TWO BAD WAYS TO ATTACK INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND TWO GOOD ONES

Four arguments are examined in order to assess the state of the Intelligent Design debate. First, critics continually cite the fact that ID proponents have religious motivations. When used as criticism of ID arguments, this is an obvious ad hominem. Nonetheless, philosophers and scientists alike continue to wield such arguments for their rhetorical value. Second, in his expert testimony in the Dover trial, philosopher Robert Pennock used repudiated claims in order to brand ID as a kind of pseudoscience. His arguments hinge on the nature of methodological naturalism as a metatheoretic shaping principle. We examine the use of such principles in science and the history of science. Special attention is given to the demarcation problem. Third, the scientific merits of ID are examined. Critics rightly demand more than promissory notes for ID to move beyond the fringe. Fourth, although methodological naturalism gets a lot of attention, there is another shaping principle to contend with, namely, conservatism. Science, like most disciplines, tends to change in an incremental rather than revolutionary manner. When ID is compared to other non‐ or quasi‐Darwinian proposals, it appears to be a more radical solution than is needed in the face of the anomalies.     

Magical Landscapes and Designed Cities

Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in Skåde Bakker and Fedet, two well-off neighbourhoods in the outskirts of Århus, Denmark, this article focusses on how landscapes are perceived. Local residents describe and use the landscapes of Skåde Bakker and Fedet as endowed with “something special,” a feel-good, (almost spiritual) healing power (just moments away from the bustling city). In Melanesia, such a spiritual force goes by the name of “mana”. Århus’ mana landscapes are only invested with this huge, floating quality because they are near the city. Furthermore, they are seen from the point of view of the city, where order, design, planning and commerce are important cityscape qualities. The article deals with the way in which these two parts of the city, landscape and brandscape are complementary parts of the city-web. Analytical points made by Mauss, Lévi-Strauss and Greimas are discussed in connection with the empirical setting of the city of Århus.     

Evaluating batterer counseling programs: A difficult task showing some effects and implications

Over 40 published program evaluations have attempted to address the effectiveness of “batterer programs” in preventing reassaults. Summaries and meta-analysis of these evaluations suggest little or no “program effect.” Methodological shortcomings, however, compromise most of these quasi-experimental evaluations. Three recent experimental studies appear to confirm little or no effect, but implementation problems, intention-to-treat design, and sample attrition limit these results. A longitudinal 4-year follow-up evaluation in four cities poses additional considerations and evidence of at least a moderate program effect. There is a clear deescalation of reassault and other abuse, the vast majority of men do reach sustained nonviolence, and about 20% continuously reassault. The prevailing cognitive–behavioral approach appears appropriate for most of the men, but the following enhancements are warranted: swift and certain court response for violations, intensive programming for high-risk men, and ongoing monitoring of risk. Program effectiveness depends substantially on the intervention system of which the program is a part.     

Changes in Families’ Caregiving Experiences through Involvement as Participants then Facilitators in a Family Peer‐Education Program for Mental Disorders in Japan

A family peer‐education program for mental disorders was developed in Japan, similar to existing programs in the United States and Hong Kong. Families that serve as facilitators in such programs may enhance their caregiving processes and, thereby, their well‐being. This study's aim was to describe how families’ caregiving experiences change, beginning with the onset of a family member's mental illness, through their involvement in a family group or peer‐education program as participants then facilitators. Thus, this study was conducted in a family peer‐education program for mental disorders in Japan. Group interviews were conducted with 27 facilitators from seven program sites about their experiences before, during, and after becoming facilitators. Interview data were coded and categorized into five stages of caregiving processes: (1) withdrawing and suppressing negative experiences with difficulty and regret; (2) finding comfort through being listened to about negative experiences; (3) supporting participants’ sharing as facilitators; (4) understanding and affirming oneself through repeated sharing of experiences; and (5) finding value and social roles in one's experiences. The third, fourth, and fifth stages were experienced by the facilitators. The value that the facilitators placed on their caregiving experiences changed from negative to positive, which participants regarded as helpful and supportive. We conclude that serving as facilitators may improve families’ caregiving processes.     

A proposed universal model of problem solving for design,science and cognate fields

A modestly generic, innovative, problem solving process with roots in the study of design and scientific research problem solving is presented and motivated. It is argued to be the shared core process of all problem solving. At its heart is a recognition of five foci or nodes of change vital to the process (changes in problem and solution formulation, method, constraints, and partial solution proposals) together with a bootstrap marked by the formation of higher order knowledge about problem solving in the domain in tandem with the solving of specific problems, the essential feature of all learned improvement. None of these elements is entirely original, but the way they are made explicit and developed (rather than folded into fewer, more abstract, boxes) is argued to provide fresh understanding of the organisation and power of the process to deal with complex practical problems.     

