Understanding the mechanisms that underlie pattern formation is one of the major challenges of developmental biology. The complexity and beauty of the patterns on butterfly wings, fish scales, or bird feathers are not only remarkable products of developmental processes but puzzles that tease our intellects. If we are to understand these beautiful products of cellular activity, we need to first ...

The diversion of science to destructive purposes is as old as science itself. The observation that a club, knife, spear or arrow useful to bring down an animal could be used to similar effect against "the enemy" in the next village was readily perverted to the design of weapons strictly for anti-personnel purposes. Even while enhancing the human condition, science has degraded and brutalized it...

This year's recipient of the Friedenwald award is Dr. Venkat Reddy, Director and Professor of the Institute of Biological Sciences, Oakland University in Michigan. The jubilation of this occasion is tempered by sadness at the absence of one who should have been a principal in this ceremony—Dr. V. Everett Kinsey, who met his untimely death last summer. Dr. Kinsey was elated that Dr. Reddy, his c...

Lucky you, if you happen to live in one of the democratic western countries, because then you live in a society that gives you maximal freedom and opportunities to pursue your goals. But what if you are one of the disgruntled people who think that our elected leaders have got a certain issue all wrong and nobody except you is smart enough to see that they are heading the wrong way? Then you hav...

A debated topic in Avicennan psychology is whether for Avicenna abstraction is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stemsion is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stems from the deeper philosophical question of whether humans acquire intelligibles externally from an emanation by the Active Intellect, which is a separate substance, or internall...

In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray claim that a high value for heritability of intelligence limits or constrains the extent to which intelligence can be increased by changing the environment. This article argues that the concept of heritability is based on unsupportable assumptions and that its numerical value places no constraint on the consequences of an improved environment. On the con...

Scientific thinking is grounded in the evolved human ability to freely create and manipulate mental models in the imagination. This modeling ability enabled early humans to navigate the natural world and cope with challenges to survival. Then it drove the design and use of tools to shape and control the environment. Spoken language facilitated the sharing of mental models in cooperative activit...

In general, metaphysical views are characterized as either monist or dualist. Interestingly, both Karl Jaspers and Karl Popper seem to have entertained what one might call "pluralist" views of reality. In the case of Jaspers, I will address his early views in General Psychopathology and in the case of Popper his later views as reflected in Objective Knowledge. Both thinkers discuss three separa...

This study is about graduate students’ discourse practices in classroom text-based synchronous computermediated discussions (SCMD). Cultural historical activity theory (in short, Activity Theory) is the primary theoretical lens through which the data are analyzed. Engeström’s (1987) Activity System model among the various theoretical positions or perspectives of activity theorists has guided th...

ion, General Conceptions, Self-consciousness, Mental Individuality.It would be very difficult for any one with even much more knowledge than I possess, to determine how far animals exhibit any traces of these high mental powers. This difficulty arises from the impossibility of judging what passes through the mind of an animal; and again, the fact that writers differ to a great extent in the mea...