scholarly journals Adaptation in Adaptation in Adaptation in Adaptation

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-32
Author(s):  
Wyatt Moss-Wellington
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
New Information ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Original Thinking

This chapter offers a close analysis of Adaptation and its treatment of Darwinian themes. It uses the film to think through some issues in literary and cinematic Darwinism, prompting questions regarding evolution’s use in the humanities: what is the explanatory power of evolutionary biology, and how can we transform evolutionary thinking into meaningfully new information, information that might affect subsequent storytelling or behaviour in the world? Like the film, this chapter is concerned with identifying original thinking—how do we know when we have created something hermeneutically new?

Persons in a World of Things

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Classic Essay

This chapter focuses on the reality of persons in a world of things. It begins and ends with some relevant views drawn from the Jewish philosophers Buber (1878–1965), Heschel (1907–72), and Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–93). Framed by the Jewish concerns, it turns to a philosophical exploration of human personhood. The chapter begins by consiering Sellars's classic essay on the scientific and manifest images of “man-in-the-world.” Sellars shows how urgent and difficult it is to sustain a recognizable image of ourselves as persons in the face of scientism. With additional help from Nagel and Kant, it argues that persons cannot be conceptually scanted in a world of things. Notwithstanding the explanatory power of science, there is more to life than explanation. Explanation of what we are needs supplementing by a conception of who we are, how we should live, and why we matter. Those are questions to which Jewish sources can speak.

Identification of anthracnose races in Manitoba and Ontario from 2005 to 2015 and their reactions on Ontario dry bean cultivars

2020 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Conner ◽  
Greg J. Boland ◽  
Chris L. Gillard ◽  
Yongyan Chen ◽  
Xuechan Shan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Durable Resistance ◽  
Colletotrichum Lindemuthianum ◽  
Frequency Of Occurrence ◽  
Phaseolus Vulgaris L ◽  
Dry Bean ◽  
Bean Cultivar ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
New Races ◽  
Resistance Spectrum

Anthracnose, caused by the fungus Colletotrichum lindemuthianum (Sacc. & Magnus) Briosi & Cavara, is one of the most destructive diseases of dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in the world. Between 2005 and 2015, commercial fields of dry beans in Manitoba and Ontario were surveyed to determine the frequency of occurrence of races of the anthracnose fungus. Throughout the study, race 73 was most prevalent in Manitoba and Ontario. However, three anthracnose races not previously reported in Canada also were identified. These three new races and four previously identified anthracnose races were used to screen 52 dry bean cultivars, as well as a mung bean and azuki bean cultivar from Ontario, for their seedling reactions to determine their patterns of race resistance. The dry bean cultivars were classified into a total of 19 resistance spectra based on the pattern of seedling reactions to the seven anthracnose races. The most common resistance spectrum was susceptible to the majority of the anthracnose races and no cultivar was resistant to all of the races. Many bean cultivars produced intermediate anthracnose ratings to races 31 and 105 and tests of 16 dry bean cultivars against those races indicated that all cultivars with intermediate ratings to a specific race were segregating in their seedling reactions and none of the cultivars produced plants with only intermediate anthracnose severity ratings. This study provides new information on the anthracnose reactions of common bean cultivars in Canada, which should be useful for the development of new bean cultivars with durable resistance.

Belief Movement, Uncertainty Reduction, and Rational Updating*

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ned Augenblick ◽  
Matthew Rabin
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Uncertainty Reduction ◽  
The State ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Market Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

Abstract When a Bayesian learns new information and changes her beliefs, she must on average become concomitantly more certain about the state of the world. Consequently, it is rare for a Bayesian to frequently shift beliefs substantially while remaining relatively uncertain, or, conversely, become very confident with relatively little belief movement. We formalize this intuition by developing specific measures of movement and uncertainty reduction given a Bayesian’s changing beliefs over time, showing that these measures are equal in expectation and creating consequent statistical tests for Bayesianess. We then show connections between these two core concepts and four common psychological biases, suggesting that the test might be particularly good at detecting these biases. We provide support for this conclusion by simulating the performance of our test and other martingale tests. Finally, we apply our test to data sets of individual, algorithmic, and market beliefs.

Reasons First

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Justify Belief ◽  
Moral Worth ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Explanatory Priority

The last fifty years or more of ethical theory have been preoccupied by a turn to reasons. The vocabulary of reasons has become a common currency not only in ethics, but in epistemology, action theory, and many related areas. It is now common, for example, to see central theses such as evidentialism in epistemology and egalitarianism in political philosophy formulated in terms of reasons. And some have even claimed that the vocabulary of reasons is so useful precisely because reasons have analytical and explanatory priority over other normative concepts—that reasons in that sense come first. Reasons First systematically explores both the benefits and burdens of the hypothesis that reasons do indeed come first in normative theory, against the conjecture that theorizing in both ethics and epistemology can only be hampered by neglect of the other. Bringing two decades of work on reasons in both ethics and epistemology to bear, Mark Schroeder argues that some of the most important challenges to the idea that reasons could come first are themselves the source of some of the most obstinate puzzles in epistemology—about how perceptual experience could provide evidence about the world, and about what can make evidence sufficient to justify belief. And he shows that along with moral worth, one of the very best cases for the fundamental explanatory power of reasons in normative theory actually comes from knowledge.

scholarly journals Is our perception of the spread of COVID-19 inherently inaccurate?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Maier
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Logarithmic Function ◽  
Original Formulation ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
The Future ◽  
Linear Nature

