THE ROAD IS MADE BY WALKING: AN INTRODUCTION

We are living in a time of unprecedented challenges: human activity is now the primary driver shaping the planet and we are perilously close to breaching a variety of critical planetary boundaries—a prelude to the possible extinction of our species. How should we be thinking and acting—as persons, communities, institutions and societies—so as to best understand and respond to these challenges? What contribution can the field of science and religion make to develop the knowledge needed to negotiate the civilizational transition we face? Such questions were addressed through a series of dialogues at the 62nd annual conference of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in June of 2016—“How Can We Know? Co‐Creating Knowledge in Perilous Times.” This essay sets the background to these challenges and introduces the set of articles in this themed section.     

Popular problems

This article introduces a method to critical reviews and explores the ways in which problems have been formulated in knowledge production on career guidance in Denmark over a 10-year period from 2004 to 2014. The method draws upon the work of Bacchi focussing on the ‘What's the problem represented to be’ (WPR) approach. Forty-nine empirical studies on Danish youth career guidance were included in the study. An analysis of the issues in focus resulted in nine problem categories. One of these, ‘targeting’, is analysed using the WPR approach. Finally, the article concludes that the WPR approach provides a constructive basis for a critical analysis and discussion of the collective empirical knowledge production on career guidance, stimulating awareness of problems and potential solutions among the career guidance community.     

'You’re Being Unreasonable’: Prior and Passing Theories of Critical Discussion

A key and continuing concern within the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation is how to account for effective persuasion disciplined by dialectical rationality. Currently, van Eemeren and Houtlosser offer one response to this concern in the form of strategic manoeuvring. This paper offers a prior/passing theory of communicative interaction as a supplement to the strategic manoeuvring approach. Our use of a prior/passing model investigates how a difference of opinion can be resolved while both dialectic obligations of reasonableness and rhetorical ambitions of argumentative success are simultaneously accommodated. The paper explores the model with particular reference to the pragma-dialectical rules of critical discussion, strategic manoeuvring and fallacious reasoning.     

Intelligence analysts’ strategies for solving analytic tasks

Analytic performance may be assessed by the nature of the process applied to intelligence tasks and analysts are expected to use a “critical” or deliberative mindset. However, there is little research on how analysts do their work. We report the findings of a quantitative survey of 113 intelligence analysts who were asked to report how often they would apply strategies involving more or less critical thinking when performing representative tasks along the analytic workflow. Analysts reported using “deliberative” strategies significantly more often than “intuitive” ones when capturing customer requirements, processing data, and communicating conclusions. Years of experience working in the intelligence community, skill level, analytic thinking training, and time spent working collaboratively (opposed to individually) were largely unrelated to reported strategy use. We discuss the implications of these findings for both improving intelligence analysis and developing an evidence-based approach to policy and practice in this domain.     

Empowering communities through social media

Multicultural competence is a cornerstone of modern day counseling psychology. The new multicultural and social justice competencies highlight the integration of social justice and multicultural frameworks. These competencies include community engagement through social justice advocacy. Social media may be one way to advocate for social justice for underserved or marginalized communities. Social media networks impact in the Arab Spring and the 2016 United States (U.S.) Presidential election suggests that people may utilize social media to inform and act on their social or political views. Throughout this article, we will explore the benefits of social media for raising critical consciousness, as defined by Freire, and examine how counseling psychologists can utilize social media to engage in social justice advocacy in diverse communities.     

Whose voice counts? Gender,power, and epistemologies in the seminary classroom

This article wrestles with the question “whose voice counts?” as an entrée into a discussion of the challenges students encounter in learning to value different epistemologies and that professors encounter in attempting to teach for inclusion of voices. The essay reflects on an experience teaching a graduate seminar on gender and epistemology in which students encounter challenges reflecting on readings that present theology in the form of personal narratives, rather than in a more abstract or theoretical form. Course content and genres of writing are both gendered and subject to power dynamics associated with the uneven treatment of different types of knowledge. The paper focuses primarily on the lens of gender but notes as well the intersectional nature of gender – and the ways in which the course dynamics are complicated by the race, sexuality, and even the class of the authors, students, and teacher. The paper makes two substantial arguments. First, it names a pedagogical meta‐question at the intersection of gender and pedagogy: Even when women are on the syllabus, how are educators ensuring that the epistemologies at work in their classrooms allow for equal authorial authority in the classroom? Second, the paper challenges educators to make changes in their classrooms to allow students time to engage and employ epistemologies they discuss and to see the importance of these practices for wider systemic change in institutions and society.     

Judging credibility: Can spaced lessons help students think more critically online?

Despite the prevalence of the spacing effect in the psychological literature, the impact of lesson timing has not yet been fully explored in real classrooms. The current study examined whether spacing could improve long‐term retention of both factual and critical thinking curriculum‐based teaching materials for children. Students 9 to 12 years old were taught to judge the credibility of websites in either three consecutive days of lessons or one lesson per week. Thirty‐five days after the final lesson, students were tested on factual knowledge and applied their knowledge to evaluating a new website. Students in the spaced condition remembered more facts from the lessons and were better able to explain their website ratings than students in the massed group.     

EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THEOLOGY: A MUTUALLY ILLUMINATIVE DIALOGUE

Scientific perspectives often are perceived to challenge biblically based cosmologies and theologies. Arthur Peacocke, biochemist and theologian, recognized that this challenge actually represents an opportunity for Christian theology to reenvision and reinterpret its traditions in ways that take into account scientific theories of evolution. In the course of his career, Peacocke offered a new paradigm for the dialogue between theology and science. This paper explores his proposals, in particular his theories of language, the God‐world relation, and the nature of God, and exemplifies the impact these proposals had on his theological insights.     

循证卫生管理的探讨

培养博学而人道的医学工作者是医学教育所追求的目标。作为一门交叉学科,医学哲学在医学生的人文素质培养中占有重要地位。对医学哲学的教学内容、理念与方法分别进行探讨,期望医学哲学教育能够提高医学生对与现代医学有关的知识、活动和态度进行批判性反思的意识和能力。