bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Human Genome Diversity Project
Authors: Reardon Jenny
Published: March 2007

Since its inception in 1991, the design of the proposed Human Genome Diversity Project has shifted several times. However, one unchanging and central Project goal is to collect blood and other human tissue samples from `genetically distinct' indigenous groups around the globe. This goal has proved highly controversial, and the Diversity Project has thus far failed to move beyond the planning stage. In this paper I argue that the reason for the Project's inconclusive and open-ended character is that project organizers are attempting to stabilize and control a highly contested terrain structured by emotionally and politically charged discourses. These discourses inextricably entangle scientific and social issues - including North/South relations, colonization, intellectual property rights and the origins of human diversity. To move forward, as the paper demonstrates, project organizers would have to negotiate these entanglements, and `coproduce' a natural and social order that could accommodate their project. The paper explains why this process of coproduction proved to be so labour-intensive in the case of the Diversity Project, and why the Project's main responses to its critics to date have failed to provide the tools needed to do this work.
Science and Social Intelligence about Anomalies: The Case of Meteorites
Authors: Westrum Ron
Published: March 2007

In making decisions about the reality of alleged anomalous events, scientists are likely to weigh both the a priori plausibility of what is alleged and the credibility of the reports which reach them. The present paper is an attempt to examine the anomaly reporting processes which led to the scientific recognition of the reality of meteorites in the eighteenth century. It is shown that scientists fail to make realistic assumptions about anomaly reporting, and that this failure affects the accuracy of the decisions made about anomalies. The treatment of reports about alleged anomalous events is further shown to be related to the scientific community's concerns about protecting its internal processes from external Interference. The recognition of meteontes took place only when the savants of the eighteenth century 1) found a way of evaluating the reports, 2) devised a theory to explam them, and 3) received unimpeachable eyewitness testimony of their occurrence.
Reconstructing Restoration Science: Styles of Leadership and Social Composition of the Early Royal Society
Authors: Mulligan Lotte , Mulligan Glenn
Published: March 2007

The history of the Royal Society m the seventeenth century was divided into five consecutive periods of administration. It is argued (1) that it was principally the secretanes In each period who were responsible both for who joined and for the kinds of science the Society sponsored; and (2) that it was during Robert Hooke's secretaryship that, temporarily, the social tone of the Society was lowered and utilitarian science flourished. The changing fortunes of the Royal Society do not exemplify a 'decline, then 'fall', in Restoration science: the Society's vitality and reputation fluctuated with changes in the personnel who orchestrated its activities in different periods.
A Note on Socio-Technical Graphs
Authors: Latour Bruno , Mauguin Philippe , Teil Geneviève
Published: March 2007

This paper reports on an attempt to create a new research tool, to follow the dynamics of science and technology. `Socio-Technical Analysis' develops new quantitative indicators and graphic representations with which to map the development of a scientific controversy, or a technical innovation. The aim of the paper is to describe this approach, to stimulate reflexion and criticism, and to launch what can only be a collective project.
Scientific Standards and Institutional Interests: Carcinogenic Risk Assessment of Benoxaprofen in the UK and US
Authors: Abraham John
Published: March 2007

A systematic methodology for imputing biases in the production and interpretation of scientific knowledge is developed. It is then extensively applied to examine how the interests of industrial and government scientists may have biased the carcinogenic risk assessment of the medical drug `benoxaprofen', in the British and American regulatory contexts. This case study illustrates how commonly agreed technical standards in science can be used to scrutinize the validity of scientific knowledge claims in industry and government, and to identify convergences between patterns of technical inconsistencies and institutional interests in different international contexts. It is argued that the interest-based biases revealed imply deficiencies in regulatory policy. Consequently, a set of political changes are proposed in order to reduce such biases in drug testing and regulation.
Persuasive Communities: A Longitudinal Analysis of References in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1990
Authors: Allen Bryce , Qin Jian , Lancaster F. W.
Published: March 2007

References from a single scientific journal were analyzed to show how the persuasive communities created by scientific references change over time. Articles that appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London were sampled over the journal's 325-year history of publication, to identify and characterize the references made in them. The data highlight changes in the practice of scholarly reference, and provide quantitative measures of the evolution of scientific publication. Types of publications, and the origin, language and age of the materials cited, were analyzed for the period studied. These measures show how persuasive communities have changed, and provide insights into the character of the scientific communities in question.
On the Way to Jupiter: Psychological Dimensions of the Galileo Mission
Authors: Golden Gloria Y.
Published: March 2007

