This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

We argue that one important aspect of the “cognitive neuroscience revolution” identified by Boone and Piccinini :1509–1534. doi: 10.1007/s11229-015-0783-4, 2015) is a dramatic shift away from thinking of cognitive representations as arbitrary symbols towards thinking of them as icons that replicate structural characteristics of their targets. We argue that this shift has been driven both “from below” and “from above”—that is, from a greater appreciation of what mechanistic explanation of information-processing systems involves, and from a greater appreciation of the problems (...) solved by bio-cognitive systems, chiefly regulation and prediction. We illustrate these arguments by reference to examples from cognitive neuroscience, principally representational similarity analysis and the emergence of dynamical models as a central postulate in neurocognitive research. (shrink)

Background: Professional ethical codes are an important part of healthcare. They are part of the professionalisation of an occupation, are used for regulation of the professions and are intended to guide ethical behaviour in healthcare. However, so far, little is known about the practical use of professional codes in healthcare, particularly in paramedicine. Objective: The aim of this scoping review was to determine what is known in the existing literature about health professionals’ knowledge, awareness and use of their professional codes. (...) Method: A scoping review was performed based on a six-stage framework as described by Levac et al. Six databases were searched: OVID Medline, EMBASE, EMCARE, CINAHL, ProQuest and Scopus, in September 2020. Google Scholar, Trove and Google using.gov and.org websites were also searched for grey literature. Two reviewers independently assessed study eligibility. Results: The search yielded 1162 results after duplicate removal. Thirty-nine studies remained after title and abstract review. Twenty-five articles were included after full-text review. Sixteen examined nursing, eight examined medicine and one examined both nursing and medicine. No studies were identified that examined paramedicine. Twenty-one studies were of a cross-sectional design and four studies were of a qualitative design. Conclusion: Most health professionals know the codes exist, but do not think they know the content. Despite valuing professional codes highly, healthcare professionals do not use them regularly in clinical practice. Further research is needed, and professional codes should be made useful for practice and consideration given to how codes can be written, communicated and implemented to increase their actualisation in healthcare. Research should also begin in paramedicine to identify clinician’s knowledge and use of codes in this profession. Review registration: Open Science Framework – doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/NKBY4 Ethics Statement: This article does not contain any studies involving human participants performed by any of the authors. The review followed good scientific conduct. (shrink)

Background Paramedicine is a newly regulated profession in Australia and with the introduction of regulation in 2018 for this profession came increased responsibilities – including the introduction of a professional code of conduct. Several countries now have regulation of paramedicine and associated professional codes to guide ethical and professional behaviour. Despite this, there has been no published research into paramedic understanding and use of their professional codes. Objectives To explore Australian paramedics’ use and understanding of their professional code of conduct. (...) Research design: This study used a qualitative descriptive design, underpinned by hermeneutic theory. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse the interview data and identify Australian paramedic perceptions surrounding the use of their code of conduct. Results 11 Registered Paramedics from several states and territories were interviewed. Participants were invited to interview by advertisement on social media and the Australasian College of Paramedicine Web site. Participants had varied professional backgrounds including clinical work, education providers and policymakers/managers. Four themes were identified as follows: Theme 1 – ‘You don’t know, what you can’t know’; Theme 2 – ‘I don’t need the code – the code is for others’; Theme 3 – ‘It’s about time’; Theme 4 – ‘Navigating the new profession’. Ethical considerations: Ethics approval was granted by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC) Project ID: 28921. All participants provided informed consent. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that paramedics’ knowledge and use of their code is limited, and participants appeared to mostly rely instead on ‘common sense’ morals. Participants did appear to want to understand the broad concepts of the code more and have this better integrated into the profession. The code was also interpreted as important to the paramedic profession and its new professional status, helping to legitimise it as a health profession in Australia. (shrink)

The ability to predict the actions of other agents is vital for joint action tasks. Recent theory suggests that action prediction relies on an emulator system that permits observers to use information about their own motor dynamics to predict the actions of other agents. If this is the case, then predictions for self-generated actions should be more accurate than predictions for other-generated actions. We tested this hypothesis by employing a self/other synchronization paradigm where prediction accuracy for recording of self-generated movements (...) was compared with prediction accuracy for other-generated movements. As expected, predictions were more accurate when the observer’s movement dynamics matched the movement dynamics of the recording. This is consistent with that idea that the observer’s movement dynamics influence the predictions they generate. (shrink)

