The minister of Agriculture, Nature Management andFisheries of the Netherlands reflects on the question``Is agriculture in need of ethics?'' Changingnorms and values in society, the influence of newtechnologies (such as biotechnology) and theinternational trade liberalisation (WTO) providearguments for a positive answer on this question.

A response to Lindsay Craig's essay, The So-Called Extended Synthesis and Population Genetics.

Gerd Buchdahl; XIV—The Relation Between ‘Understanding’ and ‘Reason’ in the Architectonic of Kant's Philosophy1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume.

I. Reputed shortcomings of Descartes as philosopher of science.II ‘Knowledge’ in mathematics and in physics. The ‘ontological’ postulates of Descartes's philosophy and philosophy of physics.III. The ‘foundations of dynamics’: ‘Newton's First Law of Motion’ and its status.IV. Descartes's conception of ‘hypothesis’: the competing claims of the ideal of the a priori in physics and the conception of retroductive inference. V. Descartes's notion of ‘analysis’. The distinction between ‘procedure’ and ‘inference’. The notion of ‘induction’ and ‘understanding through models’: ‘Snell's Law of (...) Refraction’. (shrink)

The Leuphana Semester at Leuphana University Lüneburg, together with the module “Science bears responsibility” demonstrate how innovative methods of teaching and learning can be combined with the topic of sustainable development and how new forms of university teaching can be introduced. With regard to module content, it has become apparent that, due to the complexity of the field of sustainability, a single discipline alone is unable to provide analyses and solutions. If teaching in higher education is to adequately deal with (...) this complexity, then it is necessary to develop inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that go beyond a purely specialist orientation. (shrink)

In this volume the author tackles this problem in a rigorous analysis which begins with the general dynamics of living systems and leads the reader step-by-step ...

Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart invites readers to embark on a new journey into a land of rationality that differs from the familiar territory of cognitive science and economics. Traditional views of rationality tend to see decision makers as possessing superhuman powers of reason, limitless knowledge, and all of eternity in which to ponder choices. To understand decisions in the real world, we need a different, more psychologically plausible notion of rationality, and this book provides it. It is about (...) fast and frugal heuristics--simple rules for making decisions when time is pressing and deep thought an unaffordable luxury. These heuristics can enable both living organisms and artificial systems to make smart choices, classifications, and predictions by employing bounded rationality. But when and how can such fast and frugal heuristics work? Can judgments based simply on one good reason be as accurate as those based on many reasons? Could less knowledge even lead to systematically better predictions than more knowledge? Simple Heuristics explores these questions, developing computational models of heuristics and testing them through experiments and analyses. It shows how fast and frugal heuristics can produce adaptive decisions in situations as varied as choosing a mate, dividing resources among offspring, predicting high school drop out rates, and playing the stock market. As an interdisciplinary work that is both useful and engaging, this book will appeal to a wide audience. It is ideal for researchers in cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science, as well as in economics and artificial intelligence. It will also inspire anyone interested in simply making good decisions. (shrink)

Under the influence of a reading style that Avital Ronell has called “narcoanalysis,” this article performs a reading of addiction and humility through David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest. Exploring both addiction and humility through the vector of habit, I argue that both habits indicate the non-self-sufficiency of a subject exposed to affection from outside. But while I position addiction alongside humility, both as habits, I also argue that humility parasitizes the totalizing logic of addictive habit. Neither identical to nor (...) simply the opposite of addiction, humility exploits addiction's structure of uncontrollable relationality. Even addiction depends on the affectability or rhetoricity of a subject always already exposed in language. Humility holds this rhetoricity open. (shrink)

Within the highly organized nuclear structure, specific nuclear domains (ND10) are defined by accumulations of proteins that can be interferon-upregulated, implicating ND10 as sites of a nuclear defense mechanism.Compatible with such a mechanism is the deposition of herpesvirus, adenovirus, and papovavirus genomes at the periphery of ND10. However, these DNA viruses begin their transcription at ND10 and consequently initiate replication at these sites, suggesting that viruses have evolved ways to circumvent this potential cellular defense and exploit it. Other ND10-associated proteins (...) belong to ubiquitin-related pathways. These findings, together with the accumulation of various overexpressed cellular and viral proteins, suggest that ND10 function as nuclear dumps or as nuclear depots. Consistent with the recruitment or deposition of various proteins and viral genomes adjacent to ND10, ND10 themselves may only be protein accumulations at specific but as yet undefined nuclear deposition sites. The concept of specific nuclear deposition sites may explain the juxtaposition of various nuclear bodies and allows testable predictions about a potential supramolecular regulatory mechanism whereby proteins are selectively segregated or released by global changes induced in nuclear functions such as viral infections, stress, or hormonal induction. BioEssays 20:660–667, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)