Emotions are a seldom-studied facet of the creative process in science and engineering. This paper describes a study of emotions in scientists and engineers on the Galileo mission to Jupiter, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, from 1987-90. Although the spacecraft was finally launched in 1989, and is now en route to Jupiter, the Challenger Shuttle accident severely threatened the Project's survival in 1986, placing many people under serious stress, and triggering depression in some. The paper describes the nature of the depressions (an overwhelming sense of futility), how people coped with the associated problems and emotions (social support was a critical variable), and how the depressions resolved. The findings have implications for future interrupted missions: managers can ease, and possibly help end, such depressions by empathizing with the experience of futility, by helping people to make significant shifts in task or position within a project, and by recognizing interim achievement.
Scientific Specialties and Technical Systems
Authors: Shrum Wesley
Published: March 2007

Recent arguments criticizing the concept of a scientific specialty point to the need for the inclusion of nonscientists and nonacademic research in studies of the research process. The notion of a `technical system' is introduced as a concept which addresses the embeddedness of contemporary science in a matrix of other institutions. Technical systems are centrally-administered networks of actors oriented to the solution of sets of related technological problems. They are characterized by relatively large size, cognitive complexity, sectoral diversity, occupational pluralism, and formal organization. Two systems in the energy field — nuclear waste research and solar photovoltaic development — are employed as empirical illustrations of the construct. Theoretical problems in the sociology of technical systems include the operation of multiple reward structures, the origins and effects of inter-organizational relations, and the role of the state in establishing and administering such enterprises.
The Elementary Structures of Particles
Authors: Krieger Martin H.
Published: March 2007

This Note points out a homology of structure employed by elementary particle physicists and by social anthropologists, and suggests its origin in a systemic order reflecting a `plenitude' of nature, and a non-degeneracy of names.
A Measure of Agreement: Employers and Engineering Studies in the Universities of England and Wales, 1897-1939
Authors: Divall Colin
Published: March 2007

Over the half century to 1940, in England and Wales, university education virtually replaced apprenticeship as the élite entry into professional engineering. Although some employers scorned `college men', other firms, both large and small, welcomed the novel technical skills graduates offered. These employers had the power to influence university teaching through local organizations and the national professional engineering institutions. The early curriculum was based on abstract engineering science, to which less-established colleges added teaching more closely related to contemporary industrial practice. The 1920s saw attempts to introduce management studies into engineering curricula, although these were not greatly successful. By the late 1930s, a powerful alliance of employers and academics sought to raise the prestige of engineering by focusing courses on practice in engineering science, leaving management to be taught in firms and through graduate courses. This suggestion won the support of leading employers, and became the basis for the growth of `scientific' engineering after 1945.
How to be Universal: Some Cybernetic Strategies, 1943-70
Authors: Bowker Geof
Published: March 2007

The new discipline of cybernetics expanded exponentially in the period 1943-70. Unlike traditional scientific disciplines, its practitioners claimed (to varying degrees) that they were producing a new universal science. This paper anatomizes the claim to universality, details some rhetorical strategies used to support that claim, and examines some practical consequences for the general economy of the sciences argued by cyberneticians. It concludes by characterizing cybernetic strategies in terms of a form complementary to the obligatory passage point - the `distributed passage point'.
Innovation Potential Embodied in Research Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe
Authors: Balázs Katalin
Published: March 2007

The economic crisis, shrinking markets and falling funds have not just brought about decline in formerly communist research systems: in response to external pressures, and on the basis of their accumulated knowledge and skills, research organizations have developed new structures and mechanisms to distribute their results and use their expertise. This paper draws on evidence and analysis generated by a study which focused on the new arrangements appearing in and around research organizations. The objective of this study was not only to search for new organizational forms and to understand their operation, but also to evaluate their potential, in newly emerging innovation systems, to enhance knowledge flows into industry from academic and university research. This analytical approach is underpinned by a comparison of `Science Park'-type developments in Western and Eastern Europe. Although there are clearly differences in their contexts, the comparison provides grounds for optimism. We can see already both the generation of the new, and the recombination of the old, knowledge, skills and contacts which will be necessary to economic regeneration in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
`Some Disputes of Consequence':
Authors: Grabiner Judith V.
Published: March 2007

In 1735 the great Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin wrote a 94-page memoir to the Scottish Excise Commission, explaining how to find the precise amount of molasses in barrels at Glasgow. We describe the work itself, and place it in its social context by discussing the place of molasses in world trade, the increasing rationalization of tax collection and economic organization, the growth of public science, and the role of all these in the rise of the 18th-century nation-state in general, and of Scotland in particular. The paper is a case study illustrating the creation and use of mathematics to resolve socially divisive disputes by replacing arbitrary local practices with impersonally justifiable rules, and illuminating also the way the perceived prestige and objectivity of mathematics - and of eminent mathematicians - are used by political authority to quell unrest and achieve consensus.
The Science of Science
Authors: Mermin N. David
Published: March 2007

