The biological reality of race: what is at stake?1

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Jonathan Michael Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Biological Reality

scholarly journals The “sanctity” of marriage – an archaeology of a socio-religious construct: Mythological origins, forms and models

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Human Sexuality ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of the article is to argue that the sexual difference between female and male should be regarded as soteriologically indifferent. Though a biological reality of being human, sexuality is profoundly influenced by social constructs and the institution of marriage itself is a social construct. In this article the biological and social aspects are taken into account in a theological approach which on the one hand is interested in the relationship between God and human beings, and on the other in the way in which the Bible elucidates sexuality and marriage. The article indicates that the idea of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman as being equal to Godgiven “holy matrimony” has mythological origins. It focuses on these origins and on the multifarious forms of marital arrangements and models.

scholarly journals Az orvosi antropológia című tantárgy helye és szerepe az orvosképzésben. Az úgynevezett szegedi modell

2019 ◽  
Vol 160 (39) ◽  
pp. 1527-1532
Author(s):  
Bettina Pikó ◽  
Erzsébet Kapocsi ◽  
Gergely Tari ◽  
Hedvig Kiss ◽  
Katalin Barabás
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Medical Anthropology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Major Goal ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Globalized World

Abstract: It is a necessary part of modern medical education that medical students should learn about the binary nature of human beings – biological and cultural – since both have an impact on our behavior. The subject of medical anthropology helps with understanding the mechanisms and lay concepts behind patients’ decisions which is particularly important in our globalized world. The major goal of this course is to help medical students with acquiring cultural competence through theoretical bases and empirical examples that may help them later in their work when they meet patients with different cultural backgrounds. In the present study, we introduce the course of Medical Anthropology as it happens at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged: the so-called Szeged model – its aims, syllabus, strengths, opportunities and possible difficulties. During the development of the subject, we greatly focused on its links to other subjects of behavioral and medical sciences and on its practice-oriented nature. Thus, the course partly contains of lectures and seminars which display cultural variability in relation to biological reality through practical examples. As a result, the topics of medical anthropology prepare the students to use the knowledge as well as skills and attitudes in clinical practice. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(39): 1527–1532.

Animatio: a history of ideas on the beginning of personhood

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-364
Author(s):  
Michael Obladen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Degree Of Protection ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
Fetal Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Individual Human

Abstract The onset of individual human life has fascinated thinkers of all cultures and epochs, and the history of their ideas may enlighten an unsettled debate. Aristotle attributed three different souls to the subsequent developmental stages. The last, the rational soul, was associated with the formed fetus, and entailed fetal movements. With some modifications, the concept of delayed ensoulment – at 30, 42, 60, or 90 days after conception – was adopted by several Christian Church Fathers and remained valid throughout the Middle Ages. The concept of immediate ensoulment at fertilization originated in the 15th century and became Catholic dogma in 1869. During the Enlightenment, philosophers began to replace the rational soul with the term personhood, basing the latter on self-consciousness. Biological reality suggests that personhood accrues slowly, not at a specific date during gestation. Requirements for personhood are present in the embryo, but not in the preembryo before implantation: anatomic substrate; no more totipotent cells; decreased rate of spontaneous loss. However, biological facts alone cannot determine the embryo’s moral status. Societies must negotiate and decide the degree of protection of unborn humans. In the 21st century, fertilization, implantation, extrauterine viability and birth have become the most widely accepted landmarks of change in ontological status.

Mutation

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bäck
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithms ◽  
Base Pair ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Phenotypic Effect ◽  
Local Optima ◽  
Single Base ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
Single Base Pair ◽  
Few Data

In section 1.1.3 it was clarified that a variety of different, more or less drastic changes of the genome are summarized under the term mutation by geneticists and evolutionary biologists. Several mutation events are within the bounds of possibility, ranging from single base pair changes to genomic mutations. The phenotypic effect of genotypic mutations, however, can hardly be predicted from knowledge about the genotypic change. In general, advantageous mutations have a relatively small effect on the phenotype, i.e., their expression does not deviate very much (in phenotype space) from the expression of the unmutated genotype ([Fut90], p. 85). More drastic phenotypic changes are usually lethal or become extinct due to a reduced capability of reproduction. The discussion, to which extent evolution based on phenotypic macro-mutations in the sense of “hopeful monsters” is important to facilitate the process of speciation, is still ongoing (such macromutations have been observed and classified for the fruitfly Drosophila melangonaster, see [Got89], p. 286). Actually, only a few data sets are available to assess the phylogenetic significance of macro-mutations completely, but small phenotypical effects of mutation are clearly observed to be predominant. This is the main argument justifying the use of normally distributed mutations with expectation zero in Evolutionary Programming and Evolution Strategies. It reflects the emphasis of both algorithms on modeling phenotypic rather than genotypic change. The model of mutation is quite different in Genetic Algorithms, where bit reversal events (see section 2.3.2) corresponding with single base pair mutations in biological reality implement a model of evolution on the basis of genotypic changes. As observed in nature, the mutation rate used in Genetic Algorithms is very small (cf. section 2.3.2). In contrast to the biological model, it is neither variable by external influences nor controlled (at least partially) by the genotype itself (cf. section 1.1.3). Holland defined the role of mutation in Genetic Algorithms to be a secondary one, of little importance in comparison to crossover (see [Hol75], p. 111): . . . Summing up: Mutation is a “background” operator, assuring that the crossover operator has a full range of alleles so that the adaptive plan is not trapped on local optima. . . .

