Extensive empirical work has shown that species richness decreases roughly exponentially or quadratically with latitude. What appears to be a latitudinal gradient in fact may simply be a negative correlation of latitude with area at that latitude, due to convergence of lines of meridian at the poles. There is simply less area at high latitudes, which means fewer niches and fewer opportunities for speciation, hence diminished biodiversity at high latitudes. Similarly, analytic geometry of a cone shows that (...) class='Hi'>species number should decrease linearly with altitude on a conical mountain. Here, I provide an explicit mathematical model of the area hypothesis of species richness along latitude and altitude gradients. I re-analyze a previously published latitudinal gradient dataset and show that species number is a linear function of the predicted area and that species number is more fully explained by predicted area than by a quadratic function of latitude. However, analytic geometry is not needed if precise measures of area are known. (shrink)

The latitudinal gradient in species richness is perhaps the most fundamental pattern of biodiversity, yet a satisfactory explanation for its existence remains elusive. A geometric “mid-domain effect” is often cited as having potential to help explain the latitudinal gradient in species richness, but the logic underpinning this hypothesis is apparently built on two incorrect assumptions: that a given great circle—usually the Equator—can constitute the geometric “mid-domain” of the Earth’s surface, and that geophysical or bioclimatic boundaries are (...) of geometric relevance in the context of a global-scale mid-domain effect. This article gives a brief overview of the relevant literature and history of thought on the subject, and describes in clear and simple terms why a global-scale mid-domain effect cannot arise, and thus cannot possibly represent a mechanistic basis for the latitudinal gradient in species richness. Explicit acknowledgement of this fact is of great importance, as it allows us to dispense with a commonly cited hypothesis for the latitudinal gradient in species richness. (shrink)

Some critics of invasion biology have argued the invasion of ecosystems by nonindigenous species can create more valuable ecosystems. They consider invaded communities as more valuable because they potentially produce more ecosystem services. To establish that the introduction of nonindigenous species creates more valuable ecosystems, they defend that value is provisioned by ecosystem services. These services are derived from ecosystem productivity, the production and cycling of resources. Ecosystem productivity is a result of biodiversity, which is understood as local (...) species richness. Invasive species increase local species richness and, therefore, increase the conservation value of local ecosystems. These views are disseminating to the public via a series of popular science books. Conservationists must respond to these views, and I outline a method of rejecting such arguments against controlling invasive species. Ecological systems are valuable for more than local productivity and biodiversity is not accurately described by a local species count. (shrink)

Richness theory offers an alternative to the paradigms that have dominated the short history of environmental ethics as a self-conscious field. This alternative theoretical paradigm defines intrinsic value as “richness”—a synonym for “organic unity” or “unity in diversity.” Richness theory can handily reconcile two kinds of ideas that seem to be in tension with each other:that (1) an individual human being has a greater worth than an individual organism of just about any other species; and (2) (...) yet the world would be a better place with substantially fewer humans and/or less consumption per capita, thus leaving more resources for other species.The mutual compatibility of such ideas within the framework of richness theory can be demonstrated both verbally and through a simplified mathematical model. (shrink)

