Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel are one of the most ancient communities in the world, one that has been detached from the known Jewish world for about 2,500 years. Throughout this very long period of isolation, the Ethiopian Jewish community maintained Jewish tradition and dreamed over the centuries to unite with the rest of the Jewish world and immigrate to the Jewish state—Israel. But this transition occurred within a short time from an agrarian society in Ethiopia (traditional culture) with an (...) oral culture to a knowledge society in Israel (modern culture) with a written culture. Most studies that examine cultural transition focus on anthropological, sociological, and cultural aspects; but there are nearly no studies that examine the technological knowledge of non-literate populations. The purpose of this study is to examine and characterize technological knowledge among this population—the case of Ethiopian non-literate immigrants in Israel. The study involved in-depth interviews to examine technological knowledge through using technological appliances in their everyday life, assembly of two simple technological systems, and a home technology profile compared to the general population in Israel. Participants included 50 non-literate Ethiopian immigrants between the ages of 40–60. The results of our study are surprising in that we have shown that non-literate immigrants adapt to a technology-rich environment at an average degree with respect to the general population in Israel. Also, comparing technological knowledge between traditional and modern cultures shows participants’ wide range of knowledge without ability to read and write. Illiteracy does not preclude the development of knowledge in general, technological knowledge particularly, and does not prevent non-literate populations from acquiring knowledge in a new environment. (shrink)

Over recent years, the stakes and complexity of online content moderation have been steadily raised, swelling from concerns about personal conflict in smaller communities to worries about effects on public life and democracy. Because of the massive growth in online expressions, automated tools based on machine learning are increasingly used to moderate speech. While ‘design-based governance’ through complex algorithmic techniques has come under intense scrutiny, critical research covering algorithmic content moderation is still rare. To add to our understanding of concrete (...) instances of machine moderation, this article examines Perspective API, a system for the automated detection of ‘toxicity’ developed and run by the Google unit Jigsaw that can be used by websites to help moderate their forums and comment sections. The article proceeds in four steps. First, we present our methodological strategy and the empirical materials we were able to draw on, including interviews, documentation, and GitHub repositories. We then summarize our findings along five axes to identify the various threads Perspective API brings together to deliver a working product. The third section discusses two conflicting organizational logics within the project, paying attention to both critique and what can be learned from the specific case at hand. We conclude by arguing that the opposition between ‘human’ and ‘machine’ in speech moderation obscures the many ways these two come together in concrete systems, and suggest that the way forward requires proactive engagement with the design of technologies as well as the institutions they are embedded in. (shrink)

Considerable attention in bioethics has been devoted to moral expertise and its implications for handling applied moral problems. The existence and nature of moral expertise has been a contested topic, and particularly, whether philosophers are moral experts. In this study, we put the question of philosophers’ moral expertise in a wider context, utilizing a novel and global study among 4,087 philosophers from 96 countries. We find that despite the skepticism in recent literature, the vast majority of philosophers do believe in (...) moral expertise and in the contribution of philosophical training and experience to its acquisition. Yet, they still differ on what philosophers’ moral expertise consists of. While they widely accept that philosophers possess superior analytic abilities regarding moral matters, they diverge on whether they also possess improved ability to judge moral problems. Nonetheless, most philosophers in our sample believe that philosophers possess an improved ability to both analyze and judge moral problems and that they commonly see these two capacities as going hand in hand. We also point at significant associations between personal and professional attributes and philosophers’ beliefs, such as age, working in the field of moral philosophy, public involvement, and association with the analytic tradition. We discuss the implications of these findings for the debate about moral expertise. -/- . (shrink)

The Rift Valley fever (RVF), which first appeared in Kenya in 1912, is an anthropozoonosis widespread in tropical areas. In Senegal, it is particularly felt in the Ferlo area where a strong presence of ponds shared by humans, cattle and vectors is noted. As part of the studies carried out on the environmental factors which favour its start and propagation, the focus of this paper is put on the decision making process to evaluate the impacts, the interactions and to make (...) RVF monitoring easier. The present paper proposes a model based on data mining techniques and dedicated to trade experts. This model integrates all the involved data and the results of the analyses made on the characteristics of the surrounding ponds. This approach presents some advantage in revealing the relationship between environmental factors and RVF transmission vectors for space–time epidemiology monitoring purpose. (shrink)

Are philosophers moral experts, and if so, what does this imply for their proper role in moral decision-making? The dominant view on this subject argues that philosophers have superior moral understanding, but they are not better judges of what is morally right. Consequently, philosophers cannot and should not have an authoritative role in moral decision-making. In this article, I challenge this view and argue that an examination of the intimate connection between two capacities – to understand and to judge – (...) reveals that it is both inconsistent and simplistic. It is inconsistent because, all things being equal, if philosophers better understand moral problems, they are also better judges of them. It is simplistic because it adopts an all-or-nothing approach to moral expertise, while expertise is in fact conditional. Inspired by the psychological literature on expertise, I claim that we should not ask whether philosophers are moral experts but rather under which conditions they successfully execute their expertise. The conclusion of the dominant view needs to be reconsidered to reflect the conditional nature of philosophers' expertise. Although more empirical research is required, I offer several hypotheses for future endeavours that demonstrate what a conditional view of philosophers' moral expertise could look like. -/- . (shrink)

Translation based on: Y. Katz, Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong, The Atlantic, November 1, 2012.

