We present an annotated bibliography of peer reviewed scientific research highlighting the human health, animal welfare, and environmental risks associated with genetic modification. Risks associated with the expression of the transgenic material include concerns over resistance and non-target effects of crops expressing Bt toxins, consequences of herbicide use associated with genetically modified herbicide-tolerant plants, and transfer of gene expression from genetically modified crops through vertical and horizontal gene transfer. These risks are not connected to the technique of genetic modification as (...) such, but would be present for any conventionally produced crops with the same heritable traits. In contrast, other risks are a direct consequence of the method used in gene manipulation. These come about because of the unstable nature of the transgene and vectors used to insert it, and because of unpredictable interactions between the transgene and the host genome. The debate over the release of genetically modified organisms is not merely a scientific one; it encompasses economics, law, ethics, and policy. Any discussion on these levels does, however, need to be informed by sound science. We hope that the scientific references provided here will provide a useful starting point for further debate. (shrink)

Pest control operations andexperimentation on sentient animals such as thebrushtail possum can cause unnecessary andavoidable suffering in the animal subjects.Minimizing animal suffering is an animalwelfare goal and can be used as a guide in thedesign and execution of animal experimentationand pest control operations.The public has little sympathy for the possum,which can cause widespread environmentaldamage, but does believe that control should beas painless as possible. Trapping and poisoningprovide only short-term solutions to the possumproblem and often involve methods that causesuffering. Intrusive experiments (...) connected withthese methods of control and published in thelast 6 years are reviewed. Many of theexperiments do not attain the welfare standardsrequired by members of the public. (shrink)

Sodium monofluoroacetate (1080) is a mammalian pesticide used in different parts of the world for the control of mammalian pest species. In New Zealand it is used extensively and very successfully as a conservation management tool for the control of brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) – an introduced marsupial that has become a substantial agricultural and conservation management pest. Possums pose a threat to cattle farming in New Zealand as they are a vector for bovine tuberculosis. In protected natural areas, possum (...) browsing is responsible for large scale defoliation of native vegetation. As with many other pesticides, there has been some degree of popular concern about the use of this toxin and its safety, with particular reference to non-target effects. These concerns have been associated with potential non-target effects on human health, and the health of animals of recreational value (e.g., hunting dogs and game animals). This has led to the development of a strong “anti-1080” lobby in New Zealand. In contrast, this study encompasses a science-based risk analysis focusing on the potential risks to non-target native wildlife with a particular focus on chronic toxicity. It finds that there is evidence that 1080 may have endocrine disrupting capabilities (with potential relevance for non-target wildlife) but that this still needs more detailed investigation. This can be clarified by further targeted research. Further research is also needed to test the degradation rates of 1080 and its breakdown products at ecologically-relevant temperatures (i.e., winter stream temperatures – below 11 °C). Such research may demonstrate that some adjustment to 1080 risk management is warranted in New Zealand, or it may help to put to rest the current controversy over the use of this cost effective conservation management tool. (shrink)

I argue that the Carroll-Chen cosmogonic model does not provide a plausible scientific explanation of our universe's initial low-entropy state.