Conservation biologists and other environmentalists confront five obstacles in building support for regulatory policies that seek to exclude or remove introduced plants and other non-native species that threaten to harm natural areas or the natural environment. First, the concept of “harm to the natural environment” is nebulous and undefined. Second, ecologists cannot predict how introduced species will behave in natural ecosystems. If biologists cannot define “harm” or predict the behavior of introduced species, they must target all non-native (...) species as potentially “harmful”. an impossibly large regulatory task. Third, loss of species richness may constitute harm to an environment, but introduced organisms typically, generally, and significantly add to species richness in ecosystems. If species richness correlates with desirable ecosystem properties, moreover, such as stability and productivity, as some ecologists believe, then introduced organisms, by increasing species richness, would support those desirable properties. Fourth, one may plausibly argue that extinction constitutes environmental harm, but there is no evidence that non-native species, especially plants, are significant causes of extinction, except for predators in certain lakes and other small island-like environments. Fifth, while aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual values may provide a legitimate basis for invasive species policy, biologists often cite concepts such as “biodiversity” and ecosystem “health” or “integrity” to provide a scientific justification. To assert that non-native species threaten biodiversity or undermine ecosystem health, however, may be to draw conceptual entailments or consequences from definitions of “biodiversity” and “integrity” that arbitrarily exclude non-native species or make the presence of exotic species a per se indicator of decline. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 143-150 [Access article in PDF] Species Nova [To See Anew]Art as Ecology David Haley Looking Back From space, looking back at earth, we may see three key issues: the accelerating increase of the human species, the accelerating decrease of other species, and the accelerating effects of climate change. We might ask, how are we to cope with these changes creatively?That (...) our societies tend to value economics over ecology, and monoculture and agro-industry over diversity and permaculture, is certainly worthy of ethical attention. Here I want to invoke a call for integrating art as a necessary contribution to ecological intervention. I consider how artists may engage uncertainty, and how art may be used to develop new ways of seeing and "drawing." This is art for evolutionary survival, not commodification. Art that practices care, shared responsibility, and diversity in the pursuit of eco-centric cultures. Although this paper mainly references visual art forms, this should not be taken to exclude others. Here I am primarily concerned with identifying some of the possible forms of ecological or eco-art. This is art practiced by artist and inventors in the manner of the archetype of Daedalus and worthy of the name implied by the root of the word art. Rt, an ancient term from the Rg Vedas, refers to the virtuous, continuing creation of the cosmos. [End Page 143] Seeing is Believing/ Uncertainty in View The suffix species nova is ascribed by scientists to a new bacterium species, prior to the confirmation of its existence in the appropriate academic journals. The word species means "to look" and "a class of things, living organisms capable of exchanging genes, classified as a taxonomic rank below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial." It also refers to "the visible form of each of the elements of consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist." Nova refers to the mistaken sighting of a new star, a flash of brightness that quickly dims. Something novel is a new kind of nature, something strange or previously unknown, and novelty refers to invention. Species nova: two words that evoke ideas about innovations of visual experience and belief.I use the phrase to denote the potential for understanding a new order and evolutionary change—"to see anew." I am also aware that species nova could mean a mistaken religious experience, or a class of living things that flashes brightly and quickly dims. Uncertainty is embedded in the richness of meanings.It is ten years since the Earth Summit in Rio popularized the notion of sustainable development and introduced Agenda 21 as a strategy to achieve it. Sadly, culture and art, two of the systems that define humanity, were not mentioned among the necessary tools for building a better future.But what is sustainable development? Is it about conservation, restoration, or regeneration? Will it stop global warming and feed the poor, or is it like candyfloss—a confection of transient comfort, with no real meaning? Has it become a corrupt cultural construct, an anthropocentric myth in the vain pursuit of hope?Recently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that "most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities." However, the projections and models that have been developed for policy makers to envisage climate change scenarios demonstrate the limits of our ability to understand the situation, let alone adapt to it. A recent review in Nature, comparing two twenty-year forecasts ironically concluded: Uncertainties therefore remain that are beyond the statistical uncertainties described in the two papers. But both sets of authors point out that the upper bound on the potential warming for 2100 may well be [End Page 144] above the IPCC figure of 5.8K under 'heavy emissions' scenarios. So policy-makers should not discount the possibility of a very warm climate considering long-range policy options. (Funnel 2001, 5) A subsequent article in Nature's Climate Change Review reveals even more concern about communicating scientific uncertainty, because models that simulate long-term climate changes cannot be tested using real... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 143-150 [Access article in PDF] Species Nova [To See Anew]Art as Ecology David Haley Looking Back From space, looking back at earth, we may see three key issues: the accelerating increase of the human species, the accelerating decrease of other species, and the accelerating effects of climate change. We might ask, how are we to cope with these changes creatively?That (...) our societies tend to value economics over ecology, and monoculture and agro-industry over diversity and permaculture, is certainly worthy of ethical attention. Here I want to invoke a call for integrating art as a necessary contribution to ecological intervention. I consider how artists may engage uncertainty, and how art may be used to develop new ways of seeing and "drawing." This is art for evolutionary survival, not commodification. Art that practices care, shared responsibility, and diversity in the pursuit of eco-centric cultures. Although this paper mainly references visual art forms, this should not be taken to exclude others. Here I am primarily concerned with identifying some of the possible forms of ecological or eco-art. This is art practiced by artist and inventors in the manner of the archetype of Daedalus and worthy of the name implied by the root of the word art. Rt, an ancient term from the Rg Vedas, refers to the virtuous, continuing creation of the cosmos. [End Page 143] Seeing is Believing/ Uncertainty in View The suffix species nova is ascribed by scientists to a new bacterium species, prior to the confirmation of its existence in the appropriate academic journals. The word species means "to look" and "a class of things, living organisms capable of exchanging genes, classified as a taxonomic rank below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial." It also refers to "the visible form of each of the elements of consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist." Nova refers to the mistaken sighting of a new star, a flash of brightness that quickly dims. Something novel is a new kind of nature, something strange or previously unknown, and novelty refers to invention. Species nova: two words that evoke ideas about innovations of visual experience and belief.I use the phrase to denote the potential for understanding a new order and evolutionary change—"to see anew." I am also aware that species nova could mean a mistaken religious experience, or a class of living things that flashes brightly and quickly dims. Uncertainty is embedded in the richness of meanings.It is ten years since the Earth Summit in Rio popularized the notion of sustainable development and introduced Agenda 21 as a strategy to achieve it. Sadly, culture and art, two of the systems that define humanity, were not mentioned among the necessary tools for building a better future.But what is sustainable development? Is it about conservation, restoration, or regeneration? Will it stop global warming and feed the poor, or is it like candyfloss—a confection of transient comfort, with no real meaning? Has it become a corrupt cultural construct, an anthropocentric myth in the vain pursuit of hope?Recently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that "most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities." However, the projections and models that have been developed for policy makers to envisage climate change scenarios demonstrate the limits of our ability to understand the situation, let alone adapt to it. A recent review in Nature, comparing two twenty-year forecasts ironically concluded: Uncertainties therefore remain that are beyond the statistical uncertainties described in the two papers. But both sets of authors point out that the upper bound on the potential warming for 2100 may well be [End Page 144] above the IPCC figure of 5.8K under 'heavy emissions' scenarios. So policy-makers should not discount the possibility of a very warm climate considering long-range policy options. (Funnel 2001, 5) A subsequent article in Nature's Climate Change Review reveals even more concern about communicating scientific uncertainty, because models that simulate long-term climate changes cannot be tested using real... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 143-150 [Access article in PDF] Species Nova [To See Anew]Art as Ecology David Haley Looking Back From space, looking back at earth, we may see three key issues: the accelerating increase of the human species, the accelerating decrease of other species, and the accelerating effects of climate change. We might ask, how are we to cope with these changes creatively?That (...) our societies tend to value economics over ecology, and monoculture and agro-industry over diversity and permaculture, is certainly worthy of ethical attention. Here I want to invoke a call for integrating art as a necessary contribution to ecological intervention. I consider how artists may engage uncertainty, and how art may be used to develop new ways of seeing and "drawing." This is art for evolutionary survival, not commodification. Art that practices care, shared responsibility, and diversity in the pursuit of eco-centric cultures. Although this paper mainly references visual art forms, this should not be taken to exclude others. Here I am primarily concerned with identifying some of the possible forms of ecological or eco-art. This is art practiced by artist and inventors in the manner of the archetype of Daedalus and worthy of the name implied by the root of the word art. Rt, an ancient term from the Rg Vedas, refers to the virtuous, continuing creation of the cosmos. [End Page 143] Seeing is Believing/ Uncertainty in View The suffix species nova is ascribed by scientists to a new bacterium species, prior to the confirmation of its existence in the appropriate academic journals. The word species means "to look" and "a class of things, living organisms capable of exchanging genes, classified as a taxonomic rank below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial." It also refers to "the visible form of each of the elements of consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist." Nova refers to the mistaken sighting of a new star, a flash of brightness that quickly dims. Something novel is a new kind of nature, something strange or previously unknown, and novelty refers to invention. Species nova: two words that evoke ideas about innovations of visual experience and belief.I use the phrase to denote the potential for understanding a new order and evolutionary change—"to see anew." I am also aware that species nova could mean a mistaken religious experience, or a class of living things that flashes brightly and quickly dims. Uncertainty is embedded in the richness of meanings.It is ten years since the Earth Summit in Rio popularized the notion of sustainable development and introduced Agenda 21 as a strategy to achieve it. Sadly, culture and art, two of the systems that define humanity, were not mentioned among the necessary tools for building a better future.But what is sustainable development? Is it about conservation, restoration, or regeneration? Will it stop global warming and feed the poor, or is it like candyfloss—a confection of transient comfort, with no real meaning? Has it become a corrupt cultural construct, an anthropocentric myth in the vain pursuit of hope?Recently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that "most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities." However, the projections and models that have been developed for policy makers to envisage climate change scenarios demonstrate the limits of our ability to understand the situation, let alone adapt to it. A recent review in Nature, comparing two twenty-year forecasts ironically concluded: Uncertainties therefore remain that are beyond the statistical uncertainties described in the two papers. But both sets of authors point out that the upper bound on the potential warming for 2100 may well be [End Page 144] above the IPCC figure of 5.8K under 'heavy emissions' scenarios. So policy-makers should not discount the possibility of a very warm climate considering long-range policy options. (Funnel 2001, 5) A subsequent article in Nature's Climate Change Review reveals even more concern about communicating scientific uncertainty, because models that simulate long-term climate changes cannot be tested using real... (shrink)

