21st Century Merchants of Doubt: Where Is Plato When We Need Him?

John Dreher, Lee Claflin-Robert S. Ingraham Professor of Philosophy at Lawrence University, discusses the motivation of modern day spin doctors in the college’s annual Honors Convocation. Dreher presents “21st Century Merchants of Doubt: Where Is Plato When We Need Him?” Tuesday, May 24 at 11:10 a.m in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The Honors Convocation publicly recognizes students and faculty recipients of awards and prizes for excellence in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, languages and music as well as demonstrated excellence in athletics and service to others. Dreher was chosen as the 2016 speaker as the recipient of Lawrence’s annual Faculty Convocation Award, which honors a faculty member for distinguished professional work. He is the seventh faculty member so honored. In their 2010 book “Merchants of Doubt,” historians Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway detail how a group of high-level scientists with extensive political connections, effectively organized campaigns designed to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific truths on issues ranging from the connections between smoking and lung cancer to links tying coal emissions to acid rain. Dreher will discuss how Plato challenged similar “doubt merchants” of his day nearly 2,500 years ago and how the same factors that drove those ancient sellers of doubts motivate today’s spin doctors, the motivation of modern day spin doctors in the college’s annual Honors Convocation.namely their view of the place of individuals within society. A member of the Lawrence faculty since 1963, Dreher is a two-time recipient of the college’s Babcock Award “for outstanding service to students,” the University Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Freshman Studies Teaching award. He served as the chair of Lawrence’s philosophy department most years from 1968- 2011 and directed the college’s signature Freshman Studies program on three occasions (1982–83; 1986–87; 1993–95). A native of New Jersey, Dreher’s scholarship interests include environmental ethics, applied ethics and the history of philosophy. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from St. Peter’s College, a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago

The Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Altar as Set Forth in the English Theological Periodcials of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod and the American Lutheran Conference

The purpose of this thesis is to make a comparative study of the doctrine of the Sacrament of the Altar as it has been presented in the English theological periodicals of the Lutheran Church.--Missouri Synod and of the American Lutheran Conference since World War I

Multiband observations of Cygnus A: A study of pressure balance in the core of a powerful radio galaxy

Cygnus A is a powerful double radio source associated with a giant elliptical galaxy at the center of a poor cluster of galaxies. The radio source also sits within the core radius of a dense, cooling flow, x ray emitting cluster gas. Optical spectroscopy and narrow band imaging have revealed copious amounts of narrow line emission from the inner 20 kpc of the associated galaxy. Researchers assume H sub o = 75 km sec (-1) Mpc(-1). Discussed here are the pressures in the three components of the Interstellar Medium (ISM) (i.e., the radio, x ray, and line emitting fluids) within a radius of about 15 kpc of the active nucleus of the Cygnus A galaxy

Brownian duet: A novel tale of thermodynamic efficiency

We calculate analytically the stochastic thermodynamic properties of an isothermal Brownian engine driven by a duo of time-periodic forces, including its Onsager coefficients, the stochastic work of each force, and the corresponding stochastic entropy production. We verify the relations between different operational regimes, maximum power, maximum efficiency and minimum dissipation, and reproduce the signature features of the stochastic efficiency. All these results are experimentally tested without adjustable parameters on a colloidal system.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Automated essay grading systems applied to a first year university subject: how can we do it better?

Automated marking of assignments consisting of written text would doubtless be of advantage to teachers and education administrators alike. When large numbers of assignments are submitted at once, teachers find themselves bogged down in their attempt to provide consistent evaluations and high quality feedback to students within as short a timeframe as is reasonable, usually a matter of days rather than weeks. Educationaladministrators are also concerned with quality and timely feedback, but in addition must manage the cost of doing this work. Clearly an automated system would be a highly desirable addition to the educational tool-kit, particularly if it can provide less costly and more effective outcome.In this paper we present a description and evaluation of four automated essay grading systems. We then report on our trial of one of these systems which was undertaken at Curtin University of Technology in the first half of 2001. The purpose of the trial was to assess whether automated essay grading was feasible, economically viable and as accurate as manually grading the essays. Within the Curtin Business School we have not previously used automated grading systems but the benefit could be enormous giventhe very large numbers of students in some first year subjects.As we evaluate the results of our trial, a research and development direction is indicated which we believe will result in improvement over existing systems

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume II, Issue 5

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume II, Issue 14

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume II, Issue 15

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Testosterone causes both prosocial and antisocial status-enhancing behaviors in human males

Although popular discussion of testosterone’s influence on males often centers on aggression and antisocial behavior, contemporary theorists have proposed that it instead enhances behaviors involved in obtaining and maintaining a high social status. Two central distinguishing but untested predictions of this theory are that testosterone selectively increases status-relevant aggressive behaviors, such as responses to provocation, but that it also promotes nonaggressive behaviors, such as generosity toward others, when they are appropriate for increasing status. Here, we tested these hypotheses in healthy young males by injecting testosterone enanthate or a placebo in a double-blind, between-subjects, randomized design (n = 40). Participants played a version of the Ultimatum Game that was modified so that, having accepted or rejected an offer from the proposer, participants then had the opportunity to punish or reward the proposer at a proportionate cost to themselves. We found that participants treated with testosterone were more likely to punish the proposer and that higher testosterone levels were specifically associated with increased punishment of proposers who made unfair offers, indicating that testosterone indeed potentiates aggressive responses to provocation. Furthermore, when participants administered testosterone received large offers, they were more likely to reward the proposer and also chose rewards of greater magnitude. This increased generosity in the absence of provocation indicates that testosterone can also cause prosocial behaviors that are appropriate for increasing status. These findings are inconsistent with a simple relationship between testosterone and aggression and provide causal evidence for a more complex role for testosterone in driving status-enhancing behaviors in males

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume II, Issue 22

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy