THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EVITABILITY IN NATURE

Assessing the current situation of the religion–science dialogue, it seems that a consensus of nonconsensus has been reached. This nonconsensus provides a pluralistic context for the religion and science dialogue, and one area where this plurality is clear is the discourse on relational models of God and creation. A number of interesting models have gained attention in contemporary theological dialogue with science, yet there is an overriding theme: an emphasis on God's involvement with the world. In this article, I argue that theology has been preoccupied with this emphasis. It is suggested that the theme of the freedom of nature has been underrepresented. This theme of the freedom of nature I argue carries important theological implications. It is suggested that acts or events gain their significance largely by way of being contextualized by the fact that such acts or events could have been otherwise, a realization that might provide the various relational models of God and the world food for thought.     

Educational accountability

Thus there arises the fundamental dilemma of education. To define in advance an end result and then to seek by all possible means to achieve it is to be held too narrowing, too repressive, too authoritarian. But if, on the other hand, there is no end in view, educational activity is confused and incoherent. Its various parts and successive phases do not add up to anything. Without a definition of the end there is no test by which means can be selected, and no standard by which practice can be criticized and improved.I should like to acknowledge, with thanks, the criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper by my colleagues Hardy Jones, Jon Moline, and John Rich.     

The Default Mode Network and Recurrent Depression: A Neurobiological Model of Cognitive Risk Factors

A neurobiological account of cognitive vulnerability for recurrent depression is presented based on recent developments of resting state neural networks. We propose that alterations in the interplay between task positive (TP) and task negative (TN) elements of the Default Mode Network (DMN) act as a neurobiological risk factor for recurrent depression mediated by cognitive mechanisms. In the framework, depression is characterized by an imbalance between TN-TP components leading to an overpowering of TP by TN activity. The TN-TP imbalance is associated with a dysfunctional internally-focused cognitive style as well as a failure to attenuate TN activity in the transition from rest to task. Thus we propose the TN-TP imbalance as overarching neural mechanism involved in crucial cognitive risk factors for recurrent depression, namely rumination, impaired attentional control, and cognitive reactivity. During remission the TN-TP imbalance persists predisposing to vulnerability of recurrent depression. Empirical data to support this model is reviewed. Finally, we specify how this framework can guide future research efforts.     

Temporal discounting of monetary rewards in children and adolescents with ADHD and autism spectrum disorders

It has been difficult to differentiate attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of some aspects of their cognitive profile. While both show deficits in executive functions, it has been suggested that they may differ in their response to monetary reward. For instance, children with ADHD prefer small immediate over large delayed rewards more than typically developing controls. One explanation for this is that they discount the value of rewards to a higher degree as they are moved into the future. The current study investigated whether children with ADHD can be differentiated from those with ASD in terms of reward discounting. Thirty‐nine children (8–16 y) with ADHD, 34 children with ASD and 46 typically developing controls performed a hypothetical monetary temporal discounting task. Participants were instructed to make repeated choices between small variable rewards (0, 5, 10, 20, 30€) delivered immediately and large rewards delivered after a variable delay. Children with ADHD but not ASD discounted future rewards at a higher rate than typically developing controls. These data confirm steeper discounting of future rewards in ADHD and add to a small but growing literature showing that the psychological profile of ADHD can be distinguished from that of ASD in terms of disrupted motivational processes.     

Medical ethics in an era of bioethics: Resetting the medical profession’s compass

What it means to be a medical professional has been defined by medical ethicists throughout history and remains a contemporary concern addressed by this paper. A medical professional is generally considered to be one who makes a public promise to fulfill the ethical obligations expressed in the Hippocratic Code. This presentation summarizes the history of medical professionalism and refocuses attention on the interpersonal relationship of doctor and patient. This keynote address was delivered at the Founders of Bioethics International Congress (June, 2010).     

The interruptive effect of pain on attention

Pain is known to disrupt attentional performance in both healthy adults and patients with chronic pain. Exactly which aspects of attentional function are affected are, however, still to be determined. The primary aim of this investigation was to systematically examine the effects of experimentally induced pain on a range of attentional performance tasks. Following a review of tests of attentional disruption, seven best candidate tasks were selected and examined across seven experiments. The tasks were: continuous performance, flanker, endogenous precueing, n-back, inhibition, attentional switching, and divided attention. Healthy adult participants performed each of these tasks under three different conditions: a painful heat sensation, a warm heat sensation, and a nonheat control. Pain differentially affected attentional performance across these tasks; pain-related attentional impairment was found on the n-back, attentional switching, and divided attention tasks, but not on the other tasks. This finding suggests that the aspects of attention most affected by pain are those essential for the completion of complex tasks that require the processing of multiple cues and control over attentional deployment. These results are discussed in the context of an emerging view of pain as a demand for executive control and the development of measures that could be used to examine attentional disruption in the context of pain.     

Utopia and heightened consciousness

Utopia should not be seen as the end‐point of a continuum of material progress, but as a society whose members enjoy a consciousness raised to its highest attainable level of intensity and value. The urge towards heightened consciousness is seen as a primary, pleasure‐driven human impulse, comparable in scope and intensity to the sex drive and perhaps still more fundamental, in that it emanates from the primordial human organ, the brain. The article explores ways in which an ‘inhibition barrier’ at present limiting the intensity of individual and general consciousness and arising from survival‐orientated modes of perception and feeling, might be raised or removed by a specific modification both of basic mental structures governing perception and conceptualization, and of economic structures, enabling a more efficient but non‐competitive mode of generating and distributing wealth. Insights derived from the psychology of art are thus applied more widely to the process of social living, to generate a concept of an attainable Utopia which would redirect human motivation away from ecologically destructive preoccupations.