Woher kommen wir? : Neue Bücher zur Evolutionsbiologie ; [Rezension]

Rezensionen zu: Thomas Junker : Die Evolution des Menschen. Verlag C. H. Beck, München 2006 ISBN 978-3-406-53609-0, 127 Seiten, 7,90 Euro. Guillaume Lecointre, Hervé Le Guyader : Biosystematik. Verlag Springer, Heidelberg 2006. ISBN 978-3-540-24037-2. 696 Seiten, 39,95 Euro. Ulrich Kutschera : Evolutionsbiologie. 2. Auflage, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2006. ISBN 978-3-8252-8318-6 303 Seiten, 39,90 Euro. Volker Knoop, Kai Müller : Gene und Stammbäume. Verlag Elsevier/Spektrum, München 2006 ISBN 978-3-8274-1642-1. 310 Seiten, 29,50 Euro

Occurrence, distribution and bibliography of the medicinal leech Hirudo verbana Carena, 1820 (Hirudinea, Hirudinidae) in Sicily (Italy)

The occurrence of the medicinal leech Hirudo verbana in the inland waters of Sicily has been lately overlooked. In the present note, the occurrence and distribution of this species is reviewed based both on the review of the available literature data and field collecting. Although a noteworthy reduction in the distribution range of the species seems to have taken place in Sicily in the course of the XX century, Hirudo verbana was confirmed to be still present in several sites located both within and out of Natura2000 sites. The Sicilian populations of the species should be included in the frame of the monitoring activities established by the Article 17 of the EU Council Directive 92/43/EEC (“Habitats Directive”)

Two Arguments Against Some Critics of Religion Based on Feeling and Emotion Following William James

In this paper I will show that you can distinguish two main types of argumentation in respect to feeling and emotions in the philosophy of religion of William James, which point to two different kind of criticism of religion. Especially in his early works, James argues that you may lawfully adopt religious beliefs on the basis of passional grounds. This argumentation points to a type of criticism of religion, which denies that beliefs based on such emotional grounds may be justified. In his famous study The Varieties of Religious Experience, James defines religious experience as an experience of inner conversion, where the individual gets in touch with a higher self. The philosophical interpretation of religious experience points not at least to a type of criticism of religion in the tradition of Ludwig Feuerbach, which is known as the theory of projection

Not Quite Intuitionism

This is an investigation of M. Dummett's claim that a theory of meaning based on verification conditions should lead to the abandonment of classical logic in favor of intuitionistic logic. I especially concentrate on his suggestion that, in order to give the meaning of negations and conditionals, we should also take on board falsification conditions. Taken seriously, however, this route takes us not to intuitionistic logic, but rather to one of the Nelson logics

Cosmological solutions of emergent noncommutative gravity

Matrix models of Yang-Mills type lead to an emergent gravity theory, which may not require fine-tuning of a cosmological constant. We find cosmological solutions of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker type. They generically have a big bounce, and an early inflation-like phase with graceful exit. The mechanism is purely geometrical, no ad-hoc scalar fields are introduced. The solutions are stabilized through vacuum fluctuations and are thus compatible with quantum mechanics. This leads to a Milne-like universe after inflation, which appears to be in remarkably good agreement with observation and may provide an alternative to standard cosmology.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. V2: version accepted by Phys.Rev.Lett. plus one pictur

Report of four species of flea beetles (Col.: Chrysomelidae: Alticinae) from Iran

Four species of flea beetles (Col.: Chrysomelidae, Alticinae), viz. Altica tsharynensis (Ogloblin), Aphthona pygmaea (Kutschera), Longitarsus pulmonariae Weise and Neocrepidodera interpunctata (Motschulsky), collected from the south of Caspian Sea are newly recorded from Iran. Host plants, localities and diagnostic characters of each species are given

What Accounts for the Paradox in Goodman's Paradox. The Neglect of the Functional Character of Natural Laws as the Reason for the Paradox

Essential for the concept of the law of nature is not only spatio-temporal universality, but also functionality in the sense of the dependency on physical conditions of natural entities. In the following it is explained in detail that just the neglect of this functional property is to be understood as the real reason for the occurrence of the Goodman paradox – with the consequence, that the behavior of things seems to be completely at the mercy of change of unique unrepeatable temporal points. It is exactly this (mis-)understanding that also generated the induction problem. From the intrinsic connection between universality and functionality, however, – that is my claim – the ontological consequence of a nature results, for which lawfulness is coupled to essentially functionally defined time sequences, thereby implying a potentiality dimension of nature, too

Was ist eine gute Religion? Eine Diskussion zwischen Ansgar Beckermann und Holm Tetens.

Beckermann A, Tetens H. Was ist eine gute Religion? Eine Diskussion zwischen Ansgar Beckermann und Holm Tetens. Information Philosophie. 2019;47(1).Bedauerlicherweise erschien in der Druckfassung von Heft 1/2019 der "Information Philosophie" eine Version der Diskussion, die eine von der Redaktion gekürzte, aber nicht von Ansgar Beckermann korrigierte Fassung erhielt. Die korrekte Fassung des Textes findet sich unter der URL http://www.information-philosophie.de/?a=1&t=8747&n=2&y=5&c=27