The Shannon information function (H) has been extensively used in ecology as a statistic of species diversity. Yet, the use of Shannon diversity index has also been criticized, mainly because of its ambiguous ecological interpretation and because of its relatively great sensitivity to the relative abundances of species in the community. In my opinion, the major shortcoming of the traditional perspective (on the possible relation of species diversity with information theory) is that species need for an (...) external receiver (the scientist or ecologist) to exist and transmit information. Because organisms are self-catalized replicating structures that can transmit genotypic information to offspring, it should be evident that any single species has two possible states or alternatives: to be or not to be. In other words, species have no need for an external receiver since they are their own receivers. Therefore, the amount of biological information (at the species scale) in a community with one only species would be species, and not bits as in the traditional perspective. Moreover, species diversity appears to be a monotonic increasing function of (or S) when all species are equally probable (S being species richness), and not a function of as in the traditional perspective. To avoid the noted shortcoming, we could use 2H (instead of H) for calculating species diversity and species evenness (= 2H/S). However, owing to the relatively great sensitivity of H to the relative abundances of species in the community, the value of species dominance (= 1 − 2H/S) is unreasonably high when differences between dominant and subordinate species are considerable, thereby lowering the value of species evenness and diversity. This unsatisfactory behaviour is even more evident for Simpson index and related algorithms. I propose the use of other statistics for a better analysis of community structure, their relationship being: species evenness + species dominance = 1; species diversity × species uniformity = 1; and species diversity = species richness × species evenness. (shrink)

PHYSICIANS AND NURSES TRAINING IN CITY HOSPITALS are in daily contact with the richness of the actual. The surprising, the unusual, and the abnormal assault them on every side. Their work requires that they recognize every shade of the strange, the marginal, and the deviant as parts of a spectrum of cases no two of which are altogether alike and each of which demands differential treatment.

