We describe the ongoing citations to biomedical articles affected by scientific misconduct, and characterize the papers that cite these affected articles. The citations to 102 articles named in official findings of scientific misconduct during the period of 1993 and 2001 were identified through the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science database. Using a stratified random sampling strategy, we performed a content analysis of 603 of the 5,393 citing papers to identify indications of awareness that the cited articles affected by (...) scientific misconduct had validity issues, and to examine how the citing papers referred to the affected articles. Fewer than 5% of citing papers indicated any awareness that the cited article was retracted or named in a finding of misconduct. We also tested the hypothesis that affected articles would have fewer citations than a comparison sample; this was not supported. Most articles affected by misconduct were published in basic science journals, and we found little cause for concern that such articles may have affected clinical equipoise or clinical care. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe published research articles that were named in official findings of scientific misconduct and to investigate compliance with the administrative actions contained in these reports for corrections and retractions, as represented in PubMed. Between 1993 and 2001, 102 articles were named in either the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts (“Findings of Scientific Misconduct”) or the U.S. Office of Research Integrity annual reports as needing retraction or correction. In 2002, 98 of (...) the 102 articles were indexed in PubMed. Eighty-five of these 98 articles had indexed corrections: 47 were retracted; 26 had an erratum; 12 had a correction described in the “comment” field. Thirteen had no correction, but 10 were linked to the NIH Guide “Findings of Scientific Misconduct”, leaving only 3 articles with no indication of any sort of problem. As of May 2005, there were 5,393 citations to the 102 articles, with a median of 26 citations per article (range 0–592). Researchers should be alert to “Comments” linked to the NIH Guide as these are open access, and the “Findings of Scientific Misconduct’ reports are often more informative than the statements about the retraction or correction found in the journals. (shrink)

What kinds of contributions can sociologists make to debates about ethics? What makes sociological investigation of morality and ethical issues distinct from philosophical concerns? Is there a place for a separate subfield within the discipline of sociology that deals specifically with questions of ethics and morality? This book places these questions on the sociological agenda. The first part of the book addresses the 'ethical turn' in sociology, and includes chapters on defining ethics and morality, lay understandings of ethics, sociological accounts (...) of moral life, and the relation of sociology to bioethics. These chapters examine alternative conceptions to mainstream discussions regarding embodiment and ethics. The book provides insight into both recent debates in the humanities and social sciences about the circulation and transfer of bodily fluids, tissues, and organs, and the gift-exchange, reciprocity practices, and institutions that make these body economies possible. (shrink)

The authors explore the changing dynamics of gendered familial caregiving in urban China within the context of economic reforms and the continued cultural influence of xiao. Data collected in China through interviews with 110 familial caregivers were used to examine cultural and structural influences on the caregiving behavior of adult children. Results from multiple regression analyses provide evidence of a gendered division of parental care tasks, a decline in the patrilocal tradition of caregiving, and a strong social pressure that influences (...) caregiving behavior. Structural factors linked to caregiving performance included family size, lack of pensions for elders, and caregivers’ employment status and income. Findings portend deleterious effects for the women who are now caregivers as they are likely to live longer but be more financially dependent and have fewer children available to help them. (shrink)

In Aotearoa/new Zealand, organ donation and transplantation rates for Māori and non-Māori differ. This article outlines why this is so, and why some groups may be reticent about or object to organ donation and transplantation. In order to do this, I draw on the conceptual and methodological lens of phenomenology and apply what Van Manen calls the existential themes of lived body (corporeality), lived space (spatiality), lived time (temporality) and lived other (relationality and communality) to a discussion of the cultural (...) values and spiritual beliefs of Māori around tissue donation. Specifically, the aim of the article is to encourage non-Māori, who will already be aware that diverse cultural traditions transmit different beliefs about organ donation and transplantation, to recognize the existence of a deeper understanding of what this difference may mean for people on a felt level and how it might impact on lived experience. (shrink)

Here, Rhonda Martens offers the first extended study of Kepler's philosophical views and shows how those views helped him construct and justify the new astronomy.

