Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

But still I think some account has to be given of the application of CM to tides and cannon balls etc. etc. It seems to me that Einstein's and Bohr's analysis was essentially correct: we make the connection, and thus apply the mathematical statements of CM to macroscopic features of the world about us, by constructing, within the mathematical framework,. macroscopic conglomerates of the elementary particles and fields that should have the general appearance of tides and billiard, looked at from (...) a distance, and that would respond to the probings of mathematical models of measuring devices, whose "pointers" we can see from afar, in the ways that waves and billiard balls do. I think a look at how CM has been used and applied since the time of Newton and Galileo shows that the mathematical theory is linked into our experiences of the world in this nonproblematic way, and that this correspondence at this nonproblematic level is part of classical mechanics in the broad sense in which it is understood by people who use it. (shrink)

Critical analysis of the commercialization and malpractice current in the profession of medicine.

Using touch as a medium for exploring the ways in which it is constructed by nurses, the body is here characterized by a plethora of competing and co‐existing terms: disobedient, obedient, mirroring, stigmatized, sinful, post‐mortem, sanitized, angelic, desexualized, dangerous, dominant, dominating, deceitful, submissive, disciplined, postmodern and communicative. We have tried to be provocative by juxtaposing contradictory messages and evoking conflicting emotions, and we hope that the reader will not assume that we believe everything we write, or that everything may be (...) taken only at face value. There are as many messages and meanings in the paper as each reader thinks there are. (shrink)

Pat White; Work-place Democracy and Political Education [1], Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 5–20, https://doi.org/10.

Pat White, John White; David Cooper's Illusions, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 239–248, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.1 (2002) 1-21 [Access article in PDF] Turning Kant Against the Priority of Autonomy: Communication Ethics and the Duty to Community Pat J. Gehrke Communication ethics scholars afford Immanuel Kant significantly less attention than one might expect. This may be because, as Robert Dostal notes, Kant argues that rhetoric merits no respect whatsoever (223). This rejection of rhetoric, Dostal writes, is grounded in the significant emphasis (...) given to Kant's concept of autonomy (232). The focus on autonomy and, hence, rhetoricians' relative neglect of Kant's ethical theory are both connected to the separation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (hereinafter CPuR) from his subsequent ethical and moral philosophy. Kenneth Burke writes that Kant's first critique has no ethical implications, "no 'wills,' 'oughts,' 'shoulds,' or 'thou shalt nots'... nothing but an inevitable is, a description of conditions as they necessarily are for human experience" (191; emphasis in original). Such readings lose much of the richness and complexity of Kant's thought and tend instead to produce simple moral duties, such as Mike Markel's assertion that technical communicators must be truthful.Perhaps the most critical element of Kant's work lost in our focus on autonomy is his articulation of a ground for a duty to community. While Kant makes clear the importance of community for his metaphysics in the first critique (CPuR), the importance of community in Kant's moral philosophy often is overlooked. Some scholars claim that an ethical duty to community is either rejected by Kant's emphasis on the autonomy of will or simply ignored. This article combines a reading of Kant's metaphysics of experience with his moral philosophy to articulate a communication ethic grounded in community. This argument is made in three parts: first, the community of objects in experience—the Third Analogy of Experience—is an organizing principle of and a necessary condition for the possibility of all experience; second, this metaphysical principle of community is relevant [End Page 1] to community as developed in Kant's ethical writings; and finally, Kant's own work undermines the primacy of autonomy and better supports a communication ethic grounded in a duty to community.Scholars interested in Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action have special reason to take note of Kant's work. Kant is not only a figure that Habermas sees reflected in his own work, 1 but a constant point of contrast. Craig Calhoun writes that much of Habermas's own philosophy emerges by rejecting Kant's epistemology and elements of his metaphysics while still giving credence to Kantian moral philosophy (2). However, like most communication scholars and philosophers, Habermas believes that autonomy governs Kantian ethics: "Formalistic ethics (Kant) binds the criterion of generality of norms to the further criterion of autonomy, that is, independence from contingent motives" (Habermas, Legitimation 89). Since autonomy excludes or represses the contingent, if our readings of Kant give primacy to autonomy we leave little room for any notion of community as manifest in experience. In no small part, it is the criticism of Kant for privileging autonomy that has given Habermasians their break from Kantian ethics. However, if we turn to the first critique to guide our reading of the moral philosophy, there is another way to understand the role of autonomy and community in Kant's thought. By linking Kant's metaphysics with his moral philosophy, this article turns Kant away from the primacy of autonomy and uses Kant's own works to argue that autonomy is but one half of an antinomy that is organized under the principle of community. Thus, this article recuperates the possibility of deploying Kantian metaphysics and moral philosophy together as grounds for a communication ethic that privileges community and recovers the value of rhetoric.For rhetorical scholars, the resistance to the priority of autonomy may be related to the frequent expression of community through appeal to commonality, sameness, or identification. Today, feminist, race, postmodern, and poststructural communication scholars are questioning the value of commonality as a ground for ethics (e... (shrink)

