When radiocarbon dating techniques were applied to archaeological material in the 1950s they were hailed as a revolution. At last archaeologists could construct absolute chronologies anchored in temporal data backed by immutable laws of physics. This would make it possible to mobilize archaeological data across regions and time-periods on a global scale, rendering obsolete the local and relative chronologies on which archaeologists had long relied. As profound as the impact of 14C dating has been, it has had a long and (...) tortuous history now described as proceeding through three revolutions, each of which addresses distinct challenges of capturing, processing and packaging radiogenic data for use in resolving chronological puzzles with which archaeologists has long wrestled. In practice, mobilizing radiogenic data for archaeological use is a hard-won achievement; it involves multiple transformations that, at each step of the way, depend upon a diverse array of technical expertise and background knowledge. I focus on strategies of triangulation and traceability that establish the integrity of these data and their relevance as anchors for evidential reasoning in archaeology. (shrink)

I. Kant’s Critique of Judgment is a maintext to catch the epistemological tensions created by the emerging notion of life . By investigating the specific causality of life in order to explain the phenomenon of self-organization of the living, Kant uses the remarkable concept of technique of nature , thus establishing a strong analogy between technique and life.The consequences of this analogy affect not only the epistemology of life, but also the modern conception of technique.To a technicization (...) of life corresponds a vitalization of technique. A new hybrid territory is thus discovered – that of technical life – in whichstands the possibility of a biological archaeology of modern technique. (shrink)

The archaeological record is very limited and its analysis has been contentious. Hence, molecular biologists have shifted their attention to molecular dating techniques. Recently on April 2013, the prestigious Cell Press Journal Current Biology published an article (Fu et al. 2013) entitled “A Revised Timescale for Human Evolution Based on Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes”. This paper has twenty authors and they are researchers from the world’s top institutes like Max Planck Institute, Harvard, etc. Respected authors of this paper have emphatically accepted (...) that the fossil record is inadequate and unreliable. These statements clearly substantiate that now biologists are agreeing that fossil records do not provide any significant evidence at all for conventional evolution theory. Despite the well-recorded fact of the continual grand propaganda of Darwinism based on fossil evidence for more than 150 years, in recent times biologists are surprisingly coming up with such statements, based on their confidence that evolution can be explained purely by the genealogical/genomic record provided by modern molecular biology. Still many respected journals (for example the article in Nature, Retallack, 2013) continue to publish articles on fossil evidence to support Darwinian evolution. These incoherently diverse claims prove that Darwinists are struggling with unscientific ideological approaches to explain biodiversity. Darwinian evolutionary theory is not only the basis of modern biology, but also acts as the guiding principle of science and intellectual reasoning for modern civilization. Hence, a scientific understanding of the breakdown of the Darwinian theory of objective evolution is very important for overcoming the traditional scientific temper of mechanistic intellectualism that characterizes this ideology. In my article “21st Century Biology Refutes Darwinian Abiology” (published in two parts in November and December 2012 issues of The Harmonizer: www.mahaprabhu.net/satsanga/harmonizer) it was noted that several recent findings challenge the credibility that random mutations and natural selection can provide a valid basis for justifying the naturalistic evolution of species. The present article summarizes the problems associated with the fossil record and dating techniques, and its implication on the neo-Darwinian mechanistic misconception of biological life as mere molecular chemistry or abiology. An alternative approach based on the Vedāntic view for explaining biodiversity in the light of 21st century biology is also discussed in the end of the article. (shrink)

Chapter 1st of the book. This chapter explores the fundamental ambiguity of the concept of plasticity – between openness and determination, change and stabilization of forms. This pluralism of meanings is used to unpack different instantiations of corporeal plasticity across various epochs, starting from ancient and early modern medicine, particularly humouralism. A genealogical approach displaces the notion that plasticity is a unitary phenomenon, coming in the abstract, and illuminates the unequal distribution of different forms of plasticities across social, gender, and (...) ethnic groups. Taking a longer view of the plastic body as a ubiquitous belief in traditions predating and coexisting with modern medicine will help contextualize the seeming radicalism of today’s turn to permeability and the exceptionalism of Western findings. By highlighting the complex biopolitical usages of plasticity in the past, the chapter warns against simplistic appropriations of the term in contemporary body/world configurations driven by findings in neuroscience, epigenetics and microbiomics. (shrink)

This paper aims to mobilize the concept of “aleatory materialism” from Althusser’s posthumous work “The Underground Current of the Materialism of the Encounter” to theorize the emergence of a capitalist mode of production and analyze theoretical problems of thinking through the emergence of a communist mode of production out of capitalism. A “materialism of the encounter,” with its non-teleological account of causality can theorize the emergence of such a complicated object and help think through transitions without recourse to necessity or (...) sufficient reason. Retroactively, we can identify the discreet encounters that have “taken hold” in the institution of the capitalist mode of production, but we cannot trace with any necessity the islets that would form a communist mode of production. (shrink)

