What Is Your Anthropology? What Are Your Ethics?

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: We tend to think of the great ridge that rose up inside the historical profession some three decades ago, splitting historians into two camps, as some kind of epistemological event. Ancient disagreements about the nature (and existence ) of truth suddenly became more extreme and divisive. Now, the biggest flags wave over the relativists on one side, and the truth seekers on the other. Smaller banners ( moderate historicists, construetivists , positivists, etc.) fly here and there along the slopes of lower-lying ranges on each side of the great divide, itself breached by passes and tunnels excavated by historians loathe to commit themselves to either camp. But there is another way of looking at what divides historians. Who we think we are affects what we think we can know: We are encouraged these days, Thomas Nagel has pointed out, to think of ourselves as contingent organisms arbitrarily thrown up by evolution . There is no reason in advance to expect a finite creature like that to be able to do more than accumulate information at the perceptual and conceptual level it occupies by nature. 1 I argue (from the standpoint of philosophical realism) that disagreements rooted in different epistemological assumptions might also be understood as rival ways of answering the question, Who is the human person? I find it curious that even as we cram our journals with articles about identity, we don\u27t seem to acknowledge the deeper differences over how we define the most fundamental of all identities. I argue, furthermore, that these differences in philosophical anthropology have ethical consequences for the writing of history: different anthropologies lead to fundamentally different ethics of knowledge. And those ethics come into play whenever historians choose topics to investigate, apply methods of research, and propose interpretations. First, to the anthropological question. Of all the branches of philosophy, Henri-Irénée Marrou argued, historical knowledge depends most on that dealing with anthropology. He likened the historian\u27s chosen philosophy of man to an axle or a nervous system, so that what we write as historians stands or falls with our philosophical anthropology, our idea of the human person.2 Most historians agree that we need to take into account both the spontaneity and creativity of the individual person as well as the limits and conditions that restrict individual freedom. So, just who is this free being who makes history, including the ideologies and institutions that condition his or her very freedom? One reason that the question has excited so little interest among historians may be the extreme historicism that prevails today. Of what use is a theory of the person when one assumes that all of man\u27s works and his very identity are nothing but expressions of history itself, and therefore merely relative to some time and place?3 What passed for philosophical anthropology in the 20th century ended up being the reductio ad absurdum of Rousseau\u27s idea of man as malleable, bereft of any fixed nature. Man is what has happened to him, what he has done, said José Ortega y Gasset, theorist of historicism. This is why it makes no sense to put limits on what man is capable of being. Man has no nature, the Spanish philosopher declared; he only has a history.4 It is, I submit, this particularly miserable idea of the human person—namely, the belief that our nature is nothing but our historicity —that ultimately accounts for the vague sensation among some of us that in reading a good deal of history today we are drinking from a poisoned well. What\u27s wrong with the water is not so much the relativistic assumptions about knowledge and truth but its Rousseauian naturalism. The water is not potable because it is not compatible with whom we know ourselves to be. Why should historians be guided by a belief in man\u27s essential nature? Because without it, anything man does, as well as anything he has done, is as valuable or as valueless as anything else. History would be meaningless

After the Deluge: Central American Historiography at Low Tide

This essay reviews the following works: Centroamérica: Filibusteros, estados, imperios y memorias. By Víctor Hugo Acuña. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica, 2014. Pp. xv + 151. $5.99 paperback. ISBN: 9789968684408. I Ask for Justice: Maya Women, Dictators, and Crime in Guatemala, 1898–1944. By David Carey Jr. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. Pp. xxv + 335.$55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780292748682. A Camera in the Garden of Eden: The Self-Forging of a Banana Republic. By Kevin Coleman. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. 312. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477308554. Empire by Invitation: William Walker and Manifest Destiny in Central America. By Michel Gobat. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. 367.$39.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780674737495. Solidarity under Siege: The Salvadoran Labor Movement, 1970–1990. By Jeffrey L. Gould. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xviii + 262. $29.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108410199. Banana Cowboys: The United Fruit Company and the Culture of Corporate Colonialism.By James W. Martin. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. x + 252.$58.10 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826359421. Breve historia de Centroamérica, 5th ed. By Héctor Pérez Brignoli. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2018. Pp. 352. ISBN: 9788491811923. El laberinto centroamericano: Los hilos de la historia. By Héctor Pérez Brignoli. San José, Costa Rica: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de América Central, 2017. Pp. x + 163. $4.40 paperback. ISBN: 9789968919326. Las luchas de los trabajadores hondureños organizados (1880–1993). By Mario Posas. Tegucigalpa: Editorial Universitaria, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, 2017. Pp. 523. ISBN: 9789992632987. Historia de las desigualdades sociales en América Central: Una visión interdisciplinaria, siglos XVIII–XXI. Edited by Ronny Viales y David Díaz. San José, Costa Rica: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de América Central, 2016. Pp. xix + 634.$8.79 paperback. ISBN: 9789968919241

De la mujer invisible al feminismo ineludible: Política y antropología en la historiografía de la mujer

La historiografía de la mujer, desde el comienzo de su etapa contemporánea en los años setenta del siglo pasado, es analizada en dos vertientes relacionadas: Una, su politización al servicio del movimiento social que aboga por la extensión de los derechos de la mujer y que dió luz a dicha historiografía; dos, el papel central que ha jugado la pregunta antropológica, ‘¿Qué es la mujer’?, y la variedad de respuestas que esta pregunta ha generado. El autor sostiene que tanto la intensa politización como el desarrollo de una antropología cada vez más materialista, como tendencias interdependientes, han llegado a caracterizar la historiografía de la mujer. Las mismas tendencias pueden verse en otras especialidades historiográficas, debido en gran parte a la influencia de la primera. Por otra parte, en la última década, ha aparecido un ‘nuevo feminismo’ basado en una antropología realista que augura una ‘nueva historiografía de la mujer’. La literatura a la que hace freferencia es principalmente, pero no exclusivamente, la angloparlante.

