Unesp apoia tecnologias na graduação

terça-feira, junho 28, 2011

28/06/2011 

Agência FAPESP – A Pró-Reitoria de Graduação (Prograd) da Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) lançou edital para propostas de projetos de uso das tecnologias de comunicação e informação (TIC) nos cursos de graduação.

Segundo a universidade, a iniciativa tem como objetivo incentivar e construir propostas de cursos na modalidade presencial que utilizem as TIC e os Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA) como ferramentas de apoio ao ensino.


Universidade lança edital para propostas de projetos de uso das tecnologias de comunicação e informação nos cursos de graduação. Submissão de propostas vai até 4 de julho (Wikimedia)

A finalidade do edital é favorecer a institucionalização de métodos e práticas de ensino-aprendizagem capazes de promover a convergência entre as modalidades de educação presencial e a distância na Unesp.

Podem participar, com envio de projetos, professores das unidades universitárias e campus experimentais da Unesp que tenham interesse em modificar a sua prática, integrando ações presenciais e a distância para o oferecimento dos conteúdos das disciplinas.

Segundo Sheila Zambello de Pinho, pró-reitora de Graduação, o objetivo do edital é “incentivar o uso de novas propostas dentro da universidade para atender a demanda exigida pelo novo perfil de alunos, considerado mais digital, pois utilizam a tecnologia em diversas tarefas do dia a dia”.

Os professores interessados têm até o dia 4 de julho para a submissão de propostas. A divulgação dos selecionados será em 27 de julho. Os coordenadores dos projetos aprovados receberão treinamento oferecido pelo Núcleo de Educação a Distância (NEaD) da Unesp.

As propostas devem ser apresentadas pelo docente coordenador, prevendo a participação de um aluno de pós-graduação e, no máximo, outros dois, que atuarão como tutores. A duração de cada projeto será de quatro meses, de agosto a novembro de 2011.

O edital de fomento ao uso das TIC na graduação vem ao encontro do lançamento do Acervo Digital da Unesp, no início de junho.

Mais informações sobre o edital e envio de propostas: www.edutec.unesp.br ou pelo e-maileditalfomentotic@nead.unesp.br

Espécie antiga de efemérida teve uma vida trágica e abreviada

Ancient Species of Mayfly Had Short, Tragic Life

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2011) — About 100 million years ago, a tiny mayfly had a problem.

This ancient mayfly, trapped 100 million years ago in amber, is a new species named Vetuformosa buckleyi. (Credit: Photo by George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of Oregon State University)

Like most adult mayflies, she only had that one day to live anyway, so there was no time to waste. She took her mating flight, got fertilized, and was about to lay her eggs when something went horribly wrong. She got stuck in some oozing tree sap and died, preserved for all time in the magic of amber. There would be ho hatchlings.

It was a pretty rude ending to what was already going to be a short adulthood. But her personal tragedy proved fortunate for scientists. The tiny specimen -- just described by an Oregon State University researcher as a new subfamily, genus and species of mayfly -- has helped to shed further light on the ecology of the distant past. And at least she didn't get eaten by a fish.

"Understanding the ecology and history of mayflies is important, in part because they are one of the most important fish foods in the world," said George Poinar, Jr., a professor of entomology at OSU and one of the world's leading experts in the use of amber to study ancient life forms.
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Read more here/Leia mais aqui: Science Daily

In press/No prelo:

George Poinar. Vetuformosa buckleyi n. gen., n. sp. (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae; Vetuformosinae n. subfam.), a new subfamily of mayflies in Early Cretaceous Burmese amber. Historical Biology., 2011

Professores, pesquisadores e alunos de universidades públicas e privadas com acesso ao site CAPES/Periódicos podem ler gratuitamente este artigo da Historical Biology e de mais 22.440 publicações científicas.

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NOTA CAUSTICANTE DESTE BLOGGER: 

Eita seleção natural preguiçosa, sô! 100 milhões de anos para fazer alguma coisa evolucionária, mas as efeméridas teimam em continuar sendo efeméridas. Uau, mas aí a evolução é mais inteligente do que você, idiota: equilíbrio pontuado e depois: Abracadabra, voilá, um helicóptero, oops outra espécie de animal voador.

