The problem of evil and the attributes of God

In discussions of the probabilistic argument from evil, some defenders of theism have recently argued that evil has no evidential force against theism. They base their argument on the claim that there is no reason to think that we should be able to discern morally sufficient reasons which God presumably has for permitting the evil which occurs. In this paper I try to counter this argument by discussing factors which suggest that we should generally be able to discern why God permits evil events. I close by suggesting that the theist use the evidential force which evil does have as a reason to question her understanding of the divine attributes.     

Making probability judgments of future product failures: The role of mental unpacking

When consumers mentally unpack (i.e., imagine) the reasons for product failure, their probability judgments of future product failures are higher than when no mental unpacking is undertaken. However, increasing the level of mental unpacking does not lead to monotonically increasing effects on probability judgments but results in inverted U-shaped relationships. Using a two-factor structure, we propose that when consumers undertake mental unpacking, there will be two conflicting processes; while imagining causes for an event will lead to greater perceived probability, the greater difficulty in generating reasons for an event will lead to lower perceived probability.     

Reduced spiking in entorhinal cortex during the delay period of a cued spatial response task

Intrinsic persistent spiking mechanisms in medial entorhinal cortex (mEC) neurons may play a role in active maintenance of working memory. However, electrophysiological studies of rat mEC units have primarily focused on spatial modulation. We sought evidence of differential spike rates in the mEC in rats trained on a T-maze, cued spatial delayed response task. Animals begin at the base of the T-maze where a 1-sec white noise and visual light cue are presented on the left or right side of the maze. Rats are rewarded for responding toward the cued direction. In correct trials, we observed decreased spike rates during the delay period, the time interval between cue presentation and reward delivery. Firing-rate histograms show significant decreases during the delay period compared to 5-sec windows from both pre-cue and post-reward periods. We analyzed how running speed and trajectory specificity correlated to spike rate. Twice as many cells were responsive to cue alone compared to running speed. Trajectory specificity did not relate significantly to firing rate. Decreased spike rate may reflect active maintenance in other structures inhibiting mEC. Alternately, the reduction may reflect decreases in background activity during enhanced attention and cholinergic modulation. Lastly, animals often ran through the T-maze choice-point with varying speed. We calculated the spatial posterior probability density from spike rates during these choice-point passes. Slow passes through the choice point were characterized by greater probability of decoding to the reward locations on correct trials compared to quick passes on the maze consistent with similar "look-ahead" properties previously reported in the hippocampus and ventral striatum.