The February 2004 release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a major cultural event. Receiving a tremendous amount of advance publicity due to claims of its anti-Semitism and adulatory responses by conservative Christians who were the first to see it, the film achieved more buzz before its release than any recent film in our memory.1 Gibson himself helped orchestrate the publicity with selective showings of The Passion and strategic appearances on TV shows where he came off as (...) something of a Hollywood eccentric, albeit one who was only too happy to admit to his past sins and to claim that he had achieved “salvation” through his adherence to Christianity. His film, he insisted, would be testament to the truth of Christ and how Christ died so that sinners like Gibson could be saved and enjoy eternal life. (shrink)

John Hartley opens his short history of cultural studies by evoking a sense of the contested nature of the field in the contemporary moment and the intense debates about its objects, scope, methods, and goals: “Even within intellectual communities and academic institutions, there is little agreement about what counts as cultural studies, either as a critical practice or an institutional apparatus. On the contrary, the field is riven by fundamental disagreements about what cultural studies is for, in whose interests it (...) is done, what theories, methods and objects of study are proper to it, and where to set its limits” (1). (shrink)

Set in the minimalist abode of a sparsely furnished hotel room, Awaiting Oblivion narrates the encounter between a man and a woman, anonymously known as Il and Elle, respectively. The plot revolves around their relationship, the nature of which is the concern of their dialogue. Their dialogue intermittently emerges through a narrative voice that is, however, infused with the very same confusion and vacillation as is their own speech. The man and woman are caught in an undulating relation of attraction (...) and repulsion, as they endeavour to rediscover the desire they once felt for one another. The themes of waiting and forgetting are manifested within the plot in their vain efforts to remember a past event whilst, paradoxically, simultaneously awaiting the event’s recurrence. This event constitutes their first encounter, the memory of which will affect their future relationship. However, each person has his own perception of how this initial encounter had transpired, the memory of which is constantly being revised, over time. The couple engage in lengthy conversations in their attempts to overcome this discrepancy. First, Il expresses his perception of the event. Sensing problematic elements in his account, Elle recounts her version of how things had transpired, while Il attempts accurately to transcribe her words. With time, Il and Elle are able to arrive at a mutually balanced view of the event. Ironically, it is through waiting and forgetting that they are able to arrive at this point. (shrink)

What is initially striking about Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological account of the musical experience, which encompasses both the performance and reception of music, is his apparent dismissal of the corporeal and spatial aspects of that experience. The paper argues that this is largely a product of his wider understanding of temporality wherein the mind and time are privileged over the body and space, respectively. While acknowledging that Schutz’s explicit or stated view is that the body and space are relatively insignificant to (...) his account, the paper reveals how they actually feature significantly in the latter, but in ways that remain largely implicit. First, the analysis demonstrates that the mental and temporal aspects of Schutz’s phenomenology of the musical experience cannot be considered independently of their interrelations with the equally important, albeit under-examined, corporeal, and spatial aspects. Concepts from Nietzsche’s early aesthetics are recruited to fulfil this task. Second, the analysis challenges Schutz’s dismissal of space in his theory of music perception. Lastly, it reveals the crucial, yet implicit, role of the body and space in his key examination of the intersubjective phenomenon he terms “making music together”. By presenting the above arguments, the paper aims to draw out the implicit dimensions of Schutz’s phenomenology of music and thereby enrich his influential account. (shrink)

Many feminist sociologists would agree that most breastfeeding research to date has been primarily undertaken from the perspective of medical and public health discourses. While there is evidence of a shift in research on breastfeeding to qualitative studies that focus on the lived experiences of breastfeeding women, this article addresses a number of concerns remaining in the literature surrounding breastfeeding. First, it questions the absence of breastfeeding as a legitimate philosophical topic, and, as a corollary, the invisibility of breastfeeding women (...) as moral or ethical subjects. Second, by drawing on Michel Foucault's account of ethics and Judith Butler's notion of performativity, it is suggested that breastfeeding is best conceptualized as a gendered and embodied ethical practice rather than an aspect of one's being. Finally, this materialist approach to theorizing breastfeeding is discussed in relation to the Lucy Lawless poster that was released in Aotearoa New Zealand to launch World Breastfeeding Week in August 2002. (shrink)