Chamam a teoria geral da evolução, NOTA BENE, teoria geral da evolução de ciência. Eu chamo de alquimia. 

Fui, nem sei por que, pensando que as efeméridas é que estão certas: vivem um só dia, mas vivem intensamente...

UFPB lança revista eletrônica

28/06/2011

Agência FAPESP – A Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB), com o apoio técnico-científico do Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (Ibict), lançou o primeiro volume da revista científica eletrônica Perspectivas em Gestão & Conhecimento – PG&C.

Com periodicidade semestral, a revista tem como objetivo publicar trabalhos originais e inéditos relacionados aos temas “Gestão” e “Conhecimento” sob abordagens que priorizem diálogos multidisciplinares e contribuam para o desenvolvimento de novos conhecimentos e/ou para aplicação nos diversos setores e organizações da sociedade.



Perspectivas em Gestão & Conhecimento, da Universidade Federal da Paraíba, com apoio do Ibict, tem conteúdo de acesso livre

A revista oferece acesso livre imediato ao seu conteúdo, seguindo o princípio de que disponibilizar gratuitamente o conhecimento científico ao público proporciona democratização mundial do conhecimento.

Interessados em submeter trabalhos para o segundo número da Perspectivas em Gestão & Conhecimento, a ser publicado no mês de dezembro de 2011, poderá obter mais informações acerca das regras para a inclusão no site da revista.

Kamah Tov Sh’nifgashnu - Avraham Fried

segunda-feira, junho 27, 2011



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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas]

An inconvenient truth: the consistent failure of Al Gore/Uma verdade inconveniente: o fracasso consistente de Al Gore/Una verdad inconveniente: el fracaso constante de Al Gore

June 24, 2011

The Failure of Al Gore: Part One
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD


It must be as perplexing to his many admirers as it is frustrating to himself that a man of Vice President Gore’s many talents, great skills and strong beliefs is one of the most consistent losers in American politics.

“All political careers end in failure,” said Enoch Powell; Gore has not won an election on his own since his 1990 re-election to the Senate from Tennessee. His 1988 presidential bid ended well short of the nomination. Many observers felt Gore was headed for defeat in a third Senate campaign as the south continued to swing Republican; Clinton’s offer of the vice presidential slot in 1992 gave Gore the opportunity to reach a national audience as his home state cooled. On his own again in 2000, gifted by the departing Clinton with the most bubbliciously expanding economy in American history and a comfortable budget surplus, and insulated from the innuendo and scandal of the Clinton White House by his still-vibrant marriage, he found the elusive road to defeat against a flawed and inexperienced challenger. Tennessee voted for Bush; Florida or no Florida Gore would have gone to the White House if those who knew him longest and best had rallied to his support.

Once out of office, he assumed the leadership of the global green movement, steering that movement into a tsunami of defeat that, when the debris is finally cleared away, will loom as one of the greatest failures of civil society in all time.

Gore has the Midas touch in reverse; objects of great value (Nobel prizes, Oscars) turn dull and leaden at his touch. Few celebrity cause leaders have had more or better publicity than Gore has had for his climate advocacy. Hailed by the world press, lionized by the entertainment community and the Global Assemblage of the Great and the Good as incarnated in the Nobel Peace Prize committee, he has nevertheless seen the movement he led flounder from one inglorious defeat to the next. The most recent,failed global climate meeting passed almost unnoticed last week in Bonn; the world has turned its eyes away from the expiring anguish of the Copenhagen agenda.

The state of the global green movement is shambolic. The Kyoto Protocol is withering on the vine; it will almost certainly die with no successor in place. There is no chance of cap and trade legislation in the US under Obama, and even the EPA’s regulatory authority over carbon dioxide is under threat. Brazil is debating aforestry law that critics charge will open the floodgates to a new round of deforestation in the Amazon. China is taking the green lobby head on, suspending a multibillion dollar Airbus order to protest EU carbon cutting plans.

