'Origin of Species is a must read for Christians in our secularized, Darwin-saturated society. From a factual foundation, Charles Darwin persuasively extrapolates an erroneous explanation of life's diversity and complexity apart from God's handiwork, although there's a lot Darwin argues that his modern-day proponents ignore. Christians, using Scripture and science, should study this profoundly influential book thoroughly and cautiously'--from Dr. Wilson's guide. The Worldview Guides from the Canon Classics Literature Series provide an aesthetic and thematic Christian perspective on the (...) most definitive and daunting works of Western Literature. Each Worldview Guide presents the big picture (both the good and the bad) without neglecting the details. Each Worldview Guide is a friendly literary coach--and a treasure map, and a compass, and a key--to help teachers, parents, and students appreciate, critique, and begin to master the classics. (shrink)

Perspectives on the difficult topic of the evolution of language can be differentiated to a large extent based on how much relevant continuity or discontinuity they see between humans and nonhuman animals. In general, biologists and psychologists tend to have a broad definition of “language” that highlights significant continuities, whereas linguists tend to define “language” more narrowly, in accord with their emphasis on the uniqueness of human capacities. This article examines the value of Whitehead's innovative theory of language, which is (...) grounded in his account of the fundamental symbolic element in basic perceptual processes, mainly for understanding the continuities between animal and human perceptual and symbolic activity but also for accommodating the discontinuity, or at least the pivotal difference, evident in the full flowering of human language. It will focus particularly on applying Whitehead's approach to gain a new understanding of the emergence, with the rise of amphibians, of the first vocalization in the history of life. (shrink)

Squeezed between increasing entitlement expenditures and static or declining real revenues, state-funded urban development is increasingly perceived as an unaffordable luxury. At the same time, the power and significance of the banking sector is giving way to new kinds of financial institutions that have little or no interest in community development. Not surprisingly, it is often argued that pension funds ought to be more sensitive to community needs. However, some analysts argue that pension funds are properly only the agents of (...) plan beneficiaries; any investment that took into account community needs would be, in effect, an unjustified tax on individuals' future welfare. Furthermore, analysts are very doubtful about the integrity of public pension plan investment decision-making. In this paper, I set out a morally informed justification of public pension plan investment in community development. In doing so, I develop a model of community development that stresses the reciprocal nature of the obligations embedded in the relationship between the community and pension plan beneficiaries. This approach also has significant implications for a wide variety of private sponsored plans. The paper begins with an assessment of pension fund decision-making and the practices of the investment management industry, drawing upon related research on pension fund capitalism. It goes on to issues of social obligation, referencing recent research on the nature of social contracts. To give the analysis empirical relevance I refer to the much disputed decision of the West Virginia legislature to require their public pension funds' Investment Management Board to invest in the state government's corrections authority. (shrink)

Squeezed between increasing entitlement expenditures and static or declining real revenues, state‐funded urban development is increasingly perceived as an unaffordable luxury. At the same time, the power and significance of the banking sector is giving way to new kinds of financial institutions that have little or no interest in community development. Not surprisingly, it is often argued that pension funds ought to be more sensitive to community needs. However, some analysts argue that pension funds are properly only the agents of (...) plan beneficiaries; any investment that took into account community needs would be, in effect, an unjustified tax on individuals’ future welfare. Furthermore, analysts are very doubtful about the integrity of public pension plan investment decision‐making. In this paper, I set out a morally informed justification of public pension plan investment in community development. In doing so, I develop a model of community development that stresses the reciprocal nature of the obligations embedded in the relationship between the community and pension plan beneficiaries. This approach also has significant implications for a wide variety of private sponsored plans. The paper begins with an assessment of pension fund decision‐making and the practices of the investment management industry, drawing upon related research on pension fund capitalism. It goes on to issues of social obligation, referencing recent research on the nature of social contracts. To give the analysis empirical relevance I refer to the much disputed decision of the West Virginia legislature to require their public pension funds’ Investment Management Board to invest in the state government's corrections authority. (shrink)

This work addresses corruption in politics and the public services, arguing that corrupt public officials should be exposed, prosecuted and gaoled, just like their colleagues in the private sector. It covers ethical standards in the public service, both state and federal; the practice of government; the relationships between officials; their advisors and the public; the interplay between politics and personal behaviour, and offering explanations as to what can be done about corruption in public service through asking questions like; how does (...) corruption gain a foothold in public affairs?; how can public trust be rebuilt between bureaucrats, the politicians and the people who vote for them?; and how can we improve accoutability over the cover-ups? (shrink)

Postmodern view of Australian multiculturalism. Discusses the ways in which identity and imagery merge and interact in a multicultural society, within a postmodern theoretical framework, and examines topics such as liberalism and multiculturalism, and cultural postmodernity. Includes chapter notes, a bibliography and an index. Clark is director of the Institute of Ethics and Public Policy at Monash University, Forbes is professor of geography at Flinders University of South Australia, and Francis is a postgraduate student at Monash University. The contributors include (...) sociologists, literary theorists, geographers and a philosopher. (shrink)