This article is designed to explore ideas in the recent sociology of morality about the conjunction of ethics and embodiment in everyday life. While it draws on an interpretation of the ethical encounter as a relation of moral proximity, it extends this conception of ethics beyond the dyad to include a discussion of gift giving and generosity in the present context. This is done in order to analyse a concrete empirical event in terms of the web of moral and social (...) codes that inform it. The event in question is a well-known New Zealand breastfeeding case in which a woman breastfed another woman's baby `without her consent'. As well as drawing attention to the ethical risks in encounters between strangers and others in contemporary social life, this particular breastfeeding case also brings to the fore the invisibility of breastfeeding as an embodied ethical practice. (shrink)

This article is an exploration of the ways in which maternal subjectivity is negotiated and defined in the context of the act or process of giving birth. As such, it is offered as a contribution to and discussion of recent feminist evaluation of childbirth management systems. Written from the partial perspective of my own experiences of pregnant and maternal embodiment, the article considers whether the ethic of the birth plan is a satisfactory representation of consumer needs and participation in contemporary (...) maternity care. By way of a selective personal account of various models of consumer-orientated and woman-centred childbirth management services that exist in Australia and New Zealand, I draw on ideas from feminist theories of corporeality and the dialogical tradition of social thought in order to rethink the ethical encounter between the labouring woman or consumer and her care provider or practitioner. (shrink)

Much of the human enhancement literature focuses on the ethical, social, and political challenges we are likely to face in the future. I will focus instead on whether we can make decisions to modify ourselves that are known to be likely to satisfy our preferences. It seems plausible to suppose that, if a subject is deciding whether to select a reasonably safe and morally unproblematic enhancement, the decision will be an easy one. The subject will simply figure out her preferences (...) and decide accordingly. The problem, however, is that there is substantial evidence that we are not very good at predicting what will satisfy our preferences. This is a general problem that applies to many different types of decisions, but I argue that there are additional complications when it comes to making decisions about enhancing ourselves. These arise not only for people interested in selecting enhancements but also for people who choose to abstain. (shrink)

In _The Time That Remains_, Agamben seeks to separate the Pauline texts from the history of the Church that canonized them, thus revealing them to be "the fundamental messianic texts of the West." He argues that Paul's letters are concerned not with the foundation of a new religion but rather with the "messianic" abolition of Jewish law. Situating Paul's texts in the context of early Jewish messianism, this book is part of a growing set of recent critiques devoted to the (...) period when Judaism and Christianity were not yet fully distinct, placing Paul in the context of what has been called "Judaeo-Christianity." Agamben's philosophical exploration of the problem of messianism leads to the other major figure discussed in this book, Walter Benjamin. Advancing a claim without precedent in the vast literature on Benjamin, Agamben argues that Benjamin's philosophy of history constitutes a repetition and appropriation of Paul's concept of "remaining time." Through a close reading and comparison of Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History" and the Pauline Epistles, Agamben discerns a number of striking and unrecognized parallels between the two works. (shrink)

Copernicus claimed that his system was preferable in part on the grounds of its superior harmony and simplicity, but left very few hints as to what was meant by these terms. Copernicus’s pupil, Rheticus, was more forthcoming. Kepler, influenced by Rheticus, articulated further the nature of the virtues of harmony and simplicity. I argue that these terms are metaphors for the structural features of the Copernican system that make it more able to effectively exploit the available data. So it is (...) a mistake to conclude that early Copernicans could only offer aesthetic or pragmatic arguments; they could and did offer evidential ones as well. Moreover, the evidential arguments they offered parallel current arguments in the philosophical literature.Keywords: Nicolaus Copernicus; Georg Joachim Rheticus; Johannes Kepler; Simplicity; Bayesianism; Hirotsugu Akaike. (shrink)

Racially restrictive marriage laws lay at the intersection of state claims of domestic sovereignty and federal obligations to protect the constitutional rights of citizens. In 1948, California overturned its antimiscegenation law, citing, in addition to the Fourteenth Amendment, the United Nations Charter. This decision sparked a contentious discussion about the relationship of human rights norms to racial conventions in the United States, and triggered a debate about the peril of international law that resulted in an effort to amend the Constitution (...) and limit the treaty-making powers of the president. Both the constitutional and the international logics of individual human rights threatened local custom and energized political opposition. American stigmatization of international human rights norms and treaties was rooted directly in the civil rights struggles in the United States and reflected the potential of international organizations to assault domestic racial conventions at their foundations. (shrink)