Henry re. your recent reply to Aaron. OK, current physics does not allow us to retreat into a comfortable assumption of Newtonian regularity. However, given the following range of options, I know which I find the 'spookiest'.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concept of 'best interest' in order to give nurses, who use it to justify their actions, a clear picture of what this means, and to identify the skills needed for doing so. The process for concept analysis developed by Walker and Avant was used in the analysis of data generated from the literature. Themes were identified from which the defining attributes, antecedents and consequences emerged. The congruence of the findings with current (...) values in nursing, such as promotion of patient autonomy, and the nurse as advocate, are discussed, together with the underpinning ethics theory. The skills needed for nursing practice are identified and recommendations for nurse education are made. (shrink)

The influence exerted by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham has been a matter of controversy over many years. Assessments have varied greatly—ranging from the extravagantly generous to the utterly dismissive—but there has been broad agreement on the loci for investigation. Attention has focused on the social, administrative, and legal reforms of the Victorian age. The aim here is to explore a different and relatively neglected area—the part played by Bentham's thought in shaping the attitudes and programme of the nineteenth-century British (...) peace movement. (shrink)

One of the most neglected aspects of Bentham's thought is his opposition to war. His views on this subject have been sketched out in a number of studies, but they have never been examined in any detail. Interested scholars have tended to base their assessments on a narrow range of sources. Most have relied on the four brief essays, collectively entitled ‘Principles of International Law’, which were published in John Bowring's edition of Bentham's Works. More particularly, they have leaned heavily (...) on just one of these essays, ‘A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace’. The aim of this paper is to present a much fuller picture of Bentham's views by supplementing relevant material in the international law essays with ideas drawn from Bentham's other works and unpublished papers. (shrink)

The evolution of reciprocal altruism probably involved the evolution of mechanisms to detect cheating and remember cheaters. In a well-known study, Mealey, Daood, and Krage (1996) observed that participants had enhanced memory for faces that had previously been associated with descriptions of acts of cheating. There were, however, problems with the descriptions that were used in that study. We sought to replicate and extend the findings of Mealey and colleagues by using more controlled descriptions and by examining the possibility of (...) enhanced altruist recognition. We also examined whether individual differences in cheating tendencies were related to cheater and altruist recognition. In the first experiment, 164 undergraduates saw 40 faces that were paired with character descriptions representing the categories of cheater, trustworthy, altruist, or neutral, for individuals who had either low or high social status. One week later participants reported which faces they recognized from the previous week (among 80 faces). Overall, the results failed to replicate the findings of Mealey and her colleagues, as there was no enhanced memory for cheaters. In addition, there was no enhanced memory for altruists, and no effect of participants’ cheating tendencies. A second experiment using a slightly different methodology produced similar results, with some evidence for enhanced memory for altruists. (shrink)

Anne Conway is an English philosopher (1631-1679) whose only work, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, was published posthumously in 1690. Although her philosophy is a highly original response to the period's main philosophical problems and although her contemporaries offered the work high praise, Conway was left out of the history of philosophy by later thinkers, like so many other significant early modern women. Her treatise is a highly original philosophical work that contains her wide (...) ranging and heterodox ideas on divine justice, moral perfection, animal generation and many other issues that were at the forefront of philosophical debates at that time. The present volume contains a new Latin edition of the work as well as the first Lithuanian translation by Laurynas Adomaitis (Scuola Normale Superiore) and an introduction by Christia Mercer (Columbia University). (shrink)

This paper examines the task of understanding dialogues in terms of the mental states of the participating agents. We present a motivating example that clarifies the challenges this problem involves and then outline a theory of dialogue interpretation based on abductive inference of these unobserved beliefs and goals, incremental construction of explanations, and reliance on domain-independent knowledge. After this, we describe UMBRA, an implementation of the theory that embodies these assumptions. We report experiments with the system that demonstrate its ability (...) to accurately infer the conversants’ mental states even when some speech acts are unavailable. We conclude by reviewing related research on dialogue and discussing avenues for future study. (shrink)

Pat White; Education, Democracy and the Public Interest, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 5, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 7–28, https://doi.org/10.1111.

