The Strange Situation procedure was developed by Ainsworth two decades agoas a means of assessing the security of infant-parent attachment. Users of the procedureclaim that it provides a way of determining whether the infant has developed species-appropriate adaptive behavior as a result of rearing in an evolutionary appropriate context, characterized by a sensitively responsive parent. Only when the parent behaves in the sensitive, species-appropriate fashion is the baby said to behave in the adaptive or secure fashion. Furthermore, when infants are (...) observed repeatedly in the Strange Situation,the pattern of behavior is said to be highly similar, and this pattern is said to predict the infants' future behavior in a diverse array of contexts. After an exhaustive review of the literature, it is shown that these popular claims are empirically unsupported in their strong form, and that the interpretations in terms of biological adaptationare misguided. There is little reliable evidence about the specific dimensions of parental behavior that affect Strange Situation behavior, although there does appear to be some relationship between these constructs. Temporal stability in security of attachment ishigh only when there is stability in family and caretaking circumstances. Likewise, patterns of Strange Situation behavior only have substantial predictive validity in similarly stable families. Implications for future research and theorizing — particularly as they relate to the use of evolutionary biology in psychological theory — are discussed. (shrink)

Institutional review boards are almost universally considered to be overworked and understaffed. They also require substantial commitments of time and resources from their members. Although some surveys report average IRB memberships of 15 people or more, federal regulations require only five. We present data on IRB meetings at eight of the top 25 academic medical centers in the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health. These data indicate substantial contributions from primary reviewers and chairs during protocol discussions but (...) little from other members, which implies that it may be possible for smaller IRBs to accomplish the same tasks with no reduction in the quality of review. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Peter Gardner; The Compulsory Curriculum and Beyond: a consideration of some aspects of the educational philosophy of J. P. White, Journal of Philosophy of Educ.

Peter Gardner; The Compulsory Curriculum and Beyond: a consideration of some aspects of the educational philosophy of J. P. White, Journal of Philosophy of Educ.

The recent article by R. P. Saller on Roman dowry in the Principate makes some interesting and important suggestions about the function of dowry and its role in the devolution of property. I am in broad agreement with a good deal of what he says, and would not dispute his views that dowry was, as shown by the requirement of collatio dotis, regarded as in a sense part of a woman's patrimony, and that the rules for the recovery of dowry (...) show that the purpose of giving dowry was not held to rest on one single principle, but included provision both for the expenses of the wife's maintenance during marriage and for a possible remarriage after divorce or widowhood. However, his remarks on both points need some qualification and amplification. Briefly, I hope to show that the oddities and anomalies noticed by Saller in the rules governing the recovery of dowry at the end of a marriage are apparent rather than real, since these rules rest, not on conflicting views about the purpose of dowry, but on the fact that the husband had full legal ownership of the dowry during marriage, together with the right of the wife or her pater to an actio rei uxoriae for recovery of dowry; that the rules for collatio dotis applied only if the woman herself chose to claim a share in her father's estate on intestacy beyond the amount of her dowry; that the use of the dowry for the wife's support was an equitable, rather than a legal, requirement. (shrink)

One of my main concerns with Hand’s original paper (see Gardner, 2004, p. 121 and pp. 126–127) was and still is the matter of its relevance. Hand insists in tha.

One of my main concerns with Hand’s original paper (see Gardner, 2004, p. 121 and pp. 126–127) was and still is the matter of its relevance. Hand insists in tha.

The aim of the present study..is to help the interested student come to grips with the basic issues and problems of morality as these appear In the light of Christian faith. It is hoped that the student will be led to pursue the issues that are raised here by reference to other interpretations of Christian ethics. Finally, the reader should perhaps be warned in advance that he will find here no code or set of rules which will tell him what (...) the Christian must do in order to lead the good life. Rather, he will be pointed to a faith which enables him to act spontaneously and freely where the rules break down or are lacking. -- Introduction, p. 18. (shrink)

At a conference I attended not so long ago I suggested to someone who had just read a paper that beneath his apparent commitment to a kind of ethical relativism he was in fact an ethical absolutist. The person I was addressing seemed quite upset by my suggestion and proceeded to argue that my understanding of his paper was somewhat awry. This experience was not new to me. Having taught ethics and philosophy of education courses for many years, courses which (...) have been taken by undergraduates and by members of the teaching profession, I know that if I ever say to those I teach that they are adopting or favouring an absolutist position, then, more than likely, they will regard my remark as something to be opposed and they will often suggest that there must be some misunderstanding on my part. Judging by my experiences, ‘absolutist’ is a label most undergraduates and teachers wish to disown, particularly at the outset of ethics and philosophy courses, even though many of these disowners seem to subscribe to absolutist positions on such issues as racism, rape and child abuse. In his book Ethics; Discovering Right and Wrong Louis P. Pojman, talking about his own findings in this area, makes it clear that my teaching experiences are not unique. Over a period of several years and in several universities Pojman found that most of the students who took his ethics or philosophy courses explicitly rejected absolutism and affirmed support for some kind of relativism even though several of these aspiring relativists subscribed to absolutist positions on various ethical matters. (shrink)

In Chapters 2, 3 and 7 of his new book, Law as a Leap of Faith, John Gardner provides the elements of an account of legal reasoning. It is on the basis of this account that Gardner defends or supports some of the most important theses of his book, viz. theses pertaining to how law can be made, to the relation between law and morality, and to the legitimacy of judicial law-making. A central element of Gardner’s account (...) is a distinction (suggested originally by Joseph Raz) between two forms of legal reasoning, namely, reasoning about the law and reasoning according to law. In this paper I intend to describe and evaluate Gardner’s account. Among the critical remarks that will appear in the paper is the claim that Gardner’s concept of reasoning according to law is overly inclusive. (shrink)

Irrationality remains a central issue in the philosophy of psychoanalysis. While some approaches in the philosophy of mind have argued that irrationality demands no special account, one of the central conceptual planks of psychoanalytic theory is the notion that irrational motivations have their origin in the dynamic unconscious. This article reviews recent attempts to account for the phenomenon of motivated irrationality, and argues that the problem of self-understanding will remain central to the philosophy of mind so long as we accept (...) the notion of rational agency. Any account of the mind which ignores or denies the appeal of first-person mental phenomena risks rendering itself unintelligible as a convincing account of the conscious subject. (shrink)