The insight phenomenon is thought to comprise two components: cognitive and affective. The exact nature of the Aha! experience remains unclear; however, several explanations have been put forward. Based on the processing fluency account, the source of the Aha! experience is a sudden increase in processing fluency, associated with emerging of a solution. We hypothesized that in a situation which the Aha! experience accompanies the solution in, the problem would be judged as less difficult, regardless of the objective difficulty. We (...) also planned to confirm previously discovered associations between the Aha! experience and accuracy, confidence, and pleasure. To test the proposed hypothesis, during the preliminary stage of the study, we developed a set of 100 remote associate problems in Russian and asked 125 participants to solve problems and indicate the Aha! moment, confidence, difficulty, and likability of each problem. As expected, the Aha! experience often accompanied correct solutions and correlated with confidence judgments. We also found a positive correlation between the Aha! experience and problem likability. As for the main hypothesis, we confirmed that the Aha! experience after the presentation of the solution was associated with a decrease in subjective difficulty. When participants could not solve a problem but experienced the Aha! moment after the solution was presented to them, the problem was perceived as easier than one without the Aha! experience. We didn’t find the same effect for the Aha! after solution generation. Thus, our study partially supports the processing fluency account and demonstrates the association between the Aha! experience and metacognitive judgments about the accuracy and difficulty of problems. (shrink)

This article summarizes a virtual live‐streamed panel event that occurred in August 2020 and was cosponsored by the International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS) and the University of California, Irvine's Center for Nursing Philosophy. The event consisted of a series of three self‐contained panel discussions focusing on the past, present and future of IPONS and was moderated by the current Chair of IPONS, Catherine Green. The first panel discussion explored the history of IPONS and the journal Nursing Philosophy. The second (...) panel involved a reflection on the challenges of doing nursing philosophy in a research‐intensive context of a Canadian university and the history and current movements in nursing philosophy in the Nordic countries. The final panel involved presentations on the future potential for philosophy in/and for nursing, the critical connections between nursing philosophy and nursing theory, dismantling racism in nursing and the potential for process philosophy to help explore nursing's unique efficacy in creating possibilities for health. The panels were followed by a lively Q&A session with participants, of which there were 252 registrants from across the globe. The event underscored the wide and diverse interests of nurses in philosophical discussion and the need for more virtual events and other connective modalities bringing nurses together to discuss and analyze the value and potential of philosophy to better understand and advance nursing theory and practice. (shrink)

This paper reports on an experimental study investigating the acquisition of grammatical gender in Russian by heritage speakers living in Norway. The participants are 54 Norwegian-Russian bilingual children (4;0-10;2) as well as 107 Russian monolingual controls (3;0-7;0). Previous research has shown that grammatical gender is problematic for bilingual speakers, especially in cases where gender assignment is opaque (Schwartz et al., 2015; Polinsky, 2008; Rodina and Westergaard, 2017). Furthermore, factors such as proficiency and family type (one or two Russian-speaking parents) have (...) been argued to be important. Interestingly, previous findings differ with respect to the kind of errors children make: restructuring to a two-gender system (masculine-feminine, see Polinsky, 2008) or defaulting to masculine (see Rodina and Westergaard, 2017). It is also not clear to what extent children are sensitive to gender cues or whether certain agreement patterns are simply memorized. To investigate this, we used both existing nouns and nonce words and tested both transparent and opaque gender cues. The results were checked against a number of background factors measuring exposure, proficiency, and dominance. Our findings show that bilingual children are clearly sensitive to morphophonological cues for gender assignment. The most common and robust error pattern for all bilinguals involved overgeneralization to masculine (especially affecting neuter and opaque nouns). At the same time, children from families with two Russian-speaking parents and monolinguals also occasionally overused feminine with vowel-final nouns. The following variables were found to be the most reliable predictors of accuracy on grammatical gender tasks: cumulative length of exposure (CLoE) and consistency of input in Russian, as well as the presence of older siblings, with CLoE to Russian being by far the most robust and important predictor. Furthermore, we show that a lexical diversity measure (number of different words in a Russian narrative) is also correlated significantly with the children’s performance on the gender tasks. At the same time, our results indicate that relative measures of dominance (e.g., the difference in exposure between the two languages or the difference in narrative scores) may be redundant when more robust absolute measures are present (CLoE and lexical diversity in the heritage language). (shrink)

