An Ethical Framework for Evaluating Experimental Technology

How are we to appraise new technological developments that may bring revolutionary social changes? Currently this is often done by trying to predict or anticipate social consequences and to use these as a basis for moral and regulatory appraisal. Such an approach can, however, not deal with the uncertainties and unknowns that are inherent in social changes induced by technological development. An alternative approach is proposed that conceives of the introduction of new technologies into society as a social experiment. An ethical framework for the acceptability of such experiments is developed based on the bioethical principles for experiments with human subjects: non-maleficence, beneficence, respect for autonomy, and justice. This provides a handle for the moral and regulatory assessment of new technologies and their impact on society.     

Stretching the Traditional Notion of Experiment in Computing: Explorative Experiments

Experimentation represents today a ‘hot’ topic in computing. If experiments made with the support of computers, such as computer simulations, have received increasing attention from philosophers of science and technology, questions such as “what does it mean to do experiments in computer science and engineering and what are their benefits?” emerged only recently as central in the debate over the disciplinary status of the discipline. In this work we aim at showing, also by means of paradigmatic examples, how the traditional notion of controlled experiment should be revised to take into account a part of the experimental practice in computing along the lines of experimentation as exploration. Taking inspiration from the discussion on exploratory experimentation in the philosophy of science—experimentation that is not theory-driven—we advance the idea of explorative experiments that, although not new, can contribute to enlarge the debate about the nature and role of experimental methods in computing. In order to further refine this concept we recast explorative experiments as socio-technical experiments, that test new technologies in their socio-technical contexts. We suggest that, when experiments are explorative, control should be intended in a posteriori form, in opposition to the a priori form that usually takes place in traditional experimental contexts.     

Analysis of Variance Models with Stochastic Group Weights

The analysis of variance (ANOVA) is still one of the most widely used statistical methods in the social sciences. This article is about stochastic group weights in ANOVA models – a neglected aspect in the literature. Stochastic group weights are present whenever the experimenter does not determine the exact group sizes before conducting the experiment. We show that classic ANOVA tests based on estimated marginal means can have an inflated type I error rate when stochastic group weights are not taken into account, even in randomized experiments. We propose two new ways to incorporate stochastic group weights in the tests of average effects – one based on the general linear model and one based on multigroup structural equation models (SEMs). We show in simulation studies that our methods have nominal type I error rates in experiments with stochastic group weights while classic approaches show an inflated type I error rate. The SEM approach can additionally deal with heteroscedastic residual variances and latent variables. An easy-to-use software package with graphical user interface is provided.     

The purposes of laboratory experimentation and the virtues of deliberate artificiality

Critics of the laboratory experiment have maintained that artificiality (the intrusion into the experiment of “unrealistic” conditions) vitiates any possibility of generalizability beyond the confines of the laboratory. It is argued here that such artificiality in laboratory experimentation is a defect or flaw only within the context of verification and may be a distinct virtue in the context of discovery. Indeed it is argued that social psychological experiments may not be artificial enough when contrasted with the most fruitful experiments in the natural sciences. One purpose of an experiment may be to maximize artificiality deliberately so as to discover regularities that do not presently obtain under the “real” conditions outside the laboratory but which are capable of existing. When such observed laboratory regularities produce potentially beneficial outcomes, an attempt may be made to create the specific artificial laboratory conditions outside the laboratory to benefit mankind. This logic, exceedingly common in the natural sciences, has been virtually ignored in social psychology, even in the laboratory experiment, in favor of “realistic” reproduction of existing or reasonably plausible situations. Theoretical benefits of this additional modality of experimentation are illustrated by two recent developments in psychology.     