Population health has recently grown from a series of loosely connected critiques of twentieth-century public health and medicine into a theoretical framework with a corresponding field of research—population health science. Its approach is to promote the public’s health through improving everyday human life: affordable nutritious food, clean air, safe places where children can play, living wages, etc. It recognizes that addressing contemporary health challenges such as the prevalence of type 2 diabetes will take much more than good hospitals and public (...) health departments. -/- Blending philosophy of science/medicine, public health ethics and history, this book offers a framework that explains, analyses and largely endorses the features that define this relatively new field. Presenting a philosophical perspective, Valles helps to clarify what these features are and why they matter, including: searching for health’s “upstream” causes in social life, embracing a professional commitment to studying and ameliorating the staggering health inequities in and between populations; and reforming scientific practices to foster humility and respect among the many scientists and non- scientists who must work collaboratively to promote health. -/- Featuring illustrative case studies from around the globe at the end of all main chapters, this radical monograph is written to be accessible to all scholars and advanced students who have an interest in health—from public health students to professional philosophers. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the functional anatomy of volition, as revealed by modern brain imaging techniques, in conjunction with neuropsychological data derived from human and non-human primates using other methodologies. A number of brain regions contribute to the performance of consciously chosen, or ‘willed', actions. Of particular importance is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex , together with those brain regions with which it is connected, via cortico-subcortical and cortico-cortical circuits. That aspect of free will which is concerned with the voluntary selection (...) of one action rather than another critically depends upon the normal functioning of DLPFC and associated brain regions. Disease, or dysfunction, of these circuits may be associated with a variety of disorders of volition: Parkinson's disease, ‘utilization’ behaviour, ‘alien’ and ‘phantom’ limbs, and delusions of ‘alien control’ . Brain imaging has allowed us to gain some access to the pathophysiology of these conditions in living patients. At a philosophical level, the distinction between ‘intentions to act', and ‘intentions in action’ may prove particularly helpful when addressing these complex disturbances of human cognition and conscious experience. The exercise and experience of free will depends upon neural mechanisms located in prefrontal cortex and associated brain systems. (shrink)

A growing body of literature has engaged with mass incarceration as a public health problem. This article reviews some of that literature, illustrating why and how bioethicists can and should engage with the problem of mass incarceration as a remediable cause of health inequities. “Mass incarceration” refers to a phenomenon that emerged in the United States fifty years ago: imprisoning a vastly larger proportion of the population than peer countries do, with a greatly disproportionate number of incarcerated people being members (...) of marginalized racial and ethnic groups. Bioethicists have long engaged with questions of health justice for incarcerated people, including consent issues for those participating in research and access to health care. This article provides an overview of the individual and public health impacts of mass incarceration. The article argues that mass incarceration is a bioethics issue that should be addressed in medical education, identifies opportunities for bioethicists to guide hospitals’ interactions with law enforcement officials, and calls on bioethicists to be in conversation with medical and nursing students and health care professionals about these groups’ advocacy efforts concerning structural racism, police violence, and mass incarceration. (shrink)

This paper presents a new model for how to jointly analyze the ethical and evidentiary dimensions of environmental science cases, with an eye toward making science more participatory and publically...

Philosophy of epidemiology has recently emerged as a distinct branch of philosophy. The field will surely benefit from pluralism, reflected in the broad range of topics and perspectives in this special issue. Here, I argue that a healthy pluralistic field of philosophy of epidemiology has social responsibilities that require the field as a whole to engage actively with research on social determinants of health and health disparities. Practicing epidemiologists and the broader community of public health scientists have gradually acknowledged that (...) much of their attention ought to be paid to these, i.e. inequitable between-population health variations that largely reflect the world’s inequitable distribution of resources and social conditions. The paper illustrates how and why health disparities and social determinants of health, through no ill will, become de facto secondary concerns in Alex Broadbent’s field-defining Philosophy of Epidemiology, showing the ease with which these topics can be incidentally sidelined. As means for philosophy of epidemiology to meet its social responsibility obligations, I suggest philosophy of epidemiology expand its attention to two particular lines research. First, the paper discusses Geoffrey Rose’s concept of “causes of incidence”—causes of disparities between populations—and argues for the importance of engaging with these causes. Second, the paper argues for the value of engaging with Bruce Link and Jo Phelan’s “fundamental causes” model of how flexible social resources serve as buffers from harms, generating a plethora of shifting and locally-contingent health effects. (shrink)

Targeting high-risk populations for public health interventions is a classic tool of public health promotion programs. This practice becomes thornier when racial groups are identified as the at-risk populations. I present the particular ethical and epistemic challenges that arise when there are low-risk subpopulations within racial groups that have been identified as high-risk for a particular health concern. I focus on two examples. The black immigrant population does not have the same hypertension risk as US-born African Americans. Similarly, Finnish descendants (...) have a far lower rate of cystic fibrosis than other Caucasians. In both cases the exceptional nature of these subpopulations has been largely ignored by the designers of important public health efforts, including the recent US government dietary recommendations. I argue that amending the publicly-disseminated risk information to acknowledge these exceptions would be desirable for several reasons. First, recognizing low-risk subpopulations would allow more efficient use of limited resources. Communicating this valuable information to the subpopulations would also promote truth-telling. Finally, presenting a more nuanced empirically-supported representation of which groups are at known risk of diseases (not focusing on mere racial categories) would combat harmful biological race essentialist views held by the public. (shrink)

