In my response to the paper by Jagers op Akkerhuis, I object against giving definitions of life, since they bias anything that follows. As we don’t know how life originated, authors characterise life using criteria derived from present-day properties, thus emphasising widely different ones, which gives bias to their further analysis. This makes their results dependent on their initial suppositions, which introduces circularity in their reasoning.

This paper analyses the broad methodological structure of population-biological theorising. In it, I show that the distinction between initial exploratory, hypothesis-generating research and the subsequent process-reconstructing, hypothesis-testing type of research is not being made. Rather, the hypotheses generated in population biology are elaborated in such detail that students confound the initial research phase with the subsequent hypotheses-testing phase of research. In this context, I therefore analyse some testing procedures within the exploration phase and show that, as an extreme form of (...) confusion, statistical null-models are mistakenly given the status of causal population-biological theory. (shrink)

This paper compares two approaches that attempt to explain the origin of life, or biogenesis. The more established approach is one based on chemical principles, whereas a new, yet not widely known approach begins from a physical perspective. According to the first approach, life would have begun with—often organic—compounds. After having developed to a certain level of complexity and mutual dependence within a non-compartmentalised organic soup, they would have assembled into a functioning cell. In contrast, the second, physical type of (...) approach has life developing within tiny compartments from the beginning. It emphasises the importance of redox reactions between inorganic elements and compounds found on two sides of a compartmental boundary. Without this boundary, “life” would not have begun, nor have been maintained; this boundary—and the complex cell membrane that evolved from it—forms the essence of life. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes four recognisably different geographical processes in principle causing species to die out. One of these processes, the one we dub “range eclipse”, holds that one range expands at the expense of another one, thereby usurping it. Channell and Lomolino (2000a, Journal of Biogeography 27: 169–179; 2000b, Nature 403: 84–87; see also Lomolino and Channell, 1995, Journal of Mammalogy 76: 335–347) measured the course of this process in terms of the proportion of the total range remaining in its (...) original centre, thereby essentially assuming a homogeneous distribution of animals over the range. However, part of their measure seems mistaken. By giving a general, analytical formulation of eclipsing ranges, we estimate the exact course of this process. Also, our formulation does not partition a range into two spatially equal parts, its core and its edge, but it assumes continuity. For applying this model to data on the time evolution of species, individual time series should be available for each of them. For practical purposes we give an alternative way of plotting and interpreting such time series. Our approach, being more sensitive than Channell and Lomolino’s, gives a less optimistic indication of range eclipses than theirs once these have started. (shrink)

Although the academic interest in ethical mutual fund performance has developed steadily, the evidence to date is mainly sample-specific. To tackle this critique, new research should extend to unexplored countries. Using this as a motivation, we examine the performance and risk sensitivities of Canadian ethical mutual funds vis-à-vis their conventional peers. In order to overcome the methodological deficiencies most prior papers suffered from, we use performance measurement approaches in the spirit of Carhart (1997, Journal of Finance 52(1): 57–82) and Ferson (...) and Schadt (1996, Journal of Finance 51(2): 425–461). In doing so, we investigate the aggregated performance and investment style of ethical and conventional mutual funds and allow for time variation in the funds’ systematic risk. Our␣Canadian evidence supports the conjecture that any␣performance differential between ethical mutual funds and their conventional peers is statistically insignificant. (shrink)

Robert Boyd*†, Herbert Gintis‡, Samuel Bowles§, and Peter J. Richerson¶.

This article examines how the availability of Big Data, coupled with new data analytics, challenges established epistemologies across the sciences, social sciences and humanities, and assesses the extent to which they are engendering paradigm shifts across multiple disciplines. In particular, it critically explores new forms of empiricism that declare ‘the end of theory’, the creation of data-driven rather than knowledge-driven science, and the development of digital humanities and computational social sciences that propose radically different ways to make sense of culture, (...) history, economy and society. It is argued that: Big Data and new data analytics are disruptive innovations which are reconfiguring in many instances how research is conducted; and there is an urgent need for wider critical reflection within the academy on the epistemological implications of the unfolding data revolution, a task that has barely begun to be tackled despite the rapid changes in research practices presently taking place. After critically reviewing emerging epistemological positions, it is contended that a potentially fruitful approach would be the development of a situated, reflexive and contextually nuanced epistemology. (shrink)