In Scientific Knowledge, Barry Barnes, David Bloor and John Henry (BBH) explicitly repudiate the notion that the physical environment plays no role in the creation of scientific knowledge, thereby removing a major bone of fruitless and heated contention between scientists and practitioners of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). There remain, however, many aspects of BBH's view of scientific knowledge that clash with my own experience as a practitioner of (theoretical) physics. I offer some examples of ways in which BBH seem to get things wrong, in the hope of starting a more constructive dialogue, leading to a better understanding of sociology by scientists, and perhaps even vice-versa.
The Emergence of Cognitive Science in France:
Authors: Chamak Brigitte
Published: March 2007

A comparison between the development of cognitive science in France and the USA enables us to analyze some national differences linked to specific connections between the scientific, military, economic and political worlds. The influence of new practices and tools developed during World War II and the Cold War appears to be of crucial importance in understanding the development of this new field, as well as that of cybernetics, computer science, artificial intelligence and molecular biology. This paper can be considered as a study in how the differing contexts in France and the USA shaped the history of the construction of cognitive science in each of these two countries. In spite of various differences, some common aspects may be pointed out: in both cases, computer experts and psychologists using a computational modelling approach were those first engaged in the construction of cognitive science. If in France neuroscience-oriented cognitive science research was stronger than in the USA, it seems that the artificial intelligence orientation is also of growing importance in France.
Complacent and Conflicting Scientific Expertise in British and American Drug Regulation
Authors: Abraham John , sheppard julie
Published: March 2007

This paper presents a case study in the production and interpretation of regulatory science, focusing on the conflicting British and American clinical risk assessments of triazolam (Halcion) - the most controversial sleeping pill in the world. The regulation of triazolam is shown to be more permissive in the USA than in the UK. Six principal socio-political factors are put forward to explain this: differential regulatory trust; regulators' socio-technical data selections; medico-scientific disciplinary influences; organizational and professional interests; conflicts of interest of expert advisers; and the growth of the neo-liberal regulatory state. The risk assessments of both the British and American regulatory agencies are shown to be complacent relative to technical standards which the agencies themselves later accepted. It is suggested that, when the interests of pharmaceutical manufacturers and patients diverge, regulatory assessments are crucially affected by whether regulators are predisposed to award the benefit of the scientific doubts to the manufacturers or patients, and by the balance of such predispositions both within and between regulatory institutions of scientific expertise. The triazolam case indicates that the amount of trust placed in the pharmaceutical industry by the British and American regulatory systems may hamper detection of flaws in manufacturers' medical data in a timely manner and, as a consequence, compromise patients' interests. Some policy implications for drug regulation are sketched.
The Therapeutic Value of Challenge
Authors: Gault Robert H.
Published: March 2007

We are steadily asked for information about the set-up and experiences of the New York APTO. We are reprinting these two articles since the APTO Journal is only available in some full sets. The views expressed in these articles are as relevant as when they were written. Very few places, if any, are attempting what New York APTO started, but the interest in offender therapy is growing in many countries. Unfortunately, however, some of these therapeutic endeavors are failing. We hope that by making this material avilable and describing our approach, the New York APTO's experiences may encourage offender therapists.
Group Dynamics and the Prison Guard Subculture: Is the Subculture an Impediment to Helping Inmates?
Authors: Lombardo Lucien X.
Published: March 2007

It is often argued that correctional officers as a group hold values that are antiethical to helping inmates. This assumption links "guard subculture" values to reinforcing group solidarity among correctional officers. This paper explores some of the literature on correctional officers from the perspective of the social psychology of group dynamics. Its conclusion are that factors which appear to foster group cohesion and group identification among correctional officers are relatively weak or absent. Under conditions of stress, however, these conditions are capable of mobilization. In general, this paperfinds that the guard subculture is not necessarily an impediment to positive guard behaviors.
Pygmalion in the Prison Classroom
Authors: Farrell Carole Case
Published: March 2007

A marked change in student achievement due to teachers' expectations and corresponding favorable treatment is called the "pygmalion effect. " An example of the Pygmalion effect on student interest and comprehension to produce a successful learning experience is demonstrated in a prison classroom at a college-level course on social deviance. This paper illustrates the extent to which the researcher-teacher's prophecy regarding the success of the inmate-students can fulfill itself against seemingly overwhelming odds of contradictory expectations held by the institution staff and, initially, by the students themselves. The contradictory expectations were apparent in the unsolicited statements of staff teacher, and students. Student interest and comprehension were assessed in terms of course completion, classroom discussion, outside of class work, and correct use and personalization of theoretical concepts. The results indicate that the teacher's expectations in combination with subject matter relevant to the students' life experience explains the successful learning experience.
Why Are Arsonists Not Violent Offenders?
Authors: Jackson Howard F. , Hope Susan , Glass Clive
Published: March 2007

