Teaching religious education as a second choice. The case of three male student teachers in Finland

This article explores the professional reflection of three male religious education (RE) student teachers during their one-year pedagogical training. The participants (n = 3) interviewed in this article were chosen on the basis of their self-report in the questionnaire in which they claimed no previous teaching experience. The participants were interviewed three times: at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of their one-year teacher education. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis. The study showed some patterns in the student teachers reflections concerning developmental aims, professionalism, and convictions during the year. The article concludes that in RE teacher education developing pedagogical thinking should be accompanied with becoming aware of the role of personal life history and contextual situation play in the process of becoming a sound professional in RE.     

A church-based peer-led group intervention for mental illness

Religion and spirituality (R/S) can be powerful supports and provide important coping resources for individuals in recovery. Faith communities seem to offer many advantages for recovery-oriented support, but have rarely been the setting for empirically examined psychosocial rehabilitation efforts. This study describes the outcomes for individuals in Living Grace Groups (LGGs), a peer-led group intervention for mental illness that is based in churches and integrates R/S. Persons at all active LGGs were surveyed before and after participation using well-validated scales for recovery, psychiatric symptoms, and spirituality. LGGs attracted individuals with a broad range of persistent psychiatric difficulties, who described religion as important to them and rated the groups as very helpful. Participants reported improvements in recovery and spirituality as well as reductions in psychiatric symptoms. R/S-integrated support groups may improve care by increasing cultural match, as well as providing more access to recovery-oriented care by tapping the resources of faith communities.     

Outreach and Exclusion: Jewish Denominational Marketing in the Early 20th Century

How do religious denominations select potential adherents? Previous literature indicates that market niches direct this decision, yet few studies examine how religious groups determine their niche. Analyzing annual reports and periodicals of Reform and Conservative Jewish organizations from 1910 to 1955, I find that the two denominations responded differently to the mass influx of Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. Compared to the Conservative organization, which openly welcomed new immigrants, the Reform organization actively chose not to recruit them. Reform statements make it clear that this decision was a result of how working‐class, Eastern European immigrants threatened their American‐centered organizational identity. This finding suggests that religious institutions carefully consider their organizational identity based on nativity, ethnicity, and social class when determining whom to include in their market niche.     

Managing Religion and the Judicialization of Religious Freedom

Religious freedom is a highly valued goal for many citizens and political leaders around the world, especially in Western‐oriented nations. Much ink has been spilled in defense of religious freedom and many have waxed eloquent about the virtues of promoting religious freedom. Most constitutions and other international documents around the world guarantee religious freedom even if those guarantees are sometimes honored in the breach. Why this focus on religious freedom is occurring and how it is being addressed are the focus of this article.     

Engineering Values Into Genetic Engineering: A Proposed Analytic Framework for Scientific Social Responsibility

Recent experiments have been used to “edit” genomes of various plant, animal and other species, including humans, with unprecedented precision. Furthermore, editing the Cas9 endonuclease gene with a gene encoding the desired guide RNA into an organism, adjacent to an altered gene, could create a “gene drive” that could spread a trait through an entire population of organisms. These experiments represent advances along a spectrum of technological abilities that genetic engineers have been working on since the advent of recombinant DNA techniques. The scientific and bioethics communities have built substantial literatures about the ethical and policy implications of genetic engineering, especially in the age of bioterrorism. However, recent CRISPr/Cas experiments have triggered a rehashing of previous policy discussions, suggesting that the scientific community requires guidance on how to think about social responsibility. We propose a framework to enable analysis of social responsibility, using two examples of genetic engineering experiments.     

科学假说在揭示嗅觉奥秘中的作用——解读2004年度诺贝尔医学奖

通过分析2004年诺贝尔医学奖的发现过程,揭示假说对科学研究的指导意义。只有勤观察,多思考,大胆假设,小心求证,才能揭示自然规律。     

731部队——半个多世纪后的反思

通过对日本731部队进行细菌战及美国掩盖这一事实的案例分析,强调科学不能背离人道,而要为人道服务;政治也不能不顾人道,反人道的政治终究是要失败的。因此,尊重伦理的基本价值、基本原则和基本规范具有极大的重要性和现实性。     

孔子的医学与养生思想

孔子对鬼神持怀疑态度,不承认作为实体存在的鬼神。坚决反对鬼神致病说,对后世中医学的发展产生了积极影响。孔子达观的人生态度,使其举止行为无不合于养生之道,中庸是其养生之道的根本原则。     

On Fodor's First Law of the Nonexistence of Cognitive Science

In his enormously influential The Modularity of Mind, Jerry Fodor (1983) proposed that the mind was divided into input modules and central processes. Much subsequent research focused on the modules and whether processes like speech perception or spatial vision are truly modular. Much less attention has been given to Fodor's writing on the central processes, what would today be called higher‐level cognition. In “Fodor's First Law of the Nonexistence of Cognitive Science,” he argued that central processes are “bad candidates for scientific study” and would resist attempts at empirical analysis. This essay evaluates his argument for this remarkable claim, concluding that although central processes may well be “messier” than input modules, this does not mean that they cannot be studied and understood. The article briefly reviews the scientific progress made in understanding central processes in the 35 years since the book was published, showing that Fodor's prediction is clearly falsified by massive advances in topics like decision making and analogy. The essay concludes that Fodor's Law was not based on a clear argument for why the complexities of central systems could not be studied but was likely based on intuitions and preferences that were common in psychology at the time.     

正确认识与评价SCI

发表《科学引文索引》 (science citation index, SCI) 论文的多少和论文被引用率的高低, 是国际上通用的评价基础研究成果水平的标准。引进SCI的概念, 对促进我国的科研评价标准化和国际化发挥了积极作用。SCI目前已经成为我国评价科研成果的重要指标, 某些地方甚至成为唯一指标。但SCI主要侧重在基础学科领域的评价, 不能涵盖全面的科技评价。在肯定SCI对规范我国科研的评价体系的积极作用的同时, 对其负面影响也不能忽视。以上海中医药大学为例, 通过介绍SCI和国内SCI论文发表的现状, 对正确认识和全面评价SCI的作用提出建议。