Reconciling Evolution and Biblical Literalism: A Proposed Research Program

Many leading Christian thinkers today accept evolution, but others worry that certain incompatibilities with Biblical doctrines concerning Adam remain. In Should Christians Embrace Evolution, theologian Wayne Grudem succinctly summarizes their main objections when he claims that adopting evolution leads to eight positions contrary to the teaching of the Bible. In response, I show that, regardless of whether evolution occurred or not, there is no incompatibility even when a consistently literal reading of the relevant Biblical texts is maintained.     

Dreaming under fire: the psyche in times of continuous stress

Continuous stress and trauma are manifested in dreams, the study of which can expand our knowledge concerning unconscious reactions to trauma and efforts of coping with continuous traumatic situations. In our research we asked people living under continuous threat of rocket attacks to record their dreams and their associations to them during four consecutive weeks. We collected 609 dreams from 44 women and 18 men (age range 14-62). The dreams submitted were analysed according to the Jungian approach in the light of the information and associations presented by the subjects. Full dream series of dreamers from each group were analysed in an attempt to capture the depth-psychological experience of living and dreaming under fire. The most frequent themes found were: ‘concrete vs. symbolic', ‘togetherness', ‘active ego', ‘fear and anxiety', ‘shadow' and ‘personal issue'. The subjects were divided into three age groups. Differences between the occurrences of themes were examined. On the unconscious level our results showed that the adolescents group seemed to be the most vulnerable to the stress situation (preponderance of concrete dreams), the mature adults group was the least influenced by it (preponderance of symbolic dreams and of the ‘personal issue' theme) and the young adults group made the greatest psychological efforts for coping (preponderance of ‘active ego' theme). We noted few anima figures appearing in the men's dreams, while animus figures appeared in the women's dreams. In another study undertaken immediately after one of the recent wars in Gaza we collected dreams of Israelis living in the south of Israel who were under heavy daily rocket attacks, and dreams of Palestinians living in the West Bank. The most significant difference we found between the groups was a preponderance of symbolic dreams among the Palestinians, as opposed to a preponderance of concrete trauma dreams among the Israeli group living on the Gaza border. In both groups we found archetypal symbols of evil. In conclusion, dreams can help us detect emotional distress, even when subjects seem ‘ok'. Early detection and working with dreams can help prevent the severity of delayed PTSD.     

On the Symbiosis of Science and Religion: A Jewish Perspective

Three theses are explored, the first two historical and the third philosophical-theological: (1) throughout most of the history ofWestern civilization, science and religion have been closely connected with each other, and each has benefited from the connection; (2) the belief that science and religion have always been in conflict is not based on the actual history of either set of institutions; and (3) structurally a relationship between the two institutions is in the interest of both. By religion here I mean specifically, but not exclusively, Judaism.     

Development of visually guided hand orientation in reaching

The development of an ability to use vision in adjusting the hand and the fingers to the orientation of an object to be grasped was studied in a group of 15 infants. They were 18 weeks at the first session and were seen at 4-week intervals until 34 weeks old. At each session they were presented with horizontal and vertical rods. The orientation of the hand of the infant when reaching for these rods was measured at each 60-msec interval during the last 540 msec of the approach. It was found that even at the youngest age there were signs of adjustment of the hand to the orientation of the object. However, at that age the adjustments were rather incomplete. During the months that followed there was a rapid improvement in the skill studied. The findings were in accordance with the idea that information about object orientation is accessible to the manual system when infants start reaching for objects but that the system has yet to be tuned and calibrated before functioning adequately.     

Eye fixations and cognitive processes

This paper presents a theoretical account of the sequence and duration of eye fixation during a number of simple cognitive tasks, such as mental rotation, sentence verification, and quantitative comparison. In each case, the eye fixation behavior is linked to a processing model for the task by assuming that the eye fixates the referent of the symbol being operated on.     