This paper considers the significance of the informal publication and circulation in the work of one of the most important analytic philosophers of the late 20th Century, Saul Kripke. I argue that everyday copying technologies such as tape recording and photocopying enabled academic philosophers in the 1970s and 1980s to create and reproduce living documents whose private preservation and circulation offered a way to make and maintain a community of interest, carve out a space for oral discourse and, most significantly (...) for histories of alternative print technologies, that these technologies and techniques of reproduction were essential to the composition of Kripke’s ground-breaking and revolutionary published work. The recording, transcripts and photocopies archived Kripke’s ideas and offered access to them outside of institutional publishing channels. Kripke lectured a great deal, usually without notes, and was known to be reluctant to commit his ideas to print; this ‘szamizdat’ (as he refers to it) also preserved a space for the oral as the preferred mode of communication for philosophical discourse, connecting the modern tradition with the ancients, an oral tradition held together with magnetic tape, typescript, photocopies, and digital text files. This archival study draws attention to the intermediality of Kripke's work through close examination of his acknowledgments, prefaces, and footnotes to work up a history of the everyday media inscriptions (the recordings, typescript transcriptions, photocopies etc.) and practices (the lectures, seminars, and international social networks of distribution) that underpin the production of both his published and unpublished work. This essay brings a media archaeological approach into contact with scholarship on the history of the book and intellectual history. It foregrounds the role of the oral and aural in the history of print and contributes to our understanding of circulation and reproduction as a cultural practices. (shrink)

Complex systems like literacy and numeracy emerge through multigenerational interactions of brains, behaviors, and material forms. In such systems, material forms – writing for language and notations for numbers – become increasingly refined to elicit specific behavioral and psychological responses in newly indoctrinated individuals. These material forms, however, differ fundamentally in things like semiotic function: language signifies, while numbers instantiate. This makes writing for language able to represent the meanings and sounds of particular languages, while notations for numbers are semantically (...) meaningful without phonetic specification. This representational distinction is associated with neurofunctional and behavioral differences in what neural activity and behaviors like handwriting contribute to literacy and numeracy. In turn, neurofunctional and behavioral differences place written representations for language and numbers under different pressures that influence the forms they take and how those forms change over time as they are transmitted across languages and cultures. (shrink)

Archaeological facts have a perplexing character; they are often seen as less likely to “lie,” capable of bearing tangible, material witness to actual conditions of life, actions and events, but at the same time they are notoriously fragmentary and enigmatic, and disturbingly vulnerable to dispersal and attrition. As Trouillot (1995) argues for historical inquiry, the identification, selection, interpretation and narration of archaeological facts is a radically constructive process. Rather than conclude on this basis that archaeological facts and fictions are indistinguishable, (...) I identify a number of strategies that archaeologists rely on to make discerning use of “legacy” data – archaeological data recovered and curated over for decades, even centuries, often for very different purposes than those that animate contemporary archaeological inquiry. These include source criticism, secondary retrieval, repositioning and recontextualizing these data in ways that can, sometimes radically shift the “facts” associated with them. The construction of critical genealogies of these facts – the travels and transformations of the material, interpretive and narrative facts of archaeology – is a crucial condition for the successful exploitation of these epistemic possibilities. (shrink)

We introduce a new theorem in social choice theory built on a path integral approach which will show that, under some reasonable conditions, there is a unique way to aggregate individual preferences based on fuzzy sets into a social preference based on probabilities, and that this way is invariant under any permutation of alternatives. We then apply this theorem to the case of democratic decision making with data of the behaviour and voting preferences of voting agents and show that there (...) is a tradeoff between fairness and efficiency and that no voting system can achieve both simultaneously. (shrink)

Medicine is often thought of as a science of the body, but it is also a science of data. In some contexts, it can even be asserted that data drive health. This article focuses on a key piece of data technology central to contemporary practices of medicine: the medical record. By situating the medical record in the perspective of its history, we inquire into how the kinds of data that are kept at sites of clinical encounter often depend on informational (...) requirements that originate well outside of the clinic, in particular in health insurance records systems. Although this dependency of today's electronic medical records on billing requirements is widely lamented by clinical providers, its history remains little studied. Following the archaeology of medicine developed by Michel Foucault in The Birth of the Clinic and expanding his methodology in light of more recent contributions to the field of media archaeology, this article excavates some of the underexplored technological conditions that help constitute today's electronic medical record. If in some contexts, it is true that data drive health, then an archaeology of medical records helps reveal how health insurance records often impact clinical care and, by extension, health and disease. (shrink)

All languages have unique morphemes as distinguishing features from other languages. Unique morpheme is a morpheme with typical features divergent from other morphemes or language morpheme in general. This study aims to explain the unique morphemes in Malay Language of Makassar dialect. The finding is useful for linguistic studies especially morphological studies of morphemes. This study used descriptive method data collection method used was listening method. The techniques were listening and engaged in conversation and notes-taking. The role of researcher in (...) listening and engaged in conversation technique was not only as listener but also took part in the conversation. In note-taking techniques the researcher recorded the conversations from the research objects. The results found that the The Malay language of Makassar dialect has unique morphemes, such as ka, ta, nu, ki. Na, ko-, etc. Unique morphemes in form of words are such as pale (only), sedeng (again), bela (that’s it), and so on. More unique morphemes of particles are mine-, ji-, pi-, pa-, mo-, etc. Using these unique morphemes before words would make different in sense of the words from using them after words. (shrink)

All languages have unique morphemes as distinguishing features from other languages. Unique morpheme is a morpheme with typical features divergent from other morphemes or language morpheme in general. This study aims to explain the unique morphemes in Malay Language of Makassar dialect. The finding is useful for linguistic studies especially morphological studies of morphemes. This study used descriptive method data collection method used was listening method. The techniques were listening and engaged in conversation and notes-taking. The role of researcher in (...) listening and engaged in conversation technique was not only as listener but also took part in the conversation. In note-taking techniques the researcher recorded the conversations from the research objects. The results found that the The Malay language of Makassar dialect has unique morphemes, such as ka, ta, nu, ki. Na, ko-, etc. Unique morphemes in form of words are such as pale (only), sedeng (again), bela (that’s it), and so on. More unique morphemes of particles are mine-, ji-, pi-, pa-, mo-, etc. Using these unique morphemes before words would make different in sense of the words from using them after words. (shrink)

