Strong Version Research Articles

Wissenschaftsfreiheit, Moralische Kritik und die Kosten des Irrtums

AbstractThis article attempts to do justice to two conflicting positions in current public debates. On the one hand, it defends a strong version of scientific freedom, according to which science should be free, not only from external obstacles and pressures but also from criticism that is based on reasons “of the wrong kind.” The only admissible criterion in debates about scientific claims, I argue, is whether there is sufficient evidence for their truth. Furthermore, I accept the anti-moralistic view that (non-)conformity with moral ideals is never itself evidence. On the other hand, the article nevertheless argues that there is a possibility of legitimate moral criticism of moral claims. This argument relies on the popular (if controversial) idea that there is pragmatic encroachment – specifically, the idea that the standard of sufficiency for evidence is in part determined by pragmatic factors like the costs of error. This opens up the door for a certain type of legitimate moral criticism. For the costs that determine a standard of sufficiency for epistemic justification can also plausibly count as morally significant. There is thus a con-contingent connection between epistemic and moral defects of certain scientific claims. The resulting view is applied to concrete debates, most importantly about race, genetics and IQ.

Interdependency in lateralization of written word and face processing in right-handed individuals

It has been suggested that the right hemisphere lateralization typically observed for face processing may depend on lateralization of written word processing to the left hemisphere; a pattern referred to as the causal complementary principle of lateralization. According to a strong version of this principle, a correlation should be found between the degree of left and right hemisphere lateralization for word and face processing respectively. This has been observed in two studies, but only for left-handed individuals. The present study tested whether a similar lateralization pattern could be found in a relatively large sample of right-handed individuals (N = 210) using behavioral measures (divided visual field paradigms). It was also tested whether the degree of right hemisphere lateralization for face and global shape processing would correlate positively, as predicted by a strong version of the input asymmetry principle of lateralization. This was tested in a subsample (n = 189). Bayesian analyses found no evidence for lateralization interdependency as the observed data were 4–17 times more likely under the null hypothesis. Unfortunately, the reliabilities of the lateralization measures were found to be poor. While this dampens the firmness of the conclusions that can be drawn, it is argued that at present there is no positive evidence for strong interdependency between written word and face processing in right-handed individuals.

Simultaneity of consciousness with physical reality: the key that unlocks the mind-matter problem.

The problem of explaining the relationship between subjective experience and physical reality remains difficult and unresolved. In most explanations, consciousness is epiphenomenal, without causal power. The most notable exception is Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which provides a causal explanation for consciousness. However, IIT relies on an identity between subjectivity and a particular type of physical structure, namely with an information structure that has intrinsic causal power greater than the sum of its parts. Any theory that relies on a psycho-phyiscal identity must eventually appeal to panpsychism, which undermines that theory's claim to be fundamental. IIT has recently pivoted towards a strong version of causal emergence, but macroscopic structures cannot be stronger causally than their microphysical parts without some new physical law or governing principle. The approach taken here is designed to uncover such a principle. The decisive argument is entirely deductive from initial premises that are phenomenologically certain. If correct, the arguments prove that conscious experience is sufficient to create additional degrees of causal freedom independently of the content of experience, and in a manner that is unpredictable and unobservable by any temporally sequential means. This provides a fundamental principle about consciousness, and a conceptual bridge between it and the physics describing what is experienced. The principle makes testable predictions about brain function, with notable differences from IIT, some of which are also empirically testable.

Isodrastic magnetic fields for suppressing transitions in guiding-centre motion

In a magnetic field, transitions between classes of guiding-centre motion can lead to cross-field diffusion and escape. We say a magnetic field is isodrastic if guiding centres make no transitions between classes of motion. This is an important ideal for enhancing confinement. First, we present a weak formulation, based on the longitudinal adiabatic invariant, generalising omnigenity. To demonstrate that isodrasticity is strictly more general than omnigenity, we construct weakly isodrastic mirror fields that are not omnigenous. Then we present a strong formulation that is exact for guiding-centre motion. We develop a first-order treatment of the strong version via a Melnikov function and show that it recovers the weak version. The theory provides quantification of deviations from isodrasticity that can be used as objective functions in optimal design. The theory is illustrated with some simple examples.

Matrix models and holography: Mass deformations of long quiver theories in 5d and 3d

We enlarge the dictionary between matrix models for long linear quivers preserving eight supercharges in d=5d=5 and d=3d=3 and type IIB supergravity backgrounds with AdS_{d+1}d+1 factors. We introduce mass deformations of the field theory that break the quiver into a collection of interacting linear quivers, which are decoupled at the end of the RG flow. We find and solve a Laplace problem in supergravity which realises these deformations holographically. The free energy and expectation values of antisymmetric Wilson loops are calculated on both sides of the proposed duality, finding agreement. With our matching procedure, the free energy satisfies a strong version of the F-theorem.

