In robustness analysis, hypotheses are supported to the extent that a result proves robust, and a result is robust to the extent that we detect it in diverse ways. But what precise sense of diversity is at work here? In this paper, I show that the formal explications of evidential diversity most often appealed to in work on robustness – which all draw in one way or another on probabilistic independence – fail to shed light on the notion (...) of diversity relevant to robustness analysis. I close by briefly outlining a promising alternative approach inspired by Horwich’s (1982) eliminative account of evidential diversity. (shrink)

Mediating the meaning of evidence through epistemological diversity Nursing's disciplinary recognition of ‘multiple ways of knowing’ reflects an epistemological diversity that supports nursing praxis. Nursing as praxis offers a conceptual way to explore what it is about the interface of practice, knowledge and evidence in nursing that distinguishes us as a discipline. I suggest that the relationship between evidence and knowledge is defined and mediated by the same epistemological diversity that supports nursing as praxis. (...) Just as the meaning and truth‐value of evidence is evaluated from within the body of existing disciplinary knowledge, new evidence may prompt an evaluation of the meaning and truth‐value of extant nursing knowledge. Nursing practice that relies on scientific evidence as a singular basis of practice knowledge is susceptible to exploitation by the diverse agendas operating within an ideology of evidence‐based practice and the healthcare system. Mediating the meaning of evidence for nursing practice through acknowledgement of the diverse epistemologies that underpin nursing knowledge will contribute to a disciplinary‐specific definition of what constitutes evidence for nursing, and will better direct how evidence is integrated into a disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

The premise of The Diversity of Darkness and Shameful Behaviors is to emphasize the need for enlightened, rational thinking as a paradigm of thought as the culture of shamelessness continues to grow and cast its repulsive dark shadow over those who embrace enlightened reason and basic human rights for all. This unique book utilizes evidence-based approaches in the examination of human behaviors in society that have become increasingly shameful and tolerated among a growing number of enablers. Key features (...) include a combination of academic analysis that draws on numerous and specific examples of the diversity of darkness that encompasses the world along with a balanced practical, everyday-life approach to the study of the socio-political world we live in through the use of contemporary culture references and featured popular culture boxes. Social scientists, social thinkers and the general audience alike will be intrigued and perhaps dismayed by the diversity of shamefully hateful and shamefully deadly topics covered. We should realize that humanity has the intellect to accomplish great feats but heed the growing culture of shamelessness, irrationality and the diversity of darkness. (shrink)

Contrary to concerns of some critics, we present evidence that biomedical research is not dominated by a small handful of model organisms. An exhaustive analysis of research literature suggests that the diversity of experimental organisms in biomedical research has increased substantially since 1975. There has been a longstanding worry that organism‐centric funding policies can lead to biases in experimental organism choice, and thus negatively impact the direction of research and the interpretation of results. Critics have argued that a (...) focus on model organisms has unduly constrained the diversity of experimental organisms. The availability of large electronic databases of scientific literature, combined with interest in quantitative methods among philosophers of science, presents new opportunities for data‐driven investigations into organism choice in biomedical research. The diversity of organisms used in NIH‐funded research may be considerably lower than in the broader biomedical sciences, and may be subject to greater constraints on organism choice. (shrink)

Diversity of evidence is widely claimed to be crucial for evidence amalgamation to have distinctive epistemic merits. Bayesian epistemologists capture this idea in the variety-of-evidence thesis: ceteris paribus, the strength of confirmation of a hypothesis by an evidential set increases with the diversity of the evidential elements in that set. Yet, formal exploration of this thesis has shown that it fails to be generally true. This article demonstrates that the thesis fails in even more circumstances (...) than recent results would lead us to expect. Most importantly, it can fail whatever the chance that the evidential sources are unreliable. Our results hold for two types of degrees of variety: reliability independence and testable aspect independence. We conclude that the variety-of-evidence thesis can, at best, be interpreted as an exception-prone rule of thumb. (shrink)

Diversity of evidence is widely claimed to be crucial for evidence amalgamation to have distinctive epistemic merits. Bayesian epistemologists capture this idea in the variety-of-evidence thesis: ceteris paribus, the strength of confirmation of a hypothesis by an evidential set increases with the diversity of the evidential elements in that set. Yet, formal exploration of this thesis has shown that it fails to be generally true. This article demonstrates that the thesis fails in even more circumstances (...) than recent results would lead us to expect. Most importantly, it can fail whatever the chance that the evidential sources are unreliable. Our results hold for two types of degrees of variety: reliability independence and testable aspect independence. We conclude that the variety-of-evidence thesis can, at best, be interpreted as an exception-prone rule of thumb. (shrink)