Arson and violent offenders from a maximum security hospital were compared regarding demographic features and incidents of interpersonal violence. These two groups and a matched normal control group were compared on four rating scales (Rathus Assertiveness Schedule, Zung Depression Inventory, Moral Anxiety Questionnaire and a specially designed Attitudes to Offences Questionnaire). Arsonists were similar to violent offenders on all the demographic indices, except that arsonists were taken into care at an earlier age. A lower incidence of interpersonal aggression was noted in the arsonists. Arsonists rated themselves as less assertive than violent offenders or controls and displayed a greater instability concerning attitudes towards the seriousness of person and property offences. There were no differences between arsonists and violent offenders in terms of moral anxiety or depression ratings although both groups scored at the extremes on the moral anxiety scale and were more depressed when compared to normals. The results are discussed with reference to the individual and situational factors which may underlie the displaced aggression hypothesis of arson.
Comparing the Characteristics of Prison Inmates Who Require Psychiatric Hospitalization with the General Prison Population
Authors: Smith Leta D.
Published: March 2007

This research profiles the 472 patients hospitalized during an an-nual period at Central New York Psychiatric Center, which is the sole provider of hospitalization for any of New York State's 40,000 sentenced inmates who require acute inpatient psychiatric care. Patient characteristics are compared with those of the State's general prison population. Application of this form of analysis may prove useful elsewhere, as overrepresentation of patients with particular characteristics can be seen to hold implications for the planning and development of relevant programs to address the needs of this clientele. Demographic and criminal justice characteristics examined include age, sex, race, marital status, religion, educational level, disabilities other than mental illness, crime of conviction and sentence length.
Apparel as One Factor in Sex Crimes Against Young Females: Professional Opinions of U.S. Psychiatrists
Authors: Vali Donna , Rizzo Nicholas D.
Published: March 2007

The rate of rape in the U.S.A. quadrupled from 1963 to 1989. Sex crimes against young females have become a major concern. Visual excitation is often involved in normal sex activity, so a natural question is whether provocation via attire is one of many factors in rape and molestation. This study invited expert opinions by mail from 1,769 randomly selected U.S. psychiatrists. Of these, 581 (33%) from all 50 states replied via completed questionnaires. A highly significant majority of both sexes concluded that what a young female wears may affect her risk. An important variable is whether the attire invites direct sex attention. Another majority conclusion stated that provocation by revealing attire may result in resentment by some males, who perceive it as uncaring teasing by females. Parental awareness of these insights might reduce risk for young females.
Procedures and Problems in Conducting a Psychological Autopsy
Authors: Young Thomas J.
Published: March 2007

The psychological autopsy is an investigative technique used by behavioral scientists in cases of equivocal death. Data is gathered from interviews, documents, and other materials to determine the mode of death: natural, accident, suicide, or homicide. This paper examines procedures and problems in conducting a psychological autopsy and offers a case study as illustration.
Mental Illness and Criminal Behavior Revisited
Authors: Palermo George B. , Gumz Edward J. , Liska Frank J.
Published: March 2007

The authors review some statistical studies regarding the relationships between mental illness and criminal behavior prior to, and following, the deinstitutionalization period. This review supports the common opinion that since deinstitutionalization the jails of the United States house great numbers of the mentally ill. Even though mental illness, per se, is not synonymous with violence-prone behavior, the percentage of mentally ill in the jails is growing. Their offenses usually consist of misdemeanors, prompted by impulsivity and lacking both calculation and deviation. Chronic schizophrenics are highly represented among present day jail inmates, together with defendants suffering from antisocial personality disorder with polysubstance abuse or cocaine intoxication. The authors argue that a moral community, providing better social integration and stronger bonds among people will put a stop to this cyclical return of the past: the plight of the mentally ill and society's misdirected efforts and aims.
Victimization Revisited: A National Statistical Analysis
Authors: Palermo George B. , Smith Maurice B. , DiMotto John J. , Christopher Thomas P.
Published: March 2007