Recent theory suggests that action prediction relies of a motor emulation mechanism that works by mapping observed actions onto the observer action system so that predictions can be generated using that same predictive mechanisms that underlie action control. This suggests that action prediction may be more accurate when there is a more direct mapping between the stimulus and the observer. We tested this hypothesis by comparing prediction accuracy for two stimulus types. A mannequin stimulus which contained information about the effectors (...) used to produce the action and a point stimulus, which contained identical dynamic information but no effector information. Prediction was more accurate for the mannequin stimulus. However, this effect was dependent on the observer having previous experience performing the observed action. This suggests that experienced and na¨ıve observers might generate predictions in qualitatively difference ways, which may relate to the presence of an internal representation of the action laid down through action performance. (shrink)

Estas páginas plantean una serie de problemas que, a mi parecer, los sujetos de la emancipación colectiva deben de tener muy presentes para reconstruir sus idearios en el umbral del tercer milenio, después de las derrotas y de los fracasos del siglo XX. Aprovechando que se cumplen diez años de la muerte de Raymond Williams (1921-1988), he creído oportuno homenajear a este testigo excepcional de nuestro siglo haciendo una revisión de los problemas que acordó en los últimos años de su (...) vida. Problemas que ensombrecen más, si cabe, las perspectivas de conseguir una humanidad justa en un planeta habitable. Me estoy refiriendo a la manipulación informativa, a la mercantilización de la cultura y a los nefastos efectos antropológicos que la industria audiovisual puede ocasionar al estar controlada por grupos de poder intrínsecamente antidemocráticos. Estos n u e v o s problemas son los que, a mi juicio, dificultan la tarea de construir respuestas colectivas a los viejos problemas. Raymond Williams supo acotar sus análisis con rigor e intentó vislumbrar soluciones -siempre relativas y parciales- con humildad y cautela. (shrink)

Estas páginas plantean una serie de problemas que, a mi parecer, los sujetos de la emancipación colectiva deben de tener muy presentes para reconstruir sus idearios en el umbral del tercer milenio, después de las derrotas y de los fracasos del siglo XX. Aprovechando que se cumplen diez años de la muerte de Raymond Williams (1921-1988), he creído oportuno homenajear a este testigo excepcional de nuestro siglo haciendo una revisión de los problemas que acordó en los últimos años de su (...) vida. Problemas que ensombrecen más, si cabe, las perspectivas de conseguir una humanidad justa en un planeta habitable. Me estoy refiriendo a la manipulación informativa, a la mercantilización de la cultura y a los nefastos efectos antropológicos que la industria audiovisual puede ocasionar al estar controlada por grupos de poder intrínsecamente antidemocráticos. Estos n u e v o s problemas son los que, a mi juicio, dificultan la tarea de construir respuestas colectivas a los viejos problemas. Raymond Williams supo acotar sus análisis con rigor e intentó vislumbrar soluciones -siempre relativas y parciales- con humildad y cautela. (shrink)

In this article I examine M. Williams’ antisceptical strategy of considering skepticism as an unnatural position philosophically charged, which for him implies that skepticism has nothing to do with our epistemic practices. I admit that this strategy is really promising, especially when applied to Cartesian scepticism. However, when it faces an older ancestor of Cartesian scepticism, Pyrrhonian scepticism, this situation changes. I concentrate on Fogelin’s neopyrrhonist proposal and how Williams’ strategy would face it. I will defend that Pyrrhonian scepticism is (...) a completely natural kind of scepticism according to our epistemic practices. I will also maintain that this kind of skepticism is the unavoidable result of reflecting about those epistemic practices. (shrink)

In this article I examine M. Williams’ antisceptical strategy of considering skepticism as an unnatural position philosophically charged, which for him implies that skepticism has nothing to do with our epistemic practices. I admit that this strategy is really promising, especially when applied to Cartesian scepticism. However, when it faces an older ancestor of Cartesian scepticism, Pyrrhonian scepticism, this situation changes. I concentrate on Fogelin’s neopyrrhonist proposal and how Williams’ strategy would face it. I will defend that Pyrrhonian scepticism is (...) a completely natural kind of scepticism according to our epistemic practices. I will also maintain that this kind of skepticism is the unavoidable result of reflecting about those epistemic practices. (shrink)

