Liberalism, the First Amendment and Religious Studies: a review of Stanley Fish's The Trouble With Principle

In The Trouble with Principle Stanley Fish argues that (1) there are no neutral principles; (2) that liberalism is intolerant, anti-religious and amoral; (3) that only politics, ideology and rhetoric ‘exist’ and that in politics and rhetoric, as in war, ‘anything goes’; (4) that the principles embodied in the First Amendment stand in the way of political responsibility; and (5) that religion, the primary victim of liberalism, should reassert itself in the public sphere and in academe by putting on the full armour of rhetoric and politics. Although in his book Fish distinguishes between professional experts and true believers, he recently has given up this distinction and instead advocates the creation of departments of religious studies staffed by ‘true believers’. Disagreeing with all of these positions, the reviewer argues that Fish's antifoundational attack on liberalism and advocacy of a neo-foundational fideism bespeak a singular lack of political wisdom.     

Phonetic variability and prosodic structure in mothers

Spontaneous speech acoustics are highly variable. Such variability may be problematic for infants relying on phonological form to solve the segmentation problem. In the present study, acoustic measures of vowel duration and a computer model of speech segmentation were used to evaluate the problem of phonetic variability for a rhythm-based speech segmentation strategy. The specific questions under study were (1) whether or not mothers realized disyllabic vowel duration patterns consistently in spontaneous infant-directed speech, and (2) whether or not these patterns were distinctive enough in the context of an utterance to provide a useful cue for speech segmentation. Data from four English-speaking mothers indicated that the trochaic-like duration pattern may interact with phrase-position and with grammatical category, but when the resulting patterns are consistent, they provide useful segmentation cues for spontaneous infant-directed speech.     

Gender and Suicide Method: Do Women Avoid Facial Disfiguration?

This study hypothesizes that women are less likely than men to use suicide methods that disfigure the face. Gender differences in the use of suicide methods that disfigure the face were examined using medical examiner??s files of 621 suicides covering a 10-year period from Summit County, Ohio in the U.S. Results showed that while firearms are the preferred method for both women and men, women were less likely to shoot themselves in the head. A series of logistic regression analyses revealed that gender, age, stressful life events and prior suicide attempts were predictors of methods that disfigure the face/head. Significant differences between men and women in correlates of suicide method emerged when the sample was split by gender. The results support the position that women who commit suicide are more likely than men who commit suicide to avoid facial disfiguration.     

Hearing speech in noise: seeing a loud talker is better

Seeing the talker improves the intelligibility of speech degraded by noise (a visual speech benefit). Given that talkers exaggerate spoken articulation in noise, this set of two experiments examined whether the visual speech benefit was greater for speech produced in noise than in quiet. We first examined the extent to which spoken articulation was exaggerated in noise by measuring the motion of face markers as four people uttered 10 sentences either in quiet or in babble-speech noise (these renditions were also filmed). The tracking results showed that articulated motion in speech produced in noise was greater than that produced in quiet and was more highly correlated with speech acoustics. Speech intelligibility was tested in a second experiment using a speech-perception-in-noise task under auditory-visual and auditory-only conditions. The results showed that the visual speech benefit was greater for speech recorded in noise than for speech recorded in quiet. Furthermore, the amount of articulatory movement was related to performance on the perception task, indicating that the enhanced gestures made when speaking in noise function to make speech more intelligible.     

An outcome evaluation study of a psycho‐educational course in a primary care setting

Rationale: To date relatively little research has examined the effectiveness of psycho‐educational courses provided in a primary care setting to adults with mild‐to‐moderate mental health concerns. Aims: To determine whether group psycho‐education could be a viable alternative to individual counselling by (1) assessing the clinical effectiveness of an 8‐week psycho‐educational course, and (2) examining the group outcomes in comparison with individual treatment outcomes from a previous study in the same counselling service. Method: A total of 57 participants attending a psycho‐educational course provided data over a 36‐month period, using the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure (CORE‐OM) pre‐ and post‐intervention. A comparison was then made with the data of 58 previous participants of individual counselling evaluation, using the same CORE‐OM system. Results: Participants reported significantly lower levels of psychological distress after attending the course and these results are comparable to outcomes measured in the same service for individual counselling, indicating that group interventions could be considered a legitimate alternative to individual counselling, thus increasing cost effectiveness and reducing waiting times. Limitations of the study and implications for practice and further investigation are considered.     

Faculty Selling Desk Copies��The Textbook Industry, the Law and the Ethics

It is a guilty secret that many college professors sell the complimentary desk copies that they receive from textbook publishers for cash. This article attempts to shed light on the undercover practice by looking at the resale of complimentary textbooks by faculty from four perspectives. Part One provides an overview of the college textbook industry, the business reasons that motivate publishers to provide complimentary desk copies to faculty, and the economic consequences of the entry of the textbooks into the used book market. Part Two examines the legal characteristics of complimentary desk copies in terms of their ownership and any contractual duties that may arise from their receipt. Part Three looks at legislative efforts to curb the practice, and Part Four reviews university policies addressing the issue. In Part Five, the ethical implications of faculty selling desk copies are examined, with a special focus on this practice in a business school. The Conclusion considers the future of the sale of complimentary copies in light of the move to e-books and other initiatives by authors and textbook publishers to circumvent the practice.