Varied evidence for a hypothesis confirms it more strongly than less varied evidence, ceteris paribus. This epistemological Variety of Evidence Thesis enjoys long-standing widespread intuitive support. Recent literature has raised serious doubts that the correlational approach of explicating the thesis can vindicate it. By contrast, the eliminative approach due to Horwich vindicates the Variety of Evidence Thesis but only within a relatively narrow domain. I investigate the prospects of extending the eliminative approach to a larger domain (...) by considering a larger class of sensible explications of evidential variety. For a large subclass class of such explications I show how to construct cases in which the less diverse body of evidence for a hypothesis confirms more strongly. I hence argue that these prospects are dire since the eliminative approach widely fails to vindicate the thesis. (shrink)

Many epistemologists endorse a view I call “evidence essentialism:” if e is evidence of h, for some agent at some time, then necessarily, e is evidence of h, for any agent at any time. I argue that such a view is only plausible if we ignore cognitive diversity among epistemic agents, i.e., the fact that different agents have different—sometimes radically different—cognitive skills, abilities, and proclivities. Instead, cognitive diversity shows that evidential relations are contingent and relative (...) to cognizers. This is especially obvious in extreme cases and in connection with epistemic defeat, but it is also very plausibly true of ordinary agents, and regarding prima facie justification. (shrink)

The study of individual experience during the performance of a psychological task using a phenomenological approach is a relatively new area of research. The aim of this paper was to combine first‐ and third‐person approaches to investigate whether the strategies individuals use during a working memory task are associated with specific task conditions, whether the strategies combine to form stable patterns, and whether the use of specific strategies is related to task accuracy. Thirty‐one participants took part in an experiment in (...) which they were instructed to remember colors, orientations, or positions of stimuli presented in a change detection task. After every 7th–15th trial, participants took part in an in‐depth phenomenological interview in which they described their experiences during the trial that immediately preceded the interview. Qualitative analysis revealed a set of 18 strategies that participants used while performing the task, which we divided into active and passive strategies of encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. Quantitative analysis revealed that while many strategies were used in all task conditions, some strategies and their combinations may be better suited to the specific task demands, while others are more general in nature. The results also suggest a distinction between strategies for encoding object identity and spatial features. Finally, our results did not provide robust evidence for a relationship between specific strategies and task accuracy. (shrink)

The value of varied evidence, I propose, lies in the fact that more varied evidence is less coherent on the assumption of the negation of the hypothesis under consideration than less varied evidence. I contrast my own analysis with several other Bayesian analyses of the value of evidential diversity and show how my account explains cases where it seems intuitively that evidential variety is valuable for confirmation.

An astonishing volume and diversity of evidence is available for many hypotheses in the biomedical and social sciences. Some of this evidence—usually from randomized controlled trials (RCTs)—is amalgamated by meta-analysis. Despite the ongoing debate regarding whether or not RCTs are the ‘gold-standard’ of evidence, it is usually meta-analysis which is considered the best source of evidence: meta-analysis is thought by many to be the platinum standard of evidence. However, I argue that meta-analysis falls far (...) short of that standard. Different meta-analyses of the same evidence can reach contradictory conclusions. Meta-analysis fails to provide objective grounds for intersubjective assessments of hypotheses because numerous decisions must be made when performing a meta-analysis which allow wide latitude for subjective idiosyncrasies to influence its outcome. I end by suggesting that an older tradition of evidence in medicine—the plurality of reasoning strategies appealed to by the epidemiologist Sir Bradford Hill—is a superior strategy for assessing a large volume and diversity of evidence. (shrink)

How, if at all, does the internal structure of human phenomenological color space map onto the internal structure of objective reflectance‐profile space, in such a fashion as to provide a useful and accurate representation of that objective feature space? A prominent argument (due to Hardin, among others) proposes to eliminate colors as real, objective properties of objects, on grounds that nothing in the external world (and especially not surface‐reflectance‐profiles) answers to the well‐known and quite determinate internal structure of human phenomenological (...) color space. The present paper proposes a novel way to construe the objective space of possible reflectance profiles so that (1) its internal structure becomes evident, and (2) that structure’s homomorphism with the internal structure of human phenomenological color space becomes obvious. The path is thus reopened to salvage the objective reality of colors, in the same way that we preserved the objective reality of such features as temperature, pitch, and sourness—by identifying them with some objective feature recognized in modern physical theory. (shrink)

This paper examines the effect of state-level culture in the US on the adoption of firms’ workplace diversity policies. Using firm-level panel data over the period 2011–2014, we document that firms in highly individualistic states are less likely to adopt workplace diversity policies, which in turn negatively affects firm performance. Our results are robust to alternative variables and econometric specifications. Our findings provide insights into the contemporary debate on the economic aspects of workplace diversity policies for firms (...) operating in different cultural backgrounds. (shrink)