The behavioral sciences have flourished by studying how traditional and/or rational behavior has been governed throughout most of human history by relatively well-informed individual and social learning. In the online age, however, social phenomena can occur with unprecedented scale and unpredictability, and individuals have access to social connections never before possible. Similarly, behavioral scientists now have access to “big data” sets – those from Twitter and Facebook, for example – that did not exist a few years ago. Studies of human (...) dynamics based on these data sets are novel and exciting but, if not placed in context, can foster the misconception that mass-scale online behavior is all we need to understand, for example, how humans make decisions. To overcome that misconception, we draw on the field of discrete-choice theory to create a multiscale comparative “map” that, like a principal-components representation, captures the essence of decision making along two axes: aneast–westdimension that represents the degree to which an agent makes a decision independently versus one that is socially influenced, and anorth–south dimensionthat represents the degree to which there is transparency in the payoffs and risks associated with the decisions agents make. We divide the map into quadrants, each of which features a signature behavioral pattern. When taken together, the map and its signatures provide an easily understood empirical framework for evaluating how modern collective behavior may be changing in the digital age, including whether behavior is becoming more individualistic, as people seek out exactly what they want, or more social, as people become more inextricably linked, even “herdlike,” in their decision making. We believe the map will lead to many new testable hypotheses concerning human behavior as well as to similar applications throughout the social sciences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Galileo: For Copemicanism and for the Church. By ANNIBALE FANTOLI. Translated by George V. Coyne, S.J. Studi Galileiani Vol. 3. Vatican City: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1994. Distributed by the University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. Pp. xix+ 540. $21.95 (paper). This exhaustive treatment of Galileo and his relationship to the Church was first published in Italian by the Vatican Observatory in 1993 as Vol. 2 (...) of its Studi Galileiani series, bearing the title Galileo: Per il Copemicanesimo e per la Chiesa. So excellent was the study that Father George Coyne, the director of the Vatican Observatory, took it on himself personally to translate the volume into English. Although not a member of the Galileo Commission set up by Pope John Paul II to review the Galileo case, as were Coyne and myself, Fantoli has admirably complemented the work of the Commission and his book surely belongs in the Studi Galileiani collection. A former Jesuit with degrees in mathematics and physics, Fantoli began the book more than twenty-five years ago when he was preparing a course on Galileo at Sophia University in Tokyo. His intention was to show that for Galileo it was never a question of choosing between Copernicanism and the Church, and that the saddest drama of his life was being faced with an injunction that forced him to befor the Church and against Copemicanism. The subtitle of his book proclaims Galileo's true intentions, despite his failure to convince others that this was what his life was all about. A great strength of Fantoli's treatment is its documentation, which abounds in excerpts from Galileo's writings and his correspondence as found in the National Edition of his works and also in citations from new materials that have been uncovered by the Galileo Commission. Thanks to Coyne, all of these texts, many of which were hitherto available only in Latin or Italian, can now be easily accessed in English translation. Another strength of Fantoli's work is that he has kept abreast of Galileo literature over the years and thus is able to offer scholarly critiques of authors whose works exhibit a bias against the Church. Especially welcome are his careful discussions of the positions of earlier writers such as Giorgio de Santillana, Ludovico Geymonat, and Stillman Drake, as well as those of more recent authors, Mario Biagioli, Maurice Finocchiaro, Pietro Redondi, William R. Shea, and Richard S. Westfall. The book is a tour de force and there is little to criticize in it. Unfortunately, however, a typesetting error at its very beginning might create 317 318 BOOK REVIEWS the wrong impression and throw off prospective readers. About six lines of text were omitted at the bottom of page 9. To remedy this the following words should be inserted between the end of page 9 and the beginning of page 10: confused with the Sun) which had heen worked out by Philolaus (about 475 B.C.) within the context of the Pythagorean school.9 In a further modification of this theory the central fire as well as the hypothesis of an anti-earth were done away with, which left the earth at the center of the universe. To offset this addition, the last six lines on the bottom of page 10 should be deleted, for these lines are repeated at the top of page 11. Otherwise, with this change, the exposition reads correctly. The remaining typographical errors are few and in no case do they affect the sense. After a brief introduction in which he presents the astronomical concepts necessary for understanding the details of the Copernican debate, Fantoli divides his treatment into seven chapters. The first two of these are devoted to Galileo's early life and teaching at the Universities of Pisa and Padua, his perfection of the telescope, and the beginnings of the controversies about the earth's motion that were provoked by his telescopic discoveries, The next three chapters then take up the scriptural arguments in detail, Galileo's battle with the Jesuits over the comets of 1618 and his The Assayer of 1623, and his resumption of the Copernican program with the publication of his Dialogue... (shrink)

