How Japanese students reason about agricultural biotechnology

Many have claimed that education of the ethical issues raised by biotechnology is essential in universities, but there is little knowledge of its effectiveness. The focus of this paper is to investigate how university students assess the information given in class to make their own value judgments and decisions relating to issues of agricultural biotechnology, especially over genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Analysis of homework reports related with agricultural biotechnology after identification of key concepts and ideas in each student report is presented. The ideas were sorted into different categories. The ideas were compared with those in the reading materials using the same categories. These categories included: concern about affects on humans, affects on the environment, developing countries and starvation, trust in industry, responsibility of scientists, risk perception, media influence, need for (international) organizations or third parties, and information dissemination. What was consistent through the different years was that more than half of the students took a “neutral” position. A report was scored as “neutral” when the report included both the positive and negative side of an issue, or when the student could not make a definite decision about the use of GMOs and GM food. While it may be more difficult to defend a strong “for” or “against” position, some students used logical arguments successfully in doing so. Sample comments are presented to depict how Japanese students see agricultural technology, and how they value its application, with comparisons to the general social attitudes towards biotechnology.     

Gender, Video Game Playing Habits and Visual Memory Tasks

The current research examined whether visuospatial recall of both abstract and common objects was related to gender or object familiarity. Seventy two undergraduates from a university in the Southern U.S. were asked to draw the Rey Complex Figure and a series of common objects from memory. A pilot sample of seventy three undergraduates had previously identified common objects as “male” “female” and “neutral” exemplars. Males were significantly better at drawing “male” and “neutral” exemplars whereas females were better at drawing “female” exemplars. Neither gender was significantly better at the Rey task. These results question whether males have an inherent advantage in visual memory. Results also found that experience with playing violent video games was associated with higher visual memory recall.     

Measuring defensiveness against future anxiety: Telepression

This study attempted to create an analogue through which the concept oftelepression (or futurity defensiveness) could be measured. A total of 54 undergraduate college students participated in the study; 27 experimental subjects were exposed to a “threatening” lecture on world ecology and 27 control subjects to a “neutral” lecture. Major hypotheses were generally confirmed using the Rappaport Time Line (RTL), a spatial representation of temporal experience. Experimental subjects showed a dramatic increase in “past” emphasis and a tendency to constrict present and future time zones on specific temporal indices on the RTL. Results are interpreted as confirming that psychological defense operates in terms offuture anxiety, much as defenses work on the avoidance of the past.     

Modern medicine and biotechnology: an ethical conflict of interest?

When confronting the issues related to developments in modern medicine and biotechnology, we must repeatedly ask ourselves anew what can and cannot be justified in an ethical sense. For radically new ethical questions seem to arise through innovative techniques such as stem cell research or preimplantation diagnosis — and with them new areas of conflicting interests. If one scrutinizes the previous positions related to this subject, it becomes conspicuous that a multitude of questions has quickly piled up — however, (as in the case of Germany) comprehensive and differentiated views have mostly been lacking. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an International Conference on “Conflict of Interest and its Significance in Science and Medicine” held in Warsaw, Poland on 5–6 April, 2002.     

Teaching science at the university level: What about the ethics?

Ethics in science is integrated into an interdisciplinary science course called “Science, Technology and Society” (STS). This paper focuses on the section of the course called “Societal Impact on Science and Technology”, which includes the topics Misconduct in Science, Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, and the Use of Human Subjects in Research. Students in the course become aware not only of the science itself, but also of the process of science, some aspects of the history of science, the social responsibilities of scientists, and the ethical issues in science. Teaching techniques include the instructor sharing experiences as a scientist with the students, sharing books and resources with students, utilizing current sources of information like the weekly “Science Times”, inviting guest speakers, and utilizing portfolios to assess student learning. This paper was delivered orally at the National Academy of Sciences’ “Convocation on Scientific Conduct”, 6–7 June 1994.     

Legal,Tender: The Deferred Romance of Pedagogical Relation in <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Paper Chase</Emphasis>

Films depicting educational relationships typically emphasize personal connections between students and teachers over the educational goals that such relations facilitate. In doing so, these films raise the question of how teachers stand in relation to their institutional roles in such a way as to inspire students’ desires for knowledge. In this paper, in order to examine the influence of institutional roles in defining teacher–student relationships, we analyze “The Paper Chase,” a film in which teacher and student have no personal connection but in which the drama of student desire is nonetheless clearly featured. Drawing from Plato’s erotics, in which the soul is shaped by desire for that which it lacks, and from Jacques Lacan’s theories of desire and transference, we argue that “The Paper Chase” portrays educational desire as rooted in the differential of authority between teacher and student.     