Among the cultural innovations by which the Upper Palaeolithic period is characterized, those relating to burial practices furnish the possibility of evaluating the profound changes which differentiated this era from the Middle Palaeolithic. The graves of the Upper Palaeolithic offer us a sometimes very compelling glimpse of the complexity of the symbolic, cognitive and social environment of those peoples, as well as of the evolution and diversification over time and space of their rituals associated with death. This article considers the (...) set of burials discovered to date within the boundaries of Italy as particularly representative of these features. Numerous, diverse and well-endowed, they provide important information about the peoples of the Upper Palaeolithic and of the way they responded to death. These graves also represent a significant body of evidence for the debate on the degree to which Palaeolithic man can be considered culturally fully human and the extent to which he intentionally buried his dead. (shrink)

The issue addressed in this thesis is one in the absolute idealism of Spinoza. It is one of specifying an interpretation of substance-attribute identity as a solution to the problem of reconciling it with the diversity of the attributes and the oneness of substance. As a testing ground for any proposed solution, a list of questions is generated. Given the countable diversity of the attributes, can we conceive of the identity of each of them with the one substance? (...) Why, if I am identical to a mode of each of infinite attributes, do I perceive only a body? What is the rational explanation for the infinite countable diversity of the attributes and our being directly acquainted with only two? In what manner can we reconcile the divisibility of substance with the activity of thought? How does one reconcile the order of extension seeming to be one of external relations with the essentially internal order of any finite thinking thing? How does one reconcile the independent being of modes of extension with the truth-functionality of ideas? In what manner is it possible to understand the appearance of the uniqueness of the one thing conceived under the idea of the body and the one-among-severalness of the same thing conceived under the idea of the individual's mind? In what manner can it be said that substance, consisting of infinite attributes, is accurately and completely conceived through any one of them while each is conceptually independent of every other? How can the one thing which is mind and body be wholly and accurately conceived to be a mode of either of their respective attributes while modes of differing attributes are also conceptually independent? The interpretations of substance-attribute identity given by John Clark Murray, T. L. S. Sprigge, and Errol E. Harris, in their writings in which they advocate reading Spinoza as an absolute idealist, are argued to be disadvantageous in dealing with the evident parallelism of the attributes. Finally, a proposed solution, offered by an alternative absolute idealist interpretation of substance-attribute identity, is developed in response to each of the above questions. (shrink)

Among the cultural innovations by which the Upper Palaeolithic period is characterized, those relating to burial practices furnish the possibility of evaluating the profound changes which differentiated this era from the Middle Palaeolithic. The graves of the Upper Palaeolithic offer us a sometimes very compelling glimpse of the complexity of the symbolic, cognitive and social environment of those peoples, as well as of the evolution and diversification over time and space of their rituals associated with death. This article considers the (...) set of burials discovered to date within the boundaries of Italy as particularly representative of these features. Numerous, diverse and well-endowed, they provide important information about the peoples of the Upper Palaeolithic and of the way they responded to death. These graves also represent a significant body of evidence for the debate on the degree to which Palaeolithic man can be considered culturally fully human and the extent to which he intentionally buried his dead. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine has been studied as a rich and diverse set of epistemic and infrastructural practices that relate imperfect medical knowledges to complex clinical practices. We examine instances of medical decision-making where medical professionals relate recommendations from clinical practice guidelines to individual patient characteristics when deciding to prescribe implantable cardioverter defibrillators to treat heart failure. When connecting evidence-based recommendations to decisions about individual patients, we find that clinical deliberations invoke different times, such as linear, chronological time, and biological (...) aging, as well as different futures, such as individual future risks and the future sustainability of health systems. Such different “temporalities of evidence” are integral parts of clinicians’ considerations concerning economy, suffering, risks, and hopes in making decisions on individual patients. In line with calls to anchor science and technology studies scholarship studying EBM in the concerns that matter most to patients and health care providers, we argue that the social study of EBM needs to attend to such temporalities to understand how evidence is weighed, which outcomes are considered important, and hence which clinical action is proposed. However, since different ways of “doing time” lead to different appreciations of the clinical outcomes, the notion of clinical “anchoring” becomes rather elusive. (shrink)

Sir Geoffrey Lloyd presents a cross-disciplinary exploration of the unity and diversity of the human mind. He discusses cultural variations with regard to ideas of colour, emotion, health, the self, agency and causation, reasoning, and other fundamental aspects of human cognition. He draws together scientific, philosophical, anthropological, and historical arguments in showing how our evident psychic diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.