What are numbers, and where do they come from? A novel answer to these timeless questions is proposed by cognitive archaeologist Karenleigh A. Overmann, based on her groundbreaking study of material devices used for counting in the Ancient Near East—fingers, tallies, tokens, and numerical notations—as interpreted through the latest neuropsychological insights into human numeracy and literacy. The result, a unique synthesis of interdisciplinary data, outlines how number concepts would have been realized in a pristine original condition to develop into one (...) of the ancient world’s greatest mathematical traditions, a foundation for mathematical thinking today. In this view, numbers are abstract from their inception and materially bound at their most elaborated. The research updates historical work on Neolithic tokens and interpretations of Mesopotamian numbers, challenging several longstanding assumptions about numbers in the process. The insights generated are also applied to the role of materiality in human cognition more generally, including how concepts become distributed across and independent of the material forms used for their representation and manipulation; how societies comprised of average individuals use material structures to create elaborated systems of numeracy and literacy; and the differences between thinking through and thinking about materiality. (shrink)

A critical analysis of Alfred Schuetz' conception of rationality based upon Edmund Husserl's phenomenology.

In this wide-ranging interview with three members of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sao Paolo (Brazil) Wylie explains how she came to work on philosophical issues raised in and by archaeology, describes the contextualist challenges to ‘received view’ models of confirmation and explanation in archaeology that inform her work on the status of evidence and contextual ideals of objectivity, and discusses the role of non-cognitive values in science. She also is pressed to explain what’s feminist (...) about feminist research and in that connection outlines her account of feminist standpoint theory and the relevance of feminist analysis to science. (shrink)

Innovative modes of collaboration between archaeologists and Indigenous communities are taking shape in a great many contexts, in the process transforming conventional research practice. While critics object that these partnerships cannot but compromise the objectivity of archaeological science, many of the archaeologists involved argue that their research is substantially enriched by them. I counter objections raised by internal critics and crystalized in philosophical terms by Boghossian, disentangling several different kinds of pluralism evident in these projects and offering an analysis of (...) why they are epistemically productive when they succeed. My central thesis is that they illustrate the virtues of epistemic inclusion central to proceduralist accounts of objectivity, but I draw on the resources of feminist standpoint theory to motivate the extension of these social -cognitive norms beyond the confines of the scientific community. (shrink)

The issue of the definition and position of archaeology as a discipline is examined in relation to the dispute which took place from 1980 to 2009 between the archaeologist Jean-Claude Gardin and the sociologist Jean-Claude Passeron. This case study enables us to explore the actual conceptual relationships between archaeology and the other sciences (as opposed to those wished for or prescribed). The contrasts between the positions declared by the two researchers and the rooting of their arguments in their (...) disciplines are examined: where the sociologist makes use of his philosophical training, the archaeologist relies mainly on his work on semiology and informatics. Archaeology ultimately plays a minor role in the arguments proposed. This dispute therefore cannot be considered as evidence for the movement of concepts between archaeology and the social sciences. A blind spot in the debate, relating to the ontological specificities of archaeological objects, nevertheless presents itself as a possible way of implementing this movement. (shrink)

The majority of analyses investigating the professionalisation of scientific domains tend to assume the linear and general features of this transformation. These studies focus on the shift from a non-professionalised state to a professionalised state. This dual approach, however, crucially lacks some other aspects of the process of professionalisation. This issue is discussed within the context of the growth of prehistoric archaeology in France from the 1940s, by observing scientific societies, national research organisations and their social networks. Looking at (...) the scale of Georges Laplace’s career and that of his research group, which studied the typologie analytique method, this article demonstrates the benefits of a ternary model which also encompasses the modes of refusal of professionalisation. (shrink)

Usual narratives among prehistoric archaeologists consider typological approaches as part of a past and outdated episode in the history of research, subsequently replaced by technological, functional, chemical, and cognitive approaches. From a historical and conceptual perspective, this paper addresses several limits of these narratives, which (1) assume a linear, exclusive, and additive conception of scientific change, neglecting the persistence of typological problems; (2) reduce collective developments to personal work (e.g. the “Bordes’” and “Laplace’s” methods in France); and (3) presuppose the (...) coherence and identity of these “methods” over time. It explores the case of the “Structural and analytical typology” method, developed in France, Spain, and Italy from the 1950s to the 2000s by Georges Laplace and his collaborators for lithic implements. This paper (1) provides a detailed historical account of the evolving content of this collective endeavour over five decades; (2) it addresses the epistemological question of what makes the identity and unity of a scientific method, demonstrating that the core component of the “analytical typology” lies in its particular way to represent real-world phenomena through its notation system; and (3) it reveals how this little known but significant episode of advances in the methods and theory of archaeology, contemporary but independent of the “New Archaeology” trend in English-speaking archaeology, was instrumental in the continuation of evolutionary perspectives in France and in the development of quantitative and formal methods in archaeology in southwestern Europe, foreseeing crucial knowledge representation issues raised today by digital methods in archaeology and data curation. (shrink)