The paper presents the results of a study on the analysis of the perception of coronavirus disease 2019 by Spanish-, German- and Russian-speaking social media actors after the emergence of vaccines and attitudes toward vaccination. The empirical base of the study was corpus data, materials from online media, social networks, microblogging, blogs, instant messengers, forums, reviews, and video hosting data. The Spanish-language database included 6,640,912 tokens and 43,251,900 characters; the German-language database included 16,322,042 tokens and 109,139,405 characters; and the Russian-language (...) database included 16,310,307 tokens and 109,060,935 characters. With a neural network approach, a multilingual analysis was performed, which made it possible to analyze the topic structure and the semantic network with the allocation of the semantic core and the associative network. Differential and integral features of the identified structures based on the material of these three databases made it possible to determine the general and different characteristics of the perception by Spanish-, German-, and Russian-speaking users of the development of the pandemic, a number of social problems, attitudes toward various types of vaccines, observance of preventive measures, and readiness for vaccination. (shrink)

There is a worry that the ‘major transitions in evolution’ represent an arbitrary group of events. This worry is warranted, and we show why. We argue that the transition to a new level of hierarchy necessarily involves a nonselectionist chance process. Thus any unified theory of evolutionary transitions must be more like a general theory of fortuitous luck, rather than a rigid formulation of expected events. We provide a systematic account of evolutionary transitions based on a second-order regularity of chance (...) events, as stipulated by the ZFEL (Zero Force Evolutionary Law). And in doing so, we make evolutionary transitions explainable and predictable, and so not entirely contingent after all. (shrink)

The current state of Ukrainian society is characterized by socio-economic instability, there are dynamic, unique processes in which each person is involved. In this connection, there are increasing demands on the professionalism of specialists in the field of practical psychology, their philosophical counseling in the context of postmodernism, aimed at helping people become the subject of their life, work, social and value relationships, to teach them to find meanings and maximize self-actualization. This is represented in the change of priorities in (...) the professional development of practical psychologists, its focus on the development of specialists' subjectivity, their ability to independently solve professional and life tasks. An important role in enhancing the development of professionalism is the understanding of the essential characteristics of existential professional activity, expressed most often in professional meanings and values. The basis of a meaningful professional and personal life is the key ability of the practical psychologist to see and accept the needs of the profession and life and to find the most correct explanations for them. The purpose of the article is to investigate the importance and necessity of the activity of a practical psychologist, its peculiarities, the study of types of psychological aid: counseling, psychological rehabilitation, correction, psychotherapy, training, education and prevention; as well as the need to identify the main areas of professional activity of practical psychologists in the context of postmodernism. (shrink)

The relevance of this topic is due to the processes of INDUSTRY 4.0, which takes place in a new industrial revolution and requires the formation of a new management theory as a factor in creating an environmentally balanced and socially oriented economy, aimed at increasing the welfare of the population and improving the environmental performance. The purpose of the study is the conceptualization of the new theory of management as a factor in the creation of an environmentally balanced and socially (...) oriented economy, and the methodology of analysis. Objectives of the study : using the methodology of system analysis, to form a new management theory as a factor in the formation of an environmentally balanced and socially oriented economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0, as the current management paradigm is deeply constrained. Analysis of recent research and publications, which launched the solution to this problem. Works by Macston Graham and Randers Jorgen. "In search of prosperity. Managing Economic Development to Reduce Unemployment and Climate Change " and Meadow Donnelly, Meadow Denis, Rangers Jorgen. "The limits of growth. 30 years later " discusses the challenges facing the developed world today, including steady unemployment, growing inequality of property, and rapid climate change. Until today, most of the solutions to these problems were politically unacceptable for a world focused on short-term benefits and a desire for continued economic growth. The scientific novelty of the research is to identify the problems of interaction between man, society, nature in the conditions of INDUSTRY and the conditions for their overcoming, which contribute to the formation of a new theory of management as a factor in creating an environmentally balanced and socially oriented economy. The results of the study: the conditions for the formation of a stable society, based on which the creation of an environmentally balanced and socially oriented economy; the definition of sustainable development of society and the mission of a new management theory are revealed, which should change the dominant social philosophy, which is based on the paradigm of how people look at the world. Conclusion - the basis of the new theory of management - the improvement of the world, challenging many economic and managerial concepts of INDUSTRY 4.0, which are based on "the limits of growth". (shrink)

