title: 'The Doors of Perception': Science, Religion, and Literature in Britain's Long-Nineteenth Century, 1789-1914

authors: Speedy, Samuel Weston

subjects: science

abstract: In Britain’s long-nineteenth century (1789-1914), religious explanations of the world were challenged with the rise of science, leading to the question of how religion survived. Both fiction and non-fiction explored this issue, offering ‘thought experiments’ regarding religion’s role in society; where texts implicitly or explicitly raise a question, and test it through a hypothetical scenario or scenarios. In accordance with the Linguistic Turn, these thought experiments can be viewed as linguistic constructs, where language itself is held to construct the outcomes of these thought experiments. Yet at the same time, language is limited in how can describe the world; from the vastness of time and space to the quality of feelings and emotions. Thus it is not just language, but the limits of language – characterised here as the ‘doors of perception’ – that have effects on worldviews; effects that throw light on the capacities in which religion survived the rise of science, and which are the subject of this thesis. 
Each chapter juxtaposes predominantly science-oriented non-fiction with religion-oriented creative works, dividing the thesis into the six scientific contexts that were the most important to the long-nineteenth century: natural theology, utilitarianism, geology, biology, anthropology, and psychology. Key figures investigated include Thomas Paine, William Paley, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, Charles Lyell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold, David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde. 
One effect of the limits of language was on religious belief itself, specifically as pertains to intelligent design (independently of questions of whether the belief is correct). Here, because people found it difficult, if not impossible, to describe the vastness of time, they also found it difficult to describe the rise of complex natural phenomena in any terms that require the vastness of time. Instead, they described the rise of complexity in the comfortable terms in which it could rise within the timescale of a human life; i.e., a process analogous to human design. This was aided by the fact that fixed, essentialist distinctions, as given by words, names, and labels, were applied to natural phenomena on timescales that language can describe, and this influenced a belief that these phenomena actually were fixed, essentialist, and unchanging; phenomena which could only have come into existence fully formed, rendering intelligent design the only explanation. 
Another effect of the limits of language was that they assisted religious experience. Here, when people found it difficult to adequately describe time, space, emotions, beauty, etc., there was a sense that experience was transcending the essentialist words, names, and labels that otherwise differentiate and atomise the world into separate phenomena, including those differentiating ‘subject’ from ‘object’, ‘self’ from ‘other’ and ‘us’ from ‘them’. This characterised the religious experience of self-transcendent awe. Sometimes, this experience was itself described in terms of divine design; sometimes it was not. Sometimes, it also had the effect of making people believe that to reduce a phenomenon to the level of rational linguistic description was to, in some way, devalue it.
Both effects recurred consistently in scientific and religious literature of the long-nineteenth century, and explain how religion’s survival was effected.

text: 'The Doors of Perception': Science, Religion, and Literature in Britain's Long-Nineteenth Century, 1789-1914 In Britain’s long-nineteenth century (1789-1914), religious explanations of the world were challenged with the rise of science, leading to the question of how religion survived. Both fiction and non-fiction explored this issue, offering ‘thought experiments’ regarding religion’s role in society; where texts implicitly or explicitly raise a question, and test it through a hypothetical scenario or scenarios. In accordance with the Linguistic Turn, these thought experiments can be viewed as linguistic constructs, where language itself is held to construct the outcomes of these thought experiments. Yet at the same time, language is limited in how can describe the world; from the vastness of time and space to the quality of feelings and emotions. Thus it is not just language, but the limits of language – characterised here as the ‘doors of perception’ – that have effects on worldviews; effects that throw light on the capacities in which religion survived the rise of science, and which are the subject of this thesis. 
Each chapter juxtaposes predominantly science-oriented non-fiction with religion-oriented creative works, dividing the thesis into the six scientific contexts that were the most important to the long-nineteenth century: natural theology, utilitarianism, geology, biology, anthropology, and psychology. Key figures investigated include Thomas Paine, William Paley, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, Charles Lyell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold, David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde. 
One effect of the limits of language was on religious belief itself, specifically as pertains to intelligent design (independently of questions of whether the belief is correct). Here, because people found it difficult, if not impossible, to describe the vastness of time, they also found it difficult to describe the rise of complex natural phenomena in any terms that require the vastness of time. Instead, they described the rise of complexity in the comfortable terms in which it could rise within the timescale of a human life; i.e., a process analogous to human design. This was aided by the fact that fixed, essentialist distinctions, as given by words, names, and labels, were applied to natural phenomena on timescales that language can describe, and this influenced a belief that these phenomena actually were fixed, essentialist, and unchanging; phenomena which could only have come into existence fully formed, rendering intelligent design the only explanation. 
Another effect of the limits of language was that they assisted religious experience. Here, when people found it difficult to adequately describe time, space, emotions, beauty, etc., there was a sense that experience was transcending the essentialist words, names, and labels that otherwise differentiate and atomise the world into separate phenomena, including those differentiating ‘subject’ from ‘object’, ‘self’ from ‘other’ and ‘us’ from ‘them’. This characterised the religious experience of self-transcendent awe. Sometimes, this experience was itself described in terms of divine design; sometimes it was not. Sometimes, it also had the effect of making people believe that to reduce a phenomenon to the level of rational linguistic description was to, in some way, devalue it.
Both effects recurred consistently in scientific and religious literature of the long-nineteenth century, and explain how religion’s survival was effected.