“May I present you: my disgust!” – Declared disgust sensitivity in the presence of attractive models

Disgust sensitivity differs among men and women, and this phenomenon has been observed across numerous cultures. It remains unknown why such sex differences occur, but one of the reasons may relate to differences in self-presentation. We tested that hypothesis in an experiment comprising 299 participants (49% women) randomly allocated into three groups. Each group completed the Three Domains Disgust Scale (TDDS) and rated how disgusting they found olfactory, visual, gustatory, and tactile disgust elicitors either when a male experimenter was present, a female experimenter was present, or no experimenter was present. We hypothesised that male participants in the female experimenter group would declare decreased levels of disgust sensitivity, and female participants in the male experimenter group would declare increased levels of disgust sensitivity. Results showed that despite sex differences in pathogen and sexual disgust, attractive experimenters did not evoke any differences in declared disgust across groups with one exception–both men and women self-presented as more sensitive to sexual disgust in the presence of the female experimenter. We discuss our findings in the light of evolutionary and social theories.     

Collective Victimhood and Social Prejudice: A Post-Holocaust Theory of Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism represents one of the most penetrating forms of prejudice, yet social research has failed to address the causal underpinnings of the phenomenon. To this end, we empirically test the notion that anti-Semitism builds on the legacy of the Holocaust. Standing as the benchmark for collective suffering, the Holocaust creates competition over recognition of the status of the victim. Upward comparisons between victimized ingroups with other victimized outgroups trigger social prejudice. Victimhood, thus, creates an antagonistic view of the Jews that, in turn, fuels anti-Semitic prejudice. We test this theory using data from Greece—the European nation with the highest proportion of anti-Semites—leveraging two survey experiments and a natural experiment. Our results confirm our theoretical expectations, showing that perceived victimhood fuels anti-Semitism. The findings of our research carry important implications for dealing with anti-Semitism and for combating various forms of outgroup prejudice.     

Which Scientificity for the social Sciences?

Since their emergence in the nineteenth century, the epistemology of social sciences has oscillated from aiming at the classical model of scientificity to emphasizing its own specificities. We argue here that the existence of unambiguous, well defined objects has allowed discoveries and cumulativity in the natural sciences. Whereas, in the social sciences, the term is most often used in a metaphorical meaning, as it represents a basically fluid and changing reality. Its apprehension partly depends on the emotional/intellectual identity of the researcher, which makes it difficult to achieve a full consensus. Yet, beside real, natural or created objects, we do find structures, regularities and objectivations in society.     

Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction

Recent research on change detection has documented surprising failures to detect visual changes occurring between views of a scene, suggesting the possibility that visual representations contain few details. Although these studies convincingly demonstrate change blindness for objects in still images and motion pictures, they may not adequately assess the capacity to represent objects in the real world. Here we examine and reject the possibility that change blindness in previous studies resulted from passive viewing of 2-D displays. In one experiment, an experimenter initiated a conversation with a pedestrian, and during the interaction, he was surreptitiously replaced by a different experimenter. Only half of the pedestrians detected the change. Furthermore, successful detection depended on social group membership; pedestrians from the same social group as the experimenters detected the change but those from a different social group did not. A second experiment further examined the importance of this effect of social group. Provided that the meaning of the scene is unchanged, changes to attended objects can escape detection even when they occur during a natural, real-world interaction. The discussion provides a set of guidelines and suggestions for future research on change blindness.     

The Surprising Nature of the Reaction Time Task

At one level, the scientific enterprise engaged in by Guy Van Orden was about how to analyze reaction time data. At another level it was an attempt to understand the kind of system that one is dealing with in a reaction time (RT) experiment—the system that accords with the instructions that the experimenter gives, produces the responses to the particular class of stimuli that the experimenter presents, at latencies that the experimenter measures and analyzes. That there can be any question about the essential nature of the system under study is perhaps surprising given the long and influential history of RT research and the relative simplicity and transparency of the RT task. In this brief note we hope to show that the question is deserved and that on close inspection the nature of the RT task is, indeed, surprising.     

Can We Make Sense of the Notion of Trustworthy Technology?