After an historical introduction to the problem of violence in society, and a short review of some important socio-juridical developments that took place during the first part of the 20th century, the authors review the crime rate in major United States cities during the past decade. They then present a statistical analysis of the murder rate in eight American cities from 1965 to 1990. The results reveal an appalling increase in the crime rate for that period. The result of this longitudinal analysis confirms that crime is rampant in American cities, that there is an interplay between mobility and crime rate, and that the widespread use of crack-cocaine coincides with the upsurge of the crime rate from 1985 to the present. In their reflections and suggestions the authors analyze socio-psychological factors leading to violent crime and discuss the apparent present impotence of societal agencies, the police, and the courts in dealing with crime. They also offer some of their views regarding the conflicting and counterproductive ways in which present-day society tends to deal with its offenders. They conclude that in order to deal efficiently with the soaring crime in the United States, in addition to a multidisciplinary approach, society and its people should try to address the primary causative factor: the organizational and moral disintegration of the American family unit. The authors believe that the lack of a socially educating, morally cohesive, affectively bound and economically self-sufficient family breeds social incompetence and crime among a large stratum of the population.
Crime and its Control in Japan and in the Federal Republic of Germany
Authors: Schneider Hans Joachim
Published: March 2007

Recent crime figures show that Germany holds a middle position between the USA and Japan. With the exception of organized crime, which has a centuries-long tradition in Japan, the numbers of all other types of crime are markedly lower in Japan than in Western industrialized societies. The reasons for this are found in the different societal structures: In Japan a high group consciousness and feeling of mutual obligation prevails and manifests itself in the population's strong support of the criminal justice system. These findings correspond with research that found that community sense and voluntary informal social control are the keys to a low crime figure. Community and society must be brought closer together to reach this goal.
The Moral Minorities: A Self-Report Study of Low-Consensus Deviance
Authors: Winslow Robert W. , Gay Phillip T.
Published: March 2007

Much sociological literature, both past and present, supports the status quo position that minorities and the poor are responsible for much, if not most, crime and delinquency. Data are presented from a survey of 1,035 students at a large Western university, which suggest that members of minority and low-income groups are actually less deviant than their more affluent, white classmates, at least in regard to acts of "low-consensus deviance." These are acts that pertain to traditional morality, including sexual activity, alcohol consumption, and drug usage. It is suggested that minorities and the poor traditionally are found to be more deviant than the less poor white majority because of the "criminalizing" or crime-inducing effect of law enforcement to which the underclass is disproportionately exposed. Further, it is proposed that formal exposure to law enforcement is a better predictor of serious deviance than either race or income.
Homosexual and Heterosexual Child Molestation: Case Characteristics and Sentencing Differentials
Authors: Walsh Anthony
Published: March 2007

This article compares case characteristics and sentencing differentials of homosexual and heterosexual child molesters. It is asserted that sex offenders are the most despised of all criminals and that among sex offenders none are more despised than homosexual child molesters. The current AIDS scare is viewed as an additional factor exacerbating the general opprobrium attached to homosexual child molesting. Using logit regression, it was found that homosexual molesters were 6.79 times more likely to be imprisoned than were heterosexual molesters qfter adjusting for the combined effects of crime seriousness, prior record, and acceptance/denial of full responsibility for their actions. The latter variable was the only other nonlegal variable to significantly impact sentencing.
Characteristics of Perpetrators with Histories of Sexual Abuse
Authors: Romano Elisa , De Luca Rayleen V.
Published: March 2007

The literature suggests that the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among sexual perpetrators is higher than that found among the general male population. However, there is a paucity of empirical research comparing sexual perpetrators to other perpetrators and community samples. Research on the specific characteristics of sexual abuse experiences is limited. 7he purpose of the present exploratory study was to further examine the cycle of sexual abuse in a sample of 42 males with histories of sexual abuse. Sexual perpetrators, nonsexual perpetrators, and nonperpetrators completed a sexual victimization survey on the nature of their abuse experiences. Findings revealed a considerably higher prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among sexual perpetrators with the abuse generally being more extensive and severe in nature. Results appear to lend support to the sexual abuse cycle and may have important implications for clinicians and researchers involved in the sexual abuse area
Homicides in Developing Nations: Results of Research Using a Large and Representative Sample
Authors: Neapolitan Jerome L.
Published: March 2007

Most past research on cross-national variation in homicides has included small samples of nations that were heavily weighted toward industrialized nations. In recent years, homicide data for a larger number of developing nations have become available. This study looks at cross-national variation in homicides, focusing exclusively on developing nations, and uses a much larger and more representative sample of such nations than any past research. Correlation and regression analysis are used to reexamine the association of concepts and indicators used in past research to explain variation in homicides across nations. Percentage Christian and to a lesser degree percentage Islamic emerge as the most important predictors. It is suggested and discussed that this finding is best explained by the cultural effects of colonization on many developing nations.
Guangxi on the Precipice: Drug Abuser Behavior and the Nascent Spread of HIV in One Chinese Region
Authors: Anderson Allen F. , Hua Xu
Published: March 2007