It is hard to think of any recent failure in international politics this comprehensive, this swift, this humiliating. Two years ago almost every head of state in the world was engaged with Al Gore’s issue; today the abolition of nuclear weapons looks like a more hopeful cause than the drafting of an effective international treaty that will curb carbon emissions even a little bit.

The plunge from the brink of victory to the pit of defeat must be as unpleasant as it is familiar to the winner of the 2000 popular vote; in his latest essay in Rolling Stone he gives his own best analysis of why he keeps losing. Few American politicians could write an essay this eloquent or this clear. Few people in the world can command this kind of attention for their thoughts. Even so, the results of all this talent and effort are exactly the opposite of what the former vice president would wish; the essay illuminates his shortcomings more than his strengths and makes crystal clear that if global climate policy is going to change, then Al Gore must get out of the way.



Let us begin with a basic question of judgment. The former vice president has failed to grasp the basic nature of the kind of leadership the global green cause requires. Vice President Gore, like all who aspire to lead great causes, must reconcile his advocacy with his conduct — that is, he must conduct himself in a way that is consistent with the great cause he seeks to promote.

Not all character flaws are inconsistent with positions of great dignity. General Grant’s fondness for whiskey did not make him unfit for command. Other statesmen have combined great public achievement with failure in their personal lives. Franklin Roosevelt was neither a good father nor a good husband; Edward VII was a better monarch than man.

But while some forms of inconsistency or even hypocrisy can be combined with public leadership, others cannot be. A television preacher can eat too many french fries, watch too much cheesy TV and neglect his kids in the quest for global fame. But he cannot indulge in drug fueled trysts with male prostitutes while preaching conservative Christian doctrine. The head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving cannot be convicted of driving while under the influence. The head of the IRS cannot be a tax cheat. The most visible leader of the world’s green movement cannot live a life of conspicuous consumption, spewing far more carbon into the atmosphere than almost all of those he castigates for their wasteful ways. Mr. Top Green can’t also be a carbon pig.

You can be a leading environmentalist and fail to pay all of your taxes. You can be a leading environmentalist and be unkind to your aged mother. You can be a leading environmentalist and squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle, park in the handicapped spots at the mall or scribble angry marginal notes in library books.

But you cannot be a leading environmentalist who hopes to lead the general public into a long and difficult struggle for sacrifice and fundamental change if your own conduct is so flagrantly inconsistent with the green gospel you profess. If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets. You cannot own multiple mansions. You cannot even becomeenormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place.

It is not enough to buy carbon offsets (aka “indulgences”) with your vast wealth, not enough to power your luxurious mansionswith exotic low impact energy sources the average person could not afford, not enough to argue that you only needed the jet so that you could promote your earth-saving film.

You are asking billions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom lack many of the basic life amenities you take for granted, people who can’t afford Whole Foods environmentalism, to slash their meager living standards. You may well be right, and those changes may be necessary — the more shame on you that with your superior insight and knowledge you refuse to live a modest life. There’s a gospel hymn some people in Tennessee still sing that makes the point: “You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine.”

St. Francis of Assisi understood the point well. Taken by the Pope on a tour to see the treasures of the Vatican, St. Francis was notably unimpressed. “Peter can no longer say, ‘silver and gold have I none,’” smiled the Pontiff, referring to the story in the Book of Acts that recounts what St. Peter said to a crippled beggar asking him for alms.

“Neither can he say, ‘rise up and walk.’” replied St. Francis — quoting what St. Peter said as he miraculously cured the beggar of his affliction.

You can sit on ivory chairs with kings in their halls of gold, participating in the world of politics as usual, or you can live with the prophets and visionaries in the wilderness, voices of a greater truth and higher meaning that challenge the smug certainties and false assumptions of the comfortable, business as usual elites. You cannot do both.

Al Gore cannot say “silver and gold have I none and no excess carbon do I spew,” and neither can he say to the paralyzed global green movement “rise up and walk.” He speaks, he writes, he speaks again, and the movement lies on the ground, crippled and inert.