One of the reasons which has induced philosophers to enquire about animal psychology is the hope of arriving at a more precise understanding of human mental faculties. For example, in relatively recent times, this motive was evident among various authors of the seventeenth century, who were more or less directly influenced on the issue by Descartes. Over and above the varying lines which they pursued, what they most often have in common, is an essentially anthropocentric approach to the study of (...) animals. The general categories which they used were mainly defined by specific reference to “human nature,”. The identity of this nature was to be highlighted by the complex of differences from, and similarities to, that of the animals. (shrink)

This study analyzes how the board’s characteristics could be associated with globally corporate social responsibility CSR and specific areas of CSR. It is drawn on all listed firms, in 2016, on the SBF120 between 2003 and 2016. Our results provide strong evidence that diversity in boards and diversity of boards globally are positively associated with corporate social performance. However, they influence differently specific dimensions of CSR performance. First, we show that large boards are positively associated with all (...) areas of CSR performance, while specific and overall CSR scores are negatively associated with CEO-chair structures. Second, board gender diversity is positively associated with human rights and corporate governance dimensions. Third, age diversity is positively associated with corporate governance, human resources, human rights, and environmental activities. Also, our results provide evidence that outside directors care about CSR performance. Specifically, the presence of foreign directors is positively associated with environmental performance and community involvement, whereas CSR-Governance dimension is positively associated with the presence of independent directors. Regarding the director’s educational level, post-graduated directors are positively and significantly associated with overall CSR score and all CSR sub-scores, except the corporate governance one. When directors have multiple directorships, they are more concerned about human resources, environmental performance, and business ethics. Finally, our findings are robust only in non-family firms. In fact, family boards are less diverse than non-family ones; specifically, they have a lower number of independent, foreign, and high-educated directors. (shrink)

When we learn of atrocities committed by psychopaths and by suicide terrorists, we are shocked by the evident lack of normal feeling for their fellow human beings. (By suicide terrorists, I mean to include not just the people who..

Many people, failing to understand the theories of such ethical relativists as William Graham Sumner, Ruth Benedict and Edward Westermarck, have thought that various findings of the social sciences establish these theories. They regard the problem of ethical relativism, or the problem of determining whether or not any of these theories is sound, as a scientific problem. And they often think of ethical relativism as a scientific theory which explains these findings. In particular, it is widely thought that anthropologists have (...) amassed overwhelming evidence to prove that the moral beliefs of peoples of different cultures conflict or are diverse in such a way that this diversity of morals raises the problem of ethical relativism. And many have thought and continue to think that ethical relativism is demonstrated by this evidence and is a scientific hypothesis which accounts for the diversity of morals. The argument from the diversity of morals is the most popular argument for ethical relativism based on the data of the social sciences. (shrink)

This study empirically examines the relationship between wide-ranging board diversity and the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure variables in Malaysia. We extend prior literature covering broader dimensions of board diversity and their impact on CSR after controlling for board and audit committee characteristics. Using 200 listed firms in Bursa Malaysia during 2009–2013 and applying both OLS and 2SLS instrumental variables approaches, we document significant positive effect of board education level and board tenure diversity on the quality (...) of CSR disclosure. Further analysis using robust regression also shows positive association between gender diversity and CSR disclosure. Our findings also demonstrate that the quality of CSR disclosure is significantly negatively associated with board age and nationality diversity. These results remain consistent with using alternative measures for board diversity, and characteristics for board of director and audit committees as well as split samples between large and small firms. Additional tests exhibit complementary relationship of education level and nationality with gender, while substitutive relationship of age and tenure with gender in influencing CSR. These findings provide useful insights into the policy makers in setting regulations in respect of board diversity in Malaysia and other emerging economies in the Asian region. Our evidence is also useful for listed companies in setting the criteria to identify directors who can support their strategic decisions. (shrink)

Debates about expanding newborn screening with whole genome sequencing are fueled by data about public perception, public opinion, and the positions taken by public advocates and advocacy groups. One form of evidence that merits attention as we consider possible uses of whole‐genome sequencing during the newborn period is parents’ (and children's) diverse experiences with existing expanded screening protocols. What do we know about this experience base? And what implications might these data have for decisions about how we use whole (...) genome sequencing and how we assess its impact in the future? Although the broader literature on genetic susceptibility testing suggests that testing usually does not have adverse effects on children's psychosocial well‐being, certain newborn screening results have been demonstrated to cause distress, alter behavior, and even to influence the formation of new parental and family identities. (shrink)

Chinese listed companies have a two-tier governance structure that comprises a supervisory board/committee and the board of directors. However, as there is no hierarchical relationship between them, the two boards are independent. This is different from the governance mechanism in Continental Europe in which the SB appoints the directors of the management board; in this sense, the Chinese two-tier governance structure is unique. We investigate the impact of governance characteristics and ownership structure on gender diversity of both the BoD (...) and the SB for a sample of 892 Chinese Initial Public Offerings floated in both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. We find that the average proportion of female directors and female SB members on the BoD and the SB are 10 and 22 %, respectively. Using both static and dynamic panel data methods, we find that there is no significant impact of board structure on gender diversity in China. However, we find a positive and significant relationship between SB size and gender diversity. We also find that the higher the state ownership, the lower the female representation on both boards. Finally, our findings show that there is a bi-directional relationship between financial performance and the proportion of female directors sitting on the BoD. (shrink)