The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China is on the verge of a predicted HIV explosion. After reviewing the transmission environment in the region, the authors present the findings from their survey of 103 drug abusers undergoing detoxification treatment in Nanning, the capitol of Guangxi, and suggest broad policy changes in light of the analysis.
Variables Related to Recidivism among Juvenile Offenders
Authors: Myner Julye , Santman Jennifer , Cappelletty Gordon G. , Perlmutter Barry F.
Published: March 2007

This study investigated predictors of recidivism among juvenile delinquents. Mental health and probation files were reviewed for 138 male juveniks. To assess the extent of recidivism throughout their juvenile years, only data from participants who remained in juvenik jurisdiction until the age of 18 were included in the analyses. Demographic, behavioral, familial, school-related, and crime-related variables were examined Additionaly, the relationships between length of first incarceration and number of subsequent offenses for violent and property first-time offenders were investigated. Multiple regression analyses indicated that age at first conviction, alcohol abuse, status conviction, length of first incarceration, group home placement, and birth order best predicted recidivism. Further, results revealed that length of first incarceration and subsequent convictions were positively correlated for property first-time offenders. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed
Roger Caillois, Games of Chance and the Superstar
Authors: Groot Loek
Published: March 2007

Superstars are not by accident a conspicuous phenomenon in our culture, but inherently belong to a meritocratic society with mass media, free enterprise, and competition. To make this contention plausible I will use Caillois's book, Man, Play and Games, to compare the mechanisms underlying the superstar phenomenon with a special kind of game, as set out by Caillois. As far as I know, Caillois's book is not quoted in the literature dealing with income distribution theories, although the comparison with play and games is, for limited purposes, interesting. In play and games we find almost all elements which play a role in theories of just income distribution: equality of opportunity, chance, talent, competition and skill, reward, entitlement, winners and losers, etc. These are not chance similarities, for “… games are largely dependent upon the cultures in which they are practised. They affect their preferences, prolong their customs, and reflect their beliefs … One … can … posit a truly reciprocal relationship between a society and the games it likes to play”. Moreover, as we will see, superstars combine the four basic characteristics of play that make their activities a special kind of play.
Poetry in Europe 1900–1950
Authors: Bowra C. M.
Published: March 2007

Now that the twentieth century has celebrated its fiftieth birthday, it can no longer plead youth and inexperience as excuses to avoid judgments on its achievements, least of all in its poetry, of which one chapter is practically closed and another has at least made its main point. Of course any survey of European poetry in the last fifty years is bound to be very general and superficial, but is perhaps worth attempting not merely as a matter of historical inquiry but because it may throw some light on the immediate present and the prospects for the near future. We may be still too close to recent developments to see them in their right perspective or to gauge them at their final worth, but much that has happened since 1900 already belongs to a past sufficiently remote for an independent judgment to be passed on it, while much else has revealed its main lines of development, with the result that we may perhaps form a clearer and juster estimate of what the poets have done than was possible when their works were too new to be rightly assessed and suffered alike from the ardent hopes of their protagonists and the shocked disapproval of their opponents.
The Recent Work of Karl Jaspers
Authors: Hersch Jeanne
Published: March 2007

The thought of Karl Jaspers does not reveal an evolution in the sense of an intellectual pilgrimage whose stages and whose course could be precisely defined. In a certain sense, as he says himself, his philosophy was already immanent in him by the time he was seventeen. He is not one of those who wait for problems to run up against them from the outside. Events in the world, hypotheses and ideas are indeed the object and the matter of his reflection, but they are summoned from within to serve as props for a different kind of confrontation, at once more essential and more mysterious, whose mystery must be illuminated without being dispelled. His attitude is meditative. His thought digs deep, but digs on the spot; its end is an experience always the same yet inexhaustible, alongside which every sort of diversity appears monotonous. That is why vertical images bulk so large in his vocabulary, the vocabulary of a diviner: sources, gushing forth, the abyss, the ground that one loses or recovers, and a complete ambiguity about depth and height which imposes and refuses transcendence.
Panorama of Ethnology 1950-1952
Authors: Lévi-Strauss Claude
Published: March 2007

A panorama of ethnological studies during the last two or three years must cover considerations as apparently remote as the margin of error in estimating the age of radio-active elements on the one hand and, on the other, the question of whether ethnology originates from the sciences of Man or the sciences of Nature. This widening of the scope of ethnological studies is matched by the widening of public interest in ethnological problems, or, to put it more precisely, in problems presented in the terms and by the aid of ethnological formulae. It should be noted, moreover, that also the traditional domain of ethnology is in a process of expansion, stretching from the study of the so-called savage or primitive social forms, without hesitating any longer, to the field of modern society and its most complex activities.
The Revolution in the World-View of History
Authors: Anderle Othmar
Published: March 2007

About twenty years ago a book entitled Umsturz im Weltbild der Physik (“The Revolution in the World-View of Physics”) appeared and was eventually widely read. It described the basic change which our views in the natural sciences had undergone during the first three decades of this century.