We propose that middle managers’ perceived organizational support enhances their performance through the sequential mediation of their behavioral integrity and follower organizational citizenship behaviors. We test our model with data collected from middle managers, their direct subordinates, and their direct superiors at 18 hotel properties in China. The current study’s findings contribute to the existing literature on perceived organizational support and behavioral integrity. They also add a practical self-interest argument for middle managers’ efforts to maintain their word-action alignment by demonstrating (...) that middle manager behavioral integrity positively affects middle managers’ own task performance ratings, both directly and via its positive effect on subordinates’ organizational citizenship behaviors. (shrink)

According to public health data, the US Hispanic population is far healthier than would be expected for a population with low socioeconomic status. Ever since Kyriakos Markides and Jeannine Coreil highlighted this in a seminal 1986 article, public health researchers have sought to explain the so-called “Hispanic paradox.” Several candidate explanations have been offered over the years, but the debate goes on. This article offers a philosophical analysis that clarifies how two sets of obstacles make it particularly difficult to explain (...) the Hispanic paradox. First, different research projects define the Hispanic paradox phenomenon in substantially different ways. Moreover, using Bas van Fraassen’s pragmatic theory of explanation and Sean Valles’s extension of it with the concept of “phenomenon choice,” it also becomes clear that there are also multiple ways of explaining each individual definition of the phenomenon. A second set of philosophical and methodological challenges arises during any attempt to study “Hispanic” phenomena, with one key challenge being that the “Hispanic” panethnic concept was intentionally made vague as it was developed and popularized during the 1960s–1970s. After comparing this case with similar cases in the philosophical literature, the article concludes with observations on what makes this problem unique, particularly its ethical features. (shrink)

Cheryl Cox MacPherson recently argued, in an article for this journal, that ‘Climate Change is a Bioethics Problem’. This article elaborates on that position, particularly highlighting bioethicists' potential ability to help reframe the current climate change discourse to give more attention to its health risks. This reframing process is especially important because of the looming problem of climate change skepticism. Recent empirical evidence from science framing experiments indicates that the public reacts especially positively to climate change messages framed in public (...) health terms, and bioethicists are particularly well positioned to contribute their expertise to the process of carefully developing and communicating such messages. Additionally, as climate framing research and practice continue, it will be important for bioethicists to contribute to the creation of that project's nascent ethical standards. The discourse surrounding antibiotic resistance is posited as an example that can lend insight into how communicating a public health-framed message, including the participation of bioethicists, can help to override public skepticism about the findings of politically contentious scientific fields. (shrink)

Building a high school philosophy program from scratch requires vision, creativity, determination, and patience. I recount the steps my colleagues and I took to implement philosophy courses at The Stony Brook School and discuss the challenges that arose along the way. I also offer general outlines of the three courses we have implemented (Critical Reading and Reasoning, History of Philosophy, and Ethics and Politics), discuss pedagogical approaches that we have found to work with high school students, and share feedback on (...) the courses from my students. (shrink)

Ray and Cooper (2024) make a very compelling argument for vastly increasing bioethicists’ engagement with environmental justice. I strongly support this proposal and agree with their arguments. Yet...

Since early in the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been wide disparities observed between different US racial groups’ rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths. This challenges physicians and patients to untangle what these race-associated risks mean for an individual patient. I argue that this task of providing individualized risk advice requires physicians to apply two skills: structural competency and epistemic humility.