Effects of Classwide Positive Peer “Tootling” to Reduce the Disruptive Classroom Behaviors of Elementary Students with and without Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of a classwide positive peer reporting intervention known as “tootling” in conjunction with a group contingency procedure to reduce the number of disruptive behaviors in a third-grade inclusive classroom. Nineteen elementary students including four students with disabilities (i.e., specific learning disabilities and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) were taught how to report their classmates’ positive behaviors using the “tootling” intervention. Results indicated that the use of the “tootling” intervention in combination with a group contingency procedure decreased students’ disruptive classroom behaviors, establishing a functional relation. Limitations of the study, implications for using tootling as a classwide positive behavior support, and future research questions are discussed.     

Cross-validating the Berlin Affective Word List

We introduce the Berlin Affective Word List (BAWL) in order to provide researchers with a German database containing both emotional valence and imageability ratings for more than 2,200 German words. The BAWL was cross-validated using a forced choice valence decision task in which two distinct valence categories (negative or positive) had to be assigned to a highly controlled selection of 360 words according to varying emotional content (negative, neutral, or positive). The reaction time (RT) results corroborated the valence categories: Words that had been rated as “neutral” in the norms yielded maximum RTs. The BAWL is intended to help researchers create stimulus materials for a wide range of experiments dealing with the emotional processing of words.     

Emergence: Core ideas and issues

This paper explores the fundamental ideas that have motivated the idea of emergence and the movement of emergentism. The concept of reduction, which lies at the heart of the emergence idea is explicated, and it is shown how the thesis that emergent properties are irreducible gives a unified account of emergence. The paper goes on to discuss two fundamental unresolved issues for emergentism. The first is that of giving a “positive” characterization of emergence; the second is to give a coherent explanation of how “downward” causation, a central component of emergentism, is able to avoid the problem of overdetermination.Kim (2004). This paper is largely based on my “Making Sense of Emergence”, Philosophical Studies 95 (1999), 3–36, and “On Being Realistic about Emergence”. The latter was presented at the Emergence/Reduction Workshop at the Institut Jean Nicod in the fall of 2003; as this paper has been promised for another publication, the present paper was expressly composed in order to provide a critical target for the commentaries by Marras and Wong.     

Teaching Ethics to Engineers: Ethical Decision Making Parallels the Engineering Design Process

In order to fulfill ABET requirements, Northern Arizona University’s Civil and Environmental engineering programs incorporate professional ethics in several of its engineering courses. This paper discusses an ethics module in a 3rd year engineering design course that focuses on the design process and technical writing. Engineering students early in their student careers generally possess good black/white critical thinking skills on technical issues. Engineering design is the first time students are exposed to “grey” or multiple possible solution technical problems. To identify and solve these problems, the engineering design process is used. Ethical problems are also “grey” problems and present similar challenges to students. Students need a practical tool for solving these ethical problems. The step-wise engineering design process was used as a model to demonstrate a similar process for ethical situations. The ethical decision making process of Martin and Schinzinger was adapted for parallelism to the design process and presented to students as a step-wise technique for identification of the pertinent ethical issues, relevant moral theories, possible outcomes and a final decision. Students had greatest difficulty identifying the broader, global issues presented in an ethical situation, but by the end of the module, were better able to not only identify the broader issues, but also to more comprehensively assess specific issues, generate solutions and a desired response to the issue.     

The Influence of Language Form and Conventional Wording on Judgments of Illness

Prior research indicates that category labels influence category judgments, but little is known regarding the effects for familiar categories with significant social consequences. The present studies address this issue by examining the effect of linguistic form on judgments of illnesses. Both mental and physical illnesses were presented in each of three linguistic forms: noun, adjective, and possessive phrase. In Study 1, participants were asked to judge the permanence of a set of novel illnesses that differed in wording (e.g., “He is a baxtermic”; “He is baxtermic”; “He has baxtermia”). In Studies 2 and 3, participants were asked to judge which forms of wording were most familiar for actual mental illnesses (e.g., schizophrenia) and physical illnesses (e.g., diabetes). In Study 4, participants were asked to judge the permanence of a set of familiar illnesses that differed in wording. The results indicated that for novel illnesses, nouns (“is a”) imply greatest permanence and possessive nouns (“has”) imply least permanence. However, for familiar illnesses, permanence judgments are also influenced by how frequently each form appears in ordinary language use. Mental illnesses are more often expressed with relatively permanent forms (“is” and “is a”) , whereas physical illnesses are more often expressed with relatively transient forms (“has”). The results demonstrate the importance of both linguistic form and conventional wording patterns on how categories are interpreted.     

