The Clinton administration has been characterized by numerous efforts to encourage the use of technology in public education, rooted in the conviction that such activities are a prerequisite for improvements in the econonomy, the environment, and the overall quality of life. Urban public schools face particularly difficult challenges to such technology implementation. The challenges include aged physical plants, extreme funding difficulties, high levels of administrative turnover, and inadequate professional development programs. This article examines the implications of attempting to integrate extensive (...) technology into such environments and considers the perspective that technology is best viewed as part of, rather than a competitor to, the implementation of a school reform model. (shrink)

A fundamental cognitive function found across a wide range of species and necessary for survival is the ability to navigate complex environments. It has been suggested that mobility may play an important role in the development of spatial skills. Despite evolutionary arguments offering logical explanations for why sex/gender differences in spatial abilities and mobility might exist, thus far there has been limited sampling from nonindustrialized and subsistence-based societies. This lack of sampling diversity has left many unanswered questions regarding the effects (...) that environmental variation and cultural norms may have in shaping mobility patterns during childhood and the development of spatial competencies that may be associated with it. Here we examine variation in mobility, performance on large-scale spatial skills, and performance on small-scale spatial skills among Twa forager/pastoralist children whose daily lives have been dramatically altered since settlement and the introduction of government-funded boarding schools. Unlike in previous findings among Twa adults, boys and girls show similar patterns of travel on all measures of mobility. We also find no significant differences in spatial task performance by gender for large- or small-scale spatial skills. Further, children performed as well as adults did on mental rotation, and they outperformed adults on the water-level task. We discuss how children’s early learning environments may influence the development of both large- and small-scale spatial skills. (shrink)

In 1728, when the sixteen-year-old Hume, still apparently ‘at college’, was beginning, all unknown to his family, to turn his attention to philosophy, Edinburgh and Glasgow were swarming with earnest metaphysicians, many of them not much older than Hume himself. ‘It is well known’, the Ochtertyre papers relate, ‘that between the years 1723 and 1740 nothing was in more request with the Edinburgh literati, both laical and clerical, than metaphysical disquisitions’, and Locke, Clarke, Butler and Berkeley are mentioned as the (...) chief subjects for debate. Moreover, it is clear enough from the records that this surge of intellectual interests was chiefly the work of a younger generation, wearied alike of Calvinist theology and of Jacobite politics. Indeed to begin with it was the students’ societies which took the lead, and a plain enough hint of their serious critical attack is given in one sour entry in the diary of the Calvinist minister Woodrow for 1726. ‘These student clubs are like to have a very ill influence; they declare against reading and cry up thinking.’. (shrink)

Seeking to preserve electronically encoded evidence implies that an incident or event has occurred requiring fact extrapolation for presentation, as proof of an irregularity or illegal act. Whether target data are in transit or at rest, it is critical that measures be in place to prevent the sought information from being destroyed, corrupted or becoming unavailable for forensic investigation.

This essay uses a mental files theory of singular thought—a theory saying that singular thought about and reference to a particular object requires possession of a mental store of information taken to be about that object—to explain how we could have such thoughts about abstract mathematical objects. After showing why we should want an explanation of this I argue that none of three main contemporary mental files theories of singular thought—acquaintance theory, semantic instrumentalism, and semantic cognitivism—can give it. I argue (...) for two claims intended to advance our understanding of singular thought about mathematical abstracta. First, that the conditions for possession of a file for an abstract mathematical object are the same as the conditions for possessing a file for an object perceived in the past—namely, that the agent retains information about the object. Thus insofar as we are able to have memory-based files for objects perceived in the past, we ought to be able to have files for abstract mathematical objects too. Second, at least one recently articulated condition on a file’s being a device for singular thought—that it be capable of surviving a certain kind of change in the information it contains—can be satisfied by files for abstract mathematical objects. (shrink)

Abstract:The experience of chronic pain can disrupt an understanding of oneself in terms of ability and possibility. In response, the pain sufferer needs an understanding conversation partner to help reinterpret their sense of self. Yet women in pain often encounter neglect, disbelief, or worse in today's medical institutions. They may end up seeking the authoritative pronouncement of a diagnosis rather than a partner in recovery. We must develop new language and new relationships within the medical field for helping women in (...) pain renegotiate their self-understanding and reinvigorate their engagement with the world and others through dialogue and play. (shrink)

Navigational performance responds to navigational challenges, and both decline with age in Western populations as older people become less mobile. But mobility does not decline everywhere; Tsimané forager-farmers in Bolivia remain highly mobile throughout adulthood, traveling frequently by foot and dugout canoe for subsistence and social visitation. We, therefore, measured both natural mobility and navigational performance in 305 Tsimané adults, to assess differences with age and to test whether greater mobility was related to better navigational performance across the lifespan. Daily (...) mobility was measured by GPS tracking, regional mobility through interview, navigational performance through pointing accuracy and perspective taking in environmental space, and mental rotation by a computerized task. Although mental rotation and spatial perspective taking declined with age, mobility and pointing accuracy remained high from mid-life through old age. Greater regional mobility was associated with greater accuracy at pointing and perspective taking, suggesting that spatial experience at environmental scales may help maintain navigational performance in later adulthood. (shrink)

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09400-0.

