Tables of event sequences for sequential analyses of data in psychological experiments containing two-class events

Tables of sequences of two-class events are presented for use in programming psychological experiments in which behavior on trial n may be a function of the events of trials n ? 1, n ? 2, and/or n ? 3. Various factors related to schedule generation are discussed, i.e., restrictions on trial-block length which accompany sequential balance, interrelationships of trial blocks in the multiblock experiment, relationships between run length and r-tuple occurrences, and alternation behavior. Following a consideration of various methods of schedule generation for the two-class experiment, it was concluded that no method can result in schedules that possess all properties considered desirable in psychological experiments. However, the present sequences allow for sequential balance and analysis, and thus should prove useful in producing schedules in some contexts that are standard with regard to sequential influences.     

Keeping Up with the Cloneses -- Issues in Human Cloning

The advent of cloning animals has created a maelstrom of social concern about the ethical issues associated with the possibility of cloning humans. When the ethical concerns are clearly examined, however, many of them turn out to be less matters of rational ethics than knee-jerk emotion, religious bias, or fear of that which is not understood. Three categories of real and spurious ethical concerns are presented and discussed: 1) that cloning is intrinsically wrong, 2) that cloning must lead to bad consequences, and 3) that cloning harms the organism generated. The need for a rational ethical framework for discussing biotechnological advances is presented and defended.     

Animal Mind: Science,Philosophy, and Ethics

Although 20^th-century empiricists were agnostic about animal mind and consciousness, this was not the case for their historical ancestors – John Locke, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and, of course, Charles Darwin and George John Romanes. Given the dominance of the Darwinian paradigm of evolutionary continuity, one would not expect belief in animal mind to disappear. That it did demonstrates that standard accounts of how scientific hypotheses are overturned – i.e., by empirical disconfirmation or by exposure of logical flaws – is inadequate. In fact, it can be demonstrated that belief in animal mind disappeared as a result of a change of values, a mechanism also apparent in the Scientific Revolution. The “valuational revolution” responsible for denying animal mind is examined in terms of the rise of Behaviorism and its flawed account of the historical inevitability of denying animal mentation. The effects of the denial of animal consciousness included profound moral implications for the major uses of animals in agriculture and scientific research. The latter is particularly notable for the denial of felt pain in animals. The rise of societal moral concern for animals, however, has driven the “reappropriation of common sense” about animal thought and feeling.     

Antibiotic Use and the Demise of Husbandry

Numerous ethical issues have emerged from the industrialization of animal agriculture. Those issues ultimately rest in large measure upon overuse of antibiotics. How this has occurred is discussed in detail in this paper.