Recent work in viral genomics has shown that bacteriophages exhibit a high degree of mosaicism, which is most likely due to a long history of prolific horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Given these findings, we argue that each of the most plausible attempts to properly classify bacteriophages into distinct species fail. Mayr's biological species concept fails because there is no useful viral analog to sexual reproduction. Phenetic species concepts fail because they obscure the mosaicism and the rich reticulated (...) viral histories. Phylogenetic species concepts, even when extended to take into account reticulation, fail because there is no non-arbitrary distinction between recombination events that create a new viral species and those that do not. There is good reason to think that bacteriophages, arguably the Earth's most abundant biological agent, evolve without forming species.1. Introduction2. The Biology of Viruses2.1. Bacteriophage life cycles2.2. Mechanisms of HGT3. The Species Problem and Species Concepts3.1. Phenetic species concepts3.2. The biological species concept3.3. Phylogenetic species concepts3.4. The ecological species concept3.5. Homeostatic property cluster species4. Viruses and Species Taxonomy5. Reticular Phylogenies6. Conclusion. (shrink)

College of Medicine, University of South Alabama Mobile, AL 36688-0002, USA wbp501{at}jaguar1.usouthal.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract Recent work in viral genomics has shown that bacteriophages exhibit a high degree of mosaicism, which is most likely due to a long history of prolific horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Given these findings, we argue that each of the most plausible attempts to properly classify bacteriophages into distinct species fail. Mayr's biological species concept fails because (...) there is no useful viral analog to sexual reproduction. Phenetic species concepts fail because they obscure the mosaicism and the rich reticulated viral histories. Phylogenetic species concepts, even when extended to take into account reticulation, fail because there is no non-arbitrary distinction between recombination events that create a new viral species and those that do not. There is good reason to think that bacteriophages, arguably the Earth's most abundant biological agent, evolve without forming species. Introduction The Biology of Viruses 2.1 Bacteriophage life cycles 2.2 Mechanisms of HGT The Species Problem and Species Concepts 3.1 Phenetic species concepts 3.2 The biological species concept 3.3 Phylogenetic species concepts 3.4 The ecological species concept 3.5 Homeostatic property cluster species Viruses and Species Taxonomy Reticular Phylogenies Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Animals are treated in philosophy dominantly as opposed to humans, without revealing their independent semiotic richness. This is a direct consequence of the common way of defining the uniqueness of humans. We analyze the concept of ‘semiotic animal’, proposed by John Deely as a definition of human specificity, according to which humans are semiotic (capable of understanding signs as signs), unlike other species, who are semiosic (capable of sign use). We compare and contrast this distinction to the more (...) standard ways of drawing the distinction between humans and animals. (shrink)

