledge. I use case studies to demonstrate that these methodological principles satisfy three criteria for naturalization accepted in naturalized (...) philosophy of science, and allow for the differential assessment of episodes in which values and sociopolitical factors inform, or contribute to the adoption of, theories for which there is sufficient evidential warrant — and episodes in which such factors inform, or contribute to the adoption of, theories for which there is not. I contend that in terms of their empirical and normative import, these principles constitute a further naturalization of the philosophy of science. (shrink)

An implicit goal of many interventions intended to enhance integrity is to minimize peoples' exposure to unethical events. The intent of the present effort was to examine if exposure to unethical practices in the course of one's work is related to ethical decision making. Accordingly, 248 doctoral students in the biological, health, and social sciences were asked to complete a field appropriate measure of ethical decision making. In addition, they were asked to complete measures examining the perceived acceptability of unethical (...) events and a measure examining perceptions of ethical climate. When these criterion measures were correlated with a measure examining the frequency with which they had been exposed to unethical events in their day-to-day work, it was found that event exposure was strongly related to ethical decision making but less strongly related to climate perceptions and perceptions of event acceptability. However, these relationships were moderated by level of experience. The implications of these findings for practices intended to improve ethics are discussed. (shrink)

The first new translation of this work to appear in more than twenty-five years, the Columbia I Ching presents the classic book of changes for the world of today.

We have conducted a retrospective study of deaths on a paediatric medical intensive care unit over a two-year period and reviewed similar series from outside the UK. There were 89 deaths out of 651 admission (13.7% mortality). In almost two-thirds of the cases death occurred with a decision to limit medical treatment or withdraw mechanical ventilation, implying that additional or further therapy was considered futile. We highlight this as a crucially important issue in the practice of intensive care. More comprehensive (...) studies are needed to help clinicians derive consensus on what constitutes a futile intervention, and therefore when such an intervention should be withheld. This will help families and society better understand the limitations of intensive care. (shrink)

The persistence, and international expansion, of food banks as a non-governmental response to households experiencing food insecurity has been decried as an indicator of unacceptable levels of poverty in the countries in which they operate. In 1998, Poppendieck published a book, Sweet charity: emergency food and the end of entitlement, which has endured as an influential critique of food banks. Sweet charity‘s food bank critique is succinctly synthesized as encompassing seven deadly “ins” (1) inaccessibility, (2) inadequacy, (3) inappropriateness, (4) indignity, (...) (5) inefficiency, (6) insufficiency, and (7) instability. The purpose of this paper is to examine if and how the contemporary food bank critique differs from Sweet charity’s “ins” as a strategy for the formulation of synthesizing arguments for policy advocacy. We used critical interpretive synthesis methodology to identify relationships within and/or between existing critiques in the peer-reviewed literature as a means to create “‘synthetic constructs’ (new constructs generated through synthesis)” of circulating critiques. We analyzed 33 articles on food banks published since Sweet charity, with the “ins” as a starting point for coding. We found that the list of original “ins” related primarily to food bank operations has been consolidated over time. We found additional “ins” that extend the food bank critique beyond operations (ineffectiveness, inequality, institutionalization, invalidation of entitlements, invisibility). No synthetic construct emerged linking the critique of operational challenges facing food banks with one that suggests that food banks may be perpetuating inequity, posing a challenge for mutually supportive policy advocacy. (shrink)

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) "Policy for the Management of Terminally Ill Patients Who May Become Organ Donors after Death" proposes to take organs from certain patients as soon as possible after expected cardiopulmonary death. This policy requires clear understanding of the descriptive state of the donor's critical cardiopulmonary and neurologic functional capacity at the time interventions to sustain or harvest organs are undertaken. It also requires strong consensus about the moral and legal status of the donor during (...) dying and confirmation of death. There has been no need for the clarity and precision that this policy relies upon, and thus the needed research and conceptual work has not previously been generated. The empiric base and societal consensus are both too frail to provide justification for this policy at this time. (shrink)

Introduction: working together on individuality / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- The work of biological individuality: concepts and contexts / Scott Lidgard and Lynn K. Nyhart -- Cells, colonies, and clones: individuality in the volvocine algae / Matthew D. Herron -- Individuality and the control of life cycles / Beckett Sterner -- Discovering the ties that bind: cell-cell communication and the development of cell sociology / Andrew S. Reynolds -- Alternation of generations and individuality, 1851 / (...) Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- Spencer's evolutionary entanglement: from liminal individuals to implicit collectivities / Snait Gissis -- Biological individuality and enkapsis: from Martin Heidenhain's synthesiology to the völkisch national community / Olivier Rieppel -- Parasitology, zoology, and society in France, ca. 1880-1920 / Michael A. Osborne -- Metabolism, autonomy, and individuality / Hannah Landecker -- Bodily parts in the structure-function dialectic / Ingo Brigandt -- Commentaries: historical, biological, and philosophical perspectives -- Distrust that particular intuition: resilient essentialisms and empirical challenges in the history of biological individuality / James Elwick -- Biological individuality: a relational reading / Scott F. Gilbert -- Philosophical dimensions of individuality / Alan C. Love and Ingo Brigandt. (shrink)

This essay critiques feminist treatments of maternal-fetal "relationality" that unwittingly replicate features of Western individualism (for example, the Cartesian division between the asocial body and the social-cognitive person, or the conflation of social and biological birth). I argue for a more reflexive perspective on relationality that would acknowledge how we produce persons through our actions and rhetoric. Personhood and relationality can be better analyzed as dynamic, negotiated qualities realized through social practice.

This article draws on core insights of critical realism to explain why the international diffusion of women's human rights norms has varied greatly from one state to another and why states in general have been slower to incorporate these norms domestically than other human rights norms. Its central argument is that the gender-biased corporate identity of many states represents the most significant barrier to diffusion. However, it also shows that particular norms have been incorporated into particular states at particular points (...) in time as a consequence of articulated international and domestic pressure from a variety of actors. It begins by examining the limitations of existing explanations of international norms before developing an alternative critical realist argument to explain cross-national variation in the diffusion and efficacy of international norms of sexual non-discrimination. Through the cases of Germany and Japan, it demonstrates how the diffusion of these norms is conditioned and more often than not impeded by the dynamic interplay between various international and domestic structures and agents, discourse, and power. Finally, it briefly discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the argument. (shrink)

Grush describes a variety of different systems that illustrate his vision of representation through emulation. These individual data points are not necessarily sufficient to determine what level of detail is required for a representation to count as emulation. By examining one of his examples closely, this commentary suggest that salience of the information supplied is a critical dimension.

D. M. Armstrong proposes to explain the possibility of unconscious sensations by means of a distinction between the perceptual consciousness, which is essentially involved in sensations, and our introspective consciousness of sensations. He holds that unconscious sensations are instances of perceptual consciousness of which we are not introspectively conscious. I contend that, although Armstrong''s distinction is plausible and significant, it fails to explain his own examples of unconscious sensation. I argue that the puzzle of how unconscious sensations are possible arises (...) at the level of perceptual consciousness and does not concern our introspective awareness of mental states. (shrink)