Prey-catching behavior (PCB) in frogs and toads has been the focus of intense neuroethological research from the mid-twentieth century to the present and epitomizes some major themes in science and philosophy during this period. It reflects the movement from simple reflexology to more complex views of instinctive behavior, but it also displays a neural reductionism that denies subjectivity and individual agency The present article engages contemporary PCB research but provides a philosophically more promising picture of it based on Whitehead's nonreductionist (...) "philosophy of organism," which proposes that the flow of events from stimulus to response in organisms of all kinds is mediated by "the intervening touch of mentality " This approach resolves some basic mind-body and mind-nature issues that have long bedeviled modern philosophy and presents an image of a postmodern frog for a constructively postmodern science. (shrink)

Calcium storage is one of the functions commonly attributed to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in non‐muscle cells. Several recent studies have added support to this concept. Analysis of reticuloplasm, the luminal ER content, has shown that it contains several proteins (reticuloplasmins) which are prospective calcium storage proteins. One of these, calreticulin, is also present in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). In sea urchin eggs, a calsequestrin‐like protein has been clearly localised to the ER. The recent demonstration that the IP3 receptor, which (...) has similarities with the calcium release channel in the SR is also localised in the ER membrane suggests that calcium stored in the ER is important for intracellular signalling. The alternative view, that the physiologically important calcium store is a specialised organelle, the calciosome, is not supported by these observations. Recent evidence also suggests that ER calcium might be important in ER structure and in the retention of the luminal ER proteins. (shrink)

Light can kill the photoreceptors of the eye, not only very bright direct sunlight, but more moderate illumination if the light is present continuously. Recent experiments show that rod apoptosis can be triggered by strong and constant activation of transduction, and that death can be prevented if transduction is inhibited even though the eye is illuminated. Vitamin A deficiency and genetically inherited diseases, such as some forms of retinitis pigmentosa and Leber congenital amaurosis, appear to kill like this: transduction is (...) activated at a high rate and continuously, and this causes the rods to die. Why does transduction kill? Our best guess is that continuous activation produces a prolonged lowering of the Ca2+ concentration, which is also thought to kill neurons in tissue culture and during the development of the nervous system. To prevent death in constant light, rods have evolved protective mechanisms including modulation of channels and ion transport to keep the Ca2+ from going too low. Prolonged light exposure also causes migration of transduction proteins from one part of the cell to another and a reversible shortening of the rod outer segments, the part of the cell that contains the pigment rhodopsin. All of these mechanisms are at work in the normal eye to reduce transduction and prevent the Ca2+ concentration from dropping too low for too long a time. That most of us retain our vision our entire lives is a testament to their effectiveness. BioEssays 28: 344–354, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

While neo-classical analysis works well for studying impersonal exchange in markets, it fails to explain why people conduct themselves the way they do in their personal relationships with family, neighbors, and friends. In Humanomics, Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon L. Smith and his long-time co-author Bart J. Wilson bring their study of economics full circle by returning to the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith. Sometime in the last 250 years, economists lost sight of the full range of human feeling, (...) thinking, and knowing in everyday life. Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith's model of sociality can re-humanize twenty-first century economics by undergirding it with sentiments, fellow feeling, and a sense of propriety - the stuff of which human relationships are built. Integrating insights from The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations into contemporary empirical analysis, this book shapes economic betterment as a science of human beings. (shrink)

Jansen and Wall suggest a new way of defending hard paternalism in clinical research. They argue that non-therapeutic research exposing people to more than minimal risk should be banned on egalitarian grounds: in preventing poor decision-makers from making bad decisions, we will promote equality of welfare. We argue that their proposal is flawed for four reasons.First, the idea of poor decision-makers is much more problematic than Jansen and Wall allow. Second, pace Jansen and Wall, it may be practicable for regulators (...) to uncover the values that a potential research participant holds when agreeing to enter a research project, so their claim that we must ban such research projects for all if we are to ban them for poor decision-makers looks to be unmotivated. Third, there seem to be cases where the liberty to enter the sort of research project Jansen and Wall discuss is morally weighty, and arguably should outweigh concerns of egalitarian distribution. Fourth, banning certain types of research, which seem on the face of it to offer an unfavourable risk-benefit ratio, would have unwelcome consequences for all clinical research, which Jansen and Wall do not recognize. (shrink)

Subjects enrolled in studies testing high risk interventions for incurable or progressive brain diseases may be vulnerable to deficiencies in informed consent, such as the therapeutic misconception. However, the definition and measurement of the therapeutic misconception is a subject of continuing debate. Our qualitative pilot study of persons enrolled in a phase I trial of gene transfer for Parkinson disease suggests potential avenues for both measuring and preventing the therapeutic misconception. Building on earlier literature on the topic, we developed and (...) tested an interview guide that focuses on how the subjects decided to participate, emphasizing the integration of subjects’ various statements that are relevant to assessing the therapeutic misconception, rather than evaluating them as isolated statements. The results indicate that a subject’s understanding of the purpose of research is best explored in juxtaposition to the subject’s motivation for participating. (shrink)

