This article identifies some of the important issues that underlie student-teacher conflicts regarding animal experimentation and dissection in psychology education. Understanding the reasons why students object to animal laboratories, why some teachers may refuse students access to non-animal alternatives, and why other teachers support student choice is an important first step in resolving student-teacher disputes regarding the use of animals in the psychology classroom. The article discusses why establishing an openly declared student choice policy at schools that use animals in (...) psychology education is a reasonable thing to do and describes how a student choice policy works in practice. (shrink)

Grand challenges stress the importance of multi-disciplinary research, a multi-actor approach in examining the current state of affairs and exploring possible solutions, multi-level governance and policy coordination across geographical boundaries and policy areas, and a policy environment for enabling change both in science and technology and in society. The special nature of grand challenges poses certain needs in evaluation practice: the need for learning at the operational, policy and, especially, system level; and the importance of a wider set of impacts (...) and behavioural change. The examination of the usefulness of evaluations as learning tools thus becomes relevant as does the way current evaluation practices address broader impacts and issues such as behavioural additionality. The suitability of existing evaluation contexts in meeting the specific issues posed by the ‘grand challenges’ orientation is also worth examining. The paper argues that learning at the policy and system levels is largely unaddressed while concepts such as behavioural additionality are still underexploited. (shrink)

This article provides a critical examination of a controversial issue that has theoretical and practical importance to a broad range of academic disciplines: Are religious experiences localized within the brain? Research into the neuroscience of religious experiences is reviewed and conceptual and methodological challenges accompanying the neurotheology project of localizing religious experiences within the brain are discussed. An alternative theory to current reductive and mechanistic explanations of observed mind–brain correlations is proposed — a mediation theory of cerebral action — that (...) has the potential for addressing what Chalmers called the “hard problem” of consciousness. (shrink)