Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems consists of thirteen chapters that address the ethical issues raised by technological intervention and design across a broad range of biological and ecological systems. Among the technologies addressed are geoengineering, human enhancement, sex selection, genetic modification, and synthetic biology.

Unlike his other fictional works Blanchot’s 1953 narrative Celui qui ne m’accompagnait pas has received comparatively little attention. The reasons for this would seem to lie in the intense abstraction of his writing in this work, which is forbidding even by his own standards, but as I will show, this intensity can be understood as comprising a singular topography of the experience of writing. Blanchot’s narrative thereby becomes a very precise and concrete form of aesthetics, which can be usefully compared (...) to the understandings of melancholy developed by Benjamin and Adorno, but transposed into a more stringent modernist context. (shrink)

Monoclonal antibodies are essential biomedical research and clinical reagents that are produced by companies and research laboratories. The NIAID ImmPort (Immunology Database and Analysis Portal) resource provides a long-term, sustainable data warehouse for immunological data generated by NIAID, DAIT and DMID funded investigators for data archiving and re-use. A variety of immunological data is generated using techniques that rely upon monoclonal antibody reagents, including flow cytometry, immunofluorescence, and ELISA. In order to facilitate querying, integration, and reuse of data, standardized terminology (...) for describing monoclonal antibody reagents and their targets needs to be used for annotating data submitted to ImmPort. (shrink)

The distinguished Kansas editor and author gives a vivid picture of the three major cycles of our country's progress--the revolutionary cycle, the antislavery cycle, and the populist cycle--each viewed as a part of the larger cycle of democratic growth that itself has come from that development loosely termed Christian civilization. Originally published in 1925. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were (...) previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:A wide range of research uses patterns of genetic variation to infer genetic similarity between individuals, typically referred to as genetic ancestry. This research includes inference of human demographic history, understanding the genetic architecture of traits, and predicting disease risk. Researchers are not just structuring an intellectual inquiry when using genetic ancestry, they are also creating analytical frameworks with broader societal ramifications. This essay presents an ethics framework in the spirit of virtue ethics for these researchers: rather than focus on (...) rule following, the framework is designed to build researchers’ capacities to react to the ethical dimensions of their work. The authors identify one overarching principle of intellectual freedom and responsibility, noting that freedom in all its guises comes with responsibility, and they identify and define four principles that collectively uphold researchers’ intellectual responsibility: truthfulness, justice and fairness, anti-racism, and public beneficence. Researchers should bring their practices into alignment with these principles, and to aid this, the authors name three common ways research practices infringe these principles, suggest a step-by-step process for aligning research choices with the principles, provide rules of thumb for achieving alignment, and give a worked case. The essay concludes by identifying support needed by researchers to act in accord with the proposed framework. (shrink)

1 Non-reductive physicalists deny that there is any explanation of mentality in purely physical terms, but do not deny that the mental is entirely determined by and constituted out of underlying physical structures. There are important issues about the stability of such a view which teeters on the edge of explanatory reductionism on the one side and dualism on the other (see Kim 1998). 2 Save perhaps for eliminative materialism (see Churchland 1981 for a classic exposition). In fact, however, while.

We show that the actuality operator A is redundant in any propositional modal logic characterized by a class of Kripke models (respectively, neighborhood models). Specifically, we prove that for every formula ${\phi}$ in the propositional modal language with A, there is a formula ${\psi}$ not containing A such that ${\phi}$ and ${\psi}$ are materially equivalent at the actual world in every Kripke model (respectively, neighborhood model). Inspection of the proofs leads to corresponding proof-theoretic results concerning the eliminability of the actuality (...) operator in the actuality extension of any normal propositional modal logic and of any “classical” modal logic. As an application, we provide an alternative proof of a result of Williamson’s to the effect that the compound operator A□ behaves, in any normal logic between T and S5, like the simple necessity operator □ in S5. (shrink)

Some proponents of mechanistic explanation downplay the significance of how-possibly explanations. We argue that developing accounts of mechanisms that could explain a phenomenon is an important aspect of scientific reasoning, one that involves imagination. Although appeals to imagination may seem to obscure the process of reasoning, we illustrate how, by examining diagrams we can gain insights into the construction of mechanistic explanations.

Diagrams have distinctive characteristics that make them an effective medium for communicating research findings, but they are even more impressive as tools for scientific reasoning. Focusing on circadian rhythm research in biology to explore these roles, we examine diagrammatic formats that have been devised to identify and illuminate circadian phenomena and to develop and modify mechanistic explanations of these phenomena.

As such, the book will interest readers of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender studies, intellectual history, political theory, and the history of gender/sexuality ...