If children could ask God one question, what would it be? Johns Hopkins pediatrician Pat Fosarelli surveyed 9,000 children over a fifteen-year period, and their responses illuminate the hopes, dreams, anxieties, and fears of a future generation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Public Health Ethics: Health by the NumbersMartina Darragh (bio) and Pat Milmoe McCarrick (bio)Hippocrates had nothing to say about public health. Rather, the idea that a government should protect its citizens from disease by maintaining sanitary conditions has its origin in Renaissance humanities texts, and the notion that physicians have public health responsibilities emerged in the works of such Enlightenment authors as Johann Peter Frank, Benjamin Rush, and John (...) Gregory (II, Coughlin and Beauchamp 1996). When the spread of infectious diseases such as typhoid and cholera accompanied the growth of the Industrial Revolution, England was the first to respond by passing the Public Health Act of 1848. The motivation for this reform was not based in humanitarian concerns but in the realization that unsanitary conditions were costly to industry. “... [The] founders of the public health movement were guided by nineteenth century utilitarian moral theories... the greatest good for the greatest number... accompanied by a growing appreciation for the innate value and dignity of mankind... however, the rights and autonomy of individuals have not always been respected in pursuing these important objectives” (I, Coughlin 1995, p. 1).Public health projects have dramatically improved global health status. One measure of their success is that “... most poor people now live longer, on average, than the wealthiest people a century ago” (I, Beaglehole and Bonita 1997, p. 13) These projects are not limited to such activities as disinfecting sewers. “Public health is what we, as a society, do to collectively assure the conditions in which people can be healthy. This requires that continuing and emerging threats to the health of the public be successfully countered. These threats include immediate crises, such as the AIDS epidemic; enduring problems, such as injuries and chronic illness; and impending crises foreshadowed by such developments as the toxic by-products of a modern economy” (I, Institute of Medicine (IOM) 1988, p. 1) The practice of public health has embraced this IOM challenge and includes the subspecialties of epidemiology, health promotion and education, public health administration, international health, maternal and child health, biostatistics, environmental health, and nutrition. This annotated bibliography focuses on epidemiology, [End Page 339] health promotion and education, and public health administration, and includes a wide variety of opinions on each topic.EpidemiologyAt first glance, it is hard to see what ethical issues could arise in population studies of the causes and control of illness. Disclosure of risk information in the clinical encounter is complicated by issues of uncertainty with regard to the data itself. Causation and causal inference may be affected by “wish bias,” leading to studies that use the same data but reach widely varying conclusions (II, Weed 1997). Given the complexity of the statistical calculations used to validate public health recommendations, and mass media’s portrayal of them, the public may be unintentionally deceived by population-based recommendations (V, Seedhouse 1997; II, Lupton 1995). With the addition of genetic screening, another layer of statistical complexity is added to this mix (VI, Stone and Steward 1996).Health Promotion and EducationIncreased life expectancy brought about by advances in public health has raised a new set of problems. With the realization that illness can be promoted in part by individual life-style choices, population-based recommendations about risk factors become important in the clinical encounter. This shift is not without difficulties; one author notes that he has yet to receive any risk information from his physicians, even when he asks “the experts” (V, Dugdale 1998). This may be due in part to the fact that “... public health lacks a vocabulary with which to speak about and identify commonalities among health problems experienced by very different populations” (IV, Mann 1997, p. 8). Furthermore, the mix of disciplines informing health promotion activities (sociology, psychology, recreation medicine, and the like) creates an illusion of shared ethics where none exists, which in turn leads to programs based on value systems that may not be meaningful for the populations they serve (V, Seedhouse 1997).Given these factors, a number of authors are skeptical of introducing public health measures into the clinical encounter. “We might do well to encourage people to live lives of modified hedonism so that they might... (shrink)