Contextual Design for driving: Developing a trip-planning tool for older adults

Independent living depends on mobility, and mobility depends on driving, particularly for people 65 years and older. The longer older adults can safely drive, the longer they can independently run errands, shop, exercise, and maintain social networks. Age-related decline of perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities can undermine the mobility and driving safety of older drivers. Data from driving simulators, on-road tests, surveys, and crash reports describe the driving safety and mobility challenges of older adults, but these methods offer a limited view of these challenges and fail to indicate design solutions. Contextual Design—a combination of Contextual Inquiry interviews, model building, and affinity diagrams—offers a complementary approach to uncover challenges that older adult drivers’ experience. For two weeks, 39 drivers age 65 and above, had their vehicles instrumented to collect driving and video data. Applying Contextual Design to these data showed that older drivers in urban and rural settings faced different mobility challenges and adopted various strategies to mitigate risk: older drivers often involved their spouse or passenger in the driving task, avoided certain driving maneuvers such as left turns, avoided unfamiliar or poorly lit roads at night, and planned trips to avoid risky driving situations. Ridesharing and trip planning emerged as important strategies to improve the safety and mobility of older drivers. Ridesharing could serve as a potential solution to prolong mobility; however, factors such as wait time, scheduling conflicts, costs, and trust were concerns for older drivers. A paper prototype was developed to validate the driving challenges faced by older drivers, and guide the development of a customized web-based trip-planning tool. The trip-planning tool could help older drivers make safer route choices by offering routes with fewer driving challenges, thereby enhancing their driving safety, mobility, and independence.     

Delaware School Climate Survey-Student: its factor structure, concurrent validity, and reliability

The Delaware School Climate Survey—Student (DSCS—S) was developed to provide schools with a brief and psychometrically sound student survey for assessing school climate, particularly the dimensions of social support and structure. Confirmatory factor analyses, conducted on a sample of 11,780 students in 85 schools, showed that a bifactor model consisting of five specific factors and one general factor (School Climate) best represented the data. Those five factors are represented in five subscales of the DSCS—S: Teacher-Student Relations, Student-Student Relations, Fairness of Rules, Liking of School, and School Safety. The factor structure was shown to be stable across grade levels (i.e., elementary, middle, and high school), racial-ethnic groups (i.e., Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic), and gender. As evidence of the survey's concurrent validity, scores for each of the five subscales and the total scale correlated moderately, across groups and at the school level, with academic achievement and suspensions and expulsions.     

Crystallizing enterprising interests among adolescents through a career development program: The role of personality and family background

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a new career development program designed to help adolescents explore their interest in enterprise as a career option. Using a person-oriented approach, pre- and post-test measurements of enterprising interests in an intervention (n = 321) and a control group (n = 302) of adolescents aged 16.5 years on average were compared. As predicted, the frequency of five different patterns of enterprising interest development (stable high, stable low, decreaser, increaser, middle) differed between the two groups, with increasers and decreasers more prevalent in the intervention group. Furthermore, a discriminant function analysis revealed that adolescents in the stable high and increaser groups showed the most entrepreneurial personality profile (e.g., low risk avoidance, high social dominance). Moreover, increasers often had a non-entrepreneurial family background. Results suggest that the new program is a useful tool in supporting adolescents’ exploration of enterprise as future career option.     

Innovations in computational type theory using Nuprl

For twenty years the Nuprl (“new pearl”) system has been used to develop software systems and formal theories of computational mathematics. It has also been used to explore and implement computational type theory (CTT)—a formal theory of computation closely related to Martin-Löf's intuitionistic type theory (ITT) and to the calculus of inductive constructions (CIC) implemented in the Coq prover.

This article focuses on the theory and practice underpinning our use of Nuprl for much of the last decade. We discuss innovative elements of type theory, including new type constructors such as unions and dependent intersections, our theory of classes, and our theory of event structures.

We also discuss the innovative architecture of Nuprl as a distributed system and as a transactional database of formal mathematics using the notion of abstract object identifiers. The database has led to an independent project called the Formal Digital Library, FDL, now used as a repository for Nuprl results as well as selected results from HOL, MetaPRL, and PVS. We discuss Howe's set theoretic semantics that is used to relate such disparate theories and systems as those represented by these provers.