year: 2013

title: A typology of longitudinal integrated clerkships.

authors: Worley, Paul

subjects: Australia

abstract: CONTEXT: Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) represent a model of the structural redesign of clinical education that is growing in the USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa. By contrast with time-limited traditional block rotations, medical students in LICs provide comprehensive care of patients and populations in continuing learning relationships over time and across disciplines and venues. The evidence base for LICs reveals transformational professional and workforce outcomes derived from a number of small institution-specific studies. 
OBJECTIVES: This study is the first from an international collaborative formed to study the processes and outcomes of LICs across multiple institutions in different countries. It aims to establish a baseline reference typology to inform further research in this field. 
METHODS: Data on all LIC and LIC-like programmes known to the members of the international Consortium of Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships were collected using a survey tool developed through a Delphi process and subsequently analysed. Data were collected from 54 programmes, 44 medical schools, seven countries and over 15 000 student-years of LIC-like curricula. 
RESULTS: Wide variation in programme length, student numbers, health care settings and principal supervision was found. Three distinct typological programme clusters were identified and named according to programme length and discipline coverage: Comprehensive LICs; Blended LICs, and LIC-like Amalgamative Clerkships. Two major approaches emerged in terms of the sizes of communities and types of clinical supervision. These referred to programmes based in smaller communities with mainly family physicians or general practitioners as clinical supervisors, and those in more urban settings in which subspecialists were more prevalent. 
CONCLUSIONS: Three distinct LIC clusters are classified. These provide a foundational reference point for future studies on the processes and outcomes of LICs. The study also exemplifies a collaborative approach to medical education research that focuses on typology rather than on individual programme or context.

text: A typology of longitudinal integrated clerkships. CONTEXT: Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) represent a model of the structural redesign of clinical education that is growing in the USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa. By contrast with time-limited traditional block rotations, medical students in LICs provide comprehensive care of patients and populations in continuing learning relationships over time and across disciplines and venues. The evidence base for LICs reveals transformational professional and workforce outcomes derived from a number of small institution-specific studies. 
OBJECTIVES: This study is the first from an international collaborative formed to study the processes and outcomes of LICs across multiple institutions in different countries. It aims to establish a baseline reference typology to inform further research in this field. 
METHODS: Data on all LIC and LIC-like programmes known to the members of the international Consortium of Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships were collected using a survey tool developed through a Delphi process and subsequently analysed. Data were collected from 54 programmes, 44 medical schools, seven countries and over 15 000 student-years of LIC-like curricula. 
RESULTS: Wide variation in programme length, student numbers, health care settings and principal supervision was found. Three distinct typological programme clusters were identified and named according to programme length and discipline coverage: Comprehensive LICs; Blended LICs, and LIC-like Amalgamative Clerkships. Two major approaches emerged in terms of the sizes of communities and types of clinical supervision. These referred to programmes based in smaller communities with mainly family physicians or general practitioners as clinical supervisors, and those in more urban settings in which subspecialists were more prevalent. 
CONCLUSIONS: Three distinct LIC clusters are classified. These provide a foundational reference point for future studies on the processes and outcomes of LICs. The study also exemplifies a collaborative approach to medical education research that focuses on typology rather than on individual programme or context.

year: 2016

title: Supervision and continuing professional development: Supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD

authors: Flanagan, Paul G.

abstract: Continuing professional development (CPD) is now embedded into the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) practices, such as its members’ supervision, processes for membership renewal and applications for annual practicing certificates. Since its implementation in 2017, a number of developments have been made to NZAC CPD requirements, and in 2020 the process went online. During the same year, six experienced supervisors participated in a small-scale study in which they were interviewed about their experiences of the CPD process and its effects on supervision. The research project was part of a postgraduate paper in professional supervision and worked to introduce and engage researcher-students, all of whom were experienced counselling practitioners, in a supervised collaborative project. This article offers a review of literature on CPD and supervision, and presents the new findings about supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD. The findings highlighted limitations with current competencies for CPD and questioned these competencies as reflecting dominant Pākehā constructions of counselling and therefore, having effects for Māori practitioners. The study also revealed a tension between treating professional development as a requirement to be accounted for and hopes for supervision as a space to reflect on and shape future professional development.

text: Supervision and continuing professional development: Supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD Continuing professional development (CPD) is now embedded into the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) practices, such as its members’ supervision, processes for membership renewal and applications for annual practicing certificates. Since its implementation in 2017, a number of developments have been made to NZAC CPD requirements, and in 2020 the process went online. During the same year, six experienced supervisors participated in a small-scale study in which they were interviewed about their experiences of the CPD process and its effects on supervision. The research project was part of a postgraduate paper in professional supervision and worked to introduce and engage researcher-students, all of whom were experienced counselling practitioners, in a supervised collaborative project. This article offers a review of literature on CPD and supervision, and presents the new findings about supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD. The findings highlighted limitations with current competencies for CPD and questioned these competencies as reflecting dominant Pākehā constructions of counselling and therefore, having effects for Māori practitioners. The study also revealed a tension between treating professional development as a requirement to be accounted for and hopes for supervision as a space to reflect on and shape future professional development.

year: 2021