Missing -ing in reading: Developmental changes in reading units

College students and school children between the ages of 6 and 10 were asked to search four 50-word passages for instances of the target letter n. The subjects made most letter detection errors on the function words in and and, and on the suffix morpheme -ing. This “missing letter” effect showed a developmental trend, with the proportion of errors on function words and suffix morphemes increasing as a function of school grade. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that frequent linguistic entities such as word-boundary morphemes tend to be unitized in fluent reading, and that the ability to form such units is acquired gradually in the course of learning to read.     

Philosophy and the real reasons for action: G. H. von Wright's understanding explanations

According to the received view, philosophy of action took a justified turn towards causalism because anti-causalists failed the causalist challenge about efficacious reasons. This paper contests that view by examining the ways in which Georg Henrik von Wright responded to causalism in his later philosophy. First, von Wright attacked the subjectivism of causalism by arguing for an objectivist view that construes reasons not as subjective mental states but as external facts of the agent's situation. Second, von Wright fundamentally disagreed with the view of philosophical inquiry that underpinned causalism. For von Wright, the task of philosophy was conceptual: to explicate what one is looking for when one is looking for the real reasons for action. In contrast, for causalists the task was ontological: to determine what kind of item in the world the real reason for action is. Examining von Wright's account contributes to contemporary assessments of the metaphilosophical dimension of the reasons/causes debate.     

The impact of the “Attachment and Biobehavioural Catch-Up” program on attachment related parent behavior—A systematic review

“Attachment and Biobehavioural Catch-Up” (ABC) is a 10 session home visiting program, grounded in attachment theory. It aims to improve child emotion regulation, attachment and behavioral outcomes through changing caregivers’ attachment related behaviors. There is increasing evidence with respect to the effectiveness of ABC in producing positive child outcomes, but the intervention's direct effect on parent outcomes remains unclear. This review examined the association of ABC with attachment related parent outcomes. The PubMed, EMBASE, PyschINFO and SCOPUS databases were searched for relevant studies in August 2021, and again in April 2022. The eligibility criteria for included studies were (1) infants aged 0–27 months at time of the ABC intervention, (2) “at risk” parents, (3) controlled trials published in peer-reviewed journals and (4) utilized a measure of attachment related parent outcomes. Eleven eligible studies were included. The findings showed ABC had a significant small to medium effect on a variety of attachment related parent outcomes among parents presenting with multiple psychosocial risk factors. “Sensitivity” was measured most frequently, with small to medium main effect sizes recorded at follow-up, compared to controls. Implications for the clinical effectiveness of the ABC program in community settings are discussed. Future research should clarify who ABC is most effective for and how it compares to similar interventions.     

DIMENSIONS OF LIFE: A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO THE INORGANIC AND THE ORGANIC IN PAUL TILLICH AND PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Abstract. Systems theory provides a surprisingly fruitful approach to several important ideas held in common by Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. These include complexity or organization as the key to understanding the distinction between the inorganic and the organic, and hierarchy or levels in complex systems. Teilhard and systems theorists accept hierarchy as fundamental. Tillich questions the concept and prefers “dimensions,” including the inorganic, organic, psychological, spiritual, and historical dimensions. Tillich's rejection of hierarchy is questioned, but significant correlations are discovered in the systems interpretation of the psychological and spiritual dimensions as well as in the use of “centeredness” by both thinkers.     

Soul in the world: symbolic culture as the medium for psyche

Whilst the loss of a sense of living connection with the material world is mainly associated with the scientific revolution in seventeenth century Europe, it can be traced back to Plato's introduction of a hierarchy between soul and body. Jung's attempted solution to this – esse in anima – is ingenious but maintains the Cartesian split by which the aliveness of the world is reduced to a projection of psychic forces (the archetypes). An alternative approach is proposed, rooted in the Aristotelean emphasis on practical activity that sees the soul as a function of our way of being in the world. Human cognition is extended and distributed by our social and material engagement with the world, especially via collective representations whose symbolic character is constitutive of the reality of the world in which we live. Despite the dominance of ‘scientific Cartesian’ representations in the modern Western world, there remain numerous instances of participation mystique that cannot be captured by the Cartesian notion of projection. These indicate an opening to ways of being in the world that may lead us out of the impasse of the Cartesian matrix.