A future for the thin red line

The thin red line (TRL) is a theory about the semantics of future-contingents. The central idea is that there is such a thing as the ??actual future??, even in the presence of indeterminism. It is inspired by a famous solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge associated with William of Ockham, in which the freedom of agents is argued to be compatible with God??s omniscience. In the modern branching time setting, the theory of the TRL is widely regarded to suffer from several fundamental problems. In this paper we propose several new TRL semantics, each with differing degrees of success. This leads up to our final semantics, which is a cross between the TRL and supervaluationism. We discuss the notions of truth, validity and semantic consequence which result from our final semantics, and demonstrate some of its pleasing results. This account, we believe, answers the main objection in the literature, and thus places the TRL on the same level as any other competing semantics for future contingents.     

Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology

The democratic egalitarian ideal requires that everyone should enjoy equal power over the world through voting. If it is improper to vote twice in the same election, why should it be permissible for dual citizens to vote in two different places? Several possible excuses are considered and rejected.     

Big Five Personality Traits as the Predictors of Creative Self‐Efficacy and Creative Personal Identity: Does Gender Matter?

The aim of this study was to examine the relation of the Big Five personality factors to two self‐concept variables of growing importance in creativity literature: creative self‐efficacy (CSE) and creative personal identity (CPI). The analysis, conducted on a large (N = 2674, 49.6% women) and varied‐in‐age (15–59 years old) nationwide sample of Poles, using the structural equation model, demonstrated that personality factors are responsible for 23% of CSE and 21% of CPI variances. CSE and CPI were associated with all five personality dimensions: positively with Openness to Experience, Extraversion and Conscientiousness, negatively with Neuroticism and Agreeableness. The separate analyses conducted on men and women showed the differences among the predictors of CSE and CPI. Although Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism predicted CSE among both men and women, Extraversion was positively and Agreeableness negatively related to women's CSE. Conscientiousness was positively related to CPI only among men, and Agreeableness was negatively related to it only among women. Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness predicted CPI in the same manner among men and women.     

ON EVOLUTION AND CREATION: PROBLEM SOLVED? THE POLISH EXAMPLE

We present the results of research carried out as a part of the project Current Controversies about Human Origins: Between Anthropology and the Bible, which focused on the supposed conflict between natural sciences and some branches of the humanities, notably philosophy and theology, with regard to human origins. One way to tackle the issue was to distribute a questionnaire among students and teachers of the relevant disciplines. Teachers of religion and the natural sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics) and students of theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences (specializing in biology and/or anthropology) were asked to answer eleven questions concerning the perception of the conflict between evolutionism and creationism, the definitions of creation and evolution, the existence of a human spiritual element, and the ways of interpreting the Bible, especially the first chapters of the book of Genesis. We present selected results of this questionnaire.     

On the Psychological Significance of the Euclidean Representation of Implicit Personality Theory

The overall purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychological significance of the Euclidean representation of implicit personality theory (IPT) by testing the predictive usefulness of this representation. Multidimensional scaling analyses of 18 subjects' estimates of assumed trait co-occurences (IPT) gave Euclidean trait-distance matrices which were used to predict the subjects' trait-to-trait inferences. The results showed that: (1) The Euclidean representations of subjects' IPTs can be used to predict ( p < 0.10) most subjects' (14 of 18) trait-to-trait inferences; (2) The similarity between the Euclidean representation of subjects' IPTs was positively correlated (r_s = 0.43, p < 0.001) with the similarity between subjects' trait-to-trait inferences. These results suggest that the Euclidean representation of IPT has some predictive value, and thus, may at least to some extent, be justified and considered as psychologically significant.     

Clinical trials: active control vs placebo — What is ethical?

The quest for effective medicines is very old. In modern times two important tools have been developed to evaluate efficacy of drugs: superiority and non-inferiority types of clinical trials. The former tests the null hypothesis of μ (the difference between a tested drug and comparator) ≤ 0 against μ > 0; the latter tests the null hypothesis of μ ≤ - Δ against, μ > - Δ, where Δ is the clinical difference from the comparator. In a superiority trial, a new drug is tested against a placebo; in a non-inferiority trial, a new drug is tested against active treatment. In this paper, arguments are presented to show that a superiority trial against a placebo is scientifically sound but ethically unacceptable, whereas a non-inferiority trial against active treatment is ethically sound but scientifically not reliable. Switching from a superiority type of trial with placebo to a non-inferiority trial with an active-control — following the latest revision of Declaration of Helsinki — is in practice switching from the violation of the uncertainty principle to uncertainty of results. Given human and financial resources, it appears an academic question as to which is more unethical: to violate patients’ rights or to produce results without scientific value. All presented considerations lead to the conclusion that the use of a superiority trial of design with an active control instead of placebo will satisfy scientific needs, expectation of patients, and the ancient quest for effective medicines. In the era of Good (Clinical, Laboratory, Manufacture) Practice, the attention of those performing clinical trials is focused on the procedure, not always on its essence. However even the excellent performance of a trial which is not worth doing is fruitless. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “Placebo: Its Action and Place in Health Research Today,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 12–13 April, 2003.     

A psychometric assessment of a Swedish translation of Shafer's personality scale

The psychometric properties of a Swedish translation of Shafer's (1999a) Big Five Marker (BFM) scale were assessed. The assessment was based on self-ratings on the BFM scale obtained from 694 subjects (82% women and 18% men) residing in Sweden. The following main results were obtained: (a) The factor structure was clear and simple. (b) The factor reliabilities were satisfactory. (c) The heterotrait-heteromethod coefficients indicated construct validity for the scale. (d) The BFM scale showed similar psychometric properties for the older, employed, Swedish sample of the present study to those obtained for the younger, psychology undergraduate, USA sample in Shafer's study (1999a). The conclusion is that the BFM scale has satisfactory and stable psychometric properties and that due to its brevity and documented psychometric evaluation will facilitate research within the Big-Five factor domain, not least in Sweden.     

The effects of visual input on postural control of the lumbar spine in unstable sitting

Postural control of the lumbar spine in unstable sitting was quantified through the analysis of the center of pressure (CoP) movement recorded by a force plate situated underneath a seat that incorporated a hemisphere. Thirteen healthy subjects were tested under conditions of increasing seat instability and elimination of visual input. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative effects of visual input and support surface instability on open and closed loop postural control mechanisms in sitting and to determine the association between traditional summary statistics and random walk analysis of CoP movement. The effects of the seat instability level and visual input on the CoP movement parameters were tested with a two-factor, repeated measures ANOVA (p<0.01). In all summary statistics CoP movement parameters increased significantly due to the seat instability level and lack of visual input. The random walk analysis identified two regions, short- and long-term, which has been postulated to represent open and closed loop control mechanism, respectively. While short-term scaling exponents were independent from visual input, CoP displacement in the short-term region was significantly increased in the eyes closed condition. Summary statistic of CoP total path length per second correlated highly with critical point coordinates and short-term diffusion coefficients. The CoP movement in the long-term region was consistent with a closed loop control mechanisms. The findings of visual influence on what is assumed as an open-loop control mechanism does not, at face value, support the hypothesis that two separate mechanisms are working to achieve postural control.