As the emphasis in the title of his article indicates, Garry Young (2006) wishes to retain a role for conscious intention in the initiation of intentional acts, a proposal he contrasts with the findings and writings of Benjamin Libet, and also my own comments upon the latter (Libet et al., 1983; Spence, 1996). While Libet's classic series of experiments (and their replication by others) established that the conscious intention to act is itself preceded by predictive trains of electrical activity in (...) the brain, Young wishes to attribute a meaningful role to intention even though it arises relatively 'late' in the stream of causation. He believes intention makes a contribution. The question here, or at least the source of perceived disagreement, seems to be: what is the nature of this contribution? Also, are we talking about a single act or the context within which it (action) occurs? (shrink)

Common monogenic genetic diseases, ones that have unexpectedly high frequencies in certain populations, have attracted a great number of conflicting evolutionary explanations. This paper will attempt to explain the mystery of why two particularly extensively studied common genetic diseases, Tay Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis, remain evolutionary mysteries despite decades of research. I review the most commonly cited evolutionary processes used to explain common genetic diseases: reproductive compensation, random genetic drift (in the context of founder effect), and especially heterozygote advantage. (...) The latter process has drawn a particularly large amount of attention, having so successfully explained the elevated frequency of sickle cell anemia in malaria-endemic areas. However, the empirical evidence for heterozygote advantage in other common genetic diseases is quite weak. I introduce and illustrate the significance of a hierarchy of genetic disease phenomena found within the genetic disease explanations, which include the phenomena: single mutation variants of a common genetic disease, single genetic diseases, and classes of diseases with related phenotypic effects. I demonstrate that some of the confusion over the explanations of common genetic diseases can be traced back to confusions over which phenomena are being explained. I proceed to briefly evaluate the existing evidence for two common human genetic diseases: Tay Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis. The above considerations will ultimately shed light on why these diseases’ evolutionary explanations remain so deeply unresolved after so such a great volume of research. (shrink)

“Nobody had ever seen anything like this before.”“Nobody would have ever thought a thing like this could have happened.”There is a lot at stake in the current and forthcoming debates over what/why/how the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the US were unpredictable. These debates are crucial to both our assessments of backward-looking culpability and in the related but even more socially important task of guiding decisions about how to rebuild society after the pandemic subsides. The more we treat the harm as (...) unexpected—a fluke—the more we bolster the argument that no major structural changes need to be made to the US health system. I come to this question as one of... (shrink)

A method is described for inducing a type-logical grammar from a sample of bare sentence trees which are annotated by lambda terms, called term-labelled trees . Any type logic from a permitted class of multimodal logics may be specified for use with the procedure, which induces the lexicon of the grammar including the grammatical categories. A first stage of semantic bootstrapping is performed, which induces a general form lexicon from the sample of term-labelled trees using Fulop’s (J Log Lang Inf (...) 14(1):49–86, 2005) procedure. Next we present a two-stage procedure for performing distributional learning by unifying the lexical types that are initially discovered. The first structural unification algorithm in essence unifies the initial family of sets of types so that the resulting grammar will generate all term-labelled trees that follow the usage patterns evident from the learning sample. Further altering the lexical categories to generate a recursively extended language can be accomplished by a second unification. The combined unification algorithm is shown to yield a new type-logical lexicon that extends the learning sample to a possibly infinite (and possibly context-sensitive) language in a principled fashion. Finally, the complete learning strategy is analyzed from the perspective of algorithmic learning theory; the range of the procedure is shown to be a class of term-labelled tree languages which is finitely learnable from good examples (Lange et al in Algorithmic learning theory, Vol 872 of lecture notes in artificial intelligence, Springer, Berlin, pp 423–437), and so is identifiable in the limit as a corollary. (shrink)

A two-stage procedure is described which induces type-logical grammar lexicons from sentences annotated with skeletal terms of the simply typed lambda calculus. First, a generalized formulae-as-types correspondence is exploited to obtain all the type-logical proofs of the sample sentences from their lambda terms. The resulting lexicons are then optimally unified. The first stage constitutes the semantic bootstrapping (Pinker, Language Learnability and Language Development, Harvard University Press, 1984), while the unification procedure of Buszkowski and Penn represents a first attempt at structure-dependent (...) distributional learning of the syntactic and semantic categories. This effort extends earlier induction procedures (Buszkowski and Penn, 1990, Studia Logica 49, 431–454; Kanazawa, 1998, CSLI Publications and the European Association for Logic, Language and Information) for classical categorial grammar to at first the non-associative Lambek calculus, and then to a large class of type logics enriched by modal operators and structural rules. (shrink)