The most plausible type of panpsychism explains high-level consciousness as a compound of basic conscious properties instantiated by basic bottom-level physical objects. Arguments for panpsychism stand little chance in the absence of an account that makes sense of basic bottom-level experience; and explains how basic bottom-level experiences yield high-level experiences. This paper tackles the first task. It develops a method for investigating basic bottom-level experience: it identifies constraints, motivated by scientific and philosophical considerations, that force a unique account. Then it (...) applies this method, using quarks as stand-ins for basic but conscious physical objects. It concludes that quark-consciousness is maximally simple ; multiple ; and internal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Perspectives on Bioethics*Pat Milmoe McCarrick (bio) and Martina Darragh (bio)The literature of feminist bioethics has flourished in the last decade. Women’s health care, women’s role both as patient and health care professional, the many new reproductive technologies, the exclusion of women as research subjects, as well as the broader topic of feminist contributions to ethical theory itself, have all become topics of interest for feminist bioethical writers.Although feminism (...) is anything but a monolithic enterprise, Karen Lebacqz’ essay on feminism in the new, revised Encyclopedia of Bioethics (II A, 1995) says that “all feminists agree that women are oppressed and this oppression is wrong.” Rosemarie Tong refines this statement to include variations of feminism: “... feminist theory is not one, but many theories or perspectives and... each feminist theory or perspective attempts to describe women’s oppression, to explain its causes and consequences, and to prescribe strategies for women’s liberation” (VII, Tong 1989). She describes different feminist views in Feminine and Feminist Ethics (II A, 1993), labelling them liberal, Marxist, radical, psychoanalytic, socialist, existentialist, and postmodern. Alison Jaggar critiques these different forms of feminism in Feminist Politics and Human Nature, and Susan Sherwin applies these perspectives to the field of bioethics in No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics and Health Care.One of the central activities in current feminist bioethics is a revisitation of ethical theory itself. There is a distinction between “feminine” and “feminist” ethics in this field (II A, Tong 1993). “A feminine approach to ethics consists of observations of how the traditional approaches to ethics fail to fit the moral experiences and intuitions of women. In contrast, a feminist approach to ethics applies a specifically political perspective and offers suggestions of how ethics must be revised if it is to get at the patterns of dominance and oppression as they affect women” (IV, Sherwin 1992). Carol Gilligan’s two books, In a Different Voice and Mapping the Moral Domain, Nel Noddings’s Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, and Virginia Held’s Feminist Morality: [End Page 85] Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics can be thought of as feminine critiques of contemporary ethics.Gilligan’s notion of the “ethics of care” has served as a point of departure for a discussion of a type of relational ethics that focuses on concrete experiences, pairs emotions with reason, and balances justice with care. This “ethics of care” has been both celebrated and criticized. The concept of “care” in ethics dates back to the “cura” tradition of care in ancient Rome and was further developed by philosophers Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger and psychologists Rollo May and Erik Erikson. Nursing theorists have built on this tradition both in theory and in practice (II A, Reich, Care, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, 1995). “Care” often is discussed in opposition to the liberal notion of “justice” (III, Sterba, Justice, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, 1995).Gilligan’s theory was developed to provide a counter model to Lawrence Kohlberg’s six steps in the development of a human moral nature: (1) acting to avoid punishment, (2) acting to promote reciprocity, (3) conforming to get approbation, (4) respecting authority to maintain social order, (5) acting freely if others are not harmed, and (6) following self-legislated, self-imposed, universal principles of justice, reciprocity, and respect for the dignity of humans as individuals. In contrast, Gilligan holds that the moral self is an individual working with other individuals to identify mutually agreeable solutions to thorny human relations problems. Gilligan called Kohlberg’s the male moral point of view as an ethics of justice and hers the female moral view as an ethics of care. Her levels are (1) inward-directed care, (2) other-directed care subjugating personal wants and needs to others (eventually leading to anger), (3) a philosophy of care that balances egoism and altruism, recognizing the women’s connection to others and theirs to her.According to Jocelyn Downie and Susan Sherwin (IV, 1993), oppression, as used by feminists, is understood as an interlocking series of restrictions and barriers that reduce the options available to members of a group defined by morally insignificant characteristics, here gender. The literature itself can be... (shrink)