Within the highly organized nuclear structure, specific nuclear domains (ND10) are defined by accumulations of proteins that can be interferon-upregulated, implicating ND10 as sites of a nuclear defense mechanism.Compatible with such a mechanism is the deposition of herpesvirus, adenovirus, and papovavirus genomes at the periphery of ND10. However, these DNA viruses begin their transcription at ND10 and consequently initiate replication at these sites, suggesting that viruses have evolved ways to circumvent this potential cellular defense and exploit it. Other ND10-associated proteins (...) belong to ubiquitin-related pathways. These findings, together with the accumulation of various overexpressed cellular and viral proteins, suggest that ND10 function as nuclear dumps or as nuclear depots. Consistent with the recruitment or deposition of various proteins and viral genomes adjacent to ND10, ND10 themselves may only be protein accumulations at specific but as yet undefined nuclear deposition sites. The concept of specific nuclear deposition sites may explain the juxtaposition of various nuclear bodies and allows testable predictions about a potential supramolecular regulatory mechanism whereby proteins are selectively segregated or released by global changes induced in nuclear functions such as viral infections, stress, or hormonal induction. BioEssays 20:660–667, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)

In the debate regarding the different possibilities for gene therapy, it is presupposed that the manipulations are limited to the nuclear genome (nDNA). Given recent advances in genetics, mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and diseases must be considered as well. In this paper, we propose a three dimensional framework for the ethical debate of gene therapy where we add the genomic type (nDNA vs. mtDNA) as a third dimension to be considered beside the paradigmatic dimensions of target cell (somatic vs. germ-line) and (...) purpose (therapeutic vs. enhancement). Somatic gene therapy can be viewed today as generally accepted, and we review t he contemporary arguments surrounding it on the basis of bioethical-pragmatic, socio-political and deontological classifications. Many of the supposed ethical questions of somatic gene therapy today are not new; they are well-known issues of research ethics. We also critically summarize the different international perspectives and the German ethical discussion regarding manipulations of germ-line cells. (shrink)

Evidence-based recommendations for lifestyles to promote healthy cognitive aging root in reductionistic studies of mostly physical measurable factors with large effect sizes. In contrast, most people consider factors like autonomy, purpose, social participation and engagement, etc. as central to a high quality of life in old age. Evidence for a direct causal impact of these factors on healthy cognitive aging is still limited, albeit not absent. Ultimately, however, individual lifestyle is a complex composite of variables relating to both body and (...) mind as well as to receiving input and generating output. The physical interventions are tied to the more subjective and mind-related aspects of lifestyle and wellbeing in the idea of the “embodied mind,” which states that the mind is shaped by and requires the body. The causality is reciprocal and the process is dynamic, critically requiring movement: the “embodied mind” is a “embodied mind in motion.” Hiking, playing musical instruments, dancing and yoga are examples of body–mind activities that assign depth, purpose, meaning, social embedding, etc. to long-term beneficial physical “activities” and increase quality of life not only as delayed gratification. The present motivational power of embodied activities allows benefiting from the side-effects of late-life resilience. The concept offers an access point for unraveling the mechanistic complexity of lifestyle-based prevention, including their neurobiological foundations. (shrink)

What is the nature of moral behavior? According to the study of bounded rationality, it results not from character traits or rational deliberation alone, but from the interplay between mind and environment. In this view, moral behavior is based on pragmatic social heuristics rather than moral rules or maximization principles. These social heuristics are not good or bad per se, but solely in relation to the environments in which they are used. This has methodological implications for the study of morality: (...) Behavior needs to be studied in social groups as well as in isolation, in natural environments as well as in labs. It also has implications for moral policy: Only by accepting the fact that behavior is a function of both mind and environmental structures can realistic prescriptive means of achieving moral goals be developed. (shrink)

“This is surely the ultimate expression of the top-down approach to consciousness, written with Sommerhoff's characteristic clarity and precision. It says far more than other books four times the size of this admirably concise volume. This book is destined to become a pillar of the subject.” —Rodney Cotterill, Technical University of Denmark The problem of consciousness has been described as a mystery about which we are still in a terrible muddle and in Understanding Consciousness: Its Function and Brain Processes, the (...) author attempts to unravel this mystery by offering a clarification of the main concepts related to consciousness, and positing a comprehensive biological explanation. Consequently, this book will be ideal for a wide-range of upper level undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The author interprets consciousness as a property that can be possessed by many creatures lacking a language faculty and comprises all of the following: awareness of the surrounding world; awareness of the self as an entity; and awareness of such things as thoughts and feelings. He argues that a biological approach can achieve both the necessary conceptual clarifications and a joint explanation of these divisions of awareness in terms of just two accurately defined concepts of 'internal representation' and two empirically supported assumptions about the functional architecture of a specific set of brain processes. Despite this striking simplicity, his model covers these divisions of awareness both as objective faculties of the brain and as subjective experience. These conclusions are applied to a broad range of fundamental questions, including the biological rationale of subjective experience and where consciousness resides in the neural networks. (shrink)