Research using economic decision-making tasks has established that direct reciprocity plays a role in prosocial decision-making: people are more likely to help those who have helped them in the past. However, less is known about how considerations of mutual exchange influence decisions even when the other party’s actions are unknown and direct reciprocity is therefore not possible. Using a two-party economic task in which the other’s actions are unknown, study 1 shows that prosociality critically depends on the potential for mutual (...) exchange; when the other person has no opportunity to help the participant, prosocial behavior is drastically reduced. In study 2, we find that theories regarding the other person’s intentions influence the degree of prosociality that participants exhibit, even when no opportunity for direct reciprocity exists. Further, beliefs about the other’s intentions are closely related to one’s own motivations in the task. Together, the results support a model in which prosociality depends on both the social conditions for mutual exchange and a mental model of how others will behave within these conditions, which is closely related to knowledge of the self. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Inference That Makes Science. By ERNAN McMULLIN. The Aquinas Lecture, 1992. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1992. Pp. iv +112. In this ambitious lecture Father Ernan McMullin recapitulates and refines a thesis that has guided his thought for the past forty years. In essence the thesis is this: precisely how science is made has eluded the best minds for centuries, and only in the work of Charles (...) Sanders Peirce, suitably emended by McMullin, has the puzzle finally been solved. " Retroduction " is the inference that makes science. Once this is understood, errors on what constitutes scientific method-those of Aristotle, Aquinas, Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Hume, et al.-can be rectified and one can see science for what it truly is: a complex process of theory appraisal that yields, not definitive truth, but well-established results to which assent can be given with at best "practical certainty," whatever that might be (pp. 91-96). Why McMullin should have chosen such a theme for an Aquinas Lecture is a question that defies reasonable answer. Surely one does not have to he so negative about the thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo to advance one's ideas about science in the present day. What McMullin could easily have done, and he hints at this in the last two paragraphs of his lecture (pp. 97-98), is show how retroduction is itself simply a relaxed version of the demonstrative regress, the method actually endorsed by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo. Such a retroductive version, fair enough, yields knowledge of a probable cause, the type of knowledge most typical of modern science. McMullin did not have to embark on the dangerous course of trying to prove that proof and certainty are forever beyond the grasp of science, or that never in the history of science has anyone established a definitive truth. That, in effect, is what McMullin has tried to do, and in the attempt to make the point he fumbles at almost every juncture throughout a very long lecture. To set the record straight more than a review is being re--·quested; perhaps a book, and even that might not suffice for those whose minds are made up. To understand the import of the lecture one must appreciate that it is hut a brief episode in a debate over demonstration in science that has been going on since McMullin first came to the University of Notre Dame in 1954. I myself have published many hooks and articles that engage the very point of his lecture and provide the contra evidence to 131 132 BOOK REVIEWS show elements of continuity in scientific method from Aristotle to the present. My last two volumes, in press at the same time as McMullin's Aquinas Lecture, answer in detail the aporiai he there raises.1 I need 1 Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Backgrnund, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 137. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xxiii + 323 pp.; Galileo's Logical Treatises. A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 138. DordrechtBoston -London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xix + 239 pp. only refer the interested reader to them for an extended and documented reply to his arguments. Some idea of the flavor of our debate, however, can be gained from the following. To support his thesis, McMullin has to maintain that Aristotle's proof that the moon is a sphere (from its having phases) and that Galileo's proofs that there are mountains on the moon, that Jupiter has satellites, and that Venus circles the sun (all based on telescopic observations) are not strictly demonstrative, that is, they do not yield true and certain conclusions. He declines to answer a query I have often tendered whether he personally is certain on the basis of pre-spacecraft evidence that the moon is a sphere, that there are mountains on it, that Jupiter has satellites, and so on. Instead he offers the categorical response "that planetary science is not an apodictic science, indeed that no natural science is... (shrink)

In this international and interdisciplinary collection of critical essays, distinguished contributors examine a crucial premise of traditional readings of Plato's dialogues: that Plato's own doctrines and arguments can be read off the statements made in the dialogues by Socrates and other leading characters. The authors argue in general and with reference to specific dialogues, that no character should be taken to be Plato's mouthpiece. This is essential reading for students and scholars of Plato.