Phenomenology has a rich tradition of interpreting technology, medicine, and the life sciences. It has not yet had much to say about the medical devices which have always been central to bioethics. In this chapter, I outline what is meant by medical devices, and connect the sense of intention in made-object design with the notion of intentionality in phenomenology. I survey three basic ways of characterising medical devices grounded in the phenomenological literature: Albert Borgmann’s device paradigm, Don Ihde’s human-machine relations, (...) and Merleau-Ponty’s body-subject. Engaging with these approaches could help bring to analyses of medical devices the uniquely whole-of-context view of which phenomenology is capable, and better inform all stakeholders about their phenomenal consequences. (shrink)

Therapeutic misconception involves the failure of subjects either to understand or to incorporate into their own expectations the distinctions in nature and purpose of personally responsive therapeutic care, and the generic relationship between subject and investigator which is constrained by research protocols. Researchers cannot disregard this phenomenon if they are to ensure that subjects engage in research on the basis of genuine informed consent. However, our presumption of patient autonomy must be sustained unless we have compelling evidence of serious misunderstanding. (...) This article argues that the mere expression of aspects of therapeutic misconception should not necessarily displace the presumption of subject autonomy or undermine ethical inclusion in research for at least three reasons. First, some interpretations of the empirical data do not suggest misunderstanding. Second, assessment of misestimation and optimism are delicate and value-laden, and turn quickly from questions of autonomy to questions of judgment. Third, incomplete understanding may yet be sufficient to allow a subject to engage in a substantially autonomous decision-making process. Our point is not to dismiss the possibility of genuine therapeutic misconception, but to question its frequency and fatality to the consent process. (shrink)

One of the sub-branches of Central Semitic, Northwest Semitic, contains a number of languages with no established hierarchical relation among them: Ugaritic, Aramaic, Canaanite, Deir Alla, and Samalian. Over the years, scholars have attempted to establish a more accurate sub-branching for Northwest Semitic or to suggest a different genetic affiliation for some languages, usually Ugaritic. In this paper, we will argue that Aramaic and Canaanite share a direct ancestor, on the basis of a number of morphosyntactic features: the fs demonstrative (...) *ðaˀt, the direct object marker *ˀayāt, the development of dative subjects with adjectival predicates, the use of the construct state with prepositions, the G imperfect inflection of geminate verbs, and the plural form of *bayt. We will also address arguments that Ugaritic is a Canaanite dialect, or that Canaanite and Ugaritic are more closely related. This proposal not only outlines a more coherent family tree for Northwest Semitic, but also accounts for numerous “Aramaic”-like features in some Canaanite dialects, primarily Biblical Hebrew, which have thus far been treated as the result of language contact in the early Iron Age. (shrink)

This second of three articles outlining the development and practice of a different approach to neurotheology discusses the construction of a suitable methodology for the project based on the work of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. It explores the origin and contours of his concept of postfoundational rationality, its potential as a locus for epistemological parity between science and religion and the distinctive and unique transversal space model for interdisciplinary dialogue which he builds on these. It then proposes a further development (...) of the model which has the potential to produce a very different type of additional and original dialogical outcome. While such “transversal” outputs may initially seem counter and strange they not only flow naturally from the models’ own inherent dynamics but also open up the possibility of a distinctively different form of neurotheology. (shrink)

This paper suggests that certain characteristics of resourcerelated conflict reveal areas of contemporary Just War Theory that are insufficiently rigorous or robust in their current form. Water security in particular, reveals ambiguity in the Just War framework’s treatment of the jus ad bellum criteria of ‘just cause,’ which in turn challenges the credibility of the entire system. The insufficiency that is exposed has consequences for the effectiveness and cogency of the bodies of international law and global community, which are fundamentally (...) based, and function according to, this predominantly Western moral framework. Key problem areas relating to flexible notions of ‘aggression,’ coincide with a persistent dilemma of simultaneously advocating responsibility to a global community while maintaining sovereign rights and security. Focusing on the ‘just cause’ criteria, justification for acts of war over certain resources is evaluated. Worryingly, the same powerful strategic reasons that might motivate a state to engage in what would otherwise be labelled a ‘realist’ war over certain resources, appear to gain moral merit through interpretation of the jus ad bellum in the specific case of water security, while argument against military action appears increasingly absolutist and impractical. The aim here then is to show the vulnerability of a dangerous prescriptive void in the Just War framework itself. Central to this is the question of the moral weight and significance, if any, of vital resources, as defined by strategic and humanitarian necessity. (shrink)

The importance of ethical consumerism to many companies worldwide has increased dramatically in recent years. Ethical consumerism encompasses the importance of non-traditional and social components of a company's products and business process to strategic success - such as environmental protectionism, child labor practices and so on. The present paper utilizes a random utility theoretic experimental design to provide estimates of the relative value selected consumers place on the social features of products.