Social science as dialogue: narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, and religious interest in iran and the united states

This investigation most importantly sought to illustrate the use of social science to promote cross-cultural dialogue. Fukuyama (1992) explained contemporary cultural trends in terms of a triumphant individualism that would overcome all other forms of social life, including what he described as the “fundamentalist resentment” of Iran. Lasch (1979) more pessimistically diagnosed Western social arrangements in terms of an emerging “culture of narcissism.” In this study, Iranian and American university students responded to measures of narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, religious interest, and psychological adjustment (identity, self-actualization, and self-consciousness). Variables related to a sense of community (collectivist values, religious interest, and identity) correlated negatively with narcissism in both societies, as did self-actualization. These data supported a moderate position between the polarized extremes of Fukuyama and Lasch and more importantly demonstrated how social scientific methods might be useful in creating a “space” for conducting a “dialogue between civilizations.”     

Social science as dialogue: narcissism,individualist and collectivist values,and religious interest in iran and the united states

This investigation most importantly sought to illustrate the use of social science to promote cross-cultural dialogue. Fukuyama (1992) explained contemporary cultural trends in terms of a triumphant individualism that would overcome all other forms of social life, including what he described as the “fundamentalist resentment” of Iran. Lasch (1979) more pessimistically diagnosed Western social arrangements in terms of an emerging “culture of narcissism.” In this study, Iranian and American university students responded to measures of narcissism, individualist and collectivist values, religious interest, and psychological adjustment (identity, self-actualization, and self-consciousness). Variables related to a sense of community (collectivist values, religious interest, and identity) correlated negatively with narcissism in both societies, as did self-actualization. These data supported a moderate position between the polarized extremes of Fukuyama and Lasch and more importantly demonstrated how social scientific methods might be useful in creating a “space” for conducting a “dialogue between civilizations.”     

Teaching the Bible in the schools of the Labor and the Kibbutz Movements, 1921–1953

How the challenge of teaching the Bible was met by educators who were members of the Kibbutz and Labor movements during the years before the establishment of the Israeli State is the subject of the following essay. Years ago, Jacobus Schoneveld, (1976), recently followed by Asher Shkedi (2004) proposed dividing educators of the Labor and Kibbutz movements into three types: those who wished to stress “national reconstruction,” those directed toward teaching a “universal humanism” and those seeking to awaken “moral dialogue” and achieve “personal growth.” In fact, such clear-cut lines of demarcation did not exist. The goals were these, but approaches themselves were always mixed. One distinguishes educational goals better by a more simple division into the questions of what is to be taught (religious versus Secular materials) and through which ancillary disciplines. Doing so has the virtue of highlighting how these educators were animated by their quest after how best to teach Biblical morality with the aim of “shaping” the student or achieving “emulation,” especially by generating a “dialogue” between the pupil and the biblical text, leading to “personal growth.” These emphases tell us much about the pre-State educational mentality and pedagogical ideals.     

Society’s Symbolic Order and Political Trials: Toward Sacrificing the Self for the “Big Other”

The need to establish a borderline between legitimate and illegitimate political trial is one of the central societal discourses. In this paper the author claims that the issues are complex and that a political trial can remain legitimate as long as it is not dealing with a confrontation with the symbolic order on which the society (and the court itself) is founded and as long as the subject (or action) it is dealing with does not threaten the symbolic order’s (or the “Big Other”) existence. When the symbolic order’s existence is in danger, the court is bound to participate in an act of “sacrifice” that is intended to protect the “order.” The author uses Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the “Big Other” (and its development to ideological-political terms) in examining three categories of sacrifice. Through these categories the author claims that in extreme cases of confrontation with the existence of the symbolic order, the court cannot remain objective and it would be difficult to justify the trial as legitimate (especially in historical perspective).     