Methodological innovations have a special status in disciplinary histories, because they can be widely adopted and anonymised. In the 1950s, this occurred to Georges Laplace’s innovative use of 3-dimensional metric Cartesian coordinate system to record the positions of archaeological objects. This paper proposes a conceptual and social history of this process, with a focus on its spatial context, the Pyrenean region (Spain, Basque Country, and France). Main results of this research based on archives, publications, and bibliometric data, include: 1) a (...) critical discussion of the notions concerning authorship of such methodological innovations; 2) a presentation of the lesser-known aspects of Laplace’s method, showing its contribution to the abstraction and formalisation of archaeological observations and data recording; and 3) the identification of an international Pyrenean intellectual lineage of innovation regarding stratigraphy and excavation methods, from the late 19th century to the early 21th century. (shrink)

In the last decades, many changes have occurred in scientific publishing, including online publication, data repositories, file formats and standards. The role played by computers in this process rekindled the argument on forms of technical determinism. This paper addresses this old debate by exploring the case of publishing processes in prehistoric archaeology during the second part of the twentieth century, prior to the wide-scale adoption of computers. It investigates the case of a collective and international attempt to standardize the (...) typological analysis of prehistoric lithic objects, coined typologie analytique by Georges Laplace and developed by a group of French, Italian, and Spanish researchers. The aim of this paper is to: 1) present a general bibliometric scenario of prehistoric archaeology publishing in continental Europe; 2) report on the little-known typologie analytique method in archaeology, using publications, archives, and interviews; 3) show how the publication of scientific production was shaped by social (editorial policies, support networks) and material (typography features and publication formats) constraints; and 4) highlight how actors founded resources to control and counterbalance these effects, namely by changing and improving publishing formats. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between Japanese archaeology and natural science through a quantitative analysis of the two most authoritative archaeological journals and two other relevant journals in Japan. First, although previous studies have emphasized the impact of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tokyo on the scientific aspects of Japanese archaeology, results of the present study suggest that its impact has been more limited than previously assumed. Second, while previous studies claimed that research funding by (...) the Japanese government from the latter half of the 1970s was an important factor in developing the scientific aspects of Japanese archaeology, the present study shows a result inconsistent with the claim. Finally, although I admit that the previous studies have properly captured some aspects of the relationship between Japanese archaeology and science, I conclude that we should look at the broader array of contributors to the relationship between Japanese archaeology and natural science. (shrink)

In their landmark 2010 paper, “The weirdest people in the world?”, Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan outlined a serious methodological problem for the psychological and behavioural sciences. Most of the studies produced in the field use people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, yet inferences are often drawn to the species as a whole. In drawing such inferences, researchers implicitly assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that WEIRD populations are generally representative of the (...) species. Yet neither of these assumptions is justified. In many psychological and behavioural domains, cultural variation begets cognitive variation, and WEIRD samples are recurrently shown to be outliers. In the years since the article was published, attention has focused on the implications this has for research on extant human populations. Here we extend those implications to the study of ancient _H. sapiens_, their hominin forebears, and cousin lineages. We assess a range of characteristic arguments and key studies in the cognitive archaeology literature, identifying issues stemming from the problem of sample diversity. We then look at how worrying the problem is, and consider some conditions under which inferences to ancient populations via cognitive models might be provisionally justified. (shrink)

I show how archaeologists have two problems. The construction of scenarios accounting for the raw data of Archaeology, the material remains of the past, and the explanation of pre-history. Within Archaeology, there has been an ongoing debate about how to constrain speculation within both of these archaeological projects, and archaeologists have consistently looked to biological mechanisms for constraints. I demonstrate the problems of using biology, either as an analogy for cultural processes or through direct application of biological principles (...) to material remains. This is done through setting out the requirements of a Darwinian Archaeology, and then measuring various approaches against these requirements. This approach leads to the conclusion that archaeologist's explanations of the past must include within their formulations an account of human cognitive capacities within their explanatory framework. The limits of our understanding of the human past will be the limits of our understanding of Homo sapiens. (shrink)

“Dialectic” has been a matter of growing interest in contemporary philosophy. The present article analyzes dialectical methods and positions them by reference to two paradigmatic texts of German idealism and analytic philosophy, i.e. J.G. Fichte’s Science of Knowing (1804) and J. McDowell’s Mind and World. Both dialectical approaches will be interpreted with regard to their contribution in the debate on reductionism and anti-reductionism: both Fichte and McDowell claim that philosophical positions and logical terms stand in a dualistic relationship to one (...) another, on the one hand, but are separated by a gulf, on the other. I will argue that for McDowell dialectic seems to be an alternative to one-sided reductionisms as well as to normal anti-reductionistic holism. Furthermore, for Fichte dialectic is an adequate method for describing the relationship of reductionism and anti-reductionism itself. Both see in dialectic a technique for bridging the gulf between binary opposite terms of logic as well as mutually exclusive positions, such as mind and world, subject and object, or idealism and realism. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept of the Earth plays a pivotal role in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking in two ways. First, the concept assumes a special importance in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s relation to Husserl via the fragment known as “The Earth Does Not Move.” Two, from this fragment, the Earth marks a key theme around which Merleau-Ponty’s late philosophy revolves. In particular, it is with the concept of the Earth that Merleau-Ponty will develop his archaeologically oriented phenomenology. To defend this claim, (...) the paper unfolds in three stages. First, I provide a preliminary reading of Husserl’s fragment, focusing in particular on the co-constitution of body and Earth. Two, I turn to Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations of this fragment, especially in the lectures on nature and then in the later lectures on Husserl. From these varying interpretations, the germs of Merleau-Ponty’s archaeological phenomenology are conceived. Accordingly, in the final part of the paper, I claim that Merleau-Ponty’s account of the Earth is Husserlian insofar as it reinforces the primordial “ground (sol) of experience” but at the same time marks a departure from Husserl insofar as the Earth registers a brute or wild layer that resists phenomenology. (shrink)

