Strict View Research Articles

In Praise of Martyrdom

I am pleased to welcome Professor Carter to the (unfortunately thin) ranks of skeptics about the entire project of defending the propriety of accommodations of religion.' There are, of course, some skeptics whose concerns arise from a quite general strict separationist view of the Constitution. But Professor Carter joins a different group, those with essentially theological rather than constitutional concerns about accommodations of religion. In this brief Response, I will elaborate somewhat on what I take to be the theological case against accommodation.2 We can begin by distinguishing between two kinds of concerns. The first is that accommodations are bad for religions, the second, that they operate in a domain that religion ought to understand as irrelevant to itself. The concern that accommodations are bad for religion rests largely on historical experience that demonstrates (to those who have this concern) that the State is not religion's friend,3 even when it superficially appears to be.4 I believe that the historical argument underlies much of the

Peptides that block hepatitis B virus assembly: analysis by cryomicroscopy, mutagenesis and transfection.

Peptides selected to bind to hepatitis B virus (HBV) core protein block interaction with the long viral surface antigen (L-HBsAg) in vitro. High resolution electron cryomicroscopy showed that one such peptide binds at the tips of the spikes of the core protein shell. The peptides contain two basic residues; changing either of two acidic residues at the spike tip to an alanine greatly reduced the binding affinity. Transfection of hepatoma cells with a replication-competent HBV plasmid gave significantly reduced production of virus in the presence of peptide, in a dose-dependent manner. These experiments show that the interaction of L-HBsAg with core particles is critical for HBV assembly, and give proof of principle for its disruption in vivo by small molecules.

Two Contemporary Examples of Christian Love

It is a mark of arrogance to try to minister in a liturgical or ritual way to individuals of other religions. A hospital chaplain is not a generic brand, all-purpose religious figure capable of fulfilling the religious needs of any. A chaplain should not try to fill in for specific religious ministers, but rather, he should see himself as a human companion to those who need human love and care. In doing this, he can surely be motivated, informed, and sustained by his inner, spiritual life, but should not see himself as replacing the patient's own religious pastor. Excellent examples of how to carry out pastoral duties in pluralist communities come from two contemporary Christians: Mother Theresa and Father Porphyrios. Both of whom remained non-judgmental toward those for whom they cared, while maintaining a strict view of the historical teachings of Christianity and obedience to them.

Attention to faces in the fusiform gyrus

Face recognition represents one of the most expert skills of the human visual/memory system. It has been proposed to rely on a highly specific, modular system distinct from the system(s) involved in recognition of other objects. A recent imaging study has shown face-specific activations in the ventral occipito-temporal pathway, in particular, in the fusiform gyrus[1xCovert visual attention modulates face-specific activity in the human fusiform gyrus: fMRI study. Wojciulik, E., Kanwisher, N., and Driver, J. J. Neurophysiol. 1998; 79: 1574–1578PubMedSee all References][1]. In this blocked-design functional magnetic resonance imaging study, the authors investigate whether fusiform gyrus activity in response to faces is modulated by attention. They show that the same stimuli containing a pair of houses plus a pair of faces activate face-specific fusiform areas more strongly when the task focuses subjects' attention on faces relative to houses. Consequently, this study supports the idea that fusiform gyrus activation in response to faces is not merely driven by the visual characteristics specific to these stimuli relative to other objects, but is also modulated by attentional processes. This result has implications for a strictly modular view of the face-recognition system. Because it shows that face-specific fusiform gyrus activations are not purely automatic and unmodulated, this study throws doubt on such a strict modular view of face recognition.

Two Contemporary Examples of Christian Love

It is a mark of arrogance to try to minister in a liturgical or ritual way to individuals of other religions. A hospital chaplain is not a generic brand, all-purpose religious figure capable of fulfilling the religious needs of any. A chaplain should not try to fill in for specific religious ministers, but rather, he should see himself as a human companion to those who need human love and care. In doing this, he can surely be motivated, informed, and sustained by his inner, spiritual life, but should not see himself as replacing the patient's own religious pastor. Excellent examples of how to carry out pastoral duties in pluralist communities come from two contemporary Christians: Mother Theresa and Father Porphyrios. Both of whom remained non-judgmental toward those for whom they cared, while maintaining a strict view of the historical teachings of Christianity and obedience to them.

