NATURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THEOLOGY

Abstract. Modern technology presents new challenges and possibilities to the environment and life on earth. It is argued that ecology as the science of the earth as a whole cannot provide the means for making technical decisions pertaining to the environment. An alternative means is suggested in which modern technology provides the medium for communicating with nature, so that a dialogue, an intruding in and listening to nature, becomes the basis both for seeing modern technology in a new light and for living with modern technology in a new way. Some theological ramifications are also explored.     

Being Religious: Working at Self-Maintenance and Self-Transformation

We see religion in the things people treat as crucial to what they are and to what they aspire to become, things that make the biggest difference in how people feel about themselves. They may be social aspects or personal (behavioral or characterological) aspects of the self. The things people are militant about, the practices in regard to which they are most scrupulous, and the things about themselves that distress them are indicators of where their religious concerns lie, whatever the subject matter. People work to maintain themselves as they want to see themselves and as they want others to see them; they seek ways to repair damage to their selves. They seek also to transform themselves so as to escape present unhappy definitions of self and to achieve ideal states of being. What needs to be changed may be perceived as aspects of personal self, as attitudes other people have toward otherwise unchangeable aspects of self, or as the entire socio-political system in which people feel trapped. The process by which people manage successfully to transform themselves includes social cooperation, including the formation of groups to provide mutual reinforcement.     

Reviews

Books reviewed:
Religious Studies: The Making of a Discipline by Walter H. Capps
Intersections: Science, Theology, and Ethics by James M. Gustafson
Rationality in Science, Religion and Everyday Life: A Critical Evaluation of Four Models of Rationality by Mikael Stenmark     

English teaching and the weight of theory

The division between theory and pedagogy is an example of the more traditional division between theory and practice. The paper deals with the artificiality inherent in the institutional separation of those scholars who study within a subject area and those who study the pedagogy of the subject. The paper discusses various theoretical accounts of the nature of English to make the case that theory is imbued with pedagogy. That is, theory is not neutral about teaching. How we teach is driven by our theoretical commitments to our subject.     

RALPH WENDELL BURHOE: HIS LIFE AND HIS THOUGHT

Abstract. This third installment in David Breed's intellectual biography of Ralph Wendell Burhoe focuses upon the impact of his thought on the Unitarian Universalist Association and that group's role in Burhoe's career. Dana McLean Greeley, elected president of the American Unitarian Association in 1958, was a key figure in Burhoe's eventual participation in the project, "The Free Church in a Changing World." Burhoe's emphasis on the need for doctrine that could communicate religious wisdom in terms of science stood in tension with free-church tradition. Nevertheless, the section of the project's final report, titled "Theology and the Frontiers of Learning," largely accepted Burhoe's program for a new natural theology based on science. This project brought Burhoe's program to the attention of the denomination and led to the invitation in 1964 from Malcolm Sutherland, on behalf of Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, of which he was president, for Burhoe to implement his program in the new curriculum of that school. Burhoe accepted.     

AN ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE MISPLACED PARENTAL SOCIAL CONTINGENCIES1

This study analyzed the training of a mother to modify five subclasses of her attention to her young child's noncompliance with instructions, and also displayed the changes in her child's behavior correlated with these events. Training in four subclasses consisted of teaching the mother to withhold various forms of social attention to her daughter's undesired behavior; training in the fifth subclass involved introduction of a brief room-timeout procedure for noncompliance. The effectiveness of the parent-training procedure, consisting of initial instructions and daily feedback, was demonstrated through a multiple-baseline design across the five subclasses of parent behavior. Sequential decreases in the first three subclasses of the mother's social attention to undesired child behavior resulted in incomplete improvements in some child responses; however, a decrease in the fourth subclass resulted in a significant increase in undesired child behavior. Complete remediation of all child behaviors was achieved following the training of a timeout procedure for noncompliance. Postchecks conducted up to 16 weeks later showed that these effects were durable.     

A review of the observational data-collection and reliability procedures reported in The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

The research published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (1968 to 1975) was surveyed for three basic elements: data-collection methods, reliability procedures, and reliability scores. Three-quarters of the studies reported observational data. Most of these studies' observational methods were variations of event recording, trial scoring, interval recording, or time-sample recording. Almost all studies reported assessment of observer reliability, usually total or point-by-point percentage agreement scores. About half the agreement scores were consistently above 90%. Less than one-quarter of the studies reported that reliability was assessed at least once per condition.     

Thurstone's discriminal processes fifty years later

Four issues are discussed concerning Thurstone's discriminal processes: the distributions governing the representation, the nature of the response decision rules, the relation of the mean representation to physical characteristics of the stimulus, and factors affecting the variance of the representation. A neural schema underlying the representation is proposed which involves samples in time of pulse trains on individual neural fibers, estimators of parameters of the several pulse trains, samples of neural fibers, and an aggregation of the estimates over the sample. The resulting aggregated estimate is the Thurstonian representation. Two estimators of pulse rate, which is monotonic with signal intensity, are timing and counting ratios and two methods of aggregation are averaging and maximizing. These lead to very different predictions in a speed-accuracy experiment; data indicate that both estimators are available and the aggregation is by averaging. Magnitude estimation data are then used both to illustrate an unusual response rule and to study the psychophysical law. In addition, the pattern of variability and correlation of magnitude estimates on successive trials is interpreted in terms of the sample size over which the aggregation takes place. Neural sample size is equated with selective attention, and is an important factor affecting the variability of the representation. It accounts for the magical number seven phenomenon in absolute identification and predicts the impact of nonuniform distributions of intensities on the absolute identification of two frequencies. 1977 Psychometric Society Presidential Address. This work was supported in part by a grant of the National Science Foundation to Harvard University. I wish to express my appreciation to S. Burbeck, D. M. Green, M. Shaw, and B. Wandell for their useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

SELF-MAINTENANCE AS A RELIGIOUS CONCERN

Abstract. Human concern with problems of being and becoming promotes conceptions of ideal states of being, exemplified by paragons and heroes and projected as Utopias or visions of salvation; it leads to regimens for cultivating and maintaining individual ability to meet social expectations; and it produces fantasies, as in myth and popular literature, that rehearse the problems and that offer escape from them and roles to emulate in dealing with them. Many of these regimens and fantasies appear in the rituals and teachings of organized religion. Many also figure in private devotions apart from established religions. The many forms they take constitute much of the religious life of ordinary people. From this viewpoint, there is much to examine in American life.