This book is a provocative and invigorating real-time exploration of the future of human evolution by two of the world’s leading interdisciplinary ecologists – Michael Charles Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison. Steeped in a rich multitude of the sciences and humanities, the book enshrines an elegant narrative that is highly empathetic, personal, scientifically wide-ranging and original. It focuses on the geo-positioning of the human Self and its corresponding species. The book's overarching viewpoints and poignant through-story examine and powerfully challenge (...) concepts associated historically with assertions of human superiority over all other life forms. Ultimately, The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human Evolution is a deeply considered treatise on the ecological and psychological state of humanity and her options – both within, and outside the rubrics of evolutionary research – for survival. This important work is beautifully presented with nearly 200 diverse illustrations, and is introduced with a foreword by famed paleobiologist, Dr. Melanie DeVore. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Randall Allsup, “Species Counterpoint: Darwin and the Evolution of Forms”Lauri VäkeväI was thrilled to be asked to respond to Randall Allsup's paper as his standpoint appears to be close to my own.1 I take it that his interest in Darwinian metaphors [End Page 220] reflects at least moderate interest in naturalism—an approach that should be taken seriously in our field. However, there are many varieties (...) of naturalism. In the following, I will deliberately interpret Allsup's ideas from the standpoint of the so-called 'soft' or 'cultural' naturalism favored by later Dewey and his followers.2As I see it, the most powerful precept of naturalism is its attack on essentialism—paradoxically the doctrine which focuses most deliberately on the nature of things. The essentialist, however, thinks of nature as something inherent in how things are, making them ultimately what they are. This kind of ultimate nature is something that a contemporary naturalist can never touch, for she only relies on empirical inquiry that departs from and returns to the contingent realm of lived experience. It is the latter that we attempt to make sense of as to try to live our life as fully as possible. At its best, philosophy can help us in this undertaking.To a naturalist, then, the essentialist's use of the term 'nature' is an anachronism, a remnant of an age when philosophers searched for the "really real," certain, absolute, and immutable. Were we to follow philosophical naturalism today, we should rather be looking at how things become empirically realized for cultural agents in their various life-practices. Culture is not seen as distinct from nature but as continuous with it: both can be understood through same means. This also covers the realm of value, which naturalism does not conceive as transcendental in any metaphysically binding sense, but rather as something that is realized in daily life and that thus has an empirical stand.Applied to the philosophy of music, naturalism states that it is futile to look for the essence of this art (or for that matter any art) through philosophical introspection or through logical analysis for the simple reason that we are always in the process of formulating it in our lives. The nature of music depends on the interpretative horizons of cultural agents living in a situation. 'Situation' (understood here in the sense that Dewey used the term) is the existential point of departure of our understanding and as situations vary, so do types of inquiry; therefore, we do not have to take as inclusive any particular claims about music, as they are merely particular answers to certain types of problems. Any path of musical inquiry may be worth taking, not because they all lead to the same destination, but because they can guide us through the rich thicket of possible experience that gives music its significance. This implies an open attitude towards all things musical, a theme which I find strong in Allsup's paper.One can also read another important naturalist point in his essay: "music—like life—evolves." Evolution is indeed a recurring theme in contemporary philosophical naturalism: what was previously considered as static or as perennial in nature and in culture can be now seen as being under continuous change. [End Page 221] Even mountains (and this is one of Dewey's favorite similes3 ) can be considered as events in the long run and even the most persistent of culture's beliefs may crumble someday.This awareness of all-encompassing change may not be very comforting: it might be mentally healthier to cling to rationalizations of how things that appear to change in fact do not. It may be more comforting to think that there must be a stable principle, a system of universally set rules, governing the randomness. For centuries, philosophy has been driven by this belief. In the philosophy of music, this is reflected in the problem of how the most ephemeral of the arts can be explained as having everlasting value. Mutatis mutandis, when music educators have argued over the pedagogical significance of music, one of the most pervasive ideas has been that music... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Affect Attunement in the Caregiver-Infant Relationship and Across SpeciesExpanding the Ethical Scope of ErosCynthia WillettCompelling glimpses into the ethical capacities of our animal kin reveal new possibilities for ethical relationships encompassing humans with other animal species. Consider the remarkable report of a female bonobo in a British zoo who assists a bird found in her cage by retrieving the fallen bird, and spreading its wings so that this (...) fellow creature might fly away to its freedom. Or the report of a cat in a nursing home who curls up around dying elderly patients, and remains steadily by their side as they, unbeknownst to the medical personnel, pass away.1 Or of a sacred moment of silence by a stream for baboons in East Africa.2 Or of the ethics that spontaneously emerges among wolves at play.3 On the basis of extensive studies, biologist Frans de Waal argues that such anecdotes are far from rare, and that some core elements of moral understanding and compassion occur among a significant range of nonhuman as well as the human animal species. Apes, monkeys, and perhaps all nonhuman animals fail to display a distinctly human capacity for abstract moral reasoning. As de Waal (2006) remarks, it is difficult to tell (173–75). But our furry and feathery kin do without a doubt demonstrate rich elements of ethical response, and they often enough extend their moral concern to creatures beyond their own species. Of course, they will also bite each other’s heads off or eat their own young as well. But this is just to say that animals are neither natural [End Page 111] innocents nor savage brutes. Like us, they belong to what post-Nietzschean philosophers might frame, somewhat ironically, as a postlapsarian world of good and evil.What kind of philosophical approach could account for these postlapsarian genealogies of ethics? Biologists, primatologists, and anthropologists are drawing upon investigations of prosocial behavior to remap the boundaries of ethics, as for example in Isabelle Stengers’s call for cosmopolitical ecologies of relationships (2010, 33). Such a cosmopolitics aims to encompass our kin and kind from diverse species within the ethical boundaries of common worlds. Donna Haraway discovers an opening for Stengers’s ecology of relationships in the intimate encounters among co-evolving species, especially those she calls companion species (2008, 83). She argues, following Derrida, that the abstract reasoning processes of Stoic and Kantian cosmopolitan ethics remain closed to the participation of nonhuman animals as anything more than dependents, failing to observe the ways in which they act as companions, if not moral subjects. But then, what normative force might bind together an ethically attuned biosocial sphere that we as humans co-inhabit with other animal species?To explore this question, this essay takes its cues from well-established research on the responsive, preverbal connection of the human infant and adult caregiver (Bateson 1979; Trevarthen 1984; Stern 1985, 2010; Gibbs 2001, 2010; Hansen 2004; Anderson 2006; Papoulias and Callard 2010; Willett 1995, 2001). To this research we can add new animal studies (Smuts 1999, 2001; Fudge 2002; de Waal 2006, 2009; Bekoff 2007; Molnar 2008; Haraway 2008). These animal studies provide a basis for extending an “ethics of eros” with roots in Luce Irigaray, Michel Foucault, Enrique Dussel, Africana feminism, Freudo-Marxist critical theory, and Plato (for discussions of this tradition, see Bergoffen 1997; Huffer 2009; Willett 2001)—but reconfigured in terms of social bonds across multiple animal species. In this tradition of ethics, the lack of a cognitive-based moral subjectivity that can translate into human terms does not consign nonhuman species to a mute moral status. On the contrary, some more primordial basis for relationship and meaning may weave thin but substantial threads of a postmoral ethics across regions of the biosphere.Given the diverse modes of subjectivity among animal species, and even the lack of what we call a moral subject altogether in many species, neither ordinary modes of empathy nor of moral understanding go very far in forging multispecies social bonds. For this reason, we turn to research on “the attunement of affects” in the infant-caregiver relationship (Stern 1985). As we shall see, this... (shrink)