(In)stability of de Sitter vacuum in light of distance conjecture and emergence proposal

The distance conjecture claims that as the modulus traverses along the trans-Planckian geodesic distance, the effective field theory becomes invalid by a descent of a tower of states from UV. Moreover, according to the recent (strong version of) emergence proposal, the kinetic term of the modulus is entirely generated by the wavefunction renormalization in which a tower of states are integrated out. Assuming these two conjectures, we explore the role of a tower of states coupled to the modulus in (in)stability of the de Sitter (dS) vacuum by studying the one-loop effective potential generated by a tower of states. We find that a fermionic tower of states makes the effective potential more or less consistent with the dS swampland conjecture: either the slope or the curvature of the potential is sizeable. In contrast, the effective potential generated by a bosonic tower of states seems to allow the stable dS vacuum. Therefore, in order to argue the instability of the dS vacuum, the additional ingredient like supersymmetry breaking needs to be taken into account.

How to do robots with words: a performative view of the moral status of humans and nonhumans

Moral status arguments are typically formulated as descriptive statements that tell us something about the world. But philosophy of language teaches us that language can also be used performatively: we do things with words and use words to try to get others to do things. Does and should this theory extend to what we say about moral status, and what does it mean? Drawing on Austin, Searle, and Butler and further developing relational views of moral status, this article explores what it means to conceptualize moral status in a performative way and in a way that reaches deep down to its basis, proposes a distinction between strong and weak versions of this view, and discusses the implications for thinking about the moral status of humans and nonhumans. Next to contributing to theory about performativity in the moral domain in general, this effort helps to reveal, understand, and evaluate the performative dimension of utterances made in public discussions about the moral status of animals and artificial agents such as robots and artificial intelligence.

The perceptual consequences and neurophysiology of eye blinks.

A hand passing in front of a camera produces a large and obvious disruption of a video. Yet the closure of the eyelid during a blink, which lasts for hundreds of milliseconds and occurs thousands of times per day, typically goes unnoticed. What are the neural mechanisms that mediate our uninterrupted visual experience despite frequent occlusion of the eyes? Here, we review the existing literature on the neurophysiology, perceptual consequences, and behavioral dynamics of blinks. We begin by detailing the kinematics of the eyelid that define a blink. We next discuss the ways in which blinks alter visual function by occluding the pupil, decreasing visual sensitivity, and moving the eyes. Then, to anchor our understanding, we review the similarities between blinks and other actions that lead to reductions in visual sensitivity, such as saccadic eye movements. The similarity between these two actions has led to suggestions that they share a common neural substrate. We consider the extent of overlap in their neural circuits and go on to explain how recent findings regarding saccade suppression cast doubt on the strong version of the shared mechanism hypothesis. We also evaluate alternative explanations of how blink-related processes modulate neural activity to maintain visual stability: a reverberating corticothalamic loop to maintain information in the face of lid closure; and a suppression of visual transients related to lid closure. Next, we survey the many areas throughout the brain that contribute to the execution of, regulation of, or response to blinks. Regardless of the underlying mechanisms, blinks drastically attenuate our visual abilities, yet these perturbations fail to reach awareness. We conclude by outlining opportunities for future work to better understand how the brain maintains visual perception in the face of eye blinks. Future work will likely benefit from incorporating theories of perceptual stability, neurophysiology, and novel behavior paradigms to address issues central to our understanding of natural visual behavior and for the clinical rehabilitation of active vision.

Carbon emissions trading schemes and economic growth: New evidence on the Porter Hypothesis from 285 China's prefecture-level cities.

The Chinese government has established carbon emissions trading schemes (CETS) to cope with climate change and reduce carbon emissions. This paper uses the multi-period difference in difference (DID) model to explore the impact of CETS on cities' GDP and GDP growth rates in China based on data from 285 prefecture-level cities from 2008-2019. We find that CETS increase the level of GDP by 3.4% and the GDP growth rate by 0.004. The mechanism of increasing GDP includes promoting investment and innovation, and the mechanism of increasing the GDP growth rate includes only promoting the investment growth rate. Thus, CETS satisfy both the weak and strong versions of the Porter Hypothesis from the GDP and growth rate perspectives. In the heterogeneity analysis, we find that the impacts of CETS on cities' GDP and GDP growth rates decrease with the increase of the corresponding dependent variable. In the spatial spillover analysis, we find that the establishment of CETS has a positive spillover effect on the GDP of cities around 50 km and 150 km, and a negative spillover effect on the GDP of cities around 200 km, but there is no spatial spillover effect on the GDP growth rate.