Navigational performance responds to navigational challenges, and both decline with age in Western populations as older people become less mobile. But mobility does not decline everywhere; Tsimané forager-farmers in Bolivia remain highly mobile throughout adulthood, traveling frequently by foot and dugout canoe for subsistence and social visitation. We, therefore, measured both natural mobility and navigational performance in 305 Tsimané adults, to assess differences with age and to test whether greater mobility was related to better navigational performance across the lifespan. Daily (...) mobility was measured by GPS tracking, regional mobility through interview, navigational performance through pointing accuracy and perspective taking in environmental space, and mental rotation by a computerized task. Although mental rotation and spatial perspective taking declined with age, mobility and pointing accuracy remained high from mid-life through old age. Greater regional mobility was associated with greater accuracy at pointing and perspective taking, suggesting that spatial experience at environmental scales may help maintain navigational performance in later adulthood. (shrink)

In 1922 Charles Hartshorne, then an aspiring young philosopher, wrote to Edgar Sheffield Brightman, a preeminent philosopher of religion for twenty-three subsequent years and, remarkably, almost every letter was preserved. In their introductory essays, editors Randall Auxier and Mark Davies place the unusually rich and intensive correspondence in its intellectual context and address the relationship between personalism and process philosophy/theology in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy.

This text introduces university students to the philosophical ethos of critical thinking, as well as to the essential skills required to practice it. The authors believe that Critical Thinking should engage students with issues of broader philosophical interest while they develop their skills in reasoning and argumentation. The text is informed throughout by philosophical theory concerning argument and communication—from Aristotle's recognition of the importance of evaluating argument in terms of its purpose to Habermas's developing of the concept of communicative rationality. (...) The authors' treatment of the topic is also sensitive to the importance of language and of situation in shaping arguments, and to the necessity in argument of some interplay between reason and emotion. Unlike many other texts in this area, then, Good Reasons for Better Arguments helps to explain both why argument is important and how the social role of argument plays an important part in determining what counts as a good argument. If this text is distinctive in the extent to which it deals with the theory and the values of critical thinking, it is also noteworthy for the thorough grounding it provides in the skills of deductive and inductive reasoning; the authors present the reader with useful tools for the interpretation, evaluation and construction of arguments. A particular feature is the inclusion of a wide range of exercises, rich with examples that illuminate the practice of argument for the student. Many of the exercises are self testing, with answers provided at the back of the text; others are appropriate for in-class discussion and assignments. Challenging yet accessible, Good Reasons for Better Arguments brings a fresh perspective to an essential subject. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmotion regulation substantially develops during the childhood years. This growth includes an increasing awareness that certain ER strategies are more appropriate in some contexts than...

Parents of children with terminal illness may try many different types of alternative and unproven treatment, not all recognised by the medical establishment. When active participation is requested difficult ethical dilemmas may arise. We present one such case, a child of five years with an inoperable posterior fossa brain tumour.

The essays included in this volume are concerned with assessing Newton's contribution to the thought of others. They explore all aspects of the conceptual background-historical, philosophical, and narrowly methodological-and examine questions that developed in the wake of Newton's science.

Three decades ago Gilbert posited that novel proteins arise by re‐shuffling genomic sequences encoding polypeptide domains. Today, with numerous genomes and countless genes sequenced, it is well established that recombination of sequences encoding polypeptide domains plays a major role in protein evolution. There is, however, less evidence to suggest how the novel polypeptide domains, themselves, arise. Recent comparisons of genomes from closely related species have revealed numerous species‐specific exons, supporting models of domain origin based on “exonization” of intron sequences. Also, (...) a mechanism for the origin of novel polypeptide domains has been proposed based on analyses of insertion‐based polymorphisms between orthologous genes across broad phylogenetic spectra and between allelic variants of genes within species. This review discusses these processes and how each might participate in the evolutionary emergence of novel polypeptide domains. BioEssays 29: 262–270, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In a world increasingly described as turbulent and chaotic, management scholars have acknowledged the importance of a virtue-based set of criteria to serve as a moral rubric for the stakeholders that an organization serves. Business schools play a unique role in helping their students to understand the ethical issues facing business. Business schools can also model the way for creating a clear statement of values and principles, by creating a bill of rights for business schools that recognizes the importance of (...) rights and responsibilities and articulates the important ethical issues that apply not only to business but to the business school context. Four models for creating a bill of rights in schools of business are presented and a framework of a bill of rights is provided. The advantages of a virtue ethics model for a bill of rights are explained as the most practical approach for business faculty to consider. (shrink)