External economic aid has played an important role in Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding process, particularly by funding community-based intervention projects.As a consequence of the Troubles, Northern Ireland suffered from severe socioeconomic inequality. These locally funded projects have fostered social cohesion by encouraging cross community interaction aimed at reducing violence and sectarianism. The NGO projects also promote social justice, reduce inequality, and provide the means to meet people’s basic human needs. The field research for this article was conducted during the summer of (...) 2010 and explores the perceptions of 120 civil society leaders and funding agency development officers on the effectiveness of the aid from the IFI and EU Peace III Fund in creating local social-economic NGOs to promote equity, equality, and social justice. The findings of this study reveal significant diversity in the respondents’ descriptions of the aids’s role in promoting equality, equity, and social justice as well as their expressed hopes and frustrations regarding its overall effectiveness. (shrink)

High-frequency oscillations (HFO) are a promising biomarker for the identification of epileptogenic tissue. While HFO rates have been shown to predict seizure outcome, it is not yet clear whether their morphological features might improve this prediction. We validated HFO rates against seizure outcome and delineated the distribution of HFO morphological features. We collected stereo-EEG recordings from 20 patients (231 electrodes; 1,943 contacts). We computed HFO rates (the co-occurrence of ripples and fast ripples) through a validated automated detector during non-rapid eye (...) movement sleep. Applying machine learning, we delineated HFO morphological features within and outside epileptogenic tissue across mesial temporal lobe (MTL) and Neocortex. HFO rates predicted seizure outcome with 85% accuracy, 79% specificity, 100% sensitivity, 100% negative predictive value, and 67% positive predictive value. The analysis of HFO features showed larger amplitude in the epileptogenic tissue, similar morphology for epileptogenic HFO in MTL and Neocortex, and larger amplitude for physiological HFO in MTL. We confirmed HFO rates as a reliable biomarker for epilepsy surgery and characterized the potential clinical relevance of HFO morphological features. Our results support the prospective use of HFO in epilepsy surgery and contribute to the anatomical mapping of HFO morphology. (shrink)

We were interested in exploring the associations and effects of experimental language (i.e., native – L1, or foreign – L2), dilemma type (i.e., personal – D1 or impersonal – D2), the digital device participants used (i.e., PC/laptop or smartphone), along with gender and age in sacrificial COVID-19 and non-COVID moral dilemmas. We performed two studies involving 522 participants aged 18 to 69 in April 2020. In Study 1, we found no significant associations between the dilemma type and the digital device. (...) However, most participants chose to sacrifice an older COVID-19 patient in a critical medical condition to prioritize rescuing similar, younger patients (i.e., 45-year-old males). Results also suggested that male and younger participants were more likely to choose the utilitarian option when the sacrificial dilemma was presented in French. In study 2 (i.e., non-COVID-19), participants made significantly more utilitarian choices in the personal dilemmas presented in French. Results are discussed concerning the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic context and its emotional impact on moral judgment. (shrink)

The article analyzes the features of poetic reflection in the work of A. Krymsky in the relation "man-nature". Coverage of this problem in the conditions of postmodern philosophical discourse requires appropriate embeddedness in the national and cultural experience. Moreover, the poetry of A. Krymsky manifests the deep experiences of the Ukrainian man's ties with the natural world, which includes the actualization of the inner nature of man. The author seeks to "write out" the laws of the "moral constitution" according to (...) which a person is worthy of his purpose of being in nature "has the right" to love according to the vocation of his convictions, his needs and inclinations. On the one hand, the author seems to call us to abide by these "laws", but, on the other hand, his thoughts divert from such categoricalness into the space of "identity" and confessional repentance. As follows from the above, the dignity of a person consists in the awakening and strengthening of an independent, responsible, formed on the path of enriching the inner life of a spiritual personality and the search for a free egress. And in this, in fact, the highest value of the relevance of postmodern self-communication in the interpretation of the poetic work of A. Krymsky is developed. (shrink)

The goal of the paper is to present a Simplified Offensive Language (SOL) Taxonomy, its application and testing in the Second Annotation Campaign conducted between March-May 2023 on four languages: English, Czech, Lithuanian, and Polish to be verified and located in LLOD. Making reference to the previous Offensive Language taxonomic models proposed mostly by the same COST Action Nexus Linguarum WG 4.1.1 team, the number and variety of the categories underwent the definitional revision, and the present typology was tested in (...) the annotation on the publicly available offensive language datasets of each of the four languages. The results of the annotation are presented and as they are contained within the accepted statistical values on the inter-annotator agreement in the SOL categories and their aspects, we propose this taxonomy as a core ontology which represents the encoding of the supported offensive languages and justify its use on new data in terms of a more universal Linguistic Linked Open Data (LLOD) schema. (shrink)

