ARE WE CLOSER TO FREE MARKET EUGENICS? THE CRISPR CONTROVERSY

Might the 2018 birth of two designer babies in China write the opening paragraph for the next chapter in the history of eugenics? The worldwide scientific community has tacitly put a moratorium on human clinical application of CRISPR gene editing, waiting until unknown risks can become known. But this ethical agreement has been breached, and calls are now being heard for more rigorous regulations. Perhaps religious and spiritual leaders can join the bioethical chant: the yellow light of caution is flashing.     

The complementarity of mindshaping and mindreading

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - Why do we engage in folk psychology, that is, why do we think about and ascribe propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, intentions etc.) to people? On...     

TELESCOPE + MIRROR = REFLECTIONS ON THE COSMOS: UMBERTO ECO AND THE IMAGE OF RELIGION

Umberto Eco argues that a mirror image is not a sign. At best it is a double, a thing that ceases to be once the reflected object is removed. Harry Mulisch narratively suggests that mirror images function metaphorically as gateways between human suffering and the divine. And interestingly, science employs mirrors and mirror images both to turn our gaze upwards and to show us reflections of our place in the cosmos. Tying together Eco's notion of the double, Mulisch's insistence that mirror images reflect humanity's construction of the divine, and the Giant Magellan Telescope Project's cosmic images, it is my contention that modern, telescopic mirror images are much more than snapshots of the cosmos. They are constructions of human and divine meaning that—signifying—pose the question, what is reflected: the cosmos or humanity?     

Media influences on body satisfaction in female students

The present study examined the immediate impact of media portrayals on evaluations of body shape and disordered eating symptomatology in female undergraduates. By using a repeated measures design, participants (N= 42) were exposed on two consecutive occasions to magazine images representing the thin-ideal physique and overweight models. Body satisfaction was recorded both before and after exposure to the images and eating disorder symptomatology was measured following both exposures. Results showed that participants' body satisfaction scores decreased following exposure to the thin-ideal physique and increased following exposure to the larger models. When analysing eating disorder symptomatology, body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness were higher following exposure to slender media images compared to the larger media images. However, exposure to the thin-ideal physique did not increase disordered eating behaviours. These results provide evidence that one brief exposure to media images could exert immediate impact on some behaviours, attitudes and perceptions.     

SOME CORRELATIONS BETWEEN METHODS OF KNOWING AND THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN ARTHUR PEACOCKE'S PERSONALISTIC PANENTHEISM AND NONPERSONAL NATURALISTIC THEISM

Differences in methods of knowing correlate with differences in concepts about what is known. This is an underlying issue in science and religion. It is seen, first, in Arthur Peacocke's reasoning about God as transcendent and personal, is based on an assumption of correlative thinking that like causes like. This contrasts with a notion of causation in empirical science, which explains the emergence of new phenomena as originating from temporally prior phenomena quite unlike that which emerges. The scientific understanding of causation is compatible with a naturalistic theism that holds a nonpersonal model of God as the creative process. However, focusing on the immanence of God, there is a second correlation between methods of knowing and concepts of God. Classical empiricism, used by science, correlates with God understood nonpersonally as the creative process. Radical empiricism, in which feelings and not only sense perceptions have cognitive import, opens up the possibility that one can experience Peacocke's personal, panentheistic God as pattern‐forming influence. I illustrate this second method‐concept correlation with a personal experience.     

Acute consolidation stress enhances reality monitoring in healthy young adults

Source monitoring refers to cognitive processes involved in making attributions about the origins of memories, knowledge, and beliefs. One particular type of source monitoring with ample practical significance is reality monitoring, i.e., the ability to discriminate between internally vs. externally generated memories. Abundant evidence indicates that exposure to acute stress enhances declarative memory consolidation. To date, no study has looked at whether exposure to acute stress during the consolidation phase may promote reality monitoring performance. The authors examined this by administering cold pressor stress (CPS) or a control procedure to participants (N = 80) after they had either performed or only imagined performing simple motor acts, and assessing reality monitoring 24 h later. When compared with the control condition, CPS significantly elevated salivary free cortisol concentrations and enhanced reality monitoring. Stress-induced cortisol responses, however, were found not to be related to improved reality monitoring performance. Our findings are consistent with the view that post-learning stress hormone-related activity may modulate source memory consolidation.