One of the most fundamental insights into the nature of our subjective perception of the world around us is that it is not veridical. In other words, we tend to not perceive information about the world around us accurately. Instead, our brains interpret new information through a host of innate and learned mechanisms that can introduce bias and distortions One of the best studied mechanisms that guide – and distort – our perception is the psychophysical Weber-Fechner law. According to this empirically derived, mathematically formulated law we tend to put more emphasis on smaller deviations in size while underestimating larger changes. The original formulation of the Weber-Fechner law takes the shape of a logarithmic function and is commonly applied to somatosensory perception such as the weight of an object. However, later work showed that the Weber-Fechner law can be generalized and describe a large variety of perceived changes in magnitude that even go beyond the sensory domain. Here we investigate the hypothesis that our perception of data associated with the spread of COVID-19 and similar pandemics is governed by the same psychophysical laws. Based on several recently published studies, we demonstrate that the Weber-Fechner law can be shown to directly affect the decision-making of officials in response to this global crisis as well as the greater public at large. We discuss how heightened awareness of the non-linear nature of subjective perception could help alleviate problematic judgements in similar situations in the future.

White Man’s IR: An Intellectual Confession

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1112-1122 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Lake
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
White Male ◽  
Professional Practices ◽  
Good Work ◽  
The World

Drawing largely on my own career in academia, I elaborate on the need for greater gender, racial and other forms of diversity in International Relations. Although theories are thought to be “objective,” what goes into those theories and, in turn, their explanatory power is ultimately shaped by subjective, lived experiences. Different individuals with different life stories will develop different intuitions about how the world “works,” and thus will write different theories to capture those intuitions and, in turn, larger patterns of politics. I explain here how my life experience as a privileged white male has shaped the intellectual contours of my work on international hierarchy. Building from this foundation, I then explore how professional practices elevate as gatekeepers individuals with generally similar life experiences and, thus, intuitions about what constitutes “good” work in the field, which in turn reinforces those professional practices and priorities. The final section focuses on problems of eroding the disciplinary hierarchy and broadening the pipeline into the profession.

How Universal Is Media Entertainment, Really? On the Enriching Potential of Cross-Cultural Approaches for Existing Entertainment Scholarship

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-122
Author(s):  
Özen Odağ
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Thinking Styles ◽  
Western World ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
The World ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Behavior And Cognition

The current chapter focuses on the (cross-)cultural appeal of existing entertainment theories, showcasing the meager evidence that exists with respect to their universality. The central argument throughout the chapter is that most entertainment theories have originated in the Western world and little has so far been done to apply them to the much larger rest of the world. The rest of the world has shown to be profoundly different, however, with respect to various dimensions of human behavior and cognition, including self-concepts, emotion appraisal and display, valued affect, thinking styles, values, and well-being maxims. The chapter scrutinizes five pertinent entertainment theories for their ability to explain this cultural variation. It suggests the inclusion of fruitful macro- and micro-level concepts from cross-cultural psychology and intercultural communication to increase their global explanatory power. The main aim of the current chapter is to spark an overdue (cross-)cultural evolution of media entertainment scholarship.

“We are here to help you”: understanding the role of careers and employability services in UK universities

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fotiadou
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
The World

Abstract This paper examines the language used by careers services in UK universities. Using a combination of critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics methods and tools, the analysis of 2.6 million words collected from 58 UK university websites shows that the services highlight the quantity and variety of resources and assistance offered to Higher Education (HE) students. In addition, the close analysis of linguistic data brings to light a commonly used semantic pattern where the services act as the enablers of the students’ self-beneficiary actions. The main idea communicated in these webpages is that if HE students want to succeed in the graduate job market they need to prepare for the world of work, follow instructions and develop their employability. This course of action is presented by UK universities as natural or common sense. The interpretation and evaluation of linguistic patterns that emerge from the corpus-based analysis challenges the notion of employability and its association with the idea of ‘empowering’ young people to successfully compete in the graduate job market.

Ecologies by Humans for Humans

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oswald J. Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Ecology ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Industrial Ecology ◽  
Environmental Stewardship ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Ethical Position ◽  
The World ◽  
Virtual Resources

This chapter discusses the potential of industrial and urban ecology to entwine humans and nature to achieve sustainability in ways that are respectful and ethical to both. Thinking about humans and nature linked as socio-ecological systems means appreciating the growing, inextricable connectedness between global locations where technology is manufactured and used, and locations that physically provide the key elements. An ethical position of environmental stewardship would obligate one to first question whether it is right to protect nature in one location and force resource extraction to be done in other parts of the world. Industrial ecology is an emerging field that enhances society's ability to maintain the functionality of related ecosystems, and is also now toying with using principles of evolutionary biology and resilience. Like industrial ecology, urban ecology is based on systems thinking and include the valuation of ecosystem services, telecoupling of real and virtual resources, and environmental stewardship.

ICTs and Their Impact on Women's Roles and Evolution within Developing Societies

2015 ◽  
pp. 1452-1473
Author(s):  
Ana-Cristina Ionescu
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Internet ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Promote Gender Equality ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Modern Technologies

The Internet is definitely the most complex and dynamic technical and cultural phenomenon that humanity ever experienced. Nevertheless, despite its positive impact on the Western world, Web 2.0 has yet to prove its power in the undeveloped regions of the globe, where the Internet Era is still at its dawn. In developing countries, the barriers that women face, such as poverty or social imbalances, establish significant challenges that hinder connectivity and access to modern technologies. In this context, the chapter discusses the evolution of gender speech in relation to new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The authors determine whether the declarations and plans for action that were issued subsequent to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing enhanced the establishment of gendered policies on ICTs, particularly in the undeveloped regions of the world, and whether, in this way, they empower women, contribute to combating women's poverty, and promote gender equality.

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