In many fields of biology, both the phenomena to be explained and the mechanisms proposed to explain them are commonly presented in diagrams. Our interest is in how scientists construct such diagrams. Researchers begin with evidence, typically developed experimentally and presented in data graphs. To arrive at a robust diagram of the phenomenon or the mechanism, they must integrate a variety of data to construct a single, coherent representation. This process often begins as the researchers create a first sketch, and (...) it continues over an extended period as they revise the sketch until they arrive at a diagram they find acceptable. We illustrate this process by examining the sketches developed in the course of two research projects directed at understanding the generation of circadian rhythms in cyanobacteria. One identified a new aspect of the phenomenon itself, whereas the other aimed to develop a new mechanistic account. In both cases, the research resulted in a paper in which the conclusion was presented in a diagram that the authors deemed adequate to convey it. These diagrams violate some of the normative “cognitive design principles” advanced by cognitive scientists as constraints on successful visual communication. We suggest that scientists’ sketching is instead governed by norms of success that are broadly explanatory: conveying the phenomenon or mechanism. (shrink)

Traditionally, identity and supervenience have been proposed in philosophy of mind as metaphysical accounts of how mental activities (fully understood, as they might be at the end of science) relate to brain processes. Kievet et al. suggest that to be relevant to cognitive neuroscience, these philosophical positions must make empirically testable claims and be evaluated accordingly – they cannot sit on the sidelines, awaiting the hypothetical completion of cognitive neuroscience. We agree with the authors on the importance of rendering these (...) positions relevant to ongoing science. We disagree, however, with their proposal that a metaphysical relationship (identity or supervenience) should “serve as a means to conceptually organize and guide the analysis of neurological and behavioral data” (p. 7). Instead, we advance a different view of the goals of cognitive neuroscience and of the proper means of relating metaphysics and explanation. Our central objection to the psychometric approach deployed by Kievet et al. is that the formal models only account for correlations between variables (measurements) and do not aid in explaining phenomena. Cognitive neuroscience is concerned with the latter. We develop this point in section 2 in which we present what we find to be problematic in their proposed models. In section 3 we advance an account of what is required to explain phenomena: (a) providing an adequate description of a phenomenon; and (b) characterizing the mechanism responsible for it. In doing so we will characterize a version of the identity theory, heuristic identity theory (HIT) which figures centrally in developing such explanations and illustrate its role in what we take to.. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 64-66.

The classic modern statement of mind-body interactionism. In Carpenter's view, not only is mental activity the direct result of the physiological activity of the nervous system, the course of neural activity can in its turn be influenced by the occurrence of mental events.

Anarchism is by far the least broadly understood ideology and the least studied academically. Though highly influential, both historically and in terms of recent social movements, anarchism is regularly dismissed. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach is a welcome addition to this growing field, which is widely debated but poorly understood. Occupying a distinctive position in the study of anarchist ideology, this volume, authored by a handpicked group of established and rising scholars, investigates how anarchists often seek to sharpen their message and (...) struggle to determine what ideas and actions are central to their identity. Moving beyond defining anarchism as simply an ideology or political theory, this book examines the meanings of its key concepts, which have been divided into three categories: Core, Adjacent, and Peripheral concepts. Each chapter focuses on one important concept, shows how anarchists have understood the concept, and highlights its relationships to other concepts. Although anarchism is often thought of as a political topic, the interdisciplinary nature of Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach makes it of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences, liberal arts, and the humanities. (shrink)

War After September 11 considers the just aims and legitimate limits of the United States' response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Maintaining and coordinating multiple task-sets is difficult and leads to costs, however task-switching training can reduce these deficits. A recent study in young adults demonstrated that this training effect occurs at an amodal processing level. Old age is associated with reduced cognitive plasticity and further increases the performance costs when mixing multiple tasks. Thus, cognitive aging might be a limiting factor for inducing cross-modal training effects in a task-switching environment. We trained participants, aged 62–83 years, with an auditory task-switching paradigm (...) over four sessions, to investigate whether training-related reductions in task-switching costs would also manifest in an untrained visual modality version of the task. Two control groups trained with single tasks or not trained allowed us to identify improvements specific to task-switching training. To make statistical evaluations of any age differences in training and cross-modal transfer, the data from the Kattner cohort were incorporated into the present analysis. Despite the tendency for older adults to respond more cautiously, task-switching training specifically led to a mixing cost reduction in both trained and untrained modalities, the magnitude of which was statistically similar regardless of age. In line with a growing body of research, we failed to observe any far transfer effects in measures of inhibition, working memory or fluid intelligence. Overall, we conclude that any apparent cognitive limitations associated with aging do not prevent cognitive control processes which support set-shifting from improving at an amodal level. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback.

Biologists often hypothesize mechanisms to explai phenomena. Our interest is how their understanding of the phenomena and mechanisms develops as they construct diagrams to communicate their claims. We present two case studies in which scientists integrate various data to create a single diagram to communicate their major conclusions in a research publication. In both cases, the history of revisions suggests that scientists' initial drafts encode biases and oversights that are only gradually overcome through prolonged, reflective re-design. To account for this, (...) we suggest that scientists only develop a unitary understanding of their results through their attempts to communicate them. (shrink)

This volume addresses a wide variety of moral concerns regarding slavery as an institutionalized social practice. By considering the slave's critical appropriation of the natural rights doctrine, the ambiguous implications of various notions of consent and liberty are examined. The authors assume that, although slavery is undoubtedly an evil social practice, its moral assessment stands in need of a more nuanced treatment. They address the question of what is wrong with slavery by critically examining, and in some cases endorsing, certain (...) principles derived from communitarianism, paternalism, utilitarianism, and jurisprudence. (shrink)