A fawning establishment press spares the former vice president the vitriol and schadenfreude it pours over the preachers and priests whose personal conduct compromised the core tenets of their mission; Gore is not mocked as others have been. This gentle treatment hurts both Gore and the greens; he does not know just how disabling, how crippling the gap between conduct and message truly is. The greens do not know that his presence as the visible head of the movement helps ensure its political failure.

Consider how Gore looks to the skeptics. The peril is imminent, he says. It is desperate. The hands of the clock point to twelve. The seas rise, the coral dies, the fires burn and the great droughts have already begun. The hounds of Hell have slipped the huntsman’s leash and even now they rush upon us, mouths agape and fangs afoam.

But grave as that danger is, Al Gore can consume more carbon than whole villages in the developing world. He can consume more electricity than most African schools, incur more carbon debt with one trip in a private plane than most of the earth’s toiling billions will pile up in a lifetime — and he doesn’t worry. A father of four, he can lecture the world on the perils of overpopulation. Surely, skeptics reason, if the peril were as great as he says and he cares about it as much as he claims, Gore’s sense of civic duty would call him to set an example of conspicuous non-consumption. This general sleeps in a mansion, and lectures the soldiers because they want tents.
...

Read more here/Leia mais aqui: The American Interest

Stephen Fuller, sociólogo, 'falou e disse': o darwinismo é a astrologia da ciência

Notícias 

26 de junho de 2011 

Sociólogo: o darwinismo é a astrologia da ciência

E agora mesmo o seu maior trunfo é o financiamento público e os processos jurídicos. 

Steve Fuller, um sociólogo agnóstico na Universidade Warwick (Grã-Bretanha) e autor do livro Dissent over Descent, [Dissidência sobre a descendência] nos fornece uma imagem interessante da astrologia nas décadas antes de sua queda que, inconfundivelmente, nos remete hoje ao darwinismo: 

“… nos quatro séculos que separaram os primeiros escoláticos de Oxford de Newton, a astrologia cresceu em importância seculares resultando nas afirmações de conhecimento da área se tornando “não falseáveis,” a qualidade específica que Popper atribuiu às teorias pseudocientíficas. Em outras palavras, os astrológos se recusaram a submeter a um teste público o que pode revelar um erro fundamental em suas teorias.” 




[como faz o arquidarwinista Richard Dawkins que se recusa debater, apesar da reprovação de colegas ateus de Oxford?] 

“Suas razões são familiares para nós hoje. Quando a astrologia estava no alcance somente dos poderosos e era usada para decider o tempo apropriado das campanhas militares, ela era envolta em segredo no que hoje nós chamamos de ‘razões de segurança nacional’. Mas, começando no século 15, quando os astrólogos se mudaram para o emergente setor privado da Europa, e os horóscopos pessoais cada vez mais se tornou sua reserva de mercado, a confidencialidade do cliente era citada como base para a recusa em liberar seus registros das pistas. Mesmo assim, à medida em que os astrólogos ganharam status, eles fizeram maiores afirmações de conhecimento para sua área. Muitos principais intelectuais da Renascença, inclusive Ficino, Paracelso e Pomponazzi, tentaram alavancar a significância histórica da astrologia e a clientela em um papel fundacional no currículo médico da universidade. Como muitos entusiastas da biologia evolucionária na profissão médica atual, eles creram que a astrologia iria finalmente converter sua arte antiga numa ciência genuína com um sentido causal profundo a tal ponto de o bem-estar da humanidade estava registrado no cosmos.” 

[Pense na medicina evolucionária, como um dos maiores prejuízos na história da medicina.] 

“Isso se revelou ser um passo muito além, colocando a astrologia sob um escrutínio crítico muito mais severo do que antes. Subitamente todo o mundo era um popperiano avant la lettre. Desafios às pretenses da astrologia, até mesmo entre os pares praticantes, se tornou assuntos muito públicos que somente serviram para lançar dúvida sobre todo o empreendimento – mesmo quando os astrólogos foram revelados como tendo chegado a conclusões válidas.”- Dissent over Descent, p. 166-67 

[Pense nos Altenberg 16 = um punhado de biólogos evolucionários de saco cheio. 