The article deals with the socio-cultural nature of information and studies its role in increasing global turbulence. Based on the methodological grounds put forward by A. Toffler, S. Moscovici, N. Chomsky, R. Patzlaff, O. Aronson, dialectical and systemic methods, the authors argue that the infodemic roots in stereotypical thinking generated by mass culture, as well as informatization and computerization of social relations. Mass culture contributed to a decrease in the level of critical thinking and caused the so-called ‘clip consciousness’. The (...) paper substantiates the idea that the infodemic became most evident during the coronavirus pandemic, and the spread of hybrid and information wars within the world scale. The infodemic organically correlates with the world of post-truth, where a person does not seek the truth but up-to-date information. The fact of whether the information is true or not in such a context becomes secondary to the cliché of the stereotypical consciousness of an individual, social group, or society as a whole. (shrink)

The aim of the present study, which involved preschool teachers, was to explore the area of working with musically gifted children. In particular, we focused on the identification of musically gifted children and monitoring of their musical development, preschool teachers’ competence for working with children, and evaluation of factors important for the development of musically gifted children. Research results showed that the majority of preschool teachers: were able to identify musically gifted children; rarely monitored and documented children’s musical development systematically (...) and did not acquire enough knowledge for working with musically gifted children during their formal and informal education. Among the important factors influencing the development of musically gifted children, preschool teachers pointed out motivation to work with musically gifted children, identification of musically gifted children, cooperation with music experts and parents, and implementation of additional musical activities. Cilj ovog istraživanja, koje je uključivalo odgojitelje u vrtiću, bio je istražiti područje rada s glazbeno nadarenom djecom. Posebno smo se usredotočili na otkrivanje glazbeno nadarene djece i praćenje njihovog glazbenog napretka, kompetencije odgojitelja za rad s djecom i procjenom čimbenika važnih za razvoj glazbeno nadarene djece. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da je većina odgojitelja: uspjela otkriti glazbeno nadarenu djecu; rijetko su sustavno pratili i dokumentirali glazbeni napredak djece i nisu stekli dovoljno znanja za rad s glazbeno nadarenom djecom tijekom svog formalnog i neformalnog obrazovanja. Među važnim čimbenicima koji utječu na razvoj glazbeno nadarene djece odgojitelji su istaknuli motivaciju za rad s glazbeno nadarenom djecom, otkrivanje glazbeno nadarene djece, suradnju s glazbenim stručnjacima i roditeljima te provedbu dodatnih glazbenih aktivnosti. (shrink)

Cilj ovog istraživanja, koje je uključivalo odgojitelje u vrtiću, bio je istražiti područje rada s glazbeno nadarenom djecom. Posebno smo se usredotočili na otkrivanje glazbeno nadarene djece i praćenje njihovog glazbenog napretka, kompetencije odgojitelja za rad s djecom i procjenom čimbenika važnih za razvoj glazbeno nadarene djece. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da je većina odgojitelja: uspjela otkriti glazbeno nadarenu djecu; rijetko su sustavno pratili i dokumentirali glazbeni napredak djece i nisu stekli dovoljno znanja za rad s glazbeno nadarenom djecom tijekom (...) svog formalnog i neformalnog obrazovanja. Među važnim čimbenicima koji utječu na razvoj glazbeno nadarene djece odgojitelji su istaknuli motivaciju za rad s glazbeno nadarenom djecom, otkrivanje glazbeno nadarene djece, suradnju s glazbenim stručnjacima i roditeljima te provedbu dodatnih glazbenih aktivnosti. (shrink)

Our main goal is to describe the structure of engaged acts and compassion and their constitutive interrelation to explicate the key role of engaged and compassionate acts for group constitution. In the first part of the paper, we formulate our guiding idea: the key to understanding compassion lies in understanding engagement and vice versa. We then consider the problematic nature of engaged acts: On the one hand, they do not meet the conditions to be attributed to the plural subject; on (...) the other hand, they cannot be understood without presupposing the plural subject. To understand this, we rely primarily on Helm’s theory of emotions and the classical phenomenological analyses of the constitution of the plural subject, but we also point out the limitations of the latter. In the last two sections, we build on Nussbaum’s theory of compassion to describe the parallelism in the structure of compassion and engagement and to show their constitutive connection. Finally, we examine the specific way in which engaged acts “place burden” and transform a group into an institution. (shrink)