We show that three fundamental information-theoretic constraints -- the impossibility of superluminal information transfer between two physical systems by performing measurements on one of them, the impossibility of broadcasting the information contained in an unknown physical state, and the impossibility of unconditionally secure bit commitment -- suffice to entail that the observables and state space of a physical theory are quantum-mechanical. We demonstrate the converse derivation in part, and consider the implications of alternative answers to a remaining open question about (...) nonlocality and bit commitment. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that, despite Kierkegaard’s seemingly harsh critique of temperance, it plays a crucial role in his ethics developed under the pseudonym of Anti-Climacus in The Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity. Anti-Climacus, following Socrates in the Philebus, thinks of the good life as ”mixed’, in which the different and opposed dimensions of human existence, peras and apeiron, are in due proportion. In Anti-Climacus’s ethics, the process of realizing the ”mixed’ life does not, contra the Socratic (...) conception, involve reason restricting desire but instead, the will grounding imagination in the facticity of human existence. It is through this process of perfection that we are able to imitate Christ, which is how Anti-Climacus ultimately understands the good life. Moreover, I suggest that we could understand this temperance as a virtue. In the conclusion, I show that Kierkegaard’s apparent critique of temperance is actually a critique of mediocrity. (shrink)

If culture is defined as variation acquired and maintained by social learning, then culture is common in nature. However, cumulative cultural evolution resulting in behaviors that no individual could invent on their own is limited to humans, song birds, and perhaps chimpanzees. Circumstantial evidence suggests that cumulative cultural evolution requires the capacity for observational learning. Here, we analyze two models the evolution of psychological capacities that allow cumulative cultural evolution. Both models suggest that the conditions which allow the evolution of (...) such capacities when rare are much more stringent than the conditions which allow the maintenance of the capacities when common. This result follows from the fact that the assumed benefit of the capacities, cumulative cultural adaptation, cannot occur when the capacities are rare. These results suggest why such capacities may be rare in nature. (shrink)

Entanglement has long been the subject of discussion by philosophers of quantum theory, and has recently come to play an essential role for physicists in their development of quantum information theory. In this paper we show how the formalism of algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT) provides a rigorous framework within which to analyse entanglement in the context of a fully relativistic formulation of quantum theory. What emerges from the analysis are new practical and theoretical limitations on an experimenter's ability to (...) perform operations on a field in one spacetime region that can disentangle its state from the state of the field in other spacelike-separated regions. These limitations show just how deeply entrenched entanglement is in relativistic quantum field theory, and yield a fresh perspective on the ways in which the theory differs conceptually from both standard non-relativistic quantum theory and classical relativistic field theory. (shrink)

Philosophical reflection on quantum field theory has tended to focus on how it revises our conception of what a particle is. However, there has been relatively little discussion of the threat to the "reality" of particles posed by the possibility of inequivalent quantizations of a classical field theory, i.e., inequivalent representations of the algebra of observables of the field in terms of operators on a Hilbert space. The threat is that each representation embodies its own distinctive conception of what a (...) particle is, and how a "particle" will respond to a suitably operated detector. Our main goal is to clarify the subtle relationship between inequivalent representations of a field theory and their associated particle concepts. We also have a particular interest in the Minkowski versus Rindler quantizations of a free Boson field, because they respectively entail two radically different descriptions of the particle content of the field in the *very same* region of spacetime. We shall defend the idea that these representations provide *complementary descriptions* of the same state of the field against the claim that they embody completely *incommensurable theories* of the field. (shrink)

Ecological theory is built upon assumptions about the fundamental nature of organism-environment interactions. We argue that two mutually exclusive sets of such assumptions are available and that they have given rise to alternative approaches to studying ecology. The fundamentally different premises of these approaches render them irreconcilable with one another. In this paper, we present the first logical formalisation of these two paradigms.The more widely-accepted approach - which we label the demographic paradigm - includes both population ecology and community ecology (...) (synecology). Demographic ecology assumes that the environment is relatively stable and that biotic processes, governed predominantly by resource availability, are the most important of ecological and evolutionary influences. Moreover, ecological processes are assumed to translate into directional selection pressures that drive significant evolutionary change on a local scale through the process of optimisation. (shrink)