O darwinismo vai terminar sendo a coluna da “tia evolucionária agonizante” em algum lugar para os fiéis eternamente esperançosos, assim como ainda existe uma coluna sobre astros nos jornais de hoje? Parece ser um epitáfio digno.

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Source/Fonte: Blog Uncommon Descent

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NOTA BENE: Steve Fuller [trocamos e-mails de vez em quando] foi muito educado e colegial com a Nomenklatura científica. Aqui neste blog eu descrevo este estado de falência heurística do darwinismo de ALQUIMIA.

A nova teoria da evolução, que a Nomenklatura científica teima em não abordar e debater publicamente a sua elaboração, nem explicar o por que da demora de sua entrega em 2020, se não incorporar em seu referencial teórico as teses do Design Inteligente, ainda deixará o darwinismo sendo ALQUIMIA, oops, Fuller é mais educado e colegial, ASTROLOGIA!!!

Fui, nem sei por que, pensando que os astrólogos de Darwin uma hora dessas devem estar lendo os mapas astrais evolucionários antes que chegue 2012... afinal de contas, nada em biologia faz sentido a não ser à luz dos horóscopos darwinianos...

Desde quando a história evolucionária da diversidade e complexidade das formas bióticas estava escrita nas estrelas???

Feriadão: a evolução em ação diante de nossos olhos no Brasil

domingo, junho 26, 2011

Em torno da causa gay: não precisa de nova legislação!!!