This article—the first of a linked set of three outlining the development and practice of a different approach to science/religion dialogue—begins with an overview of some persistent tensions in the field. Then, using a threefold heuristic of encounter, engagement, and expression, it explores the routes taken by James Ashbrook and Andrew Newberg to develop a dialogue between theology and neuroscience, discussing some of the problems associated with these and their implications for attempts to further develop neurotheology. Finally, it proposes a (...) different way of thinking about this enterprise and points toward a new methodology for supporting this endeavor. (shrink)

This third of three articles outlining a different approach to science/religion dialogue generally and to engagement between theology and the neurosciences specifically, gives a brief account of the model in practice. It begins by introducing the question to be investigated—whether the experience of relational connection can affect health outcomes by directly moderating immune function. Then, employing the same threefold heuristic of encounter, exchange, and expression used previously, it discusses how the transversal model set out in these articles has been used (...) to investigate this question and to develop a theoretical physiological model for the proposed link between relationality and health. (shrink)

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. -/- Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and (...) scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. -/- Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era. (shrink)

This paper describes the results of several large empirical studies that investigated the impact of social product attributes on consumer purchase intentions. Our results show that some consumers are willing to pay for more socially acceptable products, but that most of those consumers do not think about the social product features of the products they purchase. Furthermore, our analyses demonstrate that consumers can be segmented based on their preferences for social product features and that these segments are not country-specific.

Study of the Advaita system of Indian philosophy.

This book examines the philosophical and theoretical foundations of early years practice, and supports practitioners as they reflect on the collective and personal rationales which motivate and inform their work with young children. Theoretical underpinnings are explored from a variety of perspectives, and are translated into effective strategies for application in a range of early years settings. Featuring contributions from leading early years professionals, The Philosophy and Practice of Outstanding Early Years Provision draws on sound expertise to deepen the reader's (...) understanding of the concepts and ideas behind everyday practice. The book is divided into four easily navigated sections which explore key issues including the creation of enabling environments, leadership in the early years, the opportunities and challenges presented by diversity, and the value of creative approaches. Recommended strategies are discussed in relation to emerging global pressures and the needs of the contemporary child, inviting practitioners to modify and enhance future behaviour and practice. This will be essential reading for students and practitioners who wish to improve current and future practice by gaining insight into the philosophical foundations which underpin outstanding provision. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the modernist agenda, currently dominant in mainstream psychiatry, serves as a disempowering force for service users. By structuring the world of mental health according to a technological logic, this agenda is usually seen as promoting a liberation from "myths" about mental illness that led to stigma and oppression in the past. However, it is argued that this approach systematically separates mental distress from background contextual issues and sidelines non-technological aspects of mental health such as relationships, values, (...) and meanings. This move privileges the gaze of the expert doctor who is trained to understand distress in terms of psychopathology. But, as this move empowers the doctor, it disempowers the service user. In part this is because the priorities of modernist psychiatry are generally at odds with the interests and concerns of services users, particularly those who see themselves as survivors of the mental health system. The chapter examines the implications of this for the psychiatrist's role in working with survivors towards recovery. (shrink)

We are very grateful to both Matthew Ratcliffe and Thomas Szasz for taking the time to read and respond to our paper. Ratcliffe is broadly sympathetic to our efforts and provides a very convincing argument against mind–body dualisms by drawing on work from the phenomenological tradition. His comments extend rather than challenge our central thesis. Szasz, however, is dismissive of our position. As a result, most of our response is directed to his commentary. Ratcliffe uses the work of van der (...) Berg to make the case that any easy distinction between bodily and mental illness or suffering is false to our lived reality as human beings. Of course, in the day-to- day world of contemporary medical practice .. (shrink)