The utility of knowledge

Recent epistemology has introduced a new criterion of adequacy for analyses of knowledge: such an analysis, to be adequate, must be compatible with the common view that knowledge is better than true belief. One account which is widely thought to fail this test is reliabilism, according to which, roughly, knowledge is true belief formed by reliable process. Reliabilism fails, so the argument goes, because of the "swamping problem". In brief, provided a belief is true, we do not care whether or not it was formed by a reliable process. The value of reliability is "swamped" by the value of truth: truth combined with reliability is no better than truth alone. This paper approaches these issues from the perspective of decision theory. It argues that the "swamping effect" involves a sort of information-sensitivity that is well modelled decision-theoretically. It then employs this modelling to investigate a strategy, proposed by Goldman and Olsson, for saving reliabilism from the swamp, the so-called "conditional probability solution". It concludes that the strategy is only partially successful

Eurycea latitans

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Eurycea nana

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Creating an online presence for a high school newspaper

Today's journalists are expected to be fluent in much more than print media. Professional journalists are expected to provide immediate posts and frequent updates to online media, as well as full-blown stories for print publications. Providing secondary publications students the opportunity to work in both media allows them to participate in these real-world experiences and gives them valuable skills that appeal to college journalism programs. As a publications adviser at Fishers High School, the researcher is expected to provide students the reality of journalism. This can be accomplished by offering print and online experiences on the school newspaper. Research to begin a school website included a review of literature on developing online news sites, including the Poynter Institutes Eyetracker survey. A review of several high school newspaper online sites provided practical examples in what high school journalism programs are capable of. In addition, a three-day workshop on moving publications to the Web at Ball State provided the technical information necessary to create the site. A mock site was created and FHS newspaper student staff members began publishing to the website in September 2011.Department of JournalismThesis (M.A.

Smile asymmetries and reputation as reliable indicators of likelihood to cooperate: An evolutionary analysis

Cooperating with individuals whose altruism is not motivated by genuine prosocial emotions could have been costly in ancestral division of labour partnerships. How do humans ‘know’ whether or not an individual has the prosocial emotions committing future cooperation? Frank (1988) has hypothesized two pathways for altruist-detection: (a) facial expressions of emotions signalling character; and (b) gossip regarding the target individual’s reputation. Detecting non-verbal cues signalling commitment to cooperate may be one way to avoid the costs of exploitation. Spontaneous smiles while cooperating may be reliable index cues because of the physiological constraints controlling the neural pathways mediating involuntary emotional expressions. Specifically, it is hypothesized that individuals whose help is mediated by a genuine sympathy will express involuntary smiles (which are observably different from posed smiles). To investigate this idea, 38 participants played dictator games (i.e. a unilateral resource allocation task) against cartoon faces with a benevolent emotional expression (i.e. concern furrows and smile). The faces were presented with information regarding reputation (e.g. descriptions of an altruistic character vs. a non-altruistic character). Half of the sample played against icons with symmetrical smiles (representing a spontaneous smile) while the other half played against asymmetrically smiling icons (representing a posed smile). Icons described as having altruistic motives received more resources than icons described as self-interested helpers. Faces with symmetrical smiles received more resources than faces with asymmetrical smiles. These results suggest that reputation and smile asymmetry influence the likelihood of cooperation and thus may be reliable cues to altruism. These cues may allow for altruists to garner more resources in division of labour situations