sábado, junho 25, 2011

Enviado por Ruy Fabiano - 
25.6.2011
 | 16h08m

POLÍTICA
Em torno da causa gay
Toda a campanha em favor da causa gay, e que orienta a aprovação do projeto de lei 122, em tramitação no Senado, parte de uma mesma premissa: haveria, no Brasil, um surto de homofobia – isto é, hostilidade e ameaça física aos gays.
A premissa não se sustenta estatisticamente. Os números, comparativamente aos casos gerais de homicídios anuais no país – cerca de 50 mil! -, são irrelevantes.
Segundo o Grupo Gay da Bahia, de 1980 a 2009, foram documentados 3.196 homicídios de homossexuais no Brasil, média de 110 por ano.
Mais: não se sabe se essas pessoas foram mortas por essa razão específica ou se o crime se deu entre elas próprias, por razões passionais, ou pelas razões gerais que vitimam os outros 49 mil e tantos infelizes, vítimas do surto de insegurança que abala há décadas o país.
Se a lógica for a dos números, então o que há é o contrário: um surto de heterofobia, já que a quase totalidade dos assassinatos se dá contra pessoas de conduta hetero.
O que se constata é que há duas coisas distintas em pauta, que se confundem propositalmente e geram toda a confusão que envolve o tema.
Uma coisa é o movimento gay, que busca criar espaço político, com suas ONGs e verbas públicas, ocupando áreas de influência, com o objetivo de obter estatuto próprio, como se opção de conduta sexual representasse uma categoria social.
Outra é o homossexualismo propriamente dito, que não acrescenta nem retira direitos de cidadania de ninguém.
Se alguém é agredido ou ameaçado, já há legislação específica para tratar do assunto, independentemente dos motivos alegados pelo agressor. Não seria, pois, necessário criar legislação própria.
Comparar essa questão com o racismo, como tem sido feito, é absolutamente impróprio. Não se escolhe a raça que se tem e ver-se privado de algum direito por essa razão, ou previamente classificado numa categoria humana inferior, é uma barbárie.
Não é o que se dá com o homossexualismo. As condutas sexuais podem, sim, ser objeto de avaliação de ordem moral e existencial, tarefa inerente, por exemplo (mas não apenas), às religiões.
Elas – e segue-as quem quer – avaliam, desde que existem, não apenas condutas sexuais (aí incluída inclusive a dos heterossexuais), mas diversas outras, que envolvem questões como usura, intemperança, promiscuidade, infidelidade, honestidade etc.
E não é um direito apenas delas continuar sua pregação em torno do comportamento moral humano, mas de todos os que, mesmo agnósticos, se ocupam do tema, que é também filosófico, político e existencial.
Assim como o indivíduo, dentro de seu livre arbítrio, tem a liberdade de opções de conduta íntima, há também o direito de que essa prática seja avaliada à luz de outros valores, sem que importe em crime ou discriminação. A filosofia faz isso há milênios.
Crime seria incitar a violência contra aqueles que são objeto dessa crítica. E isso inexiste como fenômeno social no Brasil. Ninguém discute o direito legal de o homossexual exercer sua opção. E a lei lhe garante esse direito, que é exercido amplamente.
O que não é possível é querer dar-lhe dimensão que não tem: de portador de direitos diferenciados, delírio que chega ao extremo de se cogitar da criação de cotas nas empresas, universidades e partidos políticos a quem fez tal opção de vida.
Mesmo a nomenclatura que se pretende estabelecer é falsa. A união de dois homossexuais não cria uma família, entendida esta como uma unidade social estabelecida para gerar descendência e permitir a continuidade da vida humana no planeta.
Casamento é instituição concebida para organizar socialmente, mediante estatuto próprio, com compromissos recíprocos, a geração e criação de filhos.
Como aplicá-lo a outro tipo de união que não possibilita o que está na essência do matrimônio? Que se busque então outro nome, não apenas para evitar confusões conceituais, mas até para que se permita estabelecer uma legislação que garanta direitos e estabeleça deveres específicos às partes.
Há dias, num artigo na Folha de S. Paulo, um líder de uma das muitas ONGs gays do país chegou a afirmar que a heterossexualidade não resultaria da natureza, mas de mero (e, pelo que entendi, nefasto) condicionamento cultural, que começaria já com a criança no ventre materno.
Esqueceu-se de observar que, para que haja uma criança no ventre materno, foi necessária uma relação heterossexual, sem a qual nem ele mesmo, que escrevia o artigo, existiria.
Portanto, a defesa de um direito que não está sendo contestado – a opção pelo homossexualismo – chegou ao paroxismo de questionar a normalidade (e o próprio mérito moral) da relação heterossexual, origem única e insubstituível da vida. Não há dúvida de que está em cena um capítulo psicótico da história.

Ruy Fabiano é jornalista

Finalidade da evolução da razão: vencer debates!!!

Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2011), 34: 57-74
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X10000968

Published online: 29 March 2011

Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory

Hugo Mercier a1 and Dan Sperber a2

a1 Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

a2 Jean Nicod Institute (EHESS-ENS-CNRS), 75005 Paris, France; Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

Image not related to this article/Imagem não relacionada a este artigo


Abstract

Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. Poor performance in standard reasoning tasks is explained by the lack of argumentative context. When the same problems are placed in a proper argumentative setting, people turn out to be skilled arguers. Skilled arguers, however, are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing, but also when they are reasoning proactively from the perspective of having to defend their opinions. Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow erroneous beliefs to persist. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device: Look for arguments that support a given conclusion, and, ceteris paribus, favor conclusions for which arguments can be found.

Keywords argumentation; confirmation bias; decision making; dual process theory; evolutionary psychology; motivated reasoning; reason-based choice; reasoning

Hugo Mercier is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has focused on the theme of the present article – reasoning and argumentation. He is working on a series of articles that cover this issue from different perspectives – developmental, cross-cultural, political, and historical.

Dan Sperber is a French social and cognitive scientist. He is professor of philosophy and cognitive science at the Central European University, Budapest, and directeur de recherche emeritus at the Institut Jean Nicod, (CNRS, ENS, and EHESS, Paris). He is the author of Rethinking Symbolism (1975), On Anthropological Knowledge(1985), and Explaining Culture (1996); the co-author with Deirdre Wilson of Relevance: Communication and Cognition (1986 – Second Revised Edition, 1995); the editor of Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (2000); the co-editor with David Premack and Ann James Premack of Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate (1995), and, with Ira Noveck, of Experimental Pragmatics (2004).

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Professores, pesquisadores, alunos e alunos de universidades públicas e privadas com acesso ao site CAPES/Periódicos podem ler gratuitamente este artigo do Behavioral and Brain Sciences e de mais 22.440 publicações científicas.

Por que a Suprema Corte americana se importa mais com as elites e não com o povo americano

sexta-feira, junho 24, 2011

College of William & Mary Law School 
Scholarship Repository - Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship

2010

Why the Supreme Court Cares About Elites, Not the American People

Lawrence Baum, Neal Devins

INTRODUCTION

Supreme Court Justices care more about the views of academics, journalists, and other elites than they do about public opinion. This is true of nearly all Justices and is especially true of swing Justices, who often cast the critical votes in the Court’s most visible decisions. In this Article, we will explain why we think this is so and, in so doing, challenge both the dominant political science models of judicial behavior and the significant work of Barry Friedman,1 Jeffrey Rosen,2 and others who link Supreme Court decision making to public opinion.

Our argument is grounded in social psychology. In particular, we will argue that Supreme Court Justices are not single-minded maximizers of legal or policy preferences.3 Instead, Justices seek both to advance favored policies and to win approval from audiences they care about. These audiences may include the public but are more likely to include elites—individuals and groups that have high socioeconomic status and political influence. The primary reason is that Supreme Court Justices themselves are social and economic elites. As such, they are likely to care a great deal about their reputations among other elites, including academics, journalists, other judges, fellow lawyers, members of other interest groups, and their friends and neighbors.

This view leads us to a different conception of the forces that shape the Court from the one expressed by legal scholars such as Friedman4 as well as by many political scientists.5 As those scholars see it, the Justices are devoted to achieving what they see as the best legal policies, and they deviate from their most preferred policies when doing so advances those policies in the long run. Thus, to take one important example, the Justices accede to public opinion in order to maintain the Court’s legitimacy and its ability to make legal policy effectively.6

In our view, in contrast, the Justices have concerns other than maximizing the achievement of their preferred legal policies, and prominent among those concerns is their interest in the regard of other people who are important to them. When the Justices deviate from their preferred legal policies, it may be because of strategic considerations, some of which relate to public opinion. However, it is more often the case that Justices are influenced by the views of other elites who are important to them for personal rather than strategic reasons. Thus, we agree with the scholars who emphasize that the Justices are primarily motivated by what they regard as good law or good policy; we disagree on the reasons that Justices sometimes deviate from the positions that they prefer.

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Repository Citation

Baum, Lawrence and Devins, Neal, "Why the Supreme Court Cares About Elites, Not the American People" (2010). Faculty

Publications. Paper 1116.

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/1116

Copyright c 2010 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository.

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs

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NOTA DESTE BLOGGER:

Nos Estados Unidos? Eu pensei que fosse o STF em Pindorama.

Medley - Yaakov Shwekey



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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas]

Loy Iro Ro - Mordechai Ben David



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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas...]

Vezakeini - Baruch Levine



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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas]



Shabbos Hayom Lashem - Shloime Gertner



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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas...]

Tov Lehodot - Yaakov Shwekey



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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas...]

Princípios da evolução: da época de Planck até a vida multicelular complexa

Principles of Evolution

From the Planck Epoch to Complex Multicellular Life


Meyer-Ortmanns, Hildegard; Thurner, Stefan (Eds.)

1st Edition., 2011, XII, 386 p. 270 illus., 50 in color.
Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-642-18136-8


Not yet published. Available: July 29, 2011

US$ 79.95

About this book

With contributions from a team of leading experts, this volume provides a comprehensive survey of recent achievements in our scientific understanding of evolution. The questions it asks concern the beginnings of the universe, the origin of life and the chances of its arising at all, the role of contingency, and the search for universal features in the plethora of evolutionary phenomena. Rather than oversimplified or premature answers, the chapters provide a clear picture of how these essential problems are being tackled, enabling the reader to understand current thinking and open questions. The tools employed stem from a range of disciplines including mathematics, physics, biochemistry and cell biology. Self-organization as an overarching concept is demonstrated in the most diverse areas: from galaxy formation in the universe to spindle and aster formation in the cell. Chemical master equations, population dynamics, and evolutionary game theory are presented as suitable frameworks for understanding the universal mechanisms and organizational principles observed in a wide range of living units, ranging from cells to societies. This book will provide engaging reading and food for thought for all those seeking a deeper understanding of the science of evolution.