A two-stage procedure is described which induces type-logical grammar lexicons from sentences annotated with skeletal terms of the simply typed lambda calculus. First, a generalized formulae-as-types correspondence is exploited to obtain all the type-logical proofs of the sample sentences from their lambda terms. The resulting lexicons are then optimally unified. The first stage constitutes the semantic bootstrapping (Pinker, Language Learnability and Language Development, Harvard University Press, 1984), while the unification procedure of Buszkowski and Penn represents a first attempt at structure-dependent (...) distributional learning of the syntactic and semantic categories. This effort extends earlier induction procedures (Buszkowski and Penn, 1990, Studia Logica 49, 431–454; Kanazawa, 1998, CSLI Publications and the European Association for Logic, Language and Information) for classical categorial grammar to at first the non-associative Lambek calculus, and then to a large class of type logics enriched by modal operators and structural rules. (shrink)

Health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life; where they learn, work, play and love. Health is created by caring for oneself and others, by being able to take decisions and have control over one's life circumstances, and by ensuring that the society one lives in creates conditions that allow the attainment of health by all its members.To begin, I largely agree with Doan and Harbin's argument in "Public Health and Precarity," and by extension (...) I largely agree with Sherwin's relational approach to public health. Since this is a commentary on Doan and Harbin's piece, I will keep this relatively short work focused on their paper, rather than... (shrink)

Abstract“Trait” is a ubiquitous term in biology, but its precise meaning and theoretical foundations remain opaque. After distinguishing between “trait” and “character,” I argue for the value of adopting Theodosius Dobzhansky’s 1956 definition and framework for understanding “trait,” which holds that traits are just “semantic devices” that artificially impose order on continuous biological phenomena. I elaborate on this definition to distinguish between trait validity (compliance with Dobzhansky’s trait definition) and trait utility (usefulness of a trait). As a consequence of this (...) elaboration of the meaning of “trait,” it becomes clear that considerations of adaptation, function, homogeneity and natural kinds have clouded discussions of the meaning of “trait” per se. Combining this account with work by David Hull and examples from contemporary biology, I demonstrate that even broad or heterogeneous traits (including multiple sub-traits) can qualify as valid and useful. As a test case for this understanding of trait, I show how it can help resolve critiques of schizophrenia’s status as a single trait, highlighting the recent advances made within schizophrenia research. (shrink)

Lionel Penrose (1898–1972) was an important leader during the mid-20th century decline of eugenics and the development of modern medical genetics. However, historians have paid little attention to his radical theoretical challenges to mainline eugenic concepts of mental disease. Working from a classification system developed with his colleague, E. O. Lewis, Penrose developed a statistically sophisticated and clinically grounded refutation of the popular position that low intelligence is inherently a disease state. In the early 1930s, Penrose advocated dividing “mental defect” (...) (low intelligence) into two categories: “pathological mental defect,” which is a disease state that can be traced to a distinct genetic or environmental cause, and “subcultural mental defect,” which is not an inherent disease state, but rather a statistically necessary manifestation of human variation in intelligence. I explore the historical context and theoretical import of this contribution, discussing its rejection of typological thinking and noting that it preceded Theodosius Dobzhansky’s better-known defense of human diversity. I illustrate the importance of Penrose’s contribution with a discussion of an analogous situation in contemporary medicine, the controversial practice of using human growth hormone injections to treat “idiopathic short stature” (mere diminutive height, with no distinct cause). I show how Penrose’s contributions to understanding human variation make such treatments appear quite misguided. (shrink)