This article examines the effect of material evidence upon historiographic hypotheses. Through a series of successive Bayesian conditionalizations, I analyze the extended competition among several hypotheses that offered different accounts of the transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Palestine and in particular to the “emergence of Israel”. The model reconstructs, with low sensitivity to initial assumptions, the actual outcomes including a complete alteration of the scientific consensus. Several known issues of Bayesian confirmation, including the problem of (...) old evidence, the introduction and confirmation of novel theories and the sensitivity of convergence to uncertain and disputed evidence are discussed in relation to the model’s result and the actual historical process. The most important result is that convergence of probabilities and of scientific opinion is indeed possible when advocates of rival hypotheses hold similar judgment about the factual content of evidence, even if they differ sharply in their historiographic interpretation. This speaks against the contention that understanding of present remains is so irrevocably biased by theoretical and cultural presumptions as to make an objective assessment impossible. (shrink)

“Pick a card, any card. This has to be a completely free choice.” the magician tells you. But is it really? Although we like to think that we are using our free will to make our decisions, research in psychology has shown that many of our behaviours are automatic and unconsciously influenced by external stimuli (Ariely, 2008; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Newell & Shanks, 2014; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), and that we are often oblivious to the cognitive mechanisms that underpin (...) our decision (Wegner, 2002, 2003). Magicians have exploited this illusory sense of agency for a long time, and have developed a wide range of techniques to influence and control spectators’ choices of such things as card, word, or number (Annemann, 1933; Banachek, 2002a; Jones, 1994; Turner, 2015). These techniques are instances of what is called forcing. -/- Many forces are extremely effective, illustrating various weaknesses in our sense of control over decisions and their outcomes. Researchers have started to investigate them in various ways (Kuhn, Pailh s, & Lan, 2020; Olson, Amlani, Raz, & Rensink, 2015; Pailhes & Kuhn, 2020b, 2020c; Shalom et al., 2013) and are beginning to obtain valuable insights into decision-making processes as well as a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that lead people to experience an illusory sense of free will and of agency. -/- Although magicians have acquired large amounts of knowledge in covertly controlling people’s choices, much of this knowledge is only discussed in the context of individual magic tricks, or in books that are not readily accessible to non-magicans. As we and others have argued elsewhere (Ekroll, Sayim, & Wagemans, 2017; Kuhn, 2019; Kuhn, Amlani, & Rensink, 2008; Kuhn, Caffaratti, Teszka, & Rensink, 2014; Macknik et al., 2008; Olson et al., 2015; Olson, Landry, Appourchaux, & Raz, 2016; Shalom et al., 2013; Thomas, Didierjean, Maquestiaux, & Gygax, 2015), a particularly effective way of making this knowledge more available is via the creation of taxonomies centered around psychological mechanisms (Rensink & Kuhn, 2015). For example, the psychologically based taxonomy of misdirection (Kuhn et al., 2014) helps draw links between misdirection and formal theories of perception and cognition. -/- Our aim here is to apply a similar process to the knowledge magicians have about forcing. The present paper develops a psychologically based taxonomy of forcing techniques with two goals in mind. Firstly, it should help uncover the various psychological mechanisms that underlie forcing techniques. Secondly, it should facilitate knowledge transfer between magicians and psychologists. Among other things, this knowledge will allow researchers to gain new insights into the mechanisms underlying decision-making, and the feeling of free will and of agency over choice. We start by defining the magician’s force and then look at some of the past classifications of forcing. (shrink)

Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policy making in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment, and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In school deliberation, as in other settings, a key and sometimes neglected element of high-quality deliberation is facilitation. Facilitation can help to establish and maintain deliberative norms, as well as assisting participants to (...) deliberate productively and achieve collective goals. This article draws on our experience as scholar/practitioners running a Deliberation in Schools program in Australia to explore challenges and strategies for deliberative facilitation. The challenges we discuss are power, inequality, diversity and boundaries, disagreement and integration and these are discussed in the general context of inclusiveness. We highlight two facets of deliberative facilitation – technique and design – which are important for dealing with these challenges and increasing inclusion in school deliberation and in democratic deliberation more generally. (shrink)

Given the diversity of explanatory practices that is typical of the sciences a healthy pluralism would seem to be desirable where theories of explanation are concerned. Nevertheless, I argue that explanations are only unifying in Kitcher's unificationist sense if they are backed by the kind of understanding of underlying mechanisms, dispositions, constitutions, and dependencies that is central to a causalist account of explanation. This case can be made through analysis of Kitcher's account of the conditions under which apparent improvements in (...) unifying power may be judged spurious. But to clarify what is at issue I consider an archaeological case in which debate about the merits of an ambitious explanatory account reproduces exactly the intuitions that divide Salmon and Kitcher. The case in question is the “demic-diffusion” account of contemporary linguistic diversity advanced by Renfrew in the late 1980s: the thesis that the diffusion of agricultural populations, itself attributed to demographic pressure, was responsible for the spread of the ancestral root languages (e.g., proto-Indo-Eurpoean) that account for the existence and distribution of linguistic macrofamilies. The credibility of this powerfully unifying argument pattern depends entirely on the plausibility of its claims about the conditions and mechanisms actually responsible for the explanandum, the spread of agriculture, and not on an elaboration of its unificationist virtues. (shrink)