Peter Lewis ([1997]) has recently argued that the wavefunction collapse theory of GRW (Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber [1986]) can only solve the problem of wavefunction tails at the expense of predicting that arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. More specifically, Lewis argues that the GRW theory must violate the enumeration principle: that 'if marble 1 is in the box and marble 2 is in the box and so on through marble n, then all n marbles are in the (...) box' ([1997], p. 321). Ghirardi and Bassi ([1999]) have replied that it is meaningless to say that the enumeration principle is violated because the wavefunction Lewis uses to exhibit the violation cannot persist, according to the GRW theory, for more than a split second ([1999], p. 709). On the contrary, we argue that Lewis's argument survives Ghirardi and Bassi' s criticism unscathed. We then go on to show that, while the enumeration principle can fail in the GRW theory, the theory itself guarantees that the principle can never be empirically falsified, leaving the applicability of arithmetical reasoning to both micro- and macroscopic objects intact. (shrink)

This paper suggests that the energy flow on which all living structures depend only started up slowly, the low-energy, initial phase starting up a second, slightly more energetic phase, and so on. In this way, the build up of the energy flow follows a bootstrapping process similar to that found in the development of computers, the first generation making possible the calculations necessary for constructing the second one, etc. In the biogenetic upstart of an energy flow, non-metals in the lower (...) periods of the Periodic Table of Elements would have constituted the most primitive systems, their operation being enhanced and later supplanted by elements in the higher periods that demand more energy. This bootstrapping process would put the development of the metabolisms based on the second period elements carbon, nitrogen and oxygen at the end of the evolutionary process rather than at, or even before, the biogenetic event. (shrink)

Proposed ways of governing climate engineering have most often been supported by narrowly framed and unreflexive appraisals and processes. This article explores the governance implications of a Deliberative Mapping project that, unlike other governance principles, have emerged from an extensive process of reflection and reflexivity. In turn, the project has made significant advances in addressing the current deficit of responsibly defined criteria for shaping governance propositions. Three such propositions argue that reflexive foresight of the imagined futures in which climate engineering (...) proposals might reside is required; the performance and acceptance of climate engineering proposals should be decided in terms of robustness, not optimality; and climate engineering proposals should be satisfactorily opened up before they can be considered legitimate objects of governance. Taken together, these propositions offer a sociotechnical framework not simply for governing climate engineering but for governing responses to climate change at large. (shrink)

`It is a safe bet that Key Thinkers will emerge as something of a 'hit' within the undergraduate community and will rise to prominance as a 'must buy' -Environment and Planning `Key Thinkers on Space and Place is an engagingly written, well-researched and very accessible book. It will surely prove an invaluable tool for students, whom I would strongly encourage to purchase this edited collection as one of the best guides to recent geographical thought' -Claudio Minca, University of Newcastle `Key (...) Thinkers is the best encyclopedic tool for human geographers since the Dictionary of Human Geography. It takes into its orbit discussions of the lives and work of the last three decades' major thinkers on space and place. It is hugely useful for students who want an easy way to access the roots of where some major themes and debates in contemporary geography. It is organized so that each chapter details the scholar's biography, their contribution to spatial and place-based theory and the controversies that arise through their work' - Stuart Aitken, San Diego State University Key Thinkers on Space and Place is a comprehensive guide to the latest work on space. Each entry is a short interpretative essay of 2,500 words, outlining the contributions made by the key theorists, and comprises: · a concise biography, indicating disciplinary background, career trajectory and collaboration with others · an outline of the key theoretical, conceptual and methodological ideas each has introduced to human geography · an explanation of the reaction to, and uptake of, how these ideas has changed and evolved over time · an explanation of how these theories have been used and critiqued by human geographers · a selective bibliography of each thinker's key publications (and key secondary publications) The text is introduced by a contextual essay which outlines in general terms the shifting ways in which space and place have been theorised and which explains how Key Thinkers on Space and Place can be used. A glossary that defines key traditions, with cross-links to key theorists and a timeline of key article/book publication date is also included. (shrink)

Some conspicuous characteristics of argumentation as we all know this phenomenon from our shared everyday experiences are in my view vital to its theoretical treatment because they should have methodological consequences for the way in which argumentation research is conducted. To start with, argumentation is in the first place a communicative act complex, which is realized by making functional verbal communicative moves.