In this paper we raise the question whether technological artifacts can properly speaking be trusted or said to be trustworthy. First, we set out some prevalent accounts of trust and trustworthiness and explain how they compare with the engineer’s notion of reliability. We distinguish between pure rational-choice accounts of trust, which do not differ in principle from mere judgments of reliability, and what we call “motivation-attributing” accounts of trust, which attribute specific motivations to trustworthy entities. Then we consider some examples of technological entities that are, at first glance, best suited to serve as the objects of trust: intelligent systems that interact with users, and complex socio-technical systems. We conclude that the motivation-attributing concept of trustworthiness cannot be straightforwardly applied to these entities. Any applicable notion of trustworthy technology would have to depart significantly from the full-blown notion of trustworthiness associated with interpersonal trust.     

Controlling experiments with a general-purpose time-sharing system

For many experiments in the behavioral and biomedical sciences, there is no substitute for an experimental-control computer with true real-time capabilities. However, if an experimenter can tolerate timing errors of several seconds, then he can reap the benefits of computer control by buying time on a general-purpose time-sharing system. There can be little doubt that a self-contained computer-controlled laboratory will be more economical if a fair number of experiments are contemplated. But when only a few experiments are planned, the researcher may find that he can run them with a general-purpose time-sharing system at only a fraction of the cost of establishing a     

“I” and the brain

Many philosophers as well as many biological psychologists think that recent experiments in neuropsychology have definitively discredited any notion of freedom of the will. I argue that the arguments mounted against the concept of freedom of the will in the name of natural causal determinism are valuable but not new, and that they leave intact a concept of freedom of the will that is compatible with causal determinism. After explaining this concept, I argue that it is interestingly related to our use of the first person pronoun “I.” I discuss three examples of our use of “I” in thought and language and submit a few questions I would like neuropsychologists to answer concerning the brain processes that might underlie those uses. I suggest answering these questions would support the compatibilist notion of freedom of the will I have offered in part 1.     

The holistic paradigm

Our present age is characterized by rapid processes of social transformation due to the rise of the systems sciences, computers and information technology. Part I of this paper distinguishes two perspectives for an interpretation of the ongoing evolution of our society as influenced by these newer developments in science and technology. From a structural perspective we argue that they have not created a society with entirely new structures, but just an expansion and intensification of the organizational‐technical systems which have typified the technological society since the Industrial Revolution. From a worldview perspective on our society we conclude that “systems rationalism” reinforces the prevailing technical worldview which fosters a progressive technical control and streamlining of society and human adaptation to its framework.     

THEOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY: A CALL FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY ENRICHMENT

Today, there is a growing interest in interdisciplinary studies between theology and natural sciences. This article will reveal some “core” problems in this interdisciplinary relationship. It investigates how cosmic eschatology and natural sciences can benefit the most from each other while dealing with the scenarios which cosmology presents. Doing so, the main emphasis will be on rediscovering the impact of the Resurrection in Christian theology and the possibility of launching a dialogue between natural sciences and theology concerning the new heaven and the new earth.     

Boundary Work,Associative Argumentation and Switching in the Advocacy of Agricultural Biotechnology

Some scientists argue that we face a worldwide reproductive crisis known as ‘endocrine disruption’, a term used to encompass the effects of hormonally active chemicals in our environment. Everyday chemicals such as plastics, pesticides and flame retardants can mimic hormones and thereby disrupt the reproductive, neurological and immunological development of humans and other animals. This surprising discovery is causing consternation in scientific, policy, academic and corporate arenas as they attempt to define, assess and control for this understudied phenomenon. How can the social sciences participate in understanding and solving the problem generated by endocrine disruption? First, there is an early history of endocrine disruption; the development of insect hormone mimics as pesticides, that has yet to be brought to bear in contemporary discussions of endocrine disruption. Second a social science analysis of the mishaps resulting from the 1970s' development of insect hormone mimics as pesticides offers a new way of thinking scientifically about mimesis. Employing the social science insight that mimesis is productive of social change sheds light on how insect hormone mimicking pesticides produced a number of scientific surprises. By analyzing the outcome of using mimesis in the laboratory, this paper participates in the discussion of endocrine disruption by arguing for a re-evaluation of the predominance of laboratory based sciences when dealing with epigenetic phenomena.     

