Bridging Political Divides by Correcting the Basic Morality Bias

Efforts to bridge political divides often focus on navigating complex and divisive issues. However, nine studies suggest that we should also focus on a more basic moral divide: the erroneous belief that political opponents lack a fundamental sense of right and wrong. This “basic morality bias” is tied to political dehumanization and is revealed by multiple methods, including natural language analyses from a large Twitter corpus, and a representative survey of Americans with incentives for accuracy. In the US, both Democrats and Republicans substantially overestimate the number of political outgroup members who approve of blatant wrongs (e.g., child pornography, embezzlement). Importantly, the basic morality bias can be corrected with a brief, scalable intervention. Providing information that just one political opponent condemns blatant wrongs increases willingness to work with political opponents and substantially decreases political dehumanization.

The debate concerning the origin of the Whin Sill of northeast England during the early and mid-19th century

The term sill nowadays employed for a broadly concordant igneous intrusion is widely believed to have been derived from the local term for persistent hard beds in the Carboniferous sequence of Northeast England, in particular the Whin Sill. Despite the intrusive origin of the Whin having been demonstrated in Teesdale by Sedgwick in 1827, for much of the 19th Century the alternative extrusive hypothesis, of which Phillips (1836) was the principal proponent, was widely favoured. There were three principal reasons why the intrusive origin was not more widely held, unquestioning acceptance of the erroneous belief of local miners that the Whin Sill was always at the same stratigraphical horizon, a perception that the Teesdale outcrops were not necessarily typical of the rest of the region and a reluctance to accept that the intrusion of such large volumes of magma over such a great area was physically possible. In the 1870s, first the work of Tate and then the detailed six-inch to one-mile mapping of the Geological Survey finally dispelled any notion that the sill was at a consistent stratigraphical level. Curiously, though the correct determination of the intrusive origin of the Whin Sill was one of Sedgwick's earliest and greatest achievements in Northern England, it was not deemed of sufficient importance to merit mention by his biographers.

Erroneous Belief that Digestive Stability Predicts Allergenicity May Lead to Greater Risk for Novel Food Proteins

There continues to be an erroneous belief that allergens (especially food allergens) are more resistant to gastrointestinal digestion than non-allergens. Government regulations based on this erroneous belief may result in technology developers altering the amino acid sequences of digestively stable native proteins to create digestively unstable modified versions for expression in genetically engineered crops. However, an investigation where a known stable allergen was modified to make it more digestible eliminated the protein’s ability to tolerize against allergy in a mouse model, which is consistent with the dual allergen exposure hypothesis. Thus, the false belief that digestive stability increases the allergenic risk of novel food proteins (e.g., such as expressed in genetically engineered crops) could, in some cases, lead to introduction of digestively unstable modified protein versions with greater sensitization risk. However, it is noteworthy that developers have historically been very effective at preventing allergens from being introduced into crops based on the other components of the weight-of-evidence assessment of allergenic risk such that no newly expressed protein in any commercialized genetically engineered crop has ever been documented to cause allergy in anyone.

Mistake, Misrepresentation, and Frustration

This chapter focuses on mistake, which can be described as an erroneous belief of parties that wish to enter into a contract. It explains that mistakes determine whether a contract comes into existence at all or whether a written contract is to be interpreted in a manner that appears to run contrary to its text. It also discusses the distinction of mistakes between mistakes as to the terms of the contract or the identity of the contracting parties and mistakes as to the factual and legal assumptions that underlie the contract. This chapter elaborates that mistakes as to terms or identity may give rise to a wide range of legal consequences, depending on the nature of the mistake. It clarifies that a mistake as to the facts or law that underlie an agreement can only affect an apparent contract in a very narrow set of circumstances.

The importance of deep phenotyping PH registries with a focus on the PVRI-GoDeep registry

[No abstract. Showing first paragraph of article]Although pulmonary hypertension has long been recognised to complicate many common diseases, especially left-sided heart disease and lung disease, most basic, translational and clinical scientists together with the pharmaceutical industry have,to date, focused predominantly on pulmonary arterial hypertension and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension when developing effective treatments . Both entities are rare, leading to the erroneous belief that pulmonary hypertension in general is a rare condition, and not worthy of major global focus.

“Green Gospel” As A Panacea For Environmental Challenge In Nigeria.

