The short monograph Creative Nature (Francisco Javier Novo, Rubén Pereda, and Javier Sánchez-Cañizares. 2018. Naturaleza Creativa. Madrid: Rialp. ISBN: 978-84-321-4916-0. 196 pp. Paperback, €14.25) is a welcome contribution to the philosophy of nature that arose from interdisciplinary conversations between authors who are both up-to-date in the scientific literature and deeply grounded in the Western intellectual tradition. In this third and final part of the review essay, I take Creative Nature as a point of departure and develop a theological synthesis of (...) our relationship with the natural world. My approach to making sense of natural evil draws on the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical tradition. I emphasize the wisdom of viewing nature as a whole and avoiding anthropomorphisms, in order to both come to peace with our common home and feel like we belong in a welcoming world. I draw from St. Paul’s teaching on cosmic redemption in his letters to the Colossians and Ephesians to shine the light of supernatural faith on our relationship with the natural world. This approach illustrates how a sound philosophy of nature and biblical interpretation are pivotal for faith–science dialogue.The short monograph Creative Nature (Francisco Javier Novo, Rubén Pereda, and Javier Sánchez-Cañizares. 2018. Naturaleza Creativa. Madrid: Rialp. ISBN: 978-84-321-4916-0. 196 pp. Paperback, €14.25) is a welcome contribution to the philosophy of nature that arose from interdisciplinary conversations between authors who are both up-to-date in the scientific literature and deeply grounded in the Western intellectual tradition. In this third and final part of the review essay, I take Creative Nature as a point of departure and develop a theological synthesis of our relationship with the natural world. My approach to making sense of natural evil draws on the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical tradition. I emphasize the wisdom of viewing nature as a whole and avoiding anthropomorphisms, in order to both come to peace with our common home and feel like we belong in a welcoming world. I draw from St. Paul’s teaching on cosmic redemption in his letters to the Colossians and Ephesians to shine the light of supernatural faith on our relationship with the natural world. This approach illustrates how a sound philosophy of nature and biblical interpretation are pivotal for faith–science dialogue. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the twentieth century statistics has reshaped the experimental cultures of agricultural research taking part in the subtle dialectic between the epistemic and the material that is proper to experimental systems. This transformation has become especially relevant in field trials and the paper will examine the British agricultural institution, Rothamsted Experimental Station, where statistical methods nowadays popular in the planning and analysis of field experiments were developed in the 1920s. At Rothamsted statistics promoted randomisation over systematic arrangements, (...) factorisation over one-question trials, and emphasised the importance of the experimental error in assessing field trials. These changes in methodology transformed also the material culture of agricultural science, and a new body, the Field Plots Committee, was created to manage the field research of the agricultural institution. Although successful, the vision of field experimentation proposed by the Rothamsted statisticians was not unproblematic. Experimental scientists closely linked to the farming community questioned it in favour of a field research that could be more easily understood by farmers. The clash between the two agendas reveals how the role attributed to statistics in field experimentation defined different pursuits of agricultural research, alternately conceived of as a scientists’ science or as a farmers’ science. (shrink)

In 1919 the Animal Breeding Research Department was established in Edinburgh. This Department, later renamed the Institute of Animal Genetics, forged an international reputation, eventually becoming the centrepiece of a cluster of new genetics research units and institutions in Edinburgh after the Second World War. Yet despite its significance for institutionalising animal genetics research in the UK, the origins and development of the Department have not received as much scholarly attention as its importance warrants. This paper sheds new light on (...) Edinburgh’s place in early British genetics by drawing upon recently catalogued archival sources including the papers of James Cossar Ewart, Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh between 1882 and 1927. Although presently a marginal figure in genetics historiography, Ewart established two sites for experimental animal breeding work between 1895 and 1911 and played a central role in the founding of Britain’s first genetics lectureship, also in 1911. These early efforts helped to secure government funding in 1913. However, a combination of the First World War, bureaucratic problems and Ewart’s personal ambitions delayed the creation of the Department and the appointment of its director by another six years. This paper charts the institutionalisation of animal breeding and genetics research in Edinburgh within the wider contexts of British genetics and agriculture in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

Nous interprétons les vues philosophiques de Werner Heisenberg comme un pragmatisme et un réalisme non-métaphysique de type Wittgensteinien. La « théorie close » est une règle (concept) Wittgensteinienne. À la différence d’Alisa Bokulich qui donne raison à la position de Paul Dirac sur la nature des relations entre les théories physiques différentes, nous favorisons plutôt celle de Heisenberg. Notre position interprétant Heisenberg va aussi à l’encontre de celle de Popper: le critère d’une théorie scientifique établie (close) est sa non-falsifiabilité. -/- (...) . (shrink)

Michigan's approach to sustainability does not conflict with its efforts to reindustrialize state agriculture. As currently applied, agricultural sustainability remains a one-dimensional concept tightly focused on the condition of production resources and the larger physical environment. The social and political dimensions of sustainability, by contrast, are conspicuously absent. Using Michigan's ‘livestock initiative’ as a case in point, it is argued that this conceptualization conforms to and reinforces the reindustrialization of agriculture and the existing structure of power within the industry.

The shift from a traditional indigenous female agriculture to a new male agriculture in Iroquois culture was facilitated by the teachings of the early 19th century Seneca prophet and chief, Handsome Lake. This shift resulted in the disempowerment of women and occurred during a period of crises for the Iroquois; it was heavily influenced by exogenous pressures that, mediated by Handsome Lake's Code, led not only to a change of sex roles in agriculture but also to a shift in family (...) structure toward the patriarchal family and to a change of ideology toward a patriarchal monotheism. Previously, Iroquois life and ideology had stressed a complementarity or balance of powers between the sexes. Handsome Lake's Code also retained certain aspects of the older Iroquois lifestyle and ideology. The crises undergone by the Iroquois might have been met differently, without the disempowerment of women, had it not been for exogenous influences. (shrink)

The study of threat and fear appeal arguments has given rise to a sizeable literature. Even within a public health context, much is now known about how these arguments work to gain the public’s compliance with health recommendations. Notwithstanding this level of interest in, and examination of, these arguments, there is one aspect of these arguments that still remains unexplored. That aspect concerns the heuristic function of these arguments within our thinking about public health problems. Specifically, it is argued that (...) threat and fear appeal arguments serve as valuable shortcuts in our reasoning, particularly when that reasoning is subject to biases that are likely to diminish the effectiveness of public health messages. To this extent, they are rationally warranted argument forms rather than fallacies, as has been their dominant characterization in logic. (shrink)

This article analyzes the transformation of Minerva from an intellectual towards a scholarly journal by making use of bibliometric methods. The aim is to provide some empirical insights that help to understand what properties of the journal changed in the course of this transformation process. Minerva was one of the first journals that reflected on science and its role in society and science policy in particular. Analyzing the development of the journal sheds light on the emergence of science (policy) studies (...) and on Minerva’s role as a forerunner in this field. In a first step, the methods will be described. The second section provides some empirical results of the publication output of Minerva and its relations to other journals in the field. The empirical findings are put into a broader perspective in the concluding third section. (shrink)