Dans le champ de la linguistique francaise, Olga Galatanu est de ceux qui ont muni l'analyse du discours et des interactions verbales d'un modele semantique de description. La Semantique des Possibles Argumentatifs qu'elle developpe depuis une vingtaine d'annees adhere aux visions argumentative, stereotypique, referentielle, cognitiviste de la langue, et s'attache a rendre compte de la construction des representations en langue et en discours.<BR> Les articles que ses collaborateurs et amis lui offrent dans ce volume se rapportent de pres ou (...) de loin a la SPA. Certains en partagent les postulats: sens referentiel et denomination, interfaces semantique-syntaxe et semantique-pragmatique, construction discursive du sens, valeurs; d'autres reprennent et developpent des elements specifiques de la SPA: possibles argumentatifs, deploiements argumentatifs, modalites; d'autres encore montrent les convergences et complementarites entre la SPA et des theories voisines.<BR> Les analyses portent notamment sur l'attitude metalinguistique des locuteurs, la malleabilite semantique des mots, la negociation des sens et des valeurs, les principes et strategies discursives qui regulent la communication, l'heterogeneite discursive, la presentation de soi, la construction d'objets discursifs, les actes de langage indirects, etc.". (shrink)

Going beyond the scope of psychiatric diagnoses, this study introduces the concept of human vulnerability as a means of linking the phenomenological approach—focusing on the patient’s experience—with psychotherapeutic treatment. To this end, it applies Karl Jaspers’ concept of “limit situation” to the existential vulnerability in the manifestation of mental illness and the ontological vulnerability in schizophrenia. From a psychological or empathic standpoint, vulnerability, as experienced in different cases of mental illness, refers to the condition of being confronted with disturbing meaningful (...) social encounters with others. In these social encounters, existential meanings acquire disturbing qualities for a person’s integrity, giving rise to various psychopathological phenomena. This study incorporates the practice of psychotherapy and empirical research to suggest that the experience of vulnerability is crucial not only in understanding the manifestation of mental illness but also a key element of phenomenological psychotherapeutic treatment, and it uses schizophrenia as an example. (shrink)

This book analyzes unobvious relations between historical definitions of the face and its contemporary usage in popular culture and social media, like Facebook or Instagram. Bringing together a wide range of methodologies, it includes essays from manifold disciplines of the humanities such as philosophy, literary and art criticism, media and television studies, game studies, sociology and anthropology. The authors focus on both metaphorical and material meanings of the face. They grapple with crucial questions about modernity, modern and postmodern subjectivity, as (...) well as with origins of certain linguistic terms and popular, colloquial phrases based on the concept of the face. (shrink)

Today, phallocentrism is perpetuated by a flourishing medical construction that focuses exclusively on penile erections as the essence of men's sexual function and satisfaction. This article describes how this medicalization is promoted by urologists, medical industries, mass media, and various entrepreneurs. Many men and women provide a ready audience for this construction because of masculine ideology and gender socialization. While there may be some advantages to this construction, there are major disadvantages to men in terms of the inevitable failure of (...) the promised perfectible erection and the perpetuation of a falsely universalized and biologized vision of sexual experience. Any sexual interests of women in other than phallocentric sexual scripting are denied. (shrink)

This article seeks to clarify the way in which phenomenology is conceptualized and applied in empirical research in psychiatry and psychology, emphasizing the suitability of qualitative research. It will address the What, Why, and How of phenomenological interviews, providing not only preliminary answers but also a critical analysis, and pointing to future directions for research. The questions it asks are: First, what makes an interview phenomenological? What are phenomenological interviews used for in empirical research in psychiatry and psychology? Second, why (...) do we carry out phenomenological interviews with patients? Is merely contrasting phenomenological hypotheses or concepts enough to do justice to the patients’ involvement? Third, how should we conduct phenomenological interviews with patients? How can we properly perform analysis in empirical phenomenological research in psychiatry and psychology? In its conclusion, the article attempts to go a step beyond these methodological questions, highlighting the “bigger picture”: namely, the phenomenological scientific paradigm and its core philosophical claim of reality as mind-dependent. (shrink)