A similar book could be written today concerning the other, humanistic side of our conception of the world, for so radical a change has taken place since then in humanistic ideas as well, that it approaches complete revolution. This change can be briefly described as a transition from the part-whole synthetic point of view to whole-part, analytic thinking; from a Ptolemaic, egocentric standpoint to a Copernican, relativistic one; and from “thinking in terms of nations” to “thinking in cultures.”
The Public and Its Soul
Authors: Sperber Manès
Published: March 2007

No research in the field of aesthetics can avoid the question of the value which every work of art poses as urgently as does every living thing: its raison d’être. Traditional aesthetics conceived only an absolute value. That is why it attempted to establish absolute, eternal criteria. More modest, the psychologist of the creative person, the philosopher of creativity and the historian of civilizations tend to acknowledge a value which is of relative importance only. Certain works suggest new criteria and survive them. Others, which conform to established criteria, frequently die with them. A work which does not beget, sooner or later, its own public and the sensitivity which recognizes itself in it, would consequently be ephemeral.

The commercial value of an artistic production is determined by the intensity and the duration of the satisfaction that it procures for a sufficiently widespread need. The relation between supply and demand also regulates the market for that curious species of merchandise which paintings, books, songs, etc., represent-but not definitively. The creative work is quite often devoid of “exchange value” because it scarcely encounters a demand before it has stimulated one. It is sought only after it has been found, sometimes a long time after the death of the artist.
Psychoanalysis and Sociology: Outline of an Introduction to Some Current Problems
Authors: Friedmann Georges
Published: March 2007

The relations between psychoanalysis and sociology pose a difficult problem. The complexity of psychoanalysis, the evolution of certain features of Freud's theories, the diversity of doctrines and interpretations encountered among its representatives (and this is often true even within the same country), on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the youthfulness, one might say, infancy, of sociology—that latecomer among the sciences of man, which derives its concepts and its methods from research itself and from the problems with which our civilization confronts it—all this would justify labelling as imprudent—even rash—any attempt to study their relationship and their prospects for collaboration. We readily accept the reproof. And yet, however rash it might be, this venture, in our opinion, is in no sense a concocted one. The necessity of attempting it is evident. For more than twenty years, the studies, inquiries, researches which we have been involved in concerning collectivities of men at work, the interpretation of their attitudes, of their reactions to new techniques and to the constraints of rationalization from “higher up,” as it evolved from Taylor through the diverse stages of so-called “scientific” organization, the attempts to measure their “satisfaction,” to explain the variations in their output, their absences, their professional fluidity, and, last but not least, their behavior when not at work, the forms and content of their “leisure” —all these experiments have continuously and increasingly stimulated our interest in psychoanalytical concepts and interpretations. Frequently this evoked in us the temptation to indulge in “unseasonable extrapolations,” utilizing analytical theories which, having been discovered in the field of individual psychology, ran the risk, at first glance, of not being transferable to the field of collective behavior.
On the Autonomy of the Living Being
Authors: Fourastié Jean
Published: March 2007

“What I wish to make clear … is … that from all we have learnt about the structure of living matter, we must be prepared to find it working in a manner that cannot be reduced to the ordinary laws of physics.” Thus the founder of quantum mechanics, Erwin Schroedinger, expounds in a recent book “the obvious inability of present-day physics and chemistry to account for … events” which occur in a living organism.
The Seven Offices
Authors: Burke Kenneth
Published: March 2007

There is no end to possible theories of motivation, with their corresponding ways of defining and classifying motives. Our hero can do what he does because he is of some particular religion, race, nationality, social class, historical tradition, occupation, personality type, or glandular makeup or has been psychologically wounded in one or another of the ways specified by the various competing experts. If we say that he did as he did because of the situation in which he was placed, there can be endless variation in our terms for what he did; and the situation in which he did it can be interpreted in terms of varying scope, ranging from a view of his act as done against a background of one or many gods more or less actively concerned with his conduct or against a purely secular background of “nature” (“environment” variously interpreted); or we may place his act with reference to the most minutely particular of circumstances, as when explaining exactly why Mr. Q., Republican, retired, Yale graduate, wearing glasses, and just having quarreled with his wife, turned his car exactly as he did in the particular combination of factors that made up one particular traffic accident. In view of such a motivational jungle, a good basic proposition to have in mind when contemplating the study of motives would be: Anybody can do anything for any reason.
A New Interpretation of History
Authors: Olagüe Ignacio
Published: March 2007

