IS THERE A DISTINCTIVE QUANTUM THEOLOGY?

Quantum mechanics (QM) is a favorite area of physics to feature in “science and religion” discussions. We argue that this is at least partly because the arcane results of QM can be deployed to make big theological claims by the linguistic sleight of hand of “register switching”—sliding imperceptibly from technical into everyday language using the same vocabulary. We clarify the discussion by deploying the formal mapping of QM into classical statistical mechanics (CSM) via the mathematical device of “Wick rotation.” This equivalence between QM and CSM suggests caution in claiming distinctiveness for quantum theologizing. After outlining two areas in which quantum insights nevertheless resonate with longstanding themes in theological reflection (hiddenness and visualizability), we suggest that both QM and CSM point to a theology of science in which scientists participate in the divine gaze on creation as imago Dei.     

IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH THE LPC SCORE IN LEADER MATCH?

Some problems with the use of the LPC score in the Fiedler, Chemers, and Mahar Leader Match self-teaching book were identified and examined. The cutting scores defining high and low LPC were questioned because of inadequately developed norms and the alteration of the LPC scale from 16 to 18 items. The current procedures were estimated to create a substantial bias toward being inappropriately categorized as a high LPC individual.     

IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THE DIALOGUE?

The title question was raised by Philip Hefner in an editorial in the March 2007 issue of Zygon, and answered in various ways in sixteen guest editorials in the June, September, and December 2007 issues. In this article, after defining some pertinent concepts, I comment on these essays. I review critical statements made by the guest editorialists and survey their proposals for further dialogue topics. I conclude with my own views on the future of the dialogue and the role of Zygon therein.     

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY? THEOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITY

To suppose the possibility of dialogue between theology and science is to suppose that theology is an intellectually worthy partner to engage in dialogue with science. The status of theology as a discipline, however, remains contested, one sign of which is the absence of theology from the university. I argue that a healthy theology‐science dialogue would benefit from the presence of theology as an academic discipline in the university. Theology and theologians would benefit from the much closer contact with university disciplines, including the sciences. The university and the sciences would benefit from the presence of theology, providing a department of ultimate concern, where big questions may be asked and ideologies critiqued. A university theology would need to meet standards of academic integrity.     

IS THE SELF-CONCEPT A HABITUAL REFERENT IN JUDGMENTS OF SIMILARITY?

Abstract— People typically provide higher similarity ratings in response to the question "How similar is the typical preppie to you?" than to the question "How similar are you to the typical preppie?" Observed asymmetries in comparisons of the self and person prototypes have been offered as evidence that the self-concept acts as a habitual reference point in social judgment However, such a task does not test the habitual placement of a concept in the referent position of a comparison. In this study, participants judged the similarity between the self and person prototypes in response to linguistic (forced directional) queries or to spatial (nonforced) queries in which the self was positioned above or below the person concept Participants also rated pairs of familiar and unfamiliar countries in a similar manner, to replicate and extend the work of Tversky (1977) Expected asymmetries were observed in forced comparisons. The self and the familiar country were seen as more similar to other people and less familiar countries, respectively, when the former concepts served as the referent of a comparison than when they served as the subject Asymmetries were not observed in the nonforced conditions, and mean similarity in these conditions was of the same magnitude as in the forced condition in which the more familiar stimulus was the referent of the comparison. This result provides the first direct evidence that the self serves as a habitual referent in similarity judgments     

IS THERE A CONSERVATIVE SOLUTION TO THE MANY THINKERS PROBLEM?

On a widely shared assumption, our mental states supervene on our microphysical properties – that is, microphysical supervenience is true. When this thesis is combined with the apparent truism that human persons have proper parts, a grave difficulty arises: what prevents some of these proper parts from being themselves thinkers as well? How can I know that I am a human person and not a smaller thinker enclosed in a human person? Most solutions to this puzzle make radical, if not absurd, claims. Recently, however, Michael Burke and Howard Robinson proposed conservative solutions that, according to them, do not have such undesired consequences. This paper argues that the conservative solutions tacitly assume at least one of the radical ones, and therefore they provide no alternative to the extreme solutions.     

WHAT IS THE SCIENCE OF THE SOUL? A CASE STUDY IN THE EVOLUTION OF LATE MEDIEVAL NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

This paper aims at a partial rehabilitation of E. A. Moody's characterization of the 14th century as an age of rising empiricism, specifically by contrasting the conception of the natural science of psychology found in the writings of a prominent 13th-century philosopher (Thomas Aquinas) with those of two 14th-century philosophers (John Buridan and Nicole Oresme). What emerges is that if the meaning of empiricism can be disengaged from modern and contemporary paradigms, and understood more broadly in terms of a cluster of epistemic doctrines concerned with the methodology of knowing, it characterizes very appropriately some of the differences between the ways in which late-medieval thinkers both understood and practised the science of psychology. In particular, whereas Aquinas thinks psychology is about reasoning demonstratively to the real nature of the soul from its evident operations (thereby assimilating psychology to metaphysics), Buridan and Oresme, both of whom doubt whether real animate natures can be known empirically, focus on giving detailed accounts of those operations themselves (thereby assimilating psychology to physics).     

DISCOUNTING OF DELAYED FOOD REWARDS IN PIGEONS AND RATS: IS THERE A MAGNITUDE EFFECT?