The preservation of our planet’s decreasing biodiversity is a global challenge. Human attitudes and preferences toward animals have profound impacts on conservation policies and decisions. To date, the vast majority of studies about human attitudes and concern toward animals have focused largely on western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic populations. In order to mitigate biodiversity loss globally, an understanding of how humans make decisions about animals from multicultural perspectives is needed. The present study examines familiarity, liking and endorsement of government (...) protection amongst six broad cultural groups living in Qatar for five threatened animal species indigenous to the Arabian Gulf. Our findings highlight similarities and differences across cultures toward animals. Overall, familiarity did not predict endorsement for government protection after liking was accounted for. Liking, however, emerged as an important predictor of endorsement for government protection across cultures, although the degree of animal liking varied culturally. WEIRD and South East Asian participants showed similar and more positive attitudes toward animals compared to the other groups. Participants from the Arabian Gulf, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia responded similarly toward the animals. Interestingly, the Arabian Gulf group demonstrated significantly less liking and protection endorsement for animals, including those animals which play an important role in their culture. This research highlights intriguing avenues for future research and points to liking as a possible universal human attitude toward animals that influences decision making about conservation across all cultures while suggesting applications for improving education. (shrink)

Van de Vliert proposes a comprehensive explanation for differences in in diverse human populations based on climate and monetary resources. This intriguing approach, though derived from an evolutionary view covering all species, is based exclusively on human populations. This anthropocentric lens is challenged by ways of testing Van de Vliert's thesis more generally using playfulness as a surrogate for freedom.

Does the writing and reading of fiction affect long-term human social behavior? The question of how imaginative literature has impacted human nature is rather difficult to answer given, of course, the minute period of evolutionary time involved. One way it has been done is by linking creative text to oral storytelling, thereby reverse engineering the function of fiction back to its Pleistocene origins. The adaptive advantages probably conferred by storytelling, as Denis Dutton so eloquently showed, include “low-cost and low-risk surrogate (...) experience,” as we explore the “what if” possibilities that might affect our chances of survival; acquiring factual information through rich and striking images; and advancing .. (shrink)

Modern philosophy is, for what appear to be good reasons, uniformly hostile to sui generis final causes. And motivated to develop philosophically and scientifically plausible interpretations, scholars have increasingly offered reductivist and eliminitivist accounts of Aristotle's teleological commitment. This trend in contemporary scholarship is misguided. We have strong grounds to believe Aristotle accepted unreduced sui generis teleology, and reductivist and eliminitivist accounts face insurmountable textual and philosophical difficulties. We offer Aristotelians cold comfort by replacing his apparent view with failed accounts. (...) And so we ought to admit Aristotle’s prima facie commitments and deal with — if not accept — the consequences. (shrink)

Among the most significant findings of SUPPORT was that 50% of ICU patients suffered from moderate to severe pain during the last days of life. At the time of its publication late in 1995, SUPPORT was merely the latest in a long series of articles in the medical literature documenting the widespread and significant undertreatment of pain, beginning with a 1973 study of hospital inpatients. Much has been written about the phenomenon of undertreated pain and inadequate care of patients at (...) the end of life, and many positive suggestions for reform of clinical education and clinical practice have been iterated and reiterated in the two decades separating the studies. Proposals for modifying clinician behaviors in this aspect of patient care have tended to focus on particular barriers to effective pain management and palliative care. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the cognitive/computational and evolutionary levels. It describes three proposals to make cognition computationally tractable, namely: Resource Rationality, the Adaptive Toolbox and Massive Modularity. While each of these proposals appeals to evolutionary considerations to dissolve the intractability of cognition, Rich, Blokpoel, de Haan, and van Rooij argue that, in each case, the intractability challenge is not resolved, but just relocated to the level of evolution.