Environmental challenge is a global phenomenon which has generated discussions at different levels. The discussions focus on how humans can stop mistreating the ecosystem and create a sustainable environment. This discussion will continue as long as the attitude of people to the environment is still atrocious. The present state of the environment in Nigeria is of utmost concern. This gruesome attitude could be as a result of erroneous belief that human beings are to exercise dominion over the earth. Changing this erroneous belief requires continuous intentional enlightenment on environmental sustainability. A Yoruba adage says, bi ina o ba tan laso, eje kin tan ni eekanna (As long as there are lice on one’s clothe, there will be blood on the hands). Hence, Christians, by their God-given roles in Genesis 1:26, 28; 2:15, which is to “till the land, keep it, rule over it and fill it” are to champion this enlightenment by preaching “Green Gospel.” “Green gospel” is Gods’ act of benevolence to human beings with regards to the environment and human beings’ responsibilities as leader and manager of environment. “Green gospel” is aimed at raising environmental-friendly people. These are people who will preserve, conserve and care for the environment. Descriptive method is used in this paper. The paper looks at the views of different schools of thought and Christians on environment and concludes that a continuous preaching of “Green Gospel” by Christians will help in solving environmental challenge in Nigeria and the global world. “Green Gospel” should first be preached in the Church and Church members should in turn spread the Gospel to the “market place.”

Inconvenient truths in suicide prevention: Why a Restorative Just Culture should be implemented alongside a Zero Suicide Framework

Objective: The prevailing paradigm in suicide prevention continues to contribute to the nihilism regarding the ability to prevent suicides in healthcare settings and a sense of blame following adverse incidents. In this paper, these issues are discussed through the lens of clinicians’ experiences as second victims following a loss of a consumer to suicide, and the lens of health care organisations. Method: We discuss challenges related to the fallacy of risk prediction (erroneous belief that risk screening can be used to predict risk or allocate resources), and incident reviews that maintain a retrospective linear focus on errors and are highly influenced by hindsight and outcome biases. Results: An argument that a Restorative Just Culture should be implemented alongside a Zero Suicide Framework is developed. Conclusions: The current use of algorithms to determine culpability following adverse incidents, and a linear approach to learning ignores the complexity of the healthcare settings and can have devastating effects on staff and the broader healthcare community. These issues represent ‘inconvenient truths’ that must be identified, reconciled and integrated into our future pathways towards reducing suicides in health care. The introduction of Zero Suicide Framework can support the much-needed transition from relying on a retrospective focus on errors (Safety I) to a more prospective focus which acknowledges the complexities of healthcare (Safety II), when based on the Restorative Just Culture principles. Restorative Just Culture replaces backward-looking accountability with a focus on the hurts, needs and obligations of all who are affected by the event. In this paper, we argue that the implementation of Zero Suicide Framework may be compromised if not supported by a substantial workplace cultural change. The process of responding to critical incidents implemented at the Gold Coast Mental Health and Specialist Services is provided as an example of a successful implementation of Restorative Just Culture–based principles that has achieved a culture change required to support learning, improving and healing for our consumers, their families, our staff and broader communities.

Understanding Police Interrogation

What drives suspects to confess during police interrogation? In particular, why do some people falsely confess to serious crimes, despite both the likelihood of severe negative consequences and their actual innocence? Too often, observers endorse the mistaken belief that only people with severe mental illnesses or cognitive disabilities would confess falsely. This common but erroneous belief overlooks the risks that result from additional factors that can influence the nature of an interrogation and may conduce to a false confession, including investigators’ biases, cultural views about race and crime, the powerful effects of police deception on suspects, and characteristics of the suspect and of the circumstances that can increase the suspect’s vulnerability. This book examines numerous cases of false confession to clarify the totality of the circumstances surrounding interrogation and confession, including the interactions of many psychological, legal, cultural, personal, and other factors that lead to greater likelihood of confessions, including coerced or false confessions. It presents recommendations for reforming police interrogation in order to produce accurate, detailed confessions from factually guilty suspects, confessions that stand up under rigorous legal review, are admissible at trial, and lead to guilty verdicts.

Contradictions in Judicial Support for Capital Punishment in India and Bangladesh: Utilitarian Rationales

India and Bangladesh share a common history, and each has developed somewhat similarly since partition. However, while both countries now have relatively low murder rates, India has seen a decline in the rate of executions, while Bangladesh continues to impose death sentences and carry out executions at a higher rate. There have been challenges to the death penalty in India, restricting its use to exceptional cases. The same has not occurred in Bangladesh. Yet in both countries, systemic flaws in the criminal process are evident. This article draws on two original empirical research projects that explored judges’ opinions on the retention and administration of capital punishment in India and Bangladesh. The data expose justice systems marred by corruption, incompetence, abuses of due process, and arbitrary and inconsistent treatment of defendants from arrest through to conviction and sentencing. It shows that those with the power to sentence to death have little faith in the integrity of the criminal process. Yet, a startling paradox emerges from these studies; despite personal knowledge of its flaws, judges have trust in the death penalty to deter crime and to realise other sentencing aims and feel retention benefits society. This is explained by reference to utilitarian values. Not only did our judges express strongly utilitarian justifications for sentencing people to death, in terms of their erroneous belief in its deterrent effect, but some also articulated utilitarian justifications for misconduct in pre-trial processes, suggesting that it was necessary to break the rules to secure convictions when the system was dysfunctional and ineffective.