Andrew Wayne discusses some recent attempts to account, within a Bayesian framework, for the "common methodological adage" that "diverse evidence better confirms a hypothesis than does the same amount of similar evidence". One of the approaches considered by Wayne is that suggested by Howson and Urbach and dubbed the "correlation approach" by Wayne. This approach is, indeed, incomplete, in that it neglects the role of the hypothesis under consideration in determining what diversity in a body of (...) class='Hi'>evidence is relevant diversity. In this paper, it is shown how this gap can be filled, resulting in a more satisfactory account of the evidential role of diversity of evidence. In addition, it is argued that Wayne's criticism of the correlation approach does not indicate a serious flaw in the approach. (shrink)

The theory stating that oxidative stress is at the root of several diseases is extremely popular. However, so far, no antioxidant is recommended or offered by healthcare systems neither approved as therapy by regulatory agencies that base their decisions on evidence-based medicine. This is simply because, so far, despite many preclinical and clinical studies indicating a beneficial effect of antioxidants in many disease conditions, randomised clinical trials have failed to provide the evidence of efficacy required for drug approval. (...) In this review, we discuss the levels of evidence required to claim causality in preclinical research on OS, the weakness of the oversimplification associated with OS theory of disease and the importance of the narrative in its popularity. Finally, from a more translational perspective, we discuss the reasons why antioxidants acting by scavenging reactive oxygen species might not only prevent their detrimental effects but also interfere with essential signalling roles. We propose that ROS have a complex metabolism and are generated by different enzymes at diverse sites and with different timing. Aggregating this plurality of systems in a single theory of disease may not be the best way to develop new drugs, and future research may need to focus on specific oxygen-toxifying pathways rather than on non-specific ROS scavengers. Finally, similarly to what is nowadays required for clinical trials, we recommend making unpublished data available in repositories, as this will allow big data approaches or meta-analyses without the blinders of the publication bias. (shrink)

Debates around sound corporate governance propose board diversity as a key attribute to sufficiently challenge executive management for stakeholder engagement. This study contributes to this debate by empirically investigating the effect of board diversity on corporate social disclosure of Vietnamese listed firms. The study finds a significantly positive effect of diversity-in-boards on CSD while diversity-of-boards has no effect on CSD. The results contribute by showing that a single theoretical approach can provide an adequate explanation for board (...) diversity. The study contributes methodologically by demonstrating the design and measurement of board diversity indices, and a three-dimensional stakeholder-relevant CSD index. The findings benefit regulators and corporate executives in better understanding firms’ CSD practices and stakeholders’ expectations. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek to answer two questions: (1) what does boardroom diversity stand for in the strategic management literature? And, (2) is there a significant relationship between boardroom diversity and corporate social performance. We first clarify the boardroom diversity concept, distinguishing between a structural diversity of boards and a demographic diversity in boards, and then we investigate its possible linkage to social performance in a sample of S&P500 firms. We find a significant relationship (...) between diversity in boards and social performance. This relationship is moderated by diversity of boards. Our results also reveal the effects of the specific variables that make up the diversity of boards and diversity in boards constructs. In particular, gender, and age have a significant effect on corporate social performance. Some important measurement issues are raised and discussed. (shrink)

Recent research governance documents say that the body of research evidence must reflect population diversity. The response to this needs to be more sophisticated than simply ensuring minorities are present in samples. For quantitative research looking primarily at treatment effects of drugs and devices four suggestions are made. First, identify where the representation of minorities in samples matters—for example, where ethnicity may cause different treatment effects. Second, where the representation of a particular group matters then subgroup analysis of (...) the results will usually be necessary. Third, ensuring representation and subgroup analysis will have costs; deciding on whether such representation is worthwhile will involve cost benefit analysis. Fourth, the representation of minorities should not be seen as mainly a locality issue. For qualitative research it is argued that the representation of diversity is often important. Given the small samples of many qualitative projects, however, the best way to ensure representation occurs is to allow a proliferation of such research, not to stipulate such representation in samples. (shrink)

In recent years, one of the important issues discussed in epistemology is the problem of disagreement. The epistemology of disagreement is mostly discussed through peer disagreement. The question of whether two epistemic peers should make a change in their beliefs after awareness of the disagreement is important in these discussions. To this question; there are four main answers: conciliationism, steadfastness, total evidence view, and justificationist view. In this thesis, I found these answers insufficient and put forward a new argument, (...) which i named as 'the evidence- based argument in peer disagreement'. Religious disagreements, with some of its cases that fall within the scope of peer disagreement, cause religious diversity. Whether religious diversity itself and religious disagreements will detract from the epistemological status of our religious belief is another matter of debate for religious epistemology. I have demonstrated that our religious belief is rational despite religious diversity and religious disagreements, both by using my argument and by putting forward various epistemological reasons. (shrink)