In an essay on performance-enhancing drugs, author Chuck Klosterman (2007) argues that the category of enhancers extends from hallucinogens used to inspire music to steroids used to strengthen athletes—and he criticizes those who would excuse one means of enhancement while railing against the other as a form of cheating: After the summer of 1964, the Beatles started taking serious drugs, and those drugs altered their musical performance. Though it may not have been their overt intent, the Beatles took performance-enhancing drugs. (...) And . . . absolutely no one holds it against them. No one views “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” as “less authentic” albums, despite the fact that they would not (and probably could .. (shrink)

Some people (e.g., Drs. Paul and Susan Lim) and, with them, organizations (e.g., the National Embryo Donation Center) believe that, morally speaking, the death of a frozen human embryo is a very bad thing. With such people and organizations in mind, the question to be addressed here is as follows: if one believes that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, ought, morally speaking, one prevent the death of at least one frozen embryo via embryo adoption? (...) By way of a three‐premise argument, one of which is a moral principle first introduced by Peter Singer, my answer to this question is: at least some of those who believe this ought to. (Just who the “some” are is identified in the paper.) If this is correct, then, for said people, preventing the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is not a morally neutral matter; it is, instead, a morally laden one. Specifically, their intentional refusal to prevent the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is, at a minimum, morally criticizable and, arguably, morally forbidden. Either way, it is, to one extent or another, a moral failing. (shrink)

In his recent article On Relativity Theory and Openness of the Future (1991), Howard Stein proves not only that one can define an objective becoming relation in Minkowski spacetime, but that there is only one possible definition available if one accepts certain natural assumptions about what it is for becoming to occur and for it to be objective. Stein uses the definition supplied by his proof to refute an argument due to Rietdijk (1966, 1976), Putnam (1967) and Maxwell (1985, 1988) (...) that Minkowski spacetime leaves no room for objective becoming whatsoever. However, Stein's proof does not seem to go far enough. By considering only what events have become from the standpoint of any given event, Stein's uniqueness proof fails from the outset to allow for a more general kind of becoming whereby it is understood to occur from the standpoint of events on the particular worldlines followed by observers. This suggests that there may, after all, be more than one way to define objective becoming in Minkowski spacetime once each observer's worldline is allowed to figure in the definition. This suspicion is further aroused by two recent proposals for objective, worldline-dependent becoming due to Peacock (1992) and Muller (1992) who advocate ways of defining becoming that are not equivalent to the definition Stein's uniqueness proof delivers. Nevertheless, we show that Stein's uniqueness proofcan be extended in a natural way to cover this more general kind of becoming, provided one does not enrich standard Minkowski spacetime by privileging certain sets of worldlines over others in an unwarranted manner. Thus we aim to reinforce Stein's point that standard Minkowski spacetime does make room for objective becoming, but in essentially only one way, despite arguments and proposals to the contrary. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore postgraduate students’ lived experiences of managing research ethics committee processes. Whilst there is a wide range of research that explores ethics principles/guidan...

_Yanomami_ raises questions central to the field of anthropology—questions concerning the practice of fieldwork, the production of knowledge, and anthropology's intellectual and ethical vision of itself. Using the Yanomami controversy—one of anthropology's most famous and explosive imbroglios—as its starting point, this book draws readers into not only reflecting on but refashioning the very heart and soul of the discipline. It is both the most up-to-date and thorough public discussion of the Yanomami controversy available and an innovative and searching assessment of (...) the current state of anthropology. The Yanomami controversy came to public attention through the publication of Patrick Tierney's best-selling book, _Darkness in El Dorado,_ in which he accuses James Neel, a prominent geneticist who belonged to the National Academy of Sciences, as well as Napoleon Chagnon, whose introductory text on the Yanomami is perhaps the best-selling anthropological monograph of all time, of serious human rights violations. This book identifies the ethical dilemmas of the controversy and raises deeper, structural questions about the discipline. A portion of the book is devoted to a unique roundtable in which important scholars on different sides of the issues debate back and forth with each other. This format draws readers into deciding, for themselves, where they stand on the controversy’s—and many of anthropology’s—central concerns. All of the royalties from this book will be donated to helping the Yanomami improve their healthcare. (shrink)