The article’s aim is to clear the ground for the idea of aesthetic archaeology as an aesthetic analysis of remote artifacts divorced from aesthetic criticism. On the example of controversies surrounding the early Cycladic figures, it discusses an anxiety motivating the rejection of aesthetic inquiry in archaeology, namely, the anxiety about the heuristic reliability of one’s aesthetic instincts vis-à-vis remote artifacts. It introduces the claim that establishing an aesthetic mandate of a remote artifact should in the first place (...) be part of a quest after the norms of engagement an artifact’s kind signaled to the intended audience by its appearance. Rather than advocating for a new subdiscipline, the concept of aesthetic archaeology serves to bring into theoretical focus an aesthetic engagement with an artifact’s appearance under circumstances that rule out any acquired competence in distinguishing its aesthetic mandate perceptually—and thus rule out any aesthetic expertise. (shrink)

For those familiar with Machiavelli’s texts, Foucault’s interpretation of Macchiavelli in his 1978 lecture series Sécurité, Territoire, Population1 is surprising. Although Machiavelli figures prominently in five of the thirteen lectures,2 Foucault treats Machiavelli as if he were the author of only one book—The Prince—and his reading treats this complex text as if it covered only one topic: how to guarantee the security of the Prince. Clearly Foucault did not intend his interpretation of Machiavelli as a close exegesis. Other discussions of (...) Foucault’s treatment of Machiavelli have acknowledged the role Machiavelli plays in these lectures and even note the inadequacy of the interpretation given by Foucault, but most commentators do not pursue Foucault’s reading further.3 This investigation is not concerned with whether Foucault got Machiavelli right. Rather, Foucault’s reading of Machiavelli is noteworthy because it is partial and incomplete in a way reminiscent of Foucault’s reading of Hobbes in, Il faut défendre la société. This fragmentary character of Foucault’s inscription of Machiavelli as a forerunner of the history of biopolitique allows an innovative reading of the Florentine that connects Machiavelli’s thinking, however indirectly, on a trajectory that encounters, for instance, Foucault’s analysis of populations, the police state, and even his reading of liberalism during the 1978-­‐ 1979 lectures. My argument here is that the specific way Foucault’s inscribes Machiavelli in the history of gouvernementalité, while seeming to reject him, in fact acts to resuscitate, and thereby relay, a reading of Machiavelli as a thinker who articulates encounters among political practices engaged within a horizon of radical immanence. (shrink)

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diseases are a group of neuromuscular diseases that often cause suffering and premature death. New mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) may offer women with mtDNA diseases the opportunity to have healthy offspring to whom they are genetically related. MRTs will likely be ready to license for clinical use in the near future and a discussion of the ethics of the clinical introduction ofMRTs is needed. This paper begins by evaluating three concerns about the safety of MRTs for clinical (...) use on humans: (1) Is it ethical to use MRTs if safe alternatives exist? (2) Would persons with three genetic contributors be at risk of suffering? and (3) Can society trust that MRTs will be made available for humans only once adequate safety testing has taken place, and that MRTs will only be licensed for clinical use in a way that minimises risks? It is then argued that the ethics debate about MRTs should be reoriented towards recommendingways to reduce the possible risks of MRT use on humans. Two recommendations are made: (1) licensed clinical access to MRTs should only be granted to prospective parents if they intend to tell their children about their MRT conception by adulthood; and (2) sex selection should be used in conjunction with the clinical use ofMRTs, in order to reduce transgenerational health risks. (shrink)

Lecturing is the only educational form inherited from the universities of the middle ages that is still in use today. However, it seems that lecturing is under threat, as recent calls to do away with lecturing in favour of more dynamic settings, such as the flipped classroom or pre-recorded talks, have found many adherents. In line with the post-critical approach of this book, this chapter argues that there is something in the university lecture that needs to be affirmed: at its (...) best, the university lecture functions as a technique for thinking together or for making collective thinking happen in a lecture hall. The lecture offers the set-up, both technological and architectural, to forge a common experience that binds together the listeners and the speakers; that experience can be characterised as visualising ideas or seeing things as if they had taken on a ‘bodily form’. By looking at several examples of lecturing moments experienced by Gadamer as a student and later recounted in his autobiography, we can better understand the paradigmatic experience that characterises the lecture – as an ideal to be sought, even if, perhaps, not always actualised in everyday lectures. (shrink)

News about the first baby born after a mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT; specifically maternal spindle transfer) broke on September 27, 2016 and, in a matter of hours, went global. Of special interest was the fact that the mitochondrial replacement procedure happened in Mexico. One of the scientists behind this world first was quoted as having said that he and his team went to Mexico to carry out the procedure because, in Mexico, there are no rules. In this paper, we (...) explore Mexico's rule of law in relation to mitochondrial replacement techniques and show that, in fact, certain instances of MRTs are prohibited at the federal level and others are prohibited at the state level. According to our interpretation of the law, the scientists behind this first successful MRT procedure broke federal regulations regarding assisted fertilization research. (shrink)