This paper empirically investigates the impact of cognitive board diversity in education, expertise, and tenure facets on financial distress likelihood in the emerging economy of China. This study examines how this relationship varies across State-Owned Enterprises and Non-State-Owned Enterprises. Paper argues that the Chinese stock market, as a typical emerging market, is an excellent laboratory for studying the impact of board diversity on the probability of financial distress. Its underdeveloped financial system and inadequate investor protection leave firms unprotected (...) from financial hardship. A sample of 12,366 observations from 1,374 firms from 2010 to 2018 shows that cognitive diversity qualities are positively linked with Z-score, implying that directors with different educational backgrounds, financial skills, and tenures can assist in reducing the probability of financial distress. Cognitive board diversity reduces the likelihood of financial distress in SOEs and NSOEs. However, tenure diversity is insignificant in all cases. Furthermore, the robustness model “two-step system Generalized Methods of Moments ” demonstrated a positive association between educational diversity, financial expertise, and financial distress scores. The results have significant implications for researchers, managers, investors, regulators, and policymakers. (shrink)

Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) reviewers often provide similar feedback across applications, which suggests that the problem lies in researcher awareness of key issues rather than novel, unsolvable challenges. If common problems can be addressed before lodgement by applicants referencing clear evidence-based supports (e.g., FAQs on common application shortcomings), it would improve efficiency for HREC members and expedite approvals. We aim to inform such supports by analysing the patterns in the most frequent feedback made by HREC members during review (...) processes. We collected every instance (N = 4,195) of feedback made on N = 197 ‘low-risk’ protocols by all HREC staff (N = 16) at one institution over the course of a full year (2019). Reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes (and content analysis to determine relative frequency) revealed that the top three themes are consistent with existing literature: Consent, Administrative, and Methodological concerns. However, we identified important new themes that are not captured in previous research, including ‘Risk to Researchers’, ‘Commercial benefit, scope and scale’, ‘Diversity’ (covering issues of cultural sensitivity, language and accessibility), as well as fair right to a complaints process. Our thorough exploration of information-rich primary data marks an important methodological improvement over previous studies and offers a theoretical contribution to understanding themes that have heretofore been overlooked in the ethics review process. By identifying the common challenges experienced in HREC review we can better inform tailored supports to applicants (by extension reducing workload burdens on HREC systems) and reduce their perceived barriers to engaging in challenging but meaningful research. (shrink)

There exists a diversity of "evidence-free" religions, contradicting one an- other. There will be an epistemic problem for a religious devotee either because evidence-free belief is in general not epistemically justified in the face of diversity, or because of a special problem in the religious case. I argue that in general evidence-free belief is epistemically justified in the face of diversity. Then I argue that recent arguments of Wykstra and Basinger fail to show that (...) there is a special problem in the religious case. Finally, I give reasons why religious belief is epistemically justified in the face of diversity. (shrink)

In a recent essay (1995), Andrew Wayne charges that Bayesian attempts to account for the rule that, ceteris paribus, diverse evidence confirms better than narrow evidence are inadequate. I reply to these criticisms and argue that, on the contrary, one of the Bayesian approaches considered by Wayne does an excellent job of explaining why, and under what circumstances, diverse evidence is valuable.

My topic is the theme of the E-OSSA 12 conference, namely Evidence, Persuasion and Diversity. I will present relevant material from a selection of Canadian legal cases, along with background information as needed and commentary. My primary focus will be on two landmark Supreme Court of Canada cases—an Aboriginal law case and a case that was both a constitutional law case and a criminal law case.

The readability of 10-K reports, in terms of linguistic complexity, determines the usefulness of information disclosure for stakeholders, particularly individual investors. Since investors largely depend on the financial communication in 10-K reports, firms have an ethical and legal responsibility to present disclosures in a language investors can understand. However, motivated by self-interest, managers obfuscate such disclosures to mask their own actions and hide unfavourable information. Building on the managerial obfuscation hypothesis grounded in stakeholder-agency and ethical-sensitivity theories, I hypothesize and empirically (...) test the relationship between board gender diversity and the readability of narrative disclosure in 10-K reports. Based on a relatively large sample of Russell 3000 firms for the years 2002–2018, I find a significant positive impact of BGD on 10-K reports’ readability, which in turn improves firm performance. Channel analysis reveals that the findings are driven by female independent directors, and their representation on audit and compensation committees; however, board activity does not appear to drive this relationship. Finally, I find that although gender discrimination in the appointment of directors spurs complex readability, the BGD-readability relationship is consistent in gender-biased and non-discriminant firms. I also check the robustness of our main empirical results in several ways. My study has important regulatory and managerial implications in that corporate governance is an important determinant of the readability of disclosure documents. (shrink)

