Collective Consciousness and the Psychology of Human Interconnectedness

The authors explore the nature of consciousness from the perspective that our species aggregates, such as groups and intergroups, not only organize but have the capacity for consciousness. They insist that the individual serves as a medium, but not as the sole carrier of consciousness. Tapping on their interconnected reflective capacity allows social systems to transform. They give examples from their work with groups and organizational consultation.     

Science and the Future of Theology: Critical Issues

The ambivalent reputation of theology as an academic discipline is attributed to the often circular character of its procedures based on presumed authoritative sources. Recently, science too has come under the shadow of "postmodernist" critiques but, it is argued, has been able to withstand them successfully and make epistemologically warrantedclaims to be depicting reality—thereby vindicating human rationality. Evolutionary epistemological considerations also reinforce confidence in the more general deliverances of the human exploration of reasonableness through inference to the best explanation (IBE). The consequences of applying IBE, with its associated criteria, in theological investigation are considered in relation to theology as it is and as it might be. A number of issues critical for thedevelopment of a credible theology are identified. In spite of the challenging and somewhat negative view of contemporary theology to which this leads, hope is expressed that a genuinely credible "evangelical,""catholic," and liberal theology may yet emerge for the new millennium.     

Constraints on Analogical Inference

The ability to reason by analogy is particularly important because it permits the extension of knowledge of a target domain by virtue of its similarity to a base domain via a process of analogical inference. The general procedure for analogical inference involves copying structure from the base to the target in which missing information is generated, and substitutions are made for items for which analogical correspondences have already been found. A pure copying with substitution and generation process is too profligate to be useful, and so constraints must be placed on what information is to be carried over. In this paper, the importance of systematicity as a constraint on inference is explored in four studies in which subjects find correspondences between domains and also make inferences. This work suggests that people prefer to make inferences of information connected to systematic correspondences between domains. A second important theme of this paper is that violations of one-to-one mapping can lead to inconsistent object substitutions in inference. The data reveal no such inconsistent substitutions in people's inferences, suggesting that they do respect one-to-one mapping in analogical inference. These findings are discussed relative to four prominent computational models of analogical mapping and inference.     

Institutional Approaches to Research Integrity in Ghana

Science and Engineering Ethics - Research misconduct (RM) remains an important problem in health research despite decades of local, national, regional, and international efforts to eliminate it....