Darwin begins On the Origin of Species by asking the reader to “reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated” (1859, p. 7); almost five-hundred pages later, he closes by having the reader consider the “endless forms most beautiful and wonderful” that have evolved (1859, p. 490). Darwin contemplates diversity throughout the Origin and presents the principle of divergence as a way to explain it. Darwin formulated the principle of divergence around 1857 (Browne 1980), (...) at which point he began replacing his previous view of “limited perfect adaptedness” with a view of relative adaptedness (Ospovat 1981; Burian 1983). Proponents of perfect adaptedness, such as Paley and .. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe-se a refletir sobre a relação da epistemologia instrumentalista de John Dewey com a neurociência cognitiva, a partir de sua crítica à psicologia tradicional. Realiza-se uma análise da tentativa de John Dewey de relacionar a verdade com a cognição destacando seus argumentos fundamentados no progresso da fisiologia e da psicologia, no avanço da biologia e no desenvolvimento do método experimental. O texto discute a possibilidade de o pragmatismo de Dewey contribuir com a neurociência cognitiva, já que a atitude (...) naturalista do autor em relação ao ser humano e todas as suas funções reforça que é a mente que toma as decisões e controla o comportamento. (shrink)

Using the Bible in Christian ethics is often not as simple as many would expect it to be. This is particularly the case for the use of the Old Testament. Part of the challenge is the complexity of grasping the customs and norms that are reflected in the Old Testament. They are often at odds with what is acceptable in contemporary thinking. In this article, we examine the difficulty of using the Old Testament in Christian ethics by using the narrative (...) of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 as case study. We show that this particular text alerts us to the complex relationship between ethics and culture, not only in the world of the text, but also the world of the interpreter. Based on our analysis of the text we argue for its meta-ethical contribution to the practice of Christian ethics. We do not endeavour to resolve the perceived tension between the implied ethics of the text and that of contemporary interpreters, but view the unresolved tension as one of the text’s key contributions to the practice of Christian ethics. (shrink)

Es probable que todos nos hayamos encontrado alguna vez en la situación de no saber si la persona que tenemos delante habla en serio o bromea. Nuestra expresión de sorpresa acaba por dar lástima a nuestro interlocutor, y al final, resuelto el equívoco, los dos terminamos riéndonos. La ironía y el sarcasmo forman parte del lenguaje y de nuestra existencia desde etapas muy primitivas. Con la ironía hacemos frente a las tristezas, a las situaciones que no nos gustan, o simplemente, (...) nos divertimos un rato. Porque la ironía - no lo olvidemos - es un juego, lo practiquemos nosotros o lo practique el destino. Este libro intenta ofrecer respuestas a algunas de las preguntas que plantea su análisis. Su alumbramiento ha sido promovido por el grupo GRIALE (Grupo de la Ironía. Alicante, Lengua Española), pero en el camino nos han acompañado otros colegas y amigos, preocupados también por el mismo tema. Desde una perspectiva pragmática, se ha estructurado en tres grandes bloques: I. Las teorías, II. Indicadores y marcas de la ironía y III. Más allá de la ironía. Cada bloque se compone a su vez de diversos capítulos, y todos ellos se han concebido como un conjunto integrado que favorece la consulta y garantiza la coherencia. (shrink)

Disease-mongering in the case of sexual problems has some special elements. These include that discussions of sex provoke embarrassment and reveal a lack of knowledge on the part of both clinician and patient, the aggressiveness of Big Pharma in the face of the huge profitability of sexual products; and the socially constructed nature of sexual satisfaction. These special elements engender concern for the prospects for patient empowerment and the convergence of patient-clinician power in the consulting room. Consequently, political action to (...) raise public and professional awareness about the realities of commercialisation and conflict of interest, and to resist further medicalisation may be as warranted for concerned scholars as academic analyses, at least at the present time. (shrink)

The problem with reductionism in biology is not the reduction, but the implicit attitude of determinism that usually accompanies it. Methodological reductionism is supported by deterministic beliefs, but making such a connection is problematic when it is based on an idea of determinism as fixed predictability. Conflating determinism with predictability gives rise to inaccurate models that overlook the dynamic complexity of our world, as well as ignore our epistemic limitations when we try to model it. Furthermore, the assumption of a (...) strictly deterministic framework is unnecessarily hindering to biology. By removing the dogma of determinism, biological methods, including reductive methods, can be expanded to include stochastic models and probabilistic interpretations. Thus, the dogma of reductionism can be saved once its ties with determinism are severed. In this paper, I analyze two problems that have faced molecular biology for the last 50 years—protein folding and cancer. Both cases demonstrate the long influence of reductionism and determinism on molecular biology, as well as how abandoning determinism has opened the door to more probabilistic and unconstrained reductive methods in biology. (shrink)