Two decades ago, the eminent evolutionary biologist George C. Williams and his physician coauthor, Randolph Nesse, formulated the evolutionary medicine research program. Williams and Nesse explicitly made adaptationism a core component of the new program, which has served to undermine the program ever since, distorting its practitioners’ perceptions of evidentiary burdens and in extreme cases has served to warp practitioner’s understandings of the relationship between evolutionary benefits/detriments and medical ones. I show that the Williams and Nesse program more particularly embraces (...) the panselectionist variety of adaptationism (the empirical assumption that non-adaptive evolutionary processes are causally unimportant compared to natural selection), and argue that this has harmed the field. Panselectionism serves to conceal the enormous evidentiary hurdles that evolutionary medicine hypotheses face, making them appear stronger than they are. I use two examples of evolutionary medicine texts, on neonatal jaundice and on asthma, to show that some evolutionary medicine practitioners have allowed their fervent panselectionism to directly shape their recommendations for clinical practice. I argue that this escalation of panselectionism’s influence is inappropriate under Williams’ and Nesse original stated standards, despite being inspired by their program. I also show that the examples’ conflation of clinical and evolutionary considerations is inappropriate even under Christopher Boorse’s controversial evolution-rooted concepts of disease and health. (shrink)

We propose a way in which Barsalou could strengthen his position and at the same time make a considerable dent in the category/abstraction problem (that he suggests remains unsolved). There exists a class of connectionist models that solves this problem parsimoniously and provides a mechanistic underpinning for the promising high-level architecture he proposes.

This essay argues that a failure to think and talk critically and candidly about White privilege and White poverty is a key threat to the United States of America's precarious democracy. Whiteness frames one of America's most pressing collective challenges—the poor state of the nation's health, which lags behind other wealthy nations and is marred by deep and entrenched class‐ and race‐based inequities. The broadscale remedies experts recommend demand what is in short supply: trust in evidence, experts, government, and one (...) another. The authors’ prescription is threefold, beginning with a call for intersectional health studies and reports that avoid one‐dimensional misrepresentations of widespread health problems as simply Black or White problems. Second, there is the need for a “critical consciousness” about race and class. Lastly, the essay calls for widescale opportunities for Americans to engage in cross‐racial and cross‐class democratic conversations about their struggles and aspirations in search of common ground. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to the Synthese Special Issue, Philosophy of Epidemiology. The overall goals of the issue are to revisit the state of philosophy of epidemiology and to provide a forum for new voices, approaches, and perspectives in the philosophy of epidemiology literature. The introduction begins by drawing on Geoffrey Rose’s work on how to conceptualize and design interventions for populations, rather than individuals. It then goes on to highlight some themes that emerged in the articles that make (...) up the issue: philosophy of epidemiology and epidemiological theory—what they are and what they ought to be, pluralism in measurement and causal attribution, epistemic and non-epistemic values in disputes epidemiological practices, decentering philosophy of epidemiology’s Eurocentrism, letting pragmatism guide uses of big data in epidemiology, and revisiting the lessons of classic texts in epidemiological causal inference. The introduction concludes with comments on a philosophy of epidemiology debate we see on, regarding the politics of philosophy of epidemiology. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to eight (...) ethical vignettes. The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles. This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; THE VIEW FROM WITHIN, Sean Spence; COMMENTARY ON HODGSON, Henry (...) Stapp. (shrink)

The domain of children's social understanding, including understanding of one's own and others’ minds and emotions, has been the topic of much research over the past few decades. Social understandi...

Training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) is required for many research trainees nationwide, but little is known about its effectiveness. For a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of a short-term course in RCR, medical students participating in an NIH-funded summer research program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) were surveyed using an instrument developed through focus group discussions. In the summer of 2003, surveys were administered before and after a short-term RCR course, as well as to (...) alumni of the courses given in the summers of 2002 and 2001. Survey responses were analyzed in the areas of knowledge, ethical decision-making skills, attitudes about responsible conduct of research, and frequency of discussions about RCR outside of class. The only statistically significant improvement associated with the course was an increase in knowledge, while there was a non-significant tendency toward improvements in ethical decision-making skills and attitudes about the importance of RCR training. The nominal impact of a short-term training course should not be surprising, but it does raise the possibility that other options for delivering information only, such as an Internet-based tutorial, might be considered as comparable alternatives when longer courses are not possible. (shrink)