This research aims at examining three important things, i.e. students’ technique in paraphrasing, paraphrasing acceptability and obstacles in paraphrasing. A qualitative approach was used to carry out this study by purposively selecting 26 Indonesian college students of English as respondents. The data were collected by giving a paraphrasing task (consisted of 5 paragraphs) to the students and interviewed them to find out in-depth information on paraphrasing acceptably and obstacles. The research revealed that synonym technique was the most frequent (...) technique sued by the respondents due to the easiness of using this technique. On the other hand, the technique of changing positive into negative (vice versa), changing structure of idea, combining two sentences, and changing clause into phrase (vice versa) were found to be the less frequent techniques used for paraphrasing. The research also found that all students are not able to produce good paraphrasing sentences due to their incompetence to satisfy the criteria of good paraphrasing such as not giving citation sources, the tendency for doing plagiarism (changing words with their synonyms and keep the sentence structures still the same as the original. Regarding the respondents’ obstacles in paraphrasing, this study found some obstacles: (1) difficult to find out the appropriate synonyms to change words on original text, (2) difficult to understand unfamiliar terms (3) unable to restructure sentences in new ones, and (4) no idea on how to paraphrase texts effectively. All the obstacles occur due to some causal factors, i.e. (1) lack of vocabulary, (2) lack of paraphrasing practice, (3) ineffective class when learning, (4) teaching technique of lecturers, and (5) limited knowledge of paraphrasing techniques. (shrink)

Focusing on the history of prehistoric archaeology in the 20th century, this papers shows (1) that statistical multidimensional analyses were carried out by a new kind of actors who challenged the previous common language shared by prehistorians. This fundamental change was important, considering that (2) language is a fundamental point for the epistemology of archaeology. However, a comparison of multidimensional analyses applications over time shall make clear that (3) the differences are mostly a generational matter: the transmission processes (...) between them will be addressed. (shrink)

Holding students to high standards and assessing, measuring and evaluating their learning with challenging, authentic problems in the midterm and final exams is the goal of the professors who teach core signal processing concepts. However, the heavy reliance of these subjects on mathematics makes it difficult for students to genuinely grasp the concepts and relate to a conceptual framework. Specifically, analyzing the signals and the functionality of systems in Fourier domain; separating the system level analysis from signal level analysis; and (...) understanding how they are related in time domain and frequency domain are among the most challenging concepts. Students’ lower grades observed over past years in the introductory signal processing course exposed a potential disconnect between the actual level of learning and the high expectations set by the professors. In this paper, we present the active learning techniques that we implemented in one of the summer session offerings of this course in our department. The research explored Peer Instruction, pre-class reading quizzes and post-lecture quizzes. In addition to the mid and end of the quarter survey results, the comparison analysis of the grades students achieved in the active learning integrated course in the second summer session and the standard course offered in first summer session is discussed. According to our results, the developed techniques helped students in the active classroom perform significantly better than their peers participating in standard lectures when tested by challenging questions in their exams. (shrink)

Archaeological data are shadowy in a number of senses. Not only are they notoriously fragmentary but the conceptual and technical scaffolding on which archaeologists rely to constitute these data as evidence can be as constraining as it is enabling. A recurrent theme in internal archaeological debate is that reliance on sedimented layers of interpretative scaffolding carries the risk that “preunderstandings” configure what archaeologists recognize and record as primary data, and how they interpret it as evidence. The selective and destructive nature (...) of data capture in archeology further suggests that there may be little scope for putting “legacy” data to work in new ways. And yet archaeologists have been strikingly successful in mining old datasets for new insights. I situate these concerns in the broader context of debate about the epistemic standing of the historical sciences, and then consider three strategies by which archaeologists address the challenges posed by legacy data. The first two – secondary retrieval and recontextualization – are a matter of reconfiguring the scaffolding that underpins evidential reasoning. The third turns on redeploying old data in the context of computational models that support the experimental simulation of the cultural systems and contexts under study. (shrink)

The visuospatial system integrates inner and outer functional processes, organizing spatial, temporal, and social interactions between the brain, body, and environment. These processes involve sensorimotor networks like the eye–hand circuit, which is especially important to primates, given their reliance on vision and touch as primary sensory modalities and the use of the hands in social and environmental interactions. At the same time, visuospatial cognition is intimately connected with memory, self-awareness, and simulation capacity. In the present article, we review issues associated (...) with investigating visuospatial integration in extinct human groups through the use of anatomical and behavioral data gleaned from the paleontological and archaeological records. In modern humans, paleoneurological analyses have demonstrated noticeable and unique morphological changes in the parietal cortex, a region crucial to visuospatial management. Archaeological data provides information on hand–tool interaction, the spatial behavior of past populations, and their interaction with the environment. Visuospatial integration may represent a critical bridge between extended cognition, self-awareness, and social perception. As such, visuospatial functions are relevant to the hypothesis that human evolution is characterized by changes in brain–body–environment interactions and relations, which enhance integration between internal and external cognitive components through neural plasticity and the development of a specialized embodiment capacity. We therefore advocate the investigation of visuospatial functions in past populations through the paleoneurological study of anatomical elements and archaeological analysis of visuospatial behaviors. (shrink)

Material traces of the past are notoriously inscrutable; they rarely speak with one voice, and what they say is never unmediated. They stand as evidence only given a rich scaffolding of interpretation which is, itself, always open to challenge and revision. And yet archaeological evidence has dramatically expanded what we know of the cultural past, sometimes demonstrating a striking capacity to disrupt settled assumptions. The questions we address in Evidential Reasoning are: How are these successes realized? What gives us confidence (...) in the credibility and robustness, the trustworthiness, of the evidential claims based on archaeological data? And, what constitute best practices in building evidential claims, critically scrutinizing them and putting them to work in archaeological contexts? Rather than retreat to abstractions about how how science operates in the ideal, we approach this question by interrogating a number of close-to-the-ground case studies with the aim of teasing out the wisdom embodied in archaeological practice. The cases we consider – of fieldwork, strategies for working with old evidence, and the role of external resources – illuminate the role of various types of inferential scaffolding and bring into focus practice-grounded epistemic norms that we believe serve archaeologists better than the all-or-nothing ideals of truth and objectivity that dominate programmatic debate. (shrink)

In this long-awaited compendium of new and newly revised essays, Alison Wylie explores how archaeologists know what they know. -/- Preprints available for download. Please see entry for specific article of interest.

The Pomodoro technique is a timed-based strategy used in fighting procrastination and found to increase academic performance. However, its effect on academic learning in a synchronous remote learning modality has yet to be investigated. The study used a mixed triangulation semiexperimental design using a whole sample (N=46), following all ethical equivalence procedures. The genetics concept mastery of the students was tested using a researcher-made test. ANCOVA results revealed that students taught using Pomodoro yielded significantly better concept mastery in genetics (...) than the lecture method. This study contributes to the evaluation of one science teaching strategy compatible with remote learning modality. (shrink)

When a technique purports to provide information that is not available to the unaided senses, it is natural to think that the only way to validate that technique is by appealing to a theory of the processes that lead from the object of study to the raw data. In fact, scientists have a variety of strategies for validating their techniques. Those strategies can yield multiple independent arguments that support the validity of the technique. Thus, it is possible (...) to produce a robust body of data with a single technique. I illustrate and support these claims with a historical case study. *Received September 2009; revised October 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Inferences from the absence of evidence to something are common in ordinary speech, but when used in scientific argumentations are usually considered deficient or outright false. Yet, as demonstrated here with the help of various examples, archaeologists frequently use inferences and reasoning from absence, often allowing it a status on par with inferences from tangible evidence. This discrepancy has not been examined so far. The article analyses it drawing on philosophical discussions concerning the validity of inference from absence, using probabilistic (...) models that were originally developed to show that such inferences are weak and inconclusive. The analysis reveals that inference from absence can indeed be justified in many important situations of archaeological research, such as excavations carried out to explore the past existence and time-span of sedentary human habitation. The justification is closely related to the fact that archaeology explores the human past via its material remains. The same analysis points to instances where inference from absence can have comparable validity in other historical sciences, and to research questions in which archaeological inference from absence will be problematic or totally unwarranted. (shrink)

The present article examines the theoretical foundations of Japanese archaeology epistemologically. The section 2 epistemologically examines excavation reports as one of the foundational works in Japanese archaeology, i.e., what excavation reports are and should be. It is argued that with a lack of epistemological justification of excavation reports, their epistemological status is highly puzzling. The section 3 also epistemologically and methodologically examines types or typology as one of the foundational methods in Japanese archaeology and it is claimed (...) that definition of each type is ambiguous and not systematic. Taken together, as a conclusion, since some of the theoretical foundations in Japanese archaeology are epistemologically problematic, it might lead us to conclude that Japanese archaeology itself is epistemologically questionable. (shrink)

In this paper, modelling design and analysis of a triple inverted pendulum have been done using Matlab/Script toolbox. Since a triple inverted pendulum is highly nonlinear, strongly unstable without using feedback control system. In this paper an optimal control method means a linear quadratic regulator and pole placement controllers are used to stabilize the triple inverted pendulum upside. The impulse response simulation of the open loop system shows us that the pendulum is unstable. The comparison of the closed loop impulse (...) response simulation of the pendulum with LQR and pole placement controllers results that both controllers have stabilized the system but the pendulum with LQR controllers have a high overshoot with long settling time than the pendulum with pole placement controller. Finally the comparison results prove that the pendulum with pole placement controller improve the stability of the system. (shrink)

In this paper, modelling design and analysis of a triple inverted pendulum have been done using Matlab/Script toolbox. Since a triple inverted pendulum is highly nonlinear, strongly unstable without using feedback control system. In this paper an optimal control method means a linear quadratic regulator and pole placement controllers are used to stabilize the triple inverted pendulum upside. The impulse response simulation of the open loop system shows us that the pendulum is unstable. The comparison of the closed loop impulse (...) response simulation of the pendulum with LQR and pole placement controllers results that both controllers have stabilized the system but the pendulum with LQR controllers have a high overshoot with long settling time than the pendulum with pole placement controller. Finally the comparison results prove that the pendulum with pole placement controller improve the stability of the system. (shrink)

Abstract: This study introduces a machine learning-based model for predicting student performance using a comprehensive dataset derived from educational sources, encompassing 15 key features and comprising 62,631 student samples. Our five-layer neural network demonstrated remarkable performance, achieving an accuracy of 89.14% and an average error of 0.000715, underscoring its effectiveness in predicting student outcomes. Crucially, this research identifies pivotal determinants of student success, including factors such as socio-economic background, prior academic history, study habits, and attendance patterns, shedding light on the (...) nuanced dynamics of student performance. The key influential features identified in this study offer valuable insights into the complex factors shaping student achievement. These insights are vital for educators, policymakers, and institutions seeking to enhance educational outcomes and promote equitable access to quality education. This research provides a data-driven foundation for proactive interventions, personalized learning strategies, and support systems, ultimately contributing to improved student performance and academic success. The high accuracy of the predictive model and the feature analysis it provides empower decision-makers in the education sector. This model holds significant potential for applications in student performance monitoring, early intervention, and tailored educational strategies. By adopting a data-driven approach, this work advances the field of educational analytics and contributes to the goal of fostering student success and educational equity. (shrink)