The Structure of Evolutionary Theory : on Stephen Jay Gould's Monumental Masterpiece

Stephen Jay Gould's monumental The Structure of Evolutionary Theory “attempts to expand and alter the premises of Darwinism, in order to build an enlarged and distinctive evolutionary theory … while remaining within the tradition, and under the logic, of Darwinian argument.” The three branches or “fundamental principles of Darwinian logic” are, according to Gould: agency (natural selection acting on individual organisms), efficacy (producing new species adapted to their environments), and scope (accumulation of changes that through geological time yield the living world's panoply of diversity and morphological complexity). Gould's efforts to contribute something important to each of these three fundamental components of Darwinian Theory are far from successful.     

Temporal perception is enhanced for goal-directed biological actions

ABSTRACT

Research into the visual perception of goal-directed human action indicates that human action perception makes use of specialized processing systems, similar to those that operate in visual expertise. Against this background, the current research investigated whether perception of temporal information in goal-directed human action is enhanced relative to similar motion stimuli. Experiment 1 compared observers’ sensitivity to speed changes in upright human action to a kinematic control (an animation yoked to the motion of the human hand), and also to inverted human action. Experiment 2 compared human action to a non-human motion control (a tool moved the object). In both experiments observers’ sensitivity to detecting the speed changes was higher for the human stimuli relative to the control stimuli, and inversion in Experiment 1 did not alter observers’ sensitivity. Experiment 3 compared observers’ sensitivity to speed changes in goal-directed human and dog actions, in order to determine if enhanced temporal perception is unique to human actions. Results revealed no difference between human and dog stimuli, indicating that enhanced speed perception may exist for any biological motion. Results are discussed with reference to theories of biological motion perception and perception in visual expertise.     

Children's Judgments of Certainty and Uncertainty on a Problem Where the Possible Solutions Differ in Likelihood

In this study the author examined why children and adults think they need to eat. Preschoolers through adults were provided with physiological, social, psychological, and routine causes for eating breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner, and were asked to either agree or disagree with the causal responses provided. A 4 Reason × 4 Meal repeated measures analysis of variance revealed significant main effects for meals and reasons, as well as significant Meal × Reason and Meal × Reason × Grade interactions. The effect sizes ranged from 0.1 to 0.7. Across all age groups, participants acknowledged physiological needs and desires (fulfilling hunger and needs to stay healthy) and routine (e.g., it is dinner time) as the primary causes for eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, for snack physiological needs were the primary reason. Second-grade students onward spontaneously produced biological justifications such as the need for energy and nutrition as important reasons for food consumption. These results lend support to the developmental model that children's and adults’ understanding of eating changes in middle childhood.     

生物运动及其在社会认知障碍研究中的应用

人类对生物运动具有较强的视觉敏感性,即使在视觉线索有限的情况下,仍能提取其中的社会性信息。本研究系统梳理了当前生物运动视知觉实验研究涉及的各类社会性信息,并归纳分析社会认知缺陷与生物运动视知觉加工之间的内在联系,以期促进对生物运动视知觉加工心理机制问题的深入探讨     

生物运动加工特异性：整体结构和局部运动的作用

人类具有很强的识别生物体运动信息的能力, 甚至当运动信息仅是由附着在头部和一些重要关节上的光点的运动组成时, 观察者对该信息检测和编码的优势依然存在。光点生物运动信息包含整体信息(如整体形状)和局部信息(如各个点的运动轨迹)。先前的绝大部分研究强调整体形状在生物运动知觉中的作用。最近有研究表明去除了整体结构信息的局部生物运动仍然存在加工优势, 揭示了局部生物运动本身可能包含了一些特异性信息。因此生物运动知觉并非单一现象, 而是一种具有不同加工机制(基于整体结构和基于局部运动)的多水平现象。     

Organisms,machines, and societies: From the vertical structure of adaptability to the management of information

The adaptability of organisms and human societies depends on the synergistic orchestration of processing modes at many different levels of organization, each with unique informational characteristics. Digital information technology is a narrow transect of this spectrum. Adaptability theory provides a tool for analyzing the interactions between these fundamentally different modes of processing and for delineating the factors that can lead to either positive or negative consequences for human life.     

The concept of evolution and revolution

We hypothesize that there exist certain similarities between the strategies adopted by a biological organism, an individual or a social group, when faced by an aggressor. These strategies consist in either minimizing the aggression or else combating it immediately, in order to preserve, in the short term, the identity of the system under attack. One of the strategies commonly adopted for this purpose is retrocession, permitting the biological, neurobiological organism, or the social individual or group to elude certain environmental elements and return to a situation in which other escape routes may be taken.

In the long term, preservation of the external identity is accomplished by modification of the internal identity. Man uses in vivo or, after “extrusion,” ex vivo immunizing and cognitive functions to cope with the environment. He is thus able to create, ex vivo, therapeutic techniques by manipulating internal identity. In order to accomplish this, a profound knowledge is needed, at the level of each individual, of the functional mechanisms of biological and neurobiological identities.

Though social and biological sciences are progressing, they have great difficulties in finding the common language necessary to communicate productively. Analogies between these two domains, that we shall attempt to illustrate, may contribute to facilitating such communication.     

《黄帝内经》时间医学思想对急性心肌梗死时间节律的解释

《黄帝内经》“天人相应”理论比较完备地奠定了中医关于人体生物节律知识的基础,强调人体自然节律与四季日月昼夜节律之间的密切关系。在急性心肌梗死发病呈现显著的时间节律特征,以中医时间学理论进行解释,充分掌握急性心肌梗死发病的规律性,指导高危人群合理作息,减少急性心梗的发生。     

Reparations and the Rectification of Race

Positive law and problems with identifyingbeneficiaries confine reparations for U.S.slavery to the level of discourse. Within thediscourse, the broader topic of rectificationcan be addressed. The rectification of slaveryincludes restoring full humanity to our ideasof the slaves and their descendants and itrequires disabuse of the false biological ideaof race. This is not racial eliminativism,because biological race never existed, but moreimportantly because African American racialidentities and redress of present racism arebased on lifeworlds of race in contrast withwhich the biological idea has been an externalimposition.