Boolean valued semantics for infinitary logics

It is well known that the completeness theorem for Lω1ω fails with respect to Tarski semantics. Mansfield showed that it holds for L∞∞ if one replaces Tarski semantics with Boolean valued semantics. We use forcing to improve his result in order to obtain a stronger form of Boolean completeness (but only for L∞ω). Leveraging on our completeness result, we establish the Craig interpolation property and a strong version of the omitting types theorem for L∞ω with respect to Boolean valued semantics. We also show that a weak version of these results holds for L∞∞ (if one leverages instead on Mansfield's completeness theorem). Furthermore we bring to light (or in some cases just revive) several connections between the infinitary logic L∞ω and the forcing method in set theory.

Cesàro averaging and extension of functionals on L∞(0,∞)

On the space of essentially bounded functions L∞(0,∞) we consider the Cesàro averaging operator Jf(x):=1x∫0xf(t)dt. We then extend the concept of integer iterates of Cesàro averaging Jn, to an operator of the form Jrf(x), where r is any positive real number and f∈L∞(0,∞). Our definition of fractional powers of Cesàro averaging is such that (Jr)r>0 has the semigroup property. Our paper contains the following result: [ For any f∈L∞(0,∞), Jrf(x) has a limit at infinity for some r>0, if and only if Jsf(x) has a limit at infinity for any s>0. In this case, the limit values are all the same]. We present a strong quantitative version of the special case where 0<r≤1 and s=1+r. We construct Banach limits Λ on L∞(0,∞) that are invariant under our continuous generalization of Cesàro iterates Jr. We also construct an example of a Banach limit Ψ on L∞(0,∞) that preserves Cesàro convergence, but is not Cesàro invariant.

Who Cares, Too? Degenderization of Childcare Policies in Europe: A Dynamic Fuzzy-Set Analysis

This article traces the evolution of childcare policies in Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom during the period 2005–15 in order to observe changes possibly related to economic crisis. Applying the concept of degenderization and the method of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA), the study examines: (1) equality of parental leave entitlements, (2) generosity of parental leave-related benefits, (3) accessibility of childcare services, and (4) length of all available leave schemes, at six points in time. The argument is that changes within this period did not lead to a radical transformation in childcare policy, while those shifts that took place could be more often characterized as degenderizing, contrary to expectations. Finally, the study identified policy clusters: four types of genderization (strong genderization, with care payment, with care parity, and with activation), strong and weak versions of degenderization, as well as a mixed case. HIGHLIGHTS This study traces the evolution of childcare policies across nine EU countries during the period of recession between 2005 and 2015. It uses the concept of “degenderization” to develop a typology of childcare policies. A dynamic analysis reveals that despite austerity measures, policies usually remained stable over time. Moreover, despite the crisis, policies tended to promote gender equality in care. Small steps toward degenderization in care policies over time signal that the gender revolution is not “stalled.”

Rényi's entropy on Lorentzian spaces. Timelike curvature-dimension conditions

For a Lorentzian space measured by m in the sense of Kunzinger, Sämann, Cavalletti, and Mondino, we introduce and study synthetic notions of timelike lower Ricci curvature bounds by K∈R and upper dimension bounds by N∈[1,∞), namely the timelike curvature-dimension conditions TCDp(K,N) and TCDp⁎(K,N) in weak and strong forms, where p∈(0,1), and the timelike measure-contraction properties TMCP(K,N) and TMCP⁎(K,N). These are formulated by convexity properties of the Rényi entropy with respect to m along ℓp-geodesics of probability measures.We show many features of these notions, including their compatibility with the smooth setting, sharp geometric inequalities, stability, equivalence of the named weak and strong versions, local-to-global properties, and uniqueness of chronological ℓp-optimal couplings and chronological ℓp-geodesics. We also prove the equivalence of TCDp⁎(K,N) and TMCP⁎(K,N) to their respective entropic counterparts in the sense of Cavalletti and Mondino.Some of these results are obtained under timelike p-essential nonbranching, a concept which is a priori weaker than timelike nonbranching.

On preparation theorems for R&lt;sub&gt;an, exp&lt;/sub&gt;-definable functions

In this article we give strong versions for preparation theorems for $\mathbb{R}_{\textnormal{an,exp}}$-definable functions outgoing from methods of Lion and Rolin ($\mathbb{R}_{\textnormal{an,exp}}$ is the o-minimal structure generated by all restricted analytic functions and the global exponential function). By a deep model theoretic fact of Van den Dries, Macintyre and Marker every $\mathbb{R}_{\textnormal{an,exp}}$-definable function is piecewise given by $\mathcal{L}_{\textnormal{an}}(\exp,\log)$-terms where $\mathcal{L}_{\textnormal{an}}(\exp,\log)$ denotes the language of ordered rings augmented by all restricted analytic functions, the global exponential and the global logarithm. So our idea is to consider log-analytic functions at first, i.e. functions which are iterated compositions from either side of globally subanalytic functions and the global logarithm, and then $\mathbb{R}_{\textnormal{an,exp}}$-definable functions as compositions of log-analytic functions and the global exponential.