Many interpretations of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion have labored under the assumption that one of the characters represents Hume's view on the Design Argument, and Philo is often selected for this role. I reject this opinion by showing that Philo is inconsistent. He offers a decisive refutation of the Design Argument, yet later endorses this very argument. I then dismiss two prominent ways of handling Philo's reversal: first, I show that Philo is not ironic either in his skepticism or (...) in his theistic reversal. Second, I reject the suggestion that the Design Argument is a natural belief, since it differs significantly from causal and external world beliefs. Finally, I argue that the control the Design Argument exerts is the product of a youthful indoctrination that prevents Philo from consistently maintaining his skeptical position. (shrink)

Many interpretations of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion have labored under the assumption that one of the characters represents Hume's view on the Design Argument, and Philo is often selected for this role. I reject this opinion by showing that Philo is inconsistent. He offers a decisive refutation of the Design Argument, yet later endorses this very argument. I then dismiss two prominent ways of handling Philo's reversal: first, I show that Philo is not ironic either in his skepticism or (...) in his theistic reversal. Second, I reject the suggestion that the Design Argument is a natural belief, since it differs significantly from causal and external world beliefs. Finally, I argue that the control the Design Argument exerts is the product of a youthful indoctrination that prevents Philo from consistently maintaining his skeptical position. (shrink)

You meet someone new; you like them; you send them to your Facebook page. But how accurate is this representation of you? We all want to look our best, which is why we are drawn to the ability to fudge things a bit online. How does this projection of who we are distort us into who we want to be? Facebook allows us to hide our flaws that are all too visible in real life. We can embellish or correct what (...) we said earlier, edit out what we don’t like about ourselves, and only show photos where our chin is down and the lighting is blown out just enough to hide the bump on our nose. Our prospective employers can even turn to Facebook to assess our desirability. So might the constructed aesthetic of Facebook affect our approach to ethics – to interacting with other people? Does the way we design ourselves on Facebook directly impact the other people in our lives? Is each of us really just a rough draft that needs immediate editing? What about Facebook makes it possible to achieve genuine beauty? (shrink)

This paper focuses on the cognitive/computational and evolutionary levels. It describes three proposals to make cognition computationally tractable, namely: Resource Rationality, the Adaptive Toolbox and Massive Modularity. While each of these proposals appeals to evolutionary considerations to dissolve the intractability of cognition, Rich, Blokpoel, de Haan, and van Rooij argue that, in each case, the intractability challenge is not resolved, but just relocated to the level of evolution.

Clarifying the mission of the American high school / Ernest L. Boyer--Educational goals and curricular decisions in the new Carnegie Report / John Martin Rich--Essential schools : a first look / Theodore R. Sizer--Teaching and learning : the dilemma of the American high school / Chester E. Finn, Jr.--The paideia proposal : rediscovering the essence of education / Mortimer Adler--The paideia proposal : noble amibitions, false leads, and symbolic politics / Willis D. Hawley--Cultural literacy : let's get specific / E.D. (...) Hirsch, Jr.--Cultural literacy : what every educator needs to know / Thomas H. Estes, Carol J. Gutman, and Elise K. Harrison--A blueprint for public education / John E. Chubb--Should market forces control educational decision making / Jack Tweedie--Teachers as transformative intellectuals / Henry A. Giroux--Dilemma language / Colin Lacey--Rich schools, poor schools : the persistence of unequal education / Arthur E. Wise and Tamar Gendler--Partial privatization of publice school finance / Thomas G. Fox and John Riew--Quality and equality in American education : public and Catholic schools / James S. Coleman--Oranges plus apples, Dr. Coleman, give you oranges plus apples / James Rogers--Synthesis of research on school-based management / Jane L. David--Unfulfilled promises / Betty Malen, Rodney T. Ogawa, and Jennifer Kranz--Effective high schools--What are the common characteristics? / Joseph Murphy and Philip Hallinger--Effective schools : a friendly but cautionary note / Larry Cuban--In education, magnets attract controversy / Mary Haywood Metz--Schools of choice : a path to educational quality or 'Tiers of inequity'? / Kathleen Sylvester--Interesting times / Alan H. Jones--Making a difference in educational quality through teacher education / Carolyn M. Evertson, Willis D. Hawley, and Marilyn Zlotnik--Developing a career ladder : getting down to the basics / Thomas Deering--The career ladder and lattice : a new look at the teaching career / Timothy J.L. Chandler, Stacey L. Lane, Janice M. Bibik, and Bernard Oliver--Equity, quality, and effectiveness in bilingual education / George M. Blanco--Bilingual--No! / Muriel Paskin Carrison--Multiethnic education and the quest for equality / James A. Banks--The limits of pluralism / M. Donald Thomas--The case for keeping mentally retarded children in your regular classrooms / Martin Tonn--Mainstreaming : a formative consideration / Harry N. Chandler--Reflections on three decades of eduction of the gifted / A. Harry Passow--Equity vs. excellence : an eductional drama / James J. Gallagher. (shrink)