State Medical Boards (SMBs) can take severe disciplinary actions (e.g., license revocation or suspension) against physicians who commit egregious wrongdoing in order to protect the public. However, there is noteworthy variability in the extent to which SMBs impose severe disciplinary action. In this manuscript, we present and synthesize a subset of 11 recommendations based on findings from our team’s larger consensus-building project that identified a list of 56 policies and legal provisions SMBs can use to better protect patients from egregious (...) wrongdoing by physicians. (shrink)

We examined the relationship between leader behavioral integrity and leader behavioral courage using data from two studies. Results from Study 1, an online experiment, indicated that behavioral manifestations of leader behavioral integrity and situational adversity both have direct main effects on behavioral manifestations of leader courage. Results from Study 2, a multisource field study with practicing executives, indicated that leader behavioral courage fully mediates the effects of leader behavioral integrity on leader performance and leader executive image. Implications of these findings (...) and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

A tension between perspectives that emphasize deterministic versus stochastic processes has sparked controversy in ecology since pre-Darwinian times. The most recent manifestation of the contrasting perspectives arose with Hubbell’s proposed “neutral theory”, which hypothesizes a paramount role for stochasticity in ecological community composition. Here we shall refer to the deterministic and the stochastic perspectives as the niche-based and neutral-based research programs, respectively. Our goal is to represent these perspectives in the context of Lakatos’ notion of a scientific research program. We (...) argue that the niche-based program exhibits all the characteristics of a robust, progressive research program, including the ability to deal with disconfirming data by generating new testable predictions within the program. In contrast, the neutral-based program succeeds as a mathematical tool to capture, as epiphenomena, broad-scale patterns of ecological communities but appears to handle disconfirming data by incorporating hypotheses and assumptions from outside the program, specifically, from the niche-based program. We conclude that the neutral research program fits the Lakatosian characterization of a degenerate research program. (shrink)

This essay focuses on what I shall call “cosmopolitan altruism”—the motivationally effective desire to assist needy or endangered strangers. Section I describes recent research that confirms the existence of this phenomenon. Section II places it within interlocking sets of moral typologies that distinguish among forms of altruism along dimensions of scope, interests risked, motivational source, and baseline of moral judgment. Section III explores some of the relationships between altruism—a concept rooted in modern moral philosophy and Christianity—and the understanding of virtue (...) and friendship characteristic of Aristotelian ethical analysis. Finally, Section IV argues that cosmopolitan altruism does not represent moral progress simpliciter over other, less inclusive views, and that the widening of moral sympathy to encompass endangered strangers entails significant moral costs. (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist. It challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman who believe that the essence of liberalism is that it should remain neutral concerning different ways of life and individual conceptions of what is good or valuable. Professor Galston argues that the modern liberal state is committed to a distinctive conception of the human good, and to that end has developed characteristic (...) institutions and practices - representative governments, diverse societies, market economies, and zones of private action - in the pursuit of specific public purposes that give unity to the liberal state. These purposes guide liberal public policy, shape liberal justice, require the practice of liberal virtues, and rest on a liberal public culture. Consequently the diversity characteristic of liberal societies is limited by their institutional, personal, and cultural preconditions. (shrink)

We review the psychological literature on the organization of valence, discussing theoretical perspectives that favor a single dimension of valence, multiple valence dimensions, and positivity and negativity as dynamic and flexible properties of mental experience that are contingent upon context. Turning to the neuroscience literature that spans three levels of analysis, we discuss how positivity and negativity can be represented in the brain. We show that the evidence points toward both separable and overlapping brain systems that support affective processes depending (...) on the level of resolution studied. We move from large-scale brain networks that underlie generalized processing, to functionally specific subcircuits, finally to intraregional neuronal distributions, where the organization and interaction across levels allow for multiple types of valence and mixed evaluations. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Cybernetics, Reflexivity and Second-Order Science” by Louis H. Kauffman. Upshot: This commentary reflects broadly on the concept of eigenform and reflexive domains, focusing on the idea that second-order science is neither the same as nor completely distinct from ordinary living.