A putative female pheromone affects mood in men differently depending on social context

Pheromones play a significant role in social interaction and communication in many vertebrates and invertebrates. Although a well-established phenomenon in the animal world, the existence of human pheromones is controversial. The most common observation supporting the notion of pheromones in humans is that exposure to putative pheromones can influence mood in participants. Recently, the concept of modulatory pheromones has been introduced, suggesting that effects of pheromone exposure in humans depend on the context. In the current experiment, we tested whether the mood of heterosexual men is affected by exposure of a putative female pheromone, estratetraenol. We also investigated if this influence would differ depending on whether a male or a female heterosexual experimenter was interacting with the participants. ANOVAs were performed on aggregated mood scales resulting from factor analysis. The results were that exposure to estratetraenol compared to a perceptually identical control substance enhanced positive mood. Moreover, negative mood was differently affected depending on whether a male or a female experimenter conducted the test. Altogether this study suggests that a putative female pheromone can modulate mood in men. Interestingly, the social context (male or female experimenter) seems to be of importance for how men react to exposure.     

MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Abstract. Scholars in religious studies, or "religionists," often mischaracterize the social-scientific study of religion. They assume that a social-scientific analysis of the origin, function, meaning, or truth of religion either opposes or disregards the believer's analysis, which religionists profess to present and defend. I do not argue that the social sciences analyze religion from the believer's point of view. I argue instead that a social scientific analysis is more akin and germane to the believer's point of view than religionists assume. I single out seven mischaracterizations of the social sciences typically held by religionists.     

The function debate: between “cheap tricks” and evolutionary neutrality

We examine the use of the notion of natural selection in the philosophical debate on functions in biology. This debate has been largely shaped by the way in which different accounts assess various selective pressures in justifying claims about biological functions. Cummins (Functions: new essays in the philosophy of psychology and biology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 157–172, 2002), one of the main proponents of the causal role account of biological functions, argues that a correctly understood neo-Darwinian notion of natural selection has nothing to do with functional talk in biology. In this paper, we counter Cummins’ account by showing that progress in the molecular approaches to evolutionary biology—specifically scientific data available in neo-functionalization research—offers valuable support to the etiological selectionist approach to functions in biological and biologically-related sciences. Finally, we use the presented data to build our own account of biological functions, which tries to avoid the wrong turns taken by both major strands in the biological function debate, namely causal role and etiological accounts. According to our account, the function of a certain gene or a protein in the biological system that contains it is a particular causal activity, or a group of causal activities whose manifestation is in a specific way determined by corresponding mechanisms of genetic expression. Also, we argue that in many important cases this particular expression of genetic activity was positively selected at a certain point in evolutionary history. Since we take selection as an important but not the only factor that grounds biological functions, we are committed to a weak etiological account.     

„Krise der Medizin“ – Modelle der Reform

In the 1920s and early 1930s there was a heated debate about the importance of the natural sciences for medicine. Prominent physicians, such as Ferdinand Sauerbruch and Wilhelm His in Germany or Richard Cabot and Charles-Edward Amory Winslow in the USA criticized clinical practices, medical education and research for placing too much focus on the natural sciences and the somatic correlates of human disease and for neglecting the psychological and social dimensions. In spite of a similar diagnosis of the problem, the consequences drawn differed considerably between the German and US contexts: in Germany first steps towards the institutionalization of the new field of psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine and, in parallel, a consolidation of previously existing approaches of complementary medicine were developed, whereas in the USA the discussions led to the introduction and strengthening of social sciences in medicine, particularly in the field of public health. This article reconstructs the historical debate as well as the proposed models of reform and discusses potential implications for present-day medicine.