Studies have shown that using robot pets in dementia care contributes to a reduction in loneliness and anxiety, and other benefits. Studies also show that, even when people know they are dealing with robots, they often treat the robot as though it is a real pet with genuine emotions. This disconnect between beliefs and behavior occurs not just for people living with dementia, but with cognitively healthy adults, including those who are knowledgeable about how robots work. One possible explanation is (...) that robot pets prompt contradictory beliefs, and so the use of robot pets encourages self‐deception. Sparrow argues that this makes the use of robot pets in dementia care morally objectionable. We disagree. We argue that Gendler's concept of alief offers a better explanation of the belief‐behavior disconnect observed when people interact with robot pets. An alief is a mental state composed of an automatic, arational, emotional, and behavioral response to representational input. Aliefs are not beliefs and are not subject to truth norms. Thus, on our view, harms associated with the use of robot pets in dementia care are not likely to include the self‐deceptions that Sparrow suggests. It might seem like philosophical hair‐splitting to claim that deception has not occurred because discordant aliefs rather than false beliefs have been formed, but this distinction matters. We argue that aliefs carry their own risks. These risks are important to consider when using robot pets in dementia care. (shrink)

Kepler, the father of modern physical astronomy, believed that the world is ordered by Archetypes . As quaint as this may seem, I argue that Kepler's archetypes provided methodological and epistemological solutions to problems in physical astronomy acknowledged during his time. ;Kepler used the assumption of a harmony between the archetypal and physical world to argue for the legitimacy of certain methodological innovations. The main difficulty facing astronomers at that time was the availability of observationally equivalent competing astronomical hypotheses. Kepler's (...) solution was to argue that the hypotheses could be distinguished between by proper testing and by bringing in considerations from other disciplines, especially physics. Kepler's account of the proper testing of hypotheses, though modern in appearance, was grounded in his archetypal cosmology. The use of physics in astronomy, also a modern innovation, was not considered to be methodologically sound during Kepler's time unless certain conditions were met. Under Kepler's archetypal cosmology these conditions were met, thereby legitimating the use of physics in astronomy. ;Kepler's archetypes play another role in his physical astronomy. The Aristotelian account of physics still dominant was qualitative in character. The use of mathematical physics was acceptable if it was grounded in qualitative theory, which Kepler was unable to fully provide. I argue that Kepler's archetypal cosmology enabled him to overcome this conceptual barrier. While Kepler agreed with Aristotle that mathematics is unable to reveal anything about physical causes, he believed that the archetypes are not limited in this manner. For Kepler, God's only reason for creating physical powers was to instantiate the archetypes; hence a study of archetypes can provide information about physical causes. When Kepler was unable to attach mathematical models to qualitative physical theory, he attached them to archetypal models, thereby legitimating their use in physics. ;Kepler's archetypes are no longer scientifically significant. At the time, however, they functioned to break down some of the conceptual barriers to his new physical astronomy. As a result, understanding Kepler's archetypes is of paramount importance for understanding his role in the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (shrink)

Of the many opportunities and affordances that mobile technologies bring to our day-to-day lives, the ability to cheat physical separation and remain accessible to each other—in an instant—also brings pressure to bear on well-established social conventions as to how we should act when we are engaged with others in shared spaces. In this paper we explore some ethical dimensions of mobile communication by considering the manner in which individuals in everyday contexts balance interpretations of emergent social conventions with personal desires (...) to connect in the moment. As we later discuss, the decisions made in response to a ringing mobile phone or flashing text message emerge from consequential versus deontological ethical frames used to determine what to do versus what we ought to do. This is particularly true in western and North American cultural contexts from which our data are collected. Using Goffman's dramaturgy, we suggest that these conflicts occurring on an individual level provide evidence of social structure, and are simultaneously entwined with our less obvious ruminations on the maintenance of social order. (shrink)

Obstetric ultrasound has become a significant tool in obstetric practice, however, it has been argued that its increasing use may have adverse implications for women’s reproductive freedom. This study aimed to explore Australian obstetricians’ experiences and views of the use of obstetric ultrasound both in relation to clinical management of complicated pregnancy, and in situations where maternal and fetal health interests conflict.