Activating relevant responses is a key function of automatic processes in De Neys's model; however, what determines the order or magnitude of such activation is ambiguous. Focusing on recently developed sequential sampling models of choice, we argue that proactive control shapes response generation but does not cleanly fit into De Neys's automatic-deliberative distinction, highlighting the need for further model development.

The behavioral sciences have flourished by studying how traditional and/or rational behavior has been governed throughout most of human history by relatively well-informed individual and social learning. In the online age, however, social phenomena can occur with unprecedented scale and unpredictability, and individuals have access to social connections never before possible. Similarly, behavioral scientists now have access to “big data” sets – those from Twitter and Facebook, for example – that did not exist a few years ago. Studies of human (...) dynamics based on these data sets are novel and exciting but, if not placed in context, can foster the misconception that mass-scale online behavior is all we need to understand, for example, how humans make decisions. To overcome that misconception, we draw on the field of discrete-choice theory to create a multiscale comparative “map” that, like a principal-components representation, captures the essence of decision making along two axes: aneast–westdimension that represents the degree to which an agent makes a decision independently versus one that is socially influenced, and anorth–south dimensionthat represents the degree to which there is transparency in the payoffs and risks associated with the decisions agents make. We divide the map into quadrants, each of which features a signature behavioral pattern. When taken together, the map and its signatures provide an easily understood empirical framework for evaluating how modern collective behavior may be changing in the digital age, including whether behavior is becoming more individualistic, as people seek out exactly what they want, or more social, as people become more inextricably linked, even “herdlike,” in their decision making. We believe the map will lead to many new testable hypotheses concerning human behavior as well as to similar applications throughout the social sciences. (shrink)

Pietraszewski contends that group representations that rely on a “containment metaphor” fail to adequately capture phenomena of group dynamics such as shifts in allegiances. We argue, in contrast, that social categories allow for computationally efficient, richly structured, and flexible group representations that explain some of the most intriguing aspects of social group behaviour.

This volume reaches beyond the controversy surrounding the teaching and learning of evolution in the United States, specifically in regard to the culture, politics, and beliefs found in the Southeast. The editors argue that despite a deep history of conflict in the region surrounding evolution, there is a wealth of evolution research taking place—from biodiversity in species to cultural evolution and human development. In fact, scientists, educators, and researchers from around the United States have found their niche in the South, (...) where biodiversity is high, culture runs deep, and the pace is just a little bit slower. (shrink)

War After September 11 considers the just aims and legitimate limits of the United States' response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Microbial ecology is flourishing, and in the process, is making contributions to how the ecology and biology of large organisms is understood. Ongoing advances in sequencing technology and computational methods have enabled the collection and analysis of vast amounts of molecular data from diverse biological communities. While early studies focused on cataloguing microbial biodiversity in environments ranging from simple marine ecosystems to complex soil ecologies, more recent research is concerned with community functions and their dynamics over time. Models and concepts (...) from traditional ecology have been used to generate new insight into microbial communities, and novel system-level models developed to explain and predict microbial interactions. The process of moving from molecular inventories to functional understanding is complex and challenging, and never more so than when many thousands of dynamic interactions are the phenomena of interest. We outline the process of how epistemic transitions are made from producing catalogues of molecules to achieving functional and predictive insight, and show how those insights not only revolutionize what is known about biological systems but also about how to do biology itself. Examples will be drawn primarily from analyses of different human microbiota, which are the microbial consortia found in and on areas of the human body, and their associated microbiomes (the genes of those communities). Molecular knowledge of these microbiomes is transforming microbiological knowledge, as well as broader aspects of human biology, health and disease. (shrink)

I have before me a letter dated January 5, 2000 from Bradford Wilson, the executive director of the NAS. It begins, “I really enjoyed your contribution to the recent symposium in the January issue of First Things, so much so that I’ve also decided to invite you to join the NAS. Many of your fellow contributors including Robert George, Jeffrey Satinover, and Father Neuhaus are among our current members, and I think you’d find it well worth your while if you (...) joined ranks with us yourself.”. (shrink)