Political CSR scholars argue that multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) should be designed to facilitate deliberation among corporations, civil society groups, and others affected by corporate conduct for their decisions to be considered democratically legitimate. However, critics argue that decisions reached within deliberative MSIs will lack democratic legitimacy so long as corporations are granted a role in helping to make them. If the critics are correct, it leads to a paradox. Corporations must be excluded from holding decision-making authority within MSIs if they (...) are to function as democratically legitimate regulatory institutions at a global level. However, this risks severely diminishing the incentive of corporations to support and participate within MSIs, which often depend heavily for their success on the visibility provided them by corporate participants. In this paper, I argue that this apparent paradox should be considered irrelevant to the future study of MSIs since it is both unnecessary and impractical for researchers to focus on establishing democratically legitimate systems of governance within them. Instead, I recommend an approach informed by three touchstones of pragmatic philosophy to guide their future study—a criterion of usefulness, wariness of category disputes and commitment to experimentalism. I conclude by drawing on research in political science and social psychology that demonstrates an important practical role for deliberation within such organizations, arguing that researchers must zero in on the role that inclusive deliberation can play in bolstering their effectiveness as regulatory instruments. (shrink)

This paper compares two approaches that attempt to explain the origin of life, or biogenesis. The more established approach is one based on chemical principles, whereas a new, yet not widely known approach begins from a physical perspective. According to the first approach, life would have begun with—often organic—compounds. After having developed to a certain level of complexity and mutual dependence within a non-compartmentalised organic soup, they would have assembled into a functioning cell. In contrast, the second, physical type of (...) approach has life developing within tiny compartments from the beginning. It emphasises the importance of redox reactions between inorganic elements and compounds found on two sides of a compartmental boundary. Without this boundary, “ life ” would not have begun, nor have been maintained; this boundary—and the complex cell membrane that evolved from it—forms the essence of life. (shrink)

Emotion, Sense, Experience calls on historians of emotions and the senses to come together in serious and sustained dialogue. The Element outlines the deep if largely unacknowledged genealogy of historical writing insisting on a braided history of emotions and the senses; explains why recent historical treatments have sometimes profitably but nonetheless unhelpfully segregated the emotions from the senses; and makes a compelling case for the heuristic and interpretive dividends of bringing emotions and sensory history into conversation. Ultimately, we envisage a (...) new way of understanding historical lived experience generally, as a mutable product of a situated world-brain-body dynamic. Such a project necessarily points us towards new interdisciplinary engagement and collaboration, especially with social neuroscience. Unpicking some commonly held assumptions about affective and sensory experience, we re-imagine the human being as both biocultural and historical, reclaiming the analysis of human experience from biology and psychology and seeking new collaborative efforts. (shrink)

According to the theory of intrinsic value and moral standing called the ‘substance view,’ what makes it prima facie seriously wrong to kill adult human beings, human infants, and even human fetuses is the possession of the essential property of the basic capacity for rational moral agency – a capacity for rational moral agency in root form and thereby not remotely exercisable. In this critique, I cover three distinct reductio charges directed at the substance view's conclusion that human fetuses have (...) the same intrinsic value and moral standing as adult human beings. After giving consideration to defenders of the substance view's replies to these charges, I then critique each of them, ultimately concluding that none is successful. Of course, in order to understand all of these things – the reductio charges, defenders of the substance view's replies to them, and my criticisms of their replies – one must have a better understanding of the substance view as well as its defense. Accordingly, I address the substance view's understanding of rational moral agency as well as present its defense. (shrink)

A flourishing literature assesses how sustainable business models create and capture value in socio-ecological systems. Nevertheless, we still know relatively little about how the organization of sustainable business models—of which cross-sector partnerships represent a core and distinctive mechanism—can support socio-ecological resilience. We address this knowledge gap by taking a complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective. We develop a framework that identifies the key strategic, institutional, and learning elements of partnerships that sustainable business models rely on to support socio-ecological resilience. With our (...) analytical framework, we underpin the importance of assessing sustainable business initiatives in terms of their impact on resilience at the level of socio-ecological systems, not just of organizations. Therefore, we reveal how cross-sector partnerships provide the organizational support for sustainable business models to support socio-ecological resilience. By combining the key features of CAS and the key elements of partnerships, we provide insight into the formidable task of designing cross-sector partnerships so that they support socio-ecological resilience and avoid unintended consequences. (shrink)

In this paper (which is, at best, a work in progress), I discuss different modes of scientific explanation identified by philosophers (Hempel, Salmon, Kitcher, Friedman, Hughes) and examine how well or badly they capture the "explanations" of phenomena that modern quantum theory provides. I tentatively conclude that quantum explanation is best seen as "structural explanation", and spell out in detail how this works in the case of explaining vacuum correlations. Problems and prospects for structural explanation in quantum theory are also (...) discussed. (shrink)