Expectancy and conditioning in placebo analgesia: Related or independent mechanisms?

T he role of cognition in conditioning has been one of the central disputes in the history of experimental psychology. Strict behaviorists view conditioning as mechanistic process in which consciousness is irrelevant [4,12,18]. In contrast, cognitive theorists argue that conditioning effects are mediated by expectancy [13]. Although mechanistic theories held sway during most of the twentieth century, the tide seems to have shifted, and cognitive interpretations of classical and operant conditioning now predominate [10,11]. In their Focus article, Price and Fields propose that classical conditioning affects placebo analgesia in two ways. First, there is a classical conditioning effectthar occurs without the subject's conscious awareness of the conditioned stimuli-unconditioned stimuli (CS-US) association, and second, classical conditioning may alter expectancies, as proposed by Reiss [9] for conditioned anxiety and Kirsch [5-7] for conditioned placebo effects. The first of these views is consistent with stimulus-substitution models of classical conditioning, which have formed the basis of most conditioning accounts of placebo effects [19], but are widely regarded as outmoded [10]. In this Commentary, I argue that the data support the mediational but not the mechanistic interpretation of conditioning effects. Elsewhere, I have summarized much of the data supporting mediational interpretation of conditioned placebo effects [6,7]. As Price and Fields note, many of these data are derived from placebo effects on responses other than pain. It is possible that the mechanisms of placebo analgesia differ from those of placebo-

The Soteriology of R. Akiba and E. P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism

In his book Paul and Palestinian Judaism, E. P. Sanders challenged the traditional assessment of early rabbinic soteriology as based upon legalistic works-righteousness. Sanders contended that the strict Pauline view of the law was foreign to early rabbinic Judaism:There is no hint in Rabbinic literature of a view such as that of Paul in Gal. 3.10 or of IV Ezra, that one must achieve legal perfection... Human perfection was not considered realistically achievable by the Rabbis, nor was it required.

Antiabortion views are not incompatible with gynaecology

EDITOR,—C G B Simpson's proposal to curtail doctors' right to conscientious objection to performing abortion is not new1 and was championed by Stirrat, who believed that doctors holding a strict pro-life view should not specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology.2 Is this because the going will be tough for the doctor (for it …

Communication with Fanatical Fundamentalists

Rational communication with irrational fanatical fundamentalists is an exercise in futility as two absolutely irreconciliable sets of beliefs are diametrically polarised. Creationists are pressurising the school system to teach a strict literal fundamentalist religious view of science on an equal basis with all other science. Public exposure of the financial fraud of the creationists, their heresy, their destruction of literature and their fabrication of 'facts' have been used to discredit the sect leaders and in an attempt to stop the growth of creationism in the education system. If litigation threats are the gauge of success, then this method of communication has been most effective.

The complexity of strict serializability revisited

A well-known result by Sethi (1982) states that strict view- and final-state serializability are NP-complete in general, but decidable in polynomial time if useless values are absent. This paper falsifies one of these claims by proving that the absence of useless values is not sufficient to make strict final-state serializability decidable in polynomial time. Moreover, we show that a slightly stronger condition is sufficient, namely the absence of dead values. All claims refer to the two-step transaction model which is used by Bernstein et al. (1979), Kelter (1985, 1986) and Papadimitriou (1979). These results give new insights into the differences between strict view- and final-state serializability and between uselessness and deadness of values.

