Large-scale sequencing tests, including whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing, are rapidly moving into clinical use. Sequencing is already being used clinically to identify therapeutic opportunities for cancer patients who have run out of conventional treatment options, to help diagnose children with puzzling neurodevelopmental conditions, and to clarify appropriate drug choices and dosing in individuals. To evaluate and support clinical applications of these technologies, the National Human Genome Research Institute and National Cancer Institute have funded studies on clinical and research sequencing under (...) the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research program as well as studies on return of results. Most of these studies use sequencing in real-world clinical settings and collect data on both the application of sequencing and the impact of receiving genomic findings on study participants. They are occurring in the context of controversy over how to obtain consent for exome and genome sequencing. (shrink)

This article presents the Pilgrimage Model as a template for educators wishing to lead students on site-specific studies of engaged learning. During the 2015–2016 academic year, a group of Georgeto...

Determination of the structure of the nucleic acids involved inter alia identification of the ring atom of the purines to which ribose or deoxyribose was attached. This in turn depended on knowledge of the ring atoms that could be so substituted and hence that were bonded to replaceable hydrogens. In 1897 E. Fischer adopted a convention of depicting this hydrogen at position 7 of the purine ring, although he was aware that it was equally correct to depict it at position (...) 9. Many later workers apparently came to believe that the 7H structure was more than just a convention, and considered that the sugar was attached solely at position 7 and could not be attached to position 9. When evidence was presented in 1933 that the sugar was in fact attached to position 9, the force of this convention apparently was so strong that many were reluctant to accept this evidence. More than 20 years was required for complete acceptance of the new view, and Fischer's convention was still being used in other contexts until at least 1967. (shrink)

In this book Jonathan Lowe offers a lucid and wide-ranging introduction to the philosophy of mind. Using a problem-centred approach designed to stimulate as well as instruct, he begins with a general examination of the mind-body problem and moves on to detailed examination of more specific philosophical issues concerning sensation, perception, thought and language, rationality, artificial intelligence, action, personal identity and self-knowledge. His discussion is notably broad in scope, and distinctive in giving equal attention to deep metaphysical questions concerning the (...) mind and to the discoveries and theories of modern scientific psychology. It will be of interest to any reader with a basic grounding in modern philosophy. (shrink)

Luck looms large in numerous different philosophical subfields. Unfortunately, work focused exclusively on the nature of luck is in short supply on the contemporary analytic scene. In his highly impressive recent book Epistemic Luck, Duncan Pritchard helps rectify this neglect by presenting a partial account of luck that he uses to illuminate various ways luck can figure in cognition. In this paper, I critically evaluate both Pritchard’s account of luck and another account to which Pritchard’s discussion draws our attention—viz., that (...) due to Nicholas Rescher. I also assess some novel analyses of luck that incorporate plausible elements of Pritchard’s and Rescher’s accounts. (shrink)

This paper advances the debate over the question whether false beliefs may nevertheless have warrant, the property that yields knowledge when conjoined with true belief. The paper’s first main part—which spans Sections 2–4—assesses the best argument for Warrant Infallibilism, the view that only true beliefs can have warrant. I show that this argument’s key premise conflicts with an extremely plausible claim about warrant. Sections 5–6 constitute the paper’s second main part. Section 5 presents an overlooked puzzle about warrant, and uses (...) that puzzle to generate a new argument for Warrant Fallibilism, the view that false beliefs can have warrant. Section 6 evaluates this pro-Fallibilism argument, finding ultimately that it defeats itself in a surprising way. I conclude that neither Infallibilism nor Fallibilism should now constrain theorizing about warrant. (shrink)

In this paper, I first of all define various kinds of ontological dependence, motivating these definitions by appeal to examples. My contention is that whenever we need, in metaphysics, to appeal to some notion of existential or identity-dependence, one or other of these definitions will serve our needs adequately, which one depending on the case in hand. Then I respond to some objections to one of these proposed definitions in particular, namely, my definition of (what I call) essential identity-dependence. Finally, (...) I show how a similar approach can be applied in the theory of truthmaking, by offering an account of the truthmaking relation which defines it in terms of a type of essential dependence. I also say why I think that this approach is preferable to one which treats the truthmaking relation as primitive. More generally, my view is that accounts of dependence or ‘grounding’ which treat these notions as primitive are less satisfactory than my own position, which is that in all cases a suitable definition is forthcoming if we look hard enough. (shrink)

The questions of observational error and ambiguity of interpretation that have been raised in connection with the reported observation of a magnetic monopole have precipitated a situation calling for some further insight into the pairing principles of nature. A basic distinction relates to whether or not a pair is “ordered” (e.g., sexual pair) or without a priori order (e.g., mirror pair). It is shown that the polarity of electric charge is to be regarded as an example of pairing without an (...) intrinsic a priori order. It then follows that “action” also exhibits a pairing without a priori order. The relation ofPC andTC to unordered and ordered pairing is discussed, with neutral kaon pairing as a striking example of ordered pairing. The pairing of magnetic charge, if it exists, becomes an ordered pairing! (shrink)

This paper assesses several prominent recent attacks on the view that epistemic justification is conceptually prior to knowledge. I argue that this view—call it the Received View (RV)—emerges from these attacks unscathed. I start with Timothy Williamson’s two strongest arguments for the claim that all evidence is knowledge (E>K), which impugns RV when combined with the claim that justification depends on evidence. One of Williamson’s arguments assumes a false epistemic closure principle; the other misses some alternative (to E>K) explanations of (...) a putative fact about the evidence a particular subject has. Next, I neutralize each of Jonathan Sutton’s three recent arguments to the conclusion that any justified belief constitutes knowledge. Finally, I consider a recent analysis of justification due to Alexander Bird, according to which justified belief is possible knowledge. I argue that Bird’s analysis delivers neither a sufficient nor (more importantly) a necessary condition for justification. [Word count: 149]. (shrink)

In Without Justification,[1] Jonathan Sutton undermines the orthodox view that a justified belief needn’t constitute knowledge; develops a battery of arguments for the unorthodox thesis that you justifiedly believe P iff you know P; and explores the topics of testimony and inference in light of his equation of justification and knowledge (J=K). This book is essential reading at epistemology’s cutting edge. In §I, we’ll take an extended tour of the book, raising various questions and objections along the way. In §II, (...) we’ll assess Sutton’s three main arguments for J=K, which form the heart of his project. (shrink)

Let’s say that you are omniprescient iff you always believe—occurrently and with maximal confidence—all and only truths, including ones about the future. Several philosophers have argued that an omniprescient being couldn’t engage in certain kinds of activity.[1] In what follows, I present and assess the most promising such argument I know of—what I’ll call the Serious Deliberation Argument (SDA). It concludes that omniprescience rules out serious deliberation—i.e., trying to choose between incompatible courses of action once you know that none is (...) conclusively favored by your reasons.[2] The SDA—which (I’ll argue) should disturb many traditional theists—derives from an argument due to Tomis Kapitan[3]; and my favored objection to the SDA—roughly: that it fails because dependent on the alleged incompatibility of omniprescience and freedom—superficially resembles a reply to Kapitan’s argument due to David Hunt.[4] Along the way, then, I’ll briefly discuss Kapitan’s argument, and Hunt’s reply, to show how they differ from the SDA and my favored objection to it. I begin by presenting the Serious Deliberation Argument. (shrink)