On the Contextual Turn in the Tokugawa Japanese Interpretation of the Confucian Classics: Types and Problems

This article discusses the “contextual turn” in the interpretation of Chinese classics: the contextuality of Confucian classics in China was latent, tacit, and almost imperceptible; however, it became salient and explicit once the Confucian classics were introduced to Tokugawa Japan. Many a Japanese Confucian took ideas and values expressed in the Chinese classics and transplanted them into the context of Japanese politics and thoughts, in light of which the Japanese scholars staked out new interpretations of the classics. This “contextual turn” involved issues of two levels: the material political order (especially the Chinese-barbarian distinction) and the abstract political thought (especially the ruler-subject relation). It is pointed out that the Chinese empire was the Japanese Confucians’ “political foreign country” and “cultural homeland,” and the tension was evidenced by their interpretations of the term “Zhong’guo” appearing in the Confucian classics. The usual strategy adopted by the Japanese Confucians in interpreting Chinese classics was to “de-contextualize” them and then to “re-contextualize” them in their own Japanese environment.     

The “voice of justice” vs. the “voice of care” in the assignment of criminal sanctions

According to Gilligan's model of moral reasoning, some people approach difficult decisions situationally and in response to needs and relationships of the people involved, often including themselves. People who think this way operate with a “care voice” and tend to be girls and women. Others do so with concerns about rights, obligations, and rules, employing conventional standards uniformly to be fair. These people operate with a “justice voice.” A study was conducted to assess the usefulness of the model for understanding student opinions of penalty for two hypothetical criminal offenders. Based upon data obtained from a self-administered written questionnaire and a quantitative index of “voice,” three themes emerged. First, most students exhibited concerns reflective of the two internal moral structures, the “care voice” and the “justice voice,” when they responded to queries about the proper function of criminal sanctions. This indicates that at least two equally legitimate yet competitive definitions of criminal justice exist. Second, gender and “voice” are associated, but not invariably. Third, “voice” is more helpful than gender for explaining penalty choices. The care model is associated with penalty choices that are responsive to needs of people involved in the situation, and the custodial nature of sanctions lends insight into these choices. The justice model is associated with the assignment of normative sanctions. Moreover, many students expressed a “model of voice,” or a view of fairness, that conflicts with the dominant model of the criminal justice system.     

Water quality, agricultural policy and science

This paper analyses how agricultural policy and science deal with the problem of increasing exploitation of low quality irrigation water and consequent deterioration of water quality in the States of Punjab and Haryana in India. In these cereal growing tracts the policy objective of food security is translated into production technologies, price protection and subsidies. Deterioration of water quality is countered with technocentric solutions. The paper argues that the response of science to the complexities involved in natural resource problems or in the scientific understanding of farmers partial response to technological solutions recommended to improve degraded resources, is due to the existing “administrative rationalism” of natural resource bureaucracies. This administrative rationalism, “the problem-solving discourse which emphasizes the role of the expert rather than the citizen” allows policy and science to maintain their hierarchy in determining policy goals and technological solutions with scant ecological or democratic concerns. Sustainable use of water demands institutional reform in agricultural policy and the agricultural sciences. With an inter-disciplinary training in the agricultural sciences and economics, her publications address the history of and institutional reform in agricultural science, the evaluation of agricultural research, and the organization and measurement of agricultural research effort. This paper is based on an in-house project on “Ex-post evaluation of soil science technologies,” conducted during 1997–2001, in collaboration with Sunita Sangar (then QHS Fellow, NISTADS) whose Ph.D. thesis on the same topic has been submitted to IIT, Delhi in January 2002. Sunita Sangar has a degree in the life sciences, and is interested in science and technology policy issues related to soil and water resources. The authors are currently working on the NATP sponsored project, on an ecological economics framework for the evaluation of soil science research in India.     

The boston bio-bang: The emergence of a “Regional system of innovation”

In this article we will describe the emergence of a great number of small, regionally concentrated, innovative biotech companies. We see these organizations as “hosts” of concepts and ideas, greatly influencing their spreading over the sector. We have chosen an evolutionary perspective following individual companies in their struggle for survival, describing it as “obtaining food” and “fooling predators.” This struggle gives insight in the behavior of the biotech companies and related institutions as a “system of innovation.” One of our findings is that the variety of biotech companies is conditioned by their selection environment, but that this selection environment allows great variety and even encourage variety by keeping the companies small. Haiko Van der Voort is a research associate who lectures and publishes in a wide range of issues including precess management and system innovations. Martin De Jong is associate professor of public management.