Biologists, social scientists, and philosophers have speculated about human nature. Is there such a thing, and if so, how does one describe it? Fortunately I do not need to review the history of such speculations, since Alison Jaggar has provided a lucid discussion of the main issues and has located th~ debates in their historical and political contexts.! What I can do is evaluate the biologica...

My goal in this report is to recontextualize the concept of computation. I review the historical roots of Church-Turing computation to show that the theory exists in a frame of relevance, which underlies the assumptions on which it rests and the questions it is suited to answer. Although this frame of relevance is appropriate in many circumstances, there are many important applications of the i...

This paper discusses the integration of cultural and natural heritage aspects of landscapes. It presents arguments for the further integration of interests but also points to the potential for conflicts between cultural and natural heritage interests. These are predominantly at the site-management level. The important role of the historical layer is stressed as an integral part of the environme...

—Hydroperiod, the time a temporary pond holds water, is an important factor influencing recruitment in amphibian populations and structuring amphibian communities. We conducted an experiment to test the effect of hydroperiod on metamorphic traits of the southern leopard frog (Rana sphenocephala), a common amphibian in the southeastern United States. We reared larval R. sphenocephala in artifici...

Science in general, and ecology in particular, often proceed from the identification of patterns or propensities to the construction of theories, then back to the detailed analysis of the patterns, toward the development of more powerful theories (Peters 1992; Levin 1993), or the quantification of the propensities (Popper 1996). Thus, pattern recognition and explanation of the related propensit...