Appreciating the Beauty of Earth

Categories used by contemporary environmental philosophers to explore esthetic appreciation for the beauty of the physical world have parallels in reflections by patristic and medieval theologians on the beauty of God\u27s creation, A sampling of the theologians\u27 notions yields a promising foundation for ecological ethics from a theistic perspective, especially when understood from their world view at the time the text was written, reformulated to reflect broad scientific findings about the world today, and worked creatively to identify norms for human behavior

Qualitative conditions of scientometrics: the new challenges'

While scientometrics is now an established field, there are challenges. A closer look at how scientometricians aggregate building blocks into artfully made products, and point-represent these (e.g. as the map of field X) allows one to overcome the dependence on judgements of scientists for validation, and replace or complement these with intrinsic validation, based on quality checks of the several steps. Such quality checks require qualitative analysis of the domains being studied. Qualitative analysis is also necessary when noninstitutionalized domains and/or domains which do not emphasize texts are to be studied. A further challenge is to reflect on the effects of scientometrics on the development of science; indicators could lead to `induced¿ aggregation. The availability of scientometric tools and insights might allow scientists and science to become more reflexive

Leveraging Bias in Forensic Science

Dr. Simon Cole calls for a more hierarchical organization of forensic science in his challenging Article, Acculturating Forensic Science: What is ‘Scientific Culture’, and How can Forensic Science Adopt it? Koppl thinks Dr. Cole is right to say that there are different roles in forensic science, but somewhat mistaken in his call for hierarchy