History, as most people understand it, is the product of an intense effort to describe in an objective way and in rigorous chronological order events which have occurred in past time. Before the Renaissance the historian compiled traditions, chronicles, and statements, with no concern to verify the correctness of his data; thus legend was mixed with truth in confused and picturesque narration. Now, however, the investigator, established as a judge of inquiry, begins research on a chosen subject within his competence by unleashing his critical judgment, rather like a hound on the trail of suppositions. He unearths documents and confronts them, weeding out the false from the authentic, subjects the most diverse witnesses to close comparison, and then with great patience, whether gifted or inept, he presents his thesis to the assembly of the learned. These, like a jury, either accept his conclusions, admit only a part of them, or reject them completely. Thus, from the time of the humanists who cleared the way up to the present day, an extraordinary legion of specialists, as patient as the ancient Benedictines are said to have been, have made efforts to clarify past events to establish the bases of an objective text of what has actually taken place. Hence the work of the great historian consisted in joining and fusing this labor into a homogeneous unit that would be the approximate reflection of the epoch under study.
The Prestige of the Cosmogonic Myth
Authors: Eliade Mircea
Published: March 2007

A myth relates a sacred story, that is to say, it recounts a primordial event that occurred at the beginning of time. But to tell a sacred story is equivalent to revealing a mystery, because the characters in a myth are not human beings. They are either gods or civilizing heroes, and therefore their gesta constitute mysteries: man would not know these tales if they were not revealed to him. Consequently, a myth is a story of what happened—what the gods and supernatural beings did—at the beginning of time. “To recount” a myth is to proclaim what occurred then. Once “told,” in other words, once revealed, the myth becomes the apodictic truth: it establishes truth. “It is so because it is said to be so,” the Netsilik Eskimos declared in order to justify the validity of their sacred history and their religious traditions. The myth proclaims the advent of a new cosmic situation or narrates a primordial event, and so it is always the story of a “creation”; it tells how something has been effectuated, has begun to be. That is why the myth is interdependent with ontology; it deals solely with realities, with what really happened, with what was clearly manifest.
The Incest Prohibition and Food Taboos
Authors: Makarius Laura and Raoul
Published: March 2007

One does not have to be an ethnologist to know that fear of incest—a fear whose influence on modern man's behavior psychoanalysis has so ably demonstrated—is as ancient as human society. The overwhelming majority, if not all, of those primitive societies that it has been possible to study have revealed an organization governed by the law of exogamy —that is to say, by the obligation to marry solely outside the kinship group to which one belongs.
A Comparison of Islâm and Christianity as Framework for Religious Life
Authors: H. Marshall G.S.
Published: March 2007

Informed Christians have learned in our day that Islâm is not a primitive desert religion spread by the sword, for which faith is reduced to fatalism and women have no souls. Yet Christian historians of religion who avoid such gross errors still tend to present Islâm as at best an imperfect and parochial version of Christian truth, lacking any distinctive genius truly worthy of its independent dignity among the world religions. But until modern times, when the Christianity (and Judaism) of Europeans has been radically transformed along with their secular life, Christianity must long have struck an observer from Mars as, compared to Islâm, the relatively localized faith of largely backward lands. Islâm was the vehicle of a complex and sophisticated sense of social order in a varied and highly creative civilization which was expanding continuously until its field of action encompassed half mankind; it was the only one of the major historical religions which had successfully displaced in large areas other major faiths such as Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The Martian observing human history in the later Middle Ages might find it easier to understand why Muslims have looked on Christianity as merely an abortive form of Islâm, as for instance in the approach of those Şûfîs, Muslim mystics, who see the perfection of Islâm in its uniting at once the dispensation of Law, which reflects the Majesty of God, and the dispensation of Grace, which reflects his Beauty, whereas Judaism and Christianity are limited to only the one or the other. This Muslim conception is as inadequate, however, as its Christian counterpart. Probably any widespread religious system will find a place for all major types of religious insight and practice and is in its own way complete. Yet, as each system has matured, it has revealed a characteristic persistent pattern of norms in the interrelation and subordination to one another of all the elements embodied in it. If Christians are to perceive the genius of Islâm, it must perhaps be through the comparison of such persistent patterns.