Selection

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bäck
Keyword(s):  
Model Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Algorithms ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Disruptive Selection ◽  
Stabilizing Selection ◽  
Intermediate Phenotypes ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
Survival And Reproduction ◽  
Implementation Models ◽  
Selection Operator

The genetic operators summarized in the set Ω, i.e. mutation and recombination (and probably others, e.g. inversion) create new individuals in a completely undirected way. In Evolutionary Algorithms, the selection operator plays a major role by imposing a direction on the search process, i.e. a clear preference of those individuals which perform better according to the fitness measure Φ. Selection is the only component of Evolutionary Algorithms where the fitness of individuals has an impact on the evolution process. The practical implementations of selection as discussed in sections 2.1.4, 2.2.4, and 2.3.4 seemingly contradict the biological viewpoint presented in section 1.1, where natural selection was emphasized not to be an active force but instead to be characterized by different survival and reproduction rates. However, artificial implementation models and biological reality are not necessarily contradicting each other. While in biological systems fitness can only be measured indirectly by differences in growth rates, fitness in Evolutionary Algorithms is a direct, well-defined and evaluable property of individuals. The biological struggle for existence (e.g. by predator-prey interactions, capabilities of somatic adaptation, and the particular physical properties of individuals) has no counterpart in computer implementations of standard Evolutionary Algorithms. Therefore, an artificial abstraction of these mechanisms can use fitness measures to determine survival and reproduction a posteriori, since the struggle for existence is completely hidden in the evaluation process of individuals. The fact that different survival and reproduction constitute selection is valid in both cases, but in Evolutionary Algorithms fitness is measurable and implies the survival and reproduction behavior, which is just opposite to biological reality. This is simply an implication of the fitness-centered intention which necessarily prevails design and application of these algorithms. Therefore, it is just a logic consequence to model selection as an active, fitness-based component of Evolutionary Algorithms. However, how to model selection is by no means a simple problem. In evolutionary biology, it is usually distinguished between stabilizing, directed, and disruptive selection (see [Fut90], pp. 174–175). In the case of stabilizing selection, intermediate phenotypes have best fitness values, while disruptive selection is characterized by two or more distinct phenotypes that are highly fit and by intermediate phenotypes of low fitness (this assumes an - albeit unknown - ordering of phenotypes).

Evaluation of the Multiplication Rate of Human Cancer through the Study of Growth Diagrams

1966 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 247-276
Author(s):  
Sergio Massenti ◽  
Lionello Michelassi ◽  
Lamberto Venturoli
Keyword(s):  
Growth Models ◽  
Human Cancer ◽  
Multiplication Rate ◽  
Biological Factors ◽  
Neoplastic Cells ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
Irradiation Therapy ◽  
Cellular Population ◽  
The Waves

The determination of growth rates in human tumors is studied through growth diagrams obtained with radiographic or direct measurement (made several times) from the diameters of round neoplastic nodes. The mathematic development of two different growth models, one, more common, based on the dimensional increase of tumor dependent from the dual fission of all the neoplastic cells, the second based on the intervention of biological factors, which reduce, variously at different times, the quota of the cellular population active for reproduction, showed different «periods of reproduction». A third system to ascertain the « period of reproduction » of a neoplastic cells population, is based on the study of the diagrams concerned with the variation in time of the growth rate ∊: owing to the rhythm of the waves it is probable that these are dependent from the predominant phase of the cellular cycle at the time the cellular population is examined. It is suggested that it would be more realistic and closed to the biological reality to obtain the value on the « periods of reproduction » through the last two systems, the mathematic and graphic analyses of which are presented. These studies may give the basic biometrical values necessary for the planning of fractionation of irradiation therapy according to the neoplastic cellular cycle.

The conundrum of correlation and causation

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1073-1074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene M. Pepperberg
Keyword(s):  
Computational Capacity ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
Real Behavior ◽  
C Complex

Biology can inspire robotic simulations of behavior and thus advance robotics, but the validity of drawing conclusions about real behavior from robotic models is questionable. Robotic models, particularly of learning, do not account, for example, for (a) exaptation: co-opting of previously evolved functions for new behavior, (b) learning through observation, (c) complex biological reality, or (d) limits on computational capacity.

Kinematics of accretionary shell growth, with examples from brachiopods and molluscs

Paleobiology ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spafford C. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Inverse Problem ◽  
Reference Frame ◽  
Computer Simulations ◽  
Reference Model ◽  
Shell Growth ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Growth Forms ◽  
Present Position ◽  
Growth Step ◽  
Biological Reality

A moving reference frame is introduced for the analysis of accretionary shell growth. Simple principles of motion and stepwise growth define the model. At each growth step, the aperture migrates from its present position to a new position, according to locally defined rules. The aperture becomes the focus of the analysis, mathematically and conceptually, in conformity with biological reality. Kinematic principles provide the analytical framework for describing the aperture's trajectory (kinematics is the study of motion). The aperture “translates,” “rotates,” and “dilates.” The model offers exceptional flexibility in the analysis of accretionary growth forms and is particularly well-suited to analysis of conical and loosely coiled shell geometries. Computer simulations illustrate the principles of a moving reference model. The inverse problem of finding the aperture motions from actual shell data is rigorously specified, for both planispiralled and helicospiralled shell forms.

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