Lakatosian Heuristics and Epistemic Support

Although Karl Popper frequently remarked on the heuristic importance of metaphysical ideas in science, he did not develop a full-fledged, heuristic methodology of science. Problem solving heuristics' fall between the two stools of Popper's permissive 'method of conjectures and refutations' and his strict view that methods are general algorithms (and hence that, properly speaking, there is no scientific method). It was Imre Lakatos, among major philosophers of science and mathematics, who made heuristics respectable. Latter day Lakatosians such as Elie Zahar, John Worrall, and Peter Urbach have further developed Lakatos's heuristic 'methodology of scientific research programmes' (MSRP). Zahar [1983] in particular has attempted to rescue Lakatosian heuristics from a limbo between logic and psychology by showing that heurisics can be rational and even deductive. Despite these advances on Popper's methodology, I contend that Lakatos and his successors have not gone far enough in the direction of a heuristic, generative methodology. Because MSRP retains a Popperian conception of

Ideology and Sexuality: Rape Laws in Qing China

It is generally accepted that Qing China (1644–1912) was a straitlaced, sexually repressed society. Robert H. van Gulik, for example, ended his study of sexual life in China with the fall of the Ming dynasty, in part because he believed that Chinese attitudes toward sexuality became much more repressive after the Ming, and the generalizations he made in his book were not appropriate for the Qing (1961:333–36). This dramatic change in attitude has been attributed to the resurgence of Cheng- Zhu Neo-Confucianism, with its strict view of sexual relations in general, and female sexuality in particular (Ropp 1981:120–24).

Anatomical variations of the semilunar notch in elbow dislocations.

The anatomical relations of the semilunar notch of the ulna were studied in radiographs, taken in a strict lateral view, from 100 patients with elbow dislocations. The results were compared with those from a control group of 150 patients without dislocation or other radiographic pathology. We found that the coronoid process and an angle (a) formed between the axis of the ulna and a line going through the tip of the coronoid process and the tip of the olecranon were significantly smaller than those in the control group (P = 0.02). The central angle of the semilunar notch was significantly larger in the dislocation group than in the control group (P = 0.009). The smaller angle (a) and larger central angle in the dislocation group are a result of a lower coronoid process, but they are also due to the prominent tip of the olecranon. The results suggest that the dislocation mechanism is partly a hyperextension, with the tip of the olecranon as the pivot point.

Multiple Working Hypotheses and Equifinality: A Reply

Equifinality Gerrard suggests that we have taken too strict a view of the concept of equifinality. As we have shown however, it is when a less strict view of the concept is employed that the notion poses difficulties. When used in its less strict sense it amounts to no more than the assertion that the same end may be achieved from different initial conditions. This state of affairs is hardly exceptional when dealing with scientific phenomena. If the concept of equifinality has any value at all, it is when it is employed in the strict sense, as outlined in the concluding sections of our earlier paper. Such usage does not, however, correspond with the way in which the term has generally been employed in the geomorphological literature. It is clear from our earlier paper that we must disagree with Gerrard's assertion that the idea of equifinality 'stops the researcher being complacent'. Indeed, rather than being a device which indicates that an 'interpretation might be open to doubt', the opposite is true. We would suggest two reasons for this view. First, it encourages complacency because it involves the conclusion that several explanations are acceptable. Since there is no conflict between the explanations there seems little basis for further investigation and so progress may be hindered. Secondly, if different causes are accepted as producing the same effects then complacency is likely to enter experimental design through a failure to erect critical tests which aim to distinguish between competing theories. Whether the way equifinality is used promotes .complacency or not is largely incidental to the case against it. However, our central point is that the idea, as it is generally employed, is in conflict with the way in which explanation is developed in science. Gerrard's comments do not resolve the issue.

