The New Holism: The Grand Prospect for Science and Society

As we enter the 21st century and the new millennium, our collective evolution reaches a critical threshold. We cannot go on as we did before: our world has become unsustainable. Sooner or later many local ecosystems would collapse, the climate would change adversely for agriculture and habitation, species incompatible with a large and dense human population would profilerate, and resources critical for human health and survival would become scarce, or at least beyond the reach of a critical segment of humanity. We need to shift gears, moving from the kind of evolution that characterized our scientific-technological civilization, to the kind that is compatible with the human condition as it evolves on this planet. This shift requires a corresponding shift in our concept of the world. The dominant mechanistic and atomistic paradigm no longer serves us: it is not only factually incorrect in view of the latest discoveries of the sciences, it also inspires dangerously misguided behaviors. We need to find a deeper and better view of the human condition. We must no longer just see the trees: we must also see the forest. That is, we must learn to see the planetary socio-ecosystem with all its subsystems, diversities, and also its actual and potential unities. What we need is a holistic view, a view of the human being as part of her or his community, which is part of its local environment, which is part of its society and culture, which is part of the system of cultures and societies in the human family-which is part of the global environment: of the biosphere.     

The effect of the belief in free market ideology on redressing corporate injustice

Many people in the major Western economies (e.g., United States, UK, and Germany) subscribe to free market ideology (FMI), which claims that institutional oversight of the market is unnecessary for public reaction can force corporations to regulate their own behavior. The question then becomes how people's belief in FMI affects their reactions to corporate transgressions. Given its ingroup‐centered values, we hypothesized that FMI beliefs would bias reactions to corporate transgressions. We report results of a pilot study showing that FMI beliefs are predicted by selfishness, tradition, conformity, and lack of universalism. We then report three experiments, which showed that stronger FMI beliefs predict weaker demands to redress corporate injustices committed by ingroup (but not outgroup) corporations (Studies 1–3), especially when victims of corporate wrongdoings belong to an outgroup (rather than the ingroup; Study 3). The findings inform our conceptual understanding of FMI and give insights about its implications for market justice.     

Information in the Universe and in the Organism

There is a branch of modern medicine that relies on information rather than on biochemical substances to maintain health and cure disease. Known as information medicine, it offers an important complement to the dominant biochemical approach of mainstream medicine. This note offers a few reflections on the potentials of information medicine in reference to what is currently known regarding the role of information in the universe, and in the living organism.     

Why Do Women Endorse Honor Beliefs? Ambivalent Sexism and Religiosity as Predictors

Cultures of honor, such as Turkey, prioritize defending individual and family reputations, but in gender-specific ways (Nisbett and Cohen 1996). Men maintain honor via reputations for toughness, aggression, control over women, and avenging insults. Women maintain honor through obedience to men, sexual modesty, and religious piety. Honor beliefs support women’s subordination, justifying violence against them (Sev’er and Yurdakul, Violence against Women, 7, 964–998, 2001) and therefore should be challenged. Understanding honor beliefs’ ideological correlates may inform such efforts. We hypothesized that benevolent sexism, a subjectively favorable system-justifying ideology, would more strongly, positively predict Turkish women’s (versus men’s) honor beliefs; whereas hostile sexism, which is openly antagonistic toward women, would more strongly, positively predict Turkish men’s (versus women’s) honor beliefs. Additionally, due to justifications for gender inequality embedded in Islamic religious teachings, we expected Islamic religiosity to positively predict honor beliefs for both genders. A convenience sample of Turkish undergraduates (313 women and 122 men) in Ankara completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Religious Orientation Scale, and Honor Endorsement Index. Regression analyses revealed that benevolent (but not hostile) sexism positively predicted women’s honor beliefs, whereas hostile (but not benevolent) sexism positively predicted men’s honor beliefs. Islamic religiosity positively predicted honor beliefs for both genders, but (unexpectedly) did so more strongly for men than women. We suggest that combating benevolent sexism and promoting feminist interpretations of Islamic religiosity may help to empower Turkish women to challenge honor beliefs.     

Semiorders with separability properties

We analyze different separability conditions that characterize the numerical representability of semiorders through a real-valued function and a strictly positive threshold. Any necessary and sufficient condition for the numerical representability of an interval order by means of two real-valued functions is proved to also characterize the Scott–Suppes representability of semiorders provided that a key additional condition of regularity with respect to sequences holds.     

An investigation of stride interval stationarity while listening to music or viewing television

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the effects of auditory and visual distractions on pedestrian ambulation. A fundamental temporal characteristic of ambulation is the temporal fluctuation of the stride interval. In this paper, we investigate the stationarity of stride interval time series when people are exposed to different forms of auditory and visual distractions. An increase in nonstationary behavior may be suggestive of divided attention and more frequent central modulation of locomotion, both of which may have ramifications on pedestrian vigilance and responsiveness to environmental perturbations. One group of fifteen able-bodied (6 females) young adult participants completed a music protocol (overground walking with and without music). A second group of fifteen (7 females) did a television protocol (treadmill walking while watching TV with and without sound). Three walking trials, each 15min in duration, were performed at each participant's comfortable walking speed, with force sensitive resistors under the heel of each foot. Using the reverse arrangements test, the vast majority of time series were nonstationary, with a time-varying mean as the principal source of nonstationarity. Furthermore, the television trial with sound had the greatest number of nonstationarities followed by overground walking while listening to music. We discuss the possibility that these conditions measurably affect gait dynamics through a subconscious synchronization to external rhythms or a cyclic distraction followed by a period of increased conscious correction of gait timing. Our findings suggest that the regulation of stride timing is particularly susceptible to constant, time-evolving auditory stimuli, but that normal pacing can be restored quickly upon stimulus withdrawal. These kinds of sensory distractions should thus be carefully considered in studies of pedestrian ambulation.     

Evolution of the Global Corporation: A Systemic Perspective

The growth of the modern corporation from local and nationally centered origins to the multinational and then the global level is traced on the one hand to global flows of matter, energy, and information, and on the other to the geographic and political constraints exercised by nation-states. The emergence of the global corporation follows basic laws of evolution applicable to all complex systems, whether in nature or in society. Thus the global corporation is a new but not an anomalous phenomenon on the stage of history.     

A Review of: “Hollander,M. (2008). Helping Teens Who Cut: Understanding and Ending Self Injury.”

Based upon informal observation of adverse effects arising during behaviorally oriented parent-training programs, 119 parents attending such programs answered a structured questionnaire regarding six specific adverse effects. Each of the “side effects” were reported by a substantial portion of the participants. In most cases, the severity of effects was not extreme. The mean number of side effects reported by each parent was 1.70. Based upon these findings, clinicians conducting such parent-training programs are encouraged to provide content material to prevent or ameliorate these adverse effects.