科学与宗教关系的几个问题

一、明确科学和宗教的涵义科学与宗教的关系历来是一个重大的话题,也是一个十分复杂的问题。长期以来,科学与宗教关系的讨论之所以分歧很大,首先在于参与讨论的主体自身的世界观和方法论存在着差异;其次,对于什么是科学,什么是宗教这些基本概念认识上和使用上也不统一。如果参与讨论者在这两个基本问题上达不成共识,讨论引发的根本分歧是不可能弥合的。在无神论学会的会议上讨论科学与宗教的关系问题,应该说在世界观和方法论上,大家基本上趋于一致。但同时也要对什么是科学,什么是宗教加以科学界定,尽可能形成共识,在此基础上才能展开深入的研究。     

Understanding print: early reading development and the contributions of home literacy experiences

This study explored the development of children's early understanding of visual and orthographic aspects of print and how this is related to early reading acquisition. A total of 474 children, ages 48 to 83 months, completed standardized measures of phonological awareness and early reading skills. They also completed experimental tasks that tapped their understanding of what constitutes "readable" print. The parents of participants completed a questionnaire regarding their children's home literacy experiences. The data showed systematic development in children's understanding of print conventions and English orthography and spelling. Regression analyses indicated that print knowledge was related to early reading skill, even after accounting for variance due to age and phonological awareness. Furthermore, parents' ratings of the extent of their children's involvement in activities that led to practice in reading and writing most consistently predicted the development of emerging literacy skills, including understanding of the conventions of the English writing system. Little relation between print knowledge and the frequency of storybook reading by adults was observed.     

Reinforcing efficacy of food on performance during pre- and postmeal sessions

Assessments were conducted to identify preferred foods for 9 adults with severe to profound mental retardation. Subsequently, the reinforcing effects of each participant's most highly preferred food were evaluated during sessions conducted before and after lunch. Results showed that 4 participants' response rates were higher during premeal sessions than during postmeal sessions. By contrast, pre- and postmeal response rates were indistinguishable for the other 5 participants. These results indicate that the reinforcing efficacy of food may (but does not necessarily) diminish following meals and suggest that the influence of meal schedules should be examined on an individual basis when food is used as reinforcement during training sessions.     

Role conflict and ambiguity of CEOs in international joint ventures: a transaction cost perspective

Insights from transaction cost economics were used to study the boundary conditions underlying the role conflict and ambiguity of 265 CEOs in Chinese-based international joint ventures. Role conflict and ambiguity were lower when the contract between parents was more complete. Contract completeness fully mediated the effects of parent objective gap and parent formalization on role ambiguity but only partially so in the case of role conflict. Role conflict was lower when the foreign parent was dominant in the venture but higher when the local parent was dominant. Role conflict and ambiguity were inversely related to cultural distance. Neither construct had a detrimental effect on international joint venture performance. Implications for role theory are discussed.     

Community engagement,greening, and violent crime: A test of the greening hypothesis and Busy Streets

Researchers have documented that vacant lot greening can reduce community-level crime and violence. Busy Streets Theory (BST) suggests that residents who are involved in the greening process can help to improve physical environments and build social connections that deter crime and violence. Yet few researchers have explored how community engagement in the greening process may affect crime and violence outcomes. We applied BST to test the effects of community-engaged vacant lot greening compared to vacant lots that received either professional mowing or no treatment, on the density of violent crime around study lots. Using mixed effects regression models, we analyzed trends in violent crime density over the summer months from 2016 to 2018 at 2102 street segments in Youngstown, OH. These street segments fell within 150 meters of an intervention parcel that was classified as one of three conditions: community-engaged maintenance, professional mowing, or no treatment (control). We found that street segments in areas receiving community-engaged maintenance or professional mowing experienced greater declines in violent crime density than street segments in areas receiving no treatment, and more decline occurred in the community-engaged condition compared to the professional mow condition. Our findings support BST and suggest that community-engaged greening of vacant lots in postindustrial cities with a concentrated vacancy can reduce crime and violence.     

The Role of Subsidies in Coordination Games with Interconnected Risk

Can subsidies promote Pareto‐optimum coordination? We found that partially subsidizing the cooperative actions for two out of six players in a laboratory coordination game usually produced better coordination and higher total social welfare with both deterministic and stochastic payoffs. Not only were the subsidized players more likely to cooperate (choose the Pareto‐optimum action), but the unsubsidized players increased their expectations on how likely others would cooperate, and they cooperated more frequently themselves. After removal of the subsidy, high levels of coordination continued in most groups with stochastic payoffs but declined in deterministic ones. This carry‐over disparity between the deterministic and stochastic settings was consistent with the economic theories that agents were more likely to keep the status quo option under uncertainty than without uncertainty. Hence, players with stochastic payoffs were more likely to keep the high coordination level (status quo) brought by the subsidy in the previous subsidy session. A post‐game survey also indicated that with stochastic payoffs, players focused on risk reduction. Temporary subsidies promoted lasting coordination because even after subsidy was removed, players still assumed that others players would prefer reduced risks from cooperation. With deterministic payoffs, however, the subsidy might crowd out other rationales for coordination, with many players indicating that the subsidy was the only reason for anyone to cooperate. Hence, the coordination level dropped when the subsidy was removed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The factors associated with geriatric depression in rural China: stratified by household structure

Depressive symptoms and empty nest phenomenon of rural elderly people are both important public health issues, which should not be ignored. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and related factors of the empty nest elderly in rural China. We recruited 3182 eligible subjects and gathered data by face-to-face interview. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to explore the related factors of depressive symptoms. The present study showed that the prevalence of depressive symptoms significantly differed between empty nest old adults and non-empty nesters (24.1% vs. 19.0%). The elderly living alone had highest OR of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms of empty nest elderly was associated with sleep quality, economic status, pain, social support and ADL. While it was associated with gender, economic status, pain and PSMS in non-empty nest group. Number of chronic disease showed significant associations with depressive symptoms in the elderly living alone. Subjective support, support utilization and pain were positively associated with depressive symptoms in the elderly living with spouse. Sleep quality, economic status and ADL were common factors. Depressive symptoms obviously prevail among empty nest elderly than non-empty nesters. It reminded us that complementary social support from family and society is essential.     

Attentional bias toward emotional stimuli in accidentally injured Chinese patients with different posttraumatic growth levels

Extensive evidence has been obtained that supports an association between an attentional bias (AB) toward negative stimuli and vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology, little is known regarding the characteristics of individual AB in different posttraumatic growth (PTG) levels. The current study used a modified dot-probe task to investigate if individual differences in AB towards either positive or negative emotional stimuli, are related to self-reported PTG. A sample of 202 patients completed the experiment. Patients with low levels of PTG did not exhibit AB toward negative or positive stimuli, patients with medium levels of PTG had difficulty disengaging attention from negative stimuli, patients with high levels of PTG had difficulty disengaging attention from positive stimuli. And the AB towards positive stimuli was only predictive for PTG. An implication of this finding is that there are different characteristics of implicit cognitive processing in patients with different levels of PTG, suggesting the necessity of psychological intervention on the accidentally injured patients.