Abstract:In this essay we provide a brief account and interpretation of The Theory of Moral Sentiments showing that it departs fundamentally from contemporary patterns of thought in economics that are believed to govern individual behavior in small groups, and contains strong testable propositions governing the expression of that behavior. We also state a formal representation of the model for individual choice of action, apply the propositions to the prediction of actions in trust games, report two experiments testing these predictions, and (...) interpret the results in terms directly related to the model. In short, we argue that the system of sociability developed by Adam Smith provides a coherent non-utilitarian model that is consistent with the pattern of results in trust games, and leads to testable new predictions, some of which we test. (shrink)

An extension of the hypothetical experiment of Szilard, which involved the action of a one-molecule gas in an isolated isothermal system, is developed to illustrate how irreversibility may arise out of Brownian motion. As this development requires a consideration of nonmolecular components such as wheels and pistons, the thought-experiment is remodeled in molecular terms and appears to function as a perpetuum mobile.

A particle of molecular dimensions which can exist in two states is associated with a membrane pore through which molecules of a gas can pass. The gas molecules from two identical phases on either side of the membrane may pass only when the particle is in one particular state. If certain restrictions are imposed on the system, then the particle appears to act like a Maxwell's Demon(1) which “handles” the gas molecules during their passage through the pore.

Two overriding considerations shaped the development of early research on the biological effects of microwave radiation—possible medical application and uncertainty about the hazards of exposure to radar. Reports in the late 1940s and early 1950s of hazards resulting from microwave exposure led to the near abandonment of medical research related to microwave diathermy at the same time that military and industrial concern over hazards grew, culminating in the massive research effort known as ‘the Tri-Service program’ . Both the early focus (...) on medical application and the later search for hazards played important roles in dictating how this field of research developed as a science. (shrink)

Nuclear bodies contribute to non‐random organization of the human genome and nuclear function. Using a major prototypical nuclear body, the Cajal body, as an example, we suggest that these structures assemble at specific gene loci located across the genome as a result of high transcriptional activity. Subsequently, target genes are physically clustered in close proximity in Cajal body‐containing cells. However, Cajal bodies are observed in only a limited number of human cell types, including neuronal and cancer cells. Ultimately, Cajal body (...) depletion perturbs splicing kinetics by reducing target small nuclear RNA (snRNA) transcription and limiting the levels of spliceosomal snRNPs, including their modification and turnover following each round of RNA splicing. As such, Cajal bodies are capable of shaping the chromatin interaction landscape and the transcriptome by influencing spliceosome kinetics. Future studies should concentrate on characterizing the direct influence of Cajal bodies upon snRNA gene transcriptional dynamics.Also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

Transcription factor (TF) signaling regulates gene transcription and requires a complex network of proteins. This network includes co‐activators, co‐repressors, multiple TFs, histone‐modifying complexes, and the basal transcription machinery. It has been widely appreciated that pioneer factors, such as FoxA1 and GATA1, play an important role in opening closed chromatin regions, thereby allowing binding of a secondary factor. In this review we will focus on a newly proposed model wherein multiple TFs, such as steroid receptors (SRs), can function in a pioneering (...) role. This model, termed dynamic assisted loading, integrates data from widely divergent methodologies, including genome wide ChIP‐Seq, digital genomic footprinting, DHS‐Seq, live cell protein dynamics, and biochemical studies of ATP‐dependent remodeling complexes, to present a real time view of TF chromatin interactions. Under this view, many TFs can act as initiating factors for chromatin landscape programming. Furthermore, enhancer and promoter states are more accurately described as energy‐dependent, non‐equilibrium steady states. (shrink)

Past research has examined the ethical judgments of consumers in the U.S., but few studies have investigated such attitudes in foreign-market settings. The current study compares ethical attitudes of consumers in two countries (Ireland and Lebanon) which share a cultural similarity of ongoing war and terrorism. The findings reveal that both cultures exhibit low sensitivity to ethical issues. Furthermore, the findings show that the Irish consumers are less sensitive to consumer ethical practices, less idealistic, more relativistic, and more Machiavellian than (...) Lebanese consumers. The authors recommend that other researchers need to further investigate this perplexing issue because ethics is a research topic which often discourages survey respondents to be candid. (shrink)

Rod photoreceptors are among the most sensitive light detectors in nature. They achieve their remarkable sensitivity across a wide variety of species through a number of essential adaptations: a specialized cellular geometry, a G‐protein cascade with an unusually stable receptor molecule, a low‐noise transduction mechanism, a nearly perfect effector enzyme, and highly evolved mechanisms of feedback control and receptor deactivation. Practically any change in protein expression, enzyme activity, or feedback control can be shown to impair photon detection, either by decreasing (...) sensitivity or signal‐to‐noise ratio, or by reducing temporal resolution. Comparison of mammals to amphibians suggests that rod outer‐segment morphology and the molecules and mechanism of transduction may have evolved together to optimize light sensitivity in darkness, which culminates in the extraordinary ability of these cells to respond to single photons at the ultimate limit of visual perception. (shrink)