We examine the impact of a city’s cultural diversity on a firm’s tax avoidance. Our findings suggest that when a firm is located in a culturally diverse city, it exhibits less TA than a firm located in a less culturally diverse city. The findings are robust to alternative metrics of cultural diversity and TA and after accounting for omitted sample bias and endogeneity. Additional analysis suggests that the negative impact of cultural diversity on a firm’s TA is (...) more salient in a firm with strong managerial incentives or in a city that is characterized by more migration. Furthermore, we document that the negative impact of cultural diversity on TA is more pronounced when firms face strong financial constraints or effective internal and external monitoring. (shrink)

In today’s knowledge economy, knowledge and knowledge sharing are fundamental for organizations to achieve competitiveness and for individuals to strengthen their innovation capabilities. Knowledge sharing is a complex language-based activity; language affects how individuals communicate and relate. The growth in international collaborations and the increasing number of diverse teams affect knowledge sharing because individuals engage in daily knowledge activities in a language they are not native speakers. Understanding the challenges they face, and how they manage the emerging difficulties is the (...) main aim of this manuscript. For this purpose, an explorative case study was conducted in an international university research project, namely the TED project. Both interviews and direct observations were employed to understand the phenomenon better and deliberately triangulate data and improve validity. Results show that non-native language use determines the emergence of different language proficiency, depending on the nature of the knowledge domain–job-related vs. non-job-related. Within non-job-related knowledge domains, the lack of linguistic abilities, summed to the perceived cultural diversities, mainly affects people’s propensity to engage in personal and more intense social relationships. Under such circumstances, tacit knowledge sharing is reduced with negative consequences on the project’s long-term innovative performance. Since the project is still running, detecting language challenges will allow the partners to design and apply effective measures to support cooperation with language and cultural barriers. Among them, code switching, adopted by “bridge” actors, already emerges as tool supporting communication and knowledge exchange. (shrink)

The paper presents an infinite hierarchy PR m [ m = 1, 2, . . . ] of sound and complete axiomatic systems for modal logic with graded probabilistic modalities , which are to reflect what I have elsewhere called the Bolding-Ekelöf degrees of evidential strength as applied to the establishment of matters of fact in law-courts. Our present approach is seen to differ from earlier work by the author in that it treats the logic of these graded modalities not (...) only from a semantical or model-theoretic viewpoint but from a prooftheoretical and axiomatic stance as well. A paramount feature of the approach is its use of so-called systematic frame constants as labels of diverse grades of probability. Apart from this novel feature our approach can be seen to go back to pioneering work by Lou Goble in 1970. (shrink)

What motives underlie the ways humans interact socially? Are these the same for all societies? Are these part of our nature, or influenced by our environments?Over the last decade, research in experimental economics has emphatically falsified the textbook representation of Homo economicus. Literally hundreds of experiments suggest that people care not only about their own material payoffs, but also about such things as fairness, equity and reciprocity. However, this research left fundamental questions unanswered: Are such social preferences stable components of (...) human nature; or, are they modulated by economic, social and cultural environments? Until now, experimental research could not address this question because virtually all subjects had been university students, and while there are cultural differences among student populations throughout the world, these differences are small compared to the full range of human social and cultural environments. A vast amount of ethnographic and historical research suggests that people's motives are influenced by economic, social, and cultural environments, yet such methods can only yield circumstantial evidence about human motives. Combining ethnographic and experimental approaches to fill this gap, this book breaks new ground in reporting the results of a large cross-cultural study aimed at determining the sources of social preferences that underlie the diversity of human sociality. The same experiments which provided evidence for social preferences among university students were performed in fifteen small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of social, economic and cultural conditions by experienced field researchers who had also done long-term ethnographic field work in these societies. The findings of these experiments demonstrated that no society in which experimental behaviour is consistent with the canonical model of self-interest. Indeed, results showed that the variation in behaviour is far greater than previously thought, and that the differences between societies in market integration and the importance of cooperation explain a substantial portion of this variation, which individual-level economic and demographic variables could not. Finally, the extent to which experimental play mirrors patterns of interaction found in everyday life is traced.The book starts with a succinct but substantive introduction to the use of game theory as an analytical tool and its use in the social sciences for the rigorous testing of hypotheses about fundamental aspects of social behaviour outside artificially constructed laboratories. The results of the fifteen case studies are summarized in a suggestive chapter about the scope of the project. (shrink)