Temporal discounting refers to the decrease in the present, subjective value of a reward as the time to its receipt increases. Results from humans have shown that a hyperbola-like function describes the form of the discounting function when choices involve hypothetical monetary rewards. In addition, magnitude effects have been reported in which smaller reward amounts are discounted more steeply than larger amounts. The present research examines the cross-species generality of these findings using real rewards, namely food pellets, with both pigeons and rats. As with humans, an adjusting amount procedure was used to estimate the amount of immediate reward judged equal in value to a delayed reward. Different amounts of delayed food rewards (ranging from 5 to 32 pellets in pigeons and from 5 to 20 pellets in rats) were studied at delays varying from 1 s to 32 s. A simple hyperbola, similar to the hyperbola-like mathematical function that describes the discounting of hypothetical monetary rewards in humans, described the discounting of food rewards in both pigeons and rats. These results extend the generality of the mathematical model of discounting. Rates of discounting delayed food rewards were higher for pigeons than for rats. Unlike humans, however, neither pigeons nor rats showed a reliable magnitude effect: Rate of discounting did not vary systematically as a function of the amount of the delayed reward.     

THEOLOGY AS THE QUEEN (BEE) OF THE DISCIPLINES?

Abstract. Once Queen of the Medieval court of sciences, dethroned theology may be able in our time to play a strategic servant role in rightly humiliating, elevating, and ordering the disciplines, in gadflying like a mutant honeybee, generating surprise and serendipity through the intermediacy of social science, and in offering ethical homing direction to the disciplines in their applied endeavors.     

IS THERE A METHOD TO OUR MADNESS? THE IMPACT OF DATA COLLECTION METHODOLOGY ON ORGANIZATIONAL SURVEY RESULTS

Results from 3 organizational survey efforts were used to explore the impact of data collection method on 5 outcomes: response preference, item completion rate, use of don't know responses, item mean and variability. The first study compared 977 online with 711 opscan responses in a U.S. government agency. The second study compared a Time 2 administration of 893 online with 732 opscan responses. The third study examined 4,654 automated phone (IVR) with 3,587 paper responses in a global pharmaceuticals firm. Although method utilization varied considerably by country, the more technological approaches were preferred in the U.S., and younger employees were significantly more likely to respond online. Overall, survey method accounted for a relatively small percentage of unique variance in the data (0% to 4%). Practitioners may be better off choosing an administration method based on factors such as cultural fit and ease of implementation rather than issues of data quality.     

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN THE DIALOGUE PROPOSED BY WILLIAM KLINK?

Abstract. Klink rejects the use of ecological models in environmental decision making because their predictions cannot be tested by rigorous scientific methods. I argue that models that cannot be tested according to the rigorous standards of the physical sciences can still be considered “scientific”; they are useful (and, in practice, used) for assessing the impacts of human actions on the environment and choosing between alternative courses of action. It is, however, important to be aware of the uncertainties and to make corrections as new data and insights become available. The interplay between (1) model-based decisions and action and (2) their consequences and subsequent corrections can be regarded as a dialogue between humans and nature (or God) in the sense proposed by Klink. Klink also claims that future actions should be informed by the larger vision of theology and should not be based on science. I suggest that science has an indispensible role. The larger vision is needed to respond to the fundamental religious question: How should I live—and why? But this question cannot be answered without first addressing the fundamental scientific question: How does the world work? I suggest that responses to the first question can be formulated as visions of a future state of existence that we feel compelled to strive to realize, and that science is necessary to provide “maps of reality” needed to realize visions. I also suggest that Christian traditions can probably provide adequate visions; the crucial need is for improving our “maps of reality.”     

HOW EMPIRICAL IS WIEMAN'S THEOLOGY?

Abstract. The essay is a response to the papers written by Nancy Frankenberry and Charley Hardwick in the March 1987 issue of Zygon. Questions are raised about whether Wieman's theology is functionalist in the way described by Frankenberry and whether Hardwick's proposal to establish the logical possibility of naturalism as a framework for an existential interpretation of the Christian message is satisfactory. The most basic question raised by both papers is whether Wieman's theology is fully empirical when viewed from the point of view of the radical empiricist.     

IS THEOLOGY RESPECTABLE AS METAPHYSICS?

Theology involves inquiry into God's nature, God's purposes, and whether certain experiences or pronouncements come From God. These inquiries are metaphysical, part of theology's concern with the veridicality of signs and realities that are independent from humans. Several research programs concerned with the relation between theology and science aim to secure theology's intellectual standing as a metaphysical discipline by showing that it satisfies criteria that make modern science reputable, on the grounds that modern science embodies contemporary canons of respectability for metaphysical disciplines. But, no matter the ways in which theology qua metaphysics is shown to resemble modern science, these research programs seem destined for failure. For, given the currently dominant approaches to understanding modern scientific epistemology, theological reasoning is crucially dissimilar to modern scientific reasoning in that it treats the existence of God as a certainty immune to refutation. Barring the development of an epistemology of modern science that is amenable to theology, theology as metaphysics is intellectually disreputable.     

WHAT IS EFFECTIVE IN THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS? A ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION

In her contribution to the Round Table Discussion in 1956, Marianne Horney Eckardt brings into focus the need to respect the unique qualities of the patient as a human being and to be cognizant of the uniqueness of each patient–therapist relationship. In discussing the subtler aspects of technique, Dr. Eckardt reminds us that there is no neutral technique and that what is effective and what brings change in treatment needs to be viewed in the specific context of the dynamic interaction of the patient—therapist dyad. She also appeals for humility in the therapist and reminds clinicians to keep in awareness the one-sidedness of the relationship.