Cycloid Psychoses

The concept of “a motility psychosis” was introduced by Wernicke at the turn of the century in opposition to Kraepelin's “two entities principle.” The term cycloid psychosis was utilized by Kleist in 1926 for this group, which was further subdivided into “anxiety-elation,” “confusion,” and “motility” psychoses by Leonhard. This diagnostic concept is presently used in Germany and Scandinavia, but two recent British investigations have shown that similar patients occur in London, where they comprise 8 to 10 per cent of admissions for acute psychosis. The diagnosis depends on the presence of “confusion” or a polymorphic disease picture with a mixture of affective and schizophrenic symptoms, often rapidly changing from one to the other. Some of these patients would be diagnosed as mania, others as schizophrenia in Britain and as schizoaffective or mood-incongruent affective disorder in the United States. Follow-up of the London patients showed that the cycloids had an exceptionally good prognosis—much better than schizophrenia, and at least as good as manic-depressive patients, but their clinical picture did not correspond to the group of patients diagnosed as suffering from bipolar affective disorder. However, there is some evidence to suggest a relationship between cycloid and manic-depressive disorders, including the beneficial effect of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and lithium in both the cycloid patients and the bipolar affective disorder patients. American psychiatry has recently decided to adopt a very strict view of schizophrenia, limiting the diagnosis to patients with hebephrenia or chronic paranoid hallucinatory psychoses. This will leave a large group of patients previously considered to be suffering from “acute schizophrenia” who fit very awkwardly into the category of the affective disorders. It is from this group that cycloid patients are recruited so that the concept may enable psychiatrists to collect and study a fairly homogeneous group which was previously scattered among several widely different diagnostic classes.

Cladistic Approaches in the Study of Soil and Plant Parasitic Nematodes

Cladistic analysis of free-living soil nematodes of the Leptonchoidea (Nematoda: Dorylaimida) resulted in groupings different from those obtained by traditional methods. We can interpret distributions of species groups obtained by phyletic analysis in relation to plate tectonic events. Similar techniques are applicable to plant parasitic nematodes. Grouping on the basis of synapomorphies produced a cladogram of genera of the family Heteroderidae (Nematoda: Tylenchida) in which Meloidodera and Cryphodera appear to be the most ancestral genera and the cyst forming genera the most derived. A cladogram of groups of species in Heterodera sensu lato showed a major division, with the round cyst nematodes and the Cacli group in one grouping and the rest of the Heterodera species in the second. I interpret present-day distributions by a strict vicariance view and suggest potential falsifiers; and also discuss ancient dispersal routes as alternative ways of thinking about nematode distribution.

Saint Paul and Divorce

Many divorced Christians believe that in divorce they have betrayed their Christian faith. Counselors and ministers can help divorced Christians to understand that (a) not all human troubles are the consequence of moral failure, (b) the apostle Paul's strict teachings on divorce can be evaluated in light of his other teachings, (c) Paul's strict view of divorce had the surprising consequence of advancing women's rights, and (d) Paul and the Church have themselves not been able to escape contributing to dissension and estrangement. The purpose of this paper is to encourage divorce counselors to help their disturbed Christian clients to appreciate Saint Paul's doctrine of divorce in historical perspective.

The right of the psychiatric patient to refuse treatment.

A comprehensive review of the psychiatric patient's right to refuse treatment is presented and compared to a right to treatment. Involuntary psychiatric patients are still denied an adequate right to refuse treatment based largely on their involuntary status. An argument is presented which explores the lack of a rational basis for this denial based on the involuntary v. voluntary status classification as used in the New York State Mental Hygiene Law and the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene's regulations. This would be in violation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th amendment. A more strict view of the right to refuse treatment which could only be denied by a judicial decree of incompetency would promote a better therapeutic alliance that will be in the patient's interest.

Population studies and the Old Order Amish.

Populations of Old Order Amish, living in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and isolated by their strict religious views, have provided human geneticists with a rich source of data.

American Research on Russia's Moslems

SOME ninety years ago a young American diplomat named S Eugene Schuyler who at that time was serving as American consul in Moscow undertook an extensive journey through Russian Central Asia, lands recently conquered by the Russians. The result of that journey was a two-volume study, Turkistan, which has remained to the present time the best first-hand American eye-witness report on this vast Moslem region of Russia.l This keen and astute diplomat was one of the first western observers of the Russians' administration of their newly acquired territory. In his book Schuyler pointed out, for instance, that tsarist policy in the empire's eastern, non-Russian territories differed markedly from the colonial systems of most of the West European powers. According to Schuyler Russian policy in Turkistan was characterized by the absence of racial and religious prejudice on the part of the conquerors toward the natives of Central Asia, the curtailment of missionary work and forced conversions, and the widespread use of Moslem subjects in responsible administrative positions. For example, the first chief of the Russian police in Tashkent, the new administrative capital of Central Asia, was a Tatar well known for his strict Moslem views.