There is growing regulatory pressure on firms worldwide to address the under-representation of women in senior positions. Regulators have taken a variety of approaches to the issue. We investigate a jurisdiction that has issued recommendations and disclosure requirements, rather than implementing quotas. Much of the rhetoric surrounding gender diversity centres on whether diversity has a financial impact. In this paper we take an aggregate (market-level) approach and compare the performance of portfolios of firms with gender diverse boards to (...) those without. We also investigate whether having multiple women on the board is linked to performance, and if there is a within-industry effect. Overall, we do not find evidence of an association between diversity and performance. We find some weak evidence of a negative correlation between having multiple women on the board and performance, but that in some industries diversity is positively correlated with performance. (shrink)

At the end of life, pain management is commonly a fundamental part of the treatment plan for patients where curative measures are no longer possible. However, the increased recognition of opioid diversion for secondary gain coupled with efforts to treat patients in the home environment towards the end of life creates the potential for ethical dilemmas in the palliative care management of terminal patients in need of continuous pain management. We present the case of an end-stage patient with rectal cancer (...) who required a continuous residential narcotic infusion of fentanyl for pain control due to metastatic disease. His functional status was such that he had poor oral intake and ability to perform other activities of daily living, but was able to live at home with health agency nursing care. The patient presented to this institution with a highly suspect history of having lost his fentanyl infusion in a residential accident and asking for a refill to continue home therapy. The treating physicians had concerns of diversion of the infusion medication by caregivers and were reluctant to continue the therapeutic relationship with the patient. This case exemplifies the tension that can exist between wanting to continue with palliative care management of an end-stage patient and the fear of providers when confronted by evidence of potential diversion of opioid analgesic medications. We elucidate how an ethical framework based on a combination of virtue and narrative/relationship theories with reference to proportionality can guide physicians to a pragmatic resolution of these difficult situations. (shrink)

The question of what explains individual differences in expertise within complex domains such as music, games, sports, science, and medicine is currently a major topic of interest in a diverse range of fields, including psychology, education, and sports science, to name just a few. Ericsson and colleagues’ deliberate practice view is highly influential perspective in the literature on expertise and expert performance—but is it viable as a testable scientific theory? Here, reviewing more than 25 years of Ericsson and colleagues’ writings, (...) we document critical inconsistencies in the definition of deliberate practice, along with apparent shifts in the standard for evidence concerning deliberate practice. We also consider the impact of these issues on progress in the field of expertise, focusing on the empirical testability and falsifiability of the deliberate practice view. We then discuss a multifactorial perspective on expertise, and how open science practices can accelerate progress in research guided by this perspective. (shrink)

Next SectionEvidence based medicine is rightly at the core of current medicine. If patients and society put trust in medical professional competency, and on the basis of that competency delegate all kinds of responsibilities to the medical profession, medical professionals had better make sure their competency is state of the art medical science. What goes for the ethics of clinical trials goes for the ethics of medicine as a whole: anything that is scientifically doubtful is, other things being equal, ethically (...) unacceptable. This particularly applies to so called orphaned fields of medicine, those areas where medical research is weak and diverse, where financial incentives are lacking, and where the evidence regarding the aetiology and treatment of disease is much less clear than in laboratory and hospital based medicine. Examples of such orphaned fields are physiotherapy, psychotherapy, medical psychology, and occupational health, which investigate complex syndromes such as RSI, whiplash, chronic low back pain, and chronic fatigue syndrome. It appears that the primary ethical problem in this context is the lack of attention to the orphaned fields. Although we agree that this issue deserves more attention as a matter of potential injustice, we want to argue that, in order to do justice to the interplay of heterogeneous factors that is so typical of the orphaned fields, other ethical models than justice are required. We propose the coordination model as a window through which to view the important ethical issues which relate to the communication and interaction of scientists, health care workers, and patients. (shrink)

A common object found within medical museums is the developmental series: an arrangement of embryos depicting the transformation of an unremarkable blob into an anatomically organized and recognizable organism. The developmental series depicts a normative process, one where bodies emerge in reliable sequential stages to reveal anatomically perfect beings. Yet a century before the developmental series would become a visual model of embryological development, the very process of development itself was discerned through the comparative study of preserved human fetuses—specifically, those (...) deemed “monstrous” or characterized as “malformations.” This article examines how anatomically diverse fetal bodies were reformulated from singular curiosities into alternative developmental pathways whose characteristics testified to the laws of nature and to the primordial, physical relationship between humans and other species. In early nineteenth century Amsterdam, the father-son team of physicians Gerard and Willem Vrolik built up an internationally renowned anatomical museum famous especially for Willem’s collection of fetal malformations. Physical preparations of fetal malformations play a central role in Willem’s monumental handbook on developmental embryology: comparing human embryos against one another and the embryos of other species, Willem plots out a sequence of embryological development in which a body’s form marks its place within the ever-unfolding natural order. In conversation with the literature on model organisms, this article explores how the “monstrous” gets standardized and, in doing so, contributes to the scientific production of a normative physiological process. (shrink)