Product inequalities for multivariate Gaussian, gamma, and positively upper orthant dependent distributions

The Gaussian product inequality is an important conjecture concerning the moments of Gaussian random vectors. While all attempts to prove the Gaussian product inequality in full generality have been unsuccessful to date, numerous partial results have been derived in recent decades and we provide here further results on the problem. Most importantly, we establish a strong version of the Gaussian product inequality for multivariate gamma distributions in the case of nonnegative correlations, thereby extending a result recently derived by Genest and Ouimet (2021). Further, we show that the Gaussian product inequality holds with nonnegative exponents for all random vectors with positive components whenever the underlying vector is positively upper orthant dependent. Finally, we show that the Gaussian product inequality with negative exponents follows directly from the Gaussian correlation inequality.

How Exceptional Is the West? An Investigation of Worldwide Trends in Societal‐Average Levels of Religiosity, 1981–2020

AbstractResearch shows most Western societies became less religious over recent decades. But we know much less about the rest of the world. Is the non‐Western world also becoming less religious, as some varieties of secularization theory would lead us to expect? Using 1981‐to‐2020 World/European Values Survey data from 103 countries, this study describes, and uses mixed‐effects models to rigorously estimate, religious trends in eight world regions and five former Soviet and Eastern Bloc (FSEB) subregions. Results indicate that religious decline occurred in Latin America, Central and Baltic Europe, and (recently) in the Mideast and North Africa. But there is little evidence of such decline elsewhere in Asia, Africa, or the FSEB—despite the broad reach of many modernizing social trends. These findings do not lend support to a strong version of secularization theory but may be consistent with some versions of the idea that modernization can make people less religious.

Some Convergence Results for the Strong Versions of Order-integrals in Lattice Spaces

Some Convergence Results for the Strong Versions of Order-integrals in Lattice Spaces

A constrained proof of the strong version of the Eshelby conjecture for three-dimensional isotropic media

Eshelby's seminal work on the ellipsoidal inclusion problem leads to the conjecture that the ellipsoid is the only inclusion possessing the uniformity property that a uniform eigenstrain is transformed into a uniform elastic strain. For the three-dimensional isotropic medium, the weak version of the Eshelby conjecture has been substantiated. The previous work of Ammari et al. substantiates the strong version of the Eshelby conjecture for the cases when the three eigenvalues of the eigenstress are distinct or all the same, whereas the case where two of the eigenvalues of the eigenstress are identical and the other one is distinct remains a difficult problem. In this work, we study the latter case. To this end, firstly, we present and prove a necessary condition for a convex inclusion being capable of transforming a single uniform eigenstress into a uniform elastic stress field. Since the necessary condition is not enough to determine the shape of the inclusion, secondly, we introduce a constraint that is concerned with the material parameters, and prove that there exist combinations of the elastic tensors and uniform eigenstresses such that only an ellipsoid can have the Eshelby uniformity property for these combinations simultaneously. Finally, we provide a more specifically constrained proof of the conjecture by proving that for the uniform strain fields constrained to that induced by an ellipsoid from a set of specified uniform eigenstresses, the strong version of the Eshelby conjecture is true for a set of isotropic elastic tensors which are associated with the specified uniform eigenstresses. This work makes some progress towards the complete solution of the intriguing and longstanding Eshelby conjecture for three-dimensional isotropic media.

Heteroskedasticity‐Robust Standard Errors for Dynamic Panel Data Models with Fixed Effects*

AbstractFor linear panel data models with fixed effects, cluster‐robust covariance estimation does not use variability over time. The extant heteroskedasticity‐robust methods available under strict exogeneity do not generalize to dynamic models. We propose novel robust covariance estimators under a strong version of serial uncorrelatedness, where serial uncorrelatedness is required to identify dynamic panel models. Asymptotics are established, and simulations verify theoretical findings. The estimator can apply to the popular dynamic IV‐GMM estimators and be a sharper alternative for cluster‐robust covariance estimators in panel data models with limited cross‐sectional information.

The Governing Conception of Laws

In her paper, “The Non-Governing Conception of Laws,” Helen Beebee argues that it is not a conceptual truth that laws of nature govern, and thus that one need not insist on a metaphysical account of laws that makes sense of their governing role. I agree with the first point but not the second. Although it is not a conceptual truth, the fact that laws govern follows straightforwardly from an important (though under-appreciated) principle of scientific theory choice combined with a highly plausible claim about the connection between scientific theory choice and theory choice in metaphysics. I present and defend this argument and then show how the resulting understanding of governance gives rise to an especially strong version of recent explanatory circularity arguments against Humeanism about laws of nature. Finally, I present three options for a further understanding of the governance relation that are compatible with my argument.