In the current American iconoclash, certain monuments are subject to vandalism and municipal removal from their pedestals. Phrases such as “the erasure of history” and “damnatio memoriae” point to concerns that iconoclasm is an attempt to censor history or even remove certain individuals from public memory altogether. Because these phrases beckon the past, this wave of iconoclasm calls for a close examination of previous image-breaking to establish motives. Drawing first from art history, we analyze Byzantine iconoclasm and anxieties over the (...) nature of icons’ power, before contextualizing these findings within image destruction from the Paleolithic to the present day. Each comparison is suggestive of an enduring aesthetic principle: that what appears inanimate is not always inert. Next, drawing from cultural anthropology, we argue that principles of sympathetic magic are at the heart of contemporary iconoclasms, but not in the way media outlets often suggest. Instead, the fear of history’s erasure betrays a deeply rooted equivalence between the representation and the represented. In perceiving their fates as shared, sympathetic magic is seen to persist in the way humans create, interpret, and desecrate images. We conclude with the speculative realist proposition that iconoclasm can produce new, original artworks, which carries implications for the autonomy of art and its distribution between artist and artwork. (shrink)

There are two prominent viewpoints regarding the nature of rationality and how it should be evaluated in situations of interest: the traditional axiomatic approach and the newer ecological rationality. An obstacle to comparing and evaluating these seemingly opposite approaches is that they employ different language and formalisms, ask different questions, and are at different stages of development. I adapt a formal framework known as SCOP to address this problem by providing a comprehensive common framework in which both approaches may be (...) defined and compared. The main result is that the axiomatic and ecological approaches are in far greater agreement on fundamental issues than has been appreciated; this is supported by a pair of theorems to the effect that they will make accordant rationality judgements when forced to evaluate the same situation. I conclude that ecological rationality has some subtle advantages, but that we should move past the issues currently dominating the discussion of rationality. (shrink)

Sarah Moss’ thesis that we have probabilistic knowledge is from some perspectives unsurprising and from other perspectives hard to make sense of. The thesis is potentially transformative, but not yet elaborated in sufficient detail for epistemologists. This paper interprets Mossean probabilistic knowledge in a suitably-modified Kripke framework, thus filling in key details. It argues that probabilistic knowledge looks natural and plausible when so interpreted, and shows how the most pressing challenges to the thesis can be overcome. Most importantly, probabilistic knowledge (...) can satisfy factivity in the framework, though we are not forced to accept a specific account of probabilistic “facts”. The framework also reflects Moss’ claim that old-fashioned propositional knowledge is just a limiting case of probabilistic knowledge, and all knowledge is fundamentally probabilistic. Finally, Moss endorses a failure of contraposition: for example, p implies probably p, but not probably p does not imply not p. The framework makes clear the sense in which the valid inferences regarding probably p are as Moss claims. (shrink)

Of the many opportunities and affordances that mobile technologies bring to our day-to-day lives, the ability to cheat physical separation and remain accessible to each other—in an instant—also brings pressure to bear on well-established social conventions as to how we should act when we are engaged with others in shared spaces. In this paper we explore some ethical dimensions of mobile communication by considering the manner in which individuals in everyday contexts balance interpretations of emergent social conventions with personal desires (...) to connect in the moment. As we later discuss, the decisions made in response to a ringing mobile phone or flashing text message emerge from consequential versus deontological ethical frames used to determine what to do versus what we ought to do. This is particularly true in western and North American cultural contexts from which our data are collected. Using Goffman's dramaturgy, we suggest that these conflicts occurring on an individual level provide evidence of social structure, and are simultaneously entwined with our less obvious ruminations on the maintenance of social order. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problems that must be considered if computers are going to treat their users as individuals with distinct personalities, goals, and so forth. It first outlines the issues, and then proposes stereotypes as a useful mechanism for building models of individual users on the basis of a small amount of information about them. In order to build user models quickly, a large amount of uncertain knowledge must be incorporated into the models. The issue of how to resolve (...) the conflicts; hot will arise along such inferences is discussed. A system, Grundy, is described that builds models of its users, with the aid of stereotypes, and then exploits those models to guide it in its task, suggesting novels that people may find interesting. If stereotypes are to be useful to Grundy, they must accurately characterize the users of the system. Some techniques to modify stereotypes on the basis of experience are discussed. An analysis of Grundy's performance shows that its user models are effective in guiding its performance. (shrink)

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep” Genesis This article examines the problem of belief as it relates to radical negativity and as such engages with two positions in regard to the Real of the void. The first, drawing from speculative realism seeks to conceptualise this void in positive terms, as something that can be reached and in a sense overcome. The second, Hegelian account, by contrast, situates the void as (...) something inherent to the very coordinates of reality and being itself. As such the following discussion specifically examines the status of objective reality within the continental philosophical paradigm. (shrink)

Knowledge-first epistemology includes a knowledge norm of action: roughly, act only on what you know. This norm has been criticized, especially from the perspective of so-called standard decision theory. Mueller and Ross provide example decision problems which seem to show that acting properly cannot require knowledge. I argue that this conclusion depends on applying a particular decision theory which is ill-motivated in this context. Agents’ knowledge is often most plausibly formalized as an ambiguous epistemic state, and the theory of decision (...) under ambiguity is then the appropriate modeling tool. I show how to model agents as acting rationally on the basis of their knowledge according to such a theory. I conclude that the tension between the knowledge norm of action and formal decision theory is illusory; the knowledge-first paradigm should be used to actively select the decision-theoretical tools that can best capture the knowledge-based decisions in any given situation. (shrink)