Content Level » Research

Keywords » Darwin’s theory - Evolutionary games - Origin of life - Physics of evolution -Population genetics

TABLE OF CONTENTS / PREFACE / SAMPLE PAGES




Authors & Editors

Hildegard Meyer-Ortmanns is full professor and head of the statistical physics group at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. Her area of expertise ranges from general relativity and theoretical particle physics to statistical physics and its applications to complex systems. Stefan Thurner is Professor of Science of Complex Systems at the Medical University of Vienna and external professor at the Santa Fe institute. His area of interest extends from theoretical physics and applied mathematics to complex systems theory and its applications in life science and economics.

Vida multicelular criada em tubo de ensaio de laboratório???

Multicellular life arises in a test tube

Evolution experiment turns singleton yeast into multicellular organisms

By Susan Milius

Web edition : Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

NORMAN, Okla. — Since humanity missed the big moment the first time around, biologists trying to understand the origins of complex life have coaxed single-celled microbes to evolve into multicellular forms capable of reproduction.

Common lab yeast normally live as single cells that bud off single-celled offspring. But challenging generations of yeast with conditions that make solo life tough led to spiky multicelled yeast forms within about two months, said Will Ratcliff of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The experiment suggests going multicellular may happen more readily than previously thought, he told the Evolution 2011 conference June 18.

“It was certainly the buzz of the conference,” said Lee Dugatkin of the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Evolutionary biologists rank the shift from one to many cells as one of the major transitions in the history of life. “To be able to examine it experimentally, in real time, in the lab, is extremely exciting,” Dugatkin said.

To provoke evolution in a test tube, Ratcliff and his colleagues put liquid suspensions of yeast cells through a daily ordeal. Every tube of cells got a mild centrifuge spin. Then the researchers saved a fraction of the sludgier part of each tube and — life is hard — tossed the rest. That regimen ensured that any change in the yeast that happened to encourage settling — such as a shift toward heavier bodies made of multiple cells — promoted survival.

Under these conditions, yeast lineages that retained budding daughter cells rather than splitting them off were more likely to make it through each daily decimation. Those buds in turn retained their own buds, creating bristly multicellular organisms the researchers call yeast snowflakes.

These snowflakes reproduced by fracturing into smaller pieces that eventually grew and fractured themselves.The researchers even saw hints of a reproductive division of labor, Ratcliff said. A scattering of snowflake cells undergo cell death, or apoptosis, and the resulting weak spots appear to serve as fault lines where babies flake off.

To see if yeast snowflakes evolve the way true multicelled creatures do, the researchers created another version of the settle-fast-or-else challenge that they varied in severity. Snowflake lineages receiving the harshest treatment responded dramatically, becoming twice as large as their ancestor snowflakes; lineages under gentler treatment changed less. That means that the yeast snowflakes respond to evolutionary pressure as whole, multicellular organisms, Ratcliff said.

Such tests take the yeast snowflakes farther than research reported in 1998 by other scientists, who coaxed a microbe to evolve a clumpy, multicellular form but didn’t describe its evolutionary dynamics.

The yeast experiment doesn’t exactly constitute starting from scratch when it comes to the evolution of multicellularity, cautions Adam Waite, who studies cooperation among yeast at the University of Washington in Seattle, because today’s single-celled yeast actually evolved from long-ago multicellular ancestors. 

Dugatkin doesn’t find that a drawback, however. Whether the yeast take the same path to multicellularity today as the first multicelled organisms did billions of years ago, he says, makes a fascinating question in itself.

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Source/Fonte: ScienceNews