In recent decades, the discipline of bioethics has grown rapidly, as has the practice of ethical consultation. Interestingly, this new recognition of the relevance of moral philosophy to our daily life has been accompanied by skepticism among philosophers regarding the existence of moral expertise or the benefits of philosophical training. In his recent article in Bioethics, William R. Smith suggested that this skepticism is rooted in philosophers' belief that moral expertise is inconsistent with liberal–democratic values, when in fact they are (...) compatible. In this paper, we provide a unique opportunity to empirically examine Smith's observation by utilizing and extending global data on philosophers' beliefs about moral expertise, involving 4087 philosophers from 96 countries. Our findings support Smith's theoretical observation and show that societal levels of support for liberal–democratic values are associated with greater skepticism about moral expertise. We suggest that these findings might be explained by the cognitive process of motivated reasoning and an invalid inference of “is” from “ought.” Consequently, the potential tension between moral expertise and liberal–democratic values is invalidly used for rejecting the existence of moral expertise, while its main and valid implication is for how moral expertise should be applied in liberal–democratic settings. (shrink)

Learning the unique linguistic forms and structures that construct and communicate scientific principles, knowledge, and beliefs is important for developing students’ disciplinary literacy. The use of scientific language is apparent in the texts that scientists produce to communicate their findings to other scientists—the research articles. Texts are underused in the science classroom and the texts that students do read often do not reflect the core attributes of authentic scientific reasoning. Adapted primary literature refers to an educational genre that enables the (...) use of scientific articles in high school. In the adaptation process, the language of the article is changed to make it more accessible for high school students. Here, we present a systemic functional linguistics analysis of an APL article compared to the original research article and to a popular article. The three texts were systematically scanned and compared for specific lexicogrammatical items that characterize five linguistic features of scientific writing: informational density, abstraction, technicality, authoritativeness, and hedging. We found that the adaptation process lowered the lexical complexity, while retaining the authenticity of the scientific writing. APL articles, as suggested by the linguistic analysis presented here, may serve as models of scientific reasoning and communication and may promote students’ language awareness and disciplinary literacy. We suggest using APL articles as an apprenticeship genre, for learning about the unique features of authentic scientific texts, and the reasoning that is reflected in the way the articles are written. (shrink)

Transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinases that bind to peptide factors transmit essential growth and differentiation signals. A growing list of orphan receptors, of which some are oncogenic, holds the promise that many unknown ligands may be discovered by tracking the corresponding surface molecules. The neu gene (also called erbB‐2 and HER‐2) encodes such a receptor tyrosine kinase whose oncogenic potential is released in the developing rodent nervous system through a point mutation. Amplification and overexpression of neu are thought to contribute to (...) malignancy of certain human adenocarcinomas. The search for soluble factors that interact with the Neu receptor led to the discovery of a 44 kDa glyco‐protein that induces phenotypic differentiation of cultured mammary tumor cells to growth‐arrested and milk‐producing cells. The Neu differentiation factor (NDF or heregulin), however, also acts as a mitogen for epithelial, Schwann and glial cells. Multiple forms of the factor are produced by alternative splicing and their expression is confined predominantly to the central and to the peripheral nervous systems. One identified neuronal function of this family of polypeptides is to control the formation of neuromuscular junctions, but their physiological role in secretory epithelia is still unknown. Other open questions relate to the transmembrane topology of various precursors, the identity of a putative co‐receptor, the possible existence of additional ligands of Neu and the functional significance of the interaction between Neu and at least three highly related receptor tyrosine kinases. (shrink)

Para este ensayo es necesario introducir un concepto que se denominará premisas de la conversación, teniendo en cuenta el planteamiento de los teóricos de la argumentación en su propuesta de premisas de la argumentación. Dichas premisas son tomadas de algunos estudiosos del lenguaje que han observado qué estructuras, normas y ceremonias se perfilan para que se dé la conversación. No basta, como sugieren los teóricos de la nueva retórica, con hablar un idioma para desarrollar una conversación, pues, se requiere de (...) mucho más, y esto es, de normas y estructuras que subyacen en ella misma; y agregan, nadie lo sabe mejor que el autor de Alicia en el país de las maravillas. La Alicia de Carroll, tanto en el país de las maravillas como a través del espejo, le es casi imposible entablar una conversación con alguno de los personajes fantásticos que se presentan en las dos obras. Porque además de saber usar unas reglas gramaticales y un léxico, es necesario saber que, al usar la lengua, o como lo llama Austin acto locucionario, también hay que ser consciente de que el uso de la lengua es social, por lo que requiere de ciertas condiciones, ceremonias y reglas que a continuación expondremos. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo explicitar la presencia de determinados con- ceptos de la filosofía alemana del siglo XIX en la ficción de lo extraño de Thomas Ligotti. Por consiguiente, en el texto se sostiene que la voluntad, parte del pensamiento de Arthur Schopenhauer; la voluntad de morir, correspondiente a la metafísica de Philipp Mainländer y el devenir, propio de la filosofía de Nietzsche, se encuentran presentes, respectivamente, en las siguientes narraciones de Ligotti: “La sombra, la oscuridad”, “Dulce velada de (...) expiación” y “El Tsalal”. Así también, se discurre brevemente sobre el pesimismo y se explica que la estructura de tales narraciones está articulada por un problema común: el fatalismo. Estas reflexiones permiten explorar las capacidades que la filosofía y la literatura fantástica poseen para ensamblarse entre sí. (shrink)