Summary of Facts and Circumstances Captain San D. Francisco

Report of the Search and Resuce Operations to find San.https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/sdfrancisco_documents/1017/thumbnail.jp

BUMPER v1.0: a Bayesian user-friendly model for palaeo-environmental reconstruction

We describe the Bayesian user-friendly model for palaeo-environmental reconstruction (BUMPER), a Bayesian transfer function for inferring past climate and other environmental variables from microfossil assemblages. BUMPER is fully self-calibrating, straightforward to apply, and computationally fast, requiring ~2 s to build a 100-taxon model from a 100-site training set on a standard personal computer. We apply the model’s probabilistic framework to generate thousands of artificial training sets under ideal assumptions.We then use these to demonstrate the sensitivity of reconstructions to the characteristics of the training set, considering assemblage richness, taxon tolerances, and the number of training sites. We find that a useful guideline for the size of a training set is to provide, on average, at least 10 samples of each taxon. We demonstrate general applicability to real data, considering three different organism types (chironomids, diatoms, pollen) and different reconstructed variables. An identically configured model is used in each application, the only change being the input files that provide the training-set environment and taxon-count data. The performance of BUMPER is shown to be comparable with weighted average partial least squares (WAPLS) in each case. Additional artificial datasets are constructed with similar characteristics to the real data, and these are used to explore the reasons for the differing performances of the different training sets

A novel device for the study of somatosensory information processing

Current methods for applying multi-site vibratory stimuli to the skin typically involve the use of multiple, individual vibrotactile stimulators. Limitations of such an arrangement include difficulty with both positioning the stimuli as well as ensuring that stimuli are delivered in a synchronized and deliberate manner. Previously, we reported a two-site tactile stimulator that was developed in order to solve these problems (Tannan et al., 2007a). Due to both the success of that novel stimulator and the limitations that were inherent in that device, we designed and fabricated a four-site stimulator that provides a number of advantages over the previous version. First, the device can stimulate four independent skin sites and is primarily designed for stimulating the digit tips. Second, the positioning of the probe tips has been re-designed to provide better ergonomic hand placement. Third, the device is much more portable than the previously-reported stimulator. Fourth, the stimulator head has a much smaller footprint on the table or surface where it resides. To demonstrate the capacity of the device for delivering tactile stimulation at four independent sites, a finger agnosia protocol, in the presence and absence of conditioning stimuli, was conducted on seventeen healthy control subjects. The study demonstrated that with increasing amplitudes of vibrotactile conditioning stimuli concurrent with the agnosia test, inaccuracies of digit identification increased, particularly at digits D3 and D4. The results are consistent with prior studies that implicated synchronization of adjacent and near-adjacent cortical ensembles with conditioning stimuli in impacting TOJ performance (Tommerdahl et al., 2007)

From climate change to pandemics: decision science can help scientists have impact

Scientific knowledge and advances are a cornerstone of modern society. They improve our understanding of the world we live in and help us navigate global challenges including emerging infectious diseases, climate change and the biodiversity crisis. For any scientist, whether they work primarily in fundamental knowledge generation or in the applied sciences, it is important to understand how science fits into a decision-making framework. Decision science is a field that aims to pinpoint evidence-based management strategies. It provides a framework for scientists to directly impact decisions or to understand how their work will fit into a decision process. Decision science is more than undertaking targeted and relevant scientific research or providing tools to assist policy makers; it is an approach to problem formulation, bringing together mathematical modelling, stakeholder values and logistical constraints to support decision making. In this paper we describe decision science, its use in different contexts, and highlight current gaps in methodology and application. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust mathematical models into the public spotlight, but it is one of innumerable examples in which modelling informs decision making. Other examples include models of storm systems (eg. cyclones, hurricanes) and climate change. Although the decision timescale in these examples differs enormously (from hours to decades), the underlying decision science approach is common across all problems. Bridging communication gaps between different groups is one of the greatest challenges for scientists. However, by better understanding and engaging with the decision-making processes, scientists will have greater impact and make stronger contributions to important societal problems

Presence of optrA-mediated linezolid resistance in multiple lineages and plasmids of Enterococcus faecalis revealed by long read sequencing

Funding: This work was supported by the Chief Scientist Office (Scotland) through the Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute (Reference SIRN/10). Bioinformatics and Computational Biology analyses were supported by the University of St Andrews Bioinformatics Unit, which is funded by a Wellcome Trust ISSF award [grant 105621/Z/14/Z].Transferable linezolid resistance due to optrA, poxtA, cfr and cfr-like genes is increasingly detected in enterococci associated with animals and humans globally. We aimed to characterize the genetic environment of optrA in linezolid-resistant Enterococcus faecalis isolates from Scotland. Six linezolid-resistant E. faecalis isolated from urogenital samples were confirmed to carry the optrA gene by PCR. Short read (Illumina) sequencing showed the isolates were genetically distinct (>13900 core SNPs) and belonged to different MLST sequence types. Plasmid contents were examined using hybrid assembly of short and long read (Oxford Nanopore MinION) sequencing technologies. The optrA gene was located on distinct plasmids in each isolate, suggesting that transfer of a single plasmid did not contribute to optrA dissemination in this collection. pTM6294-2, BX5936-1 and pWE0438-1 were similar to optrA-positive plasmids from China and Japan, while the remaining three plasmids had limited similarity to other published examples. We identified the novel Tn6993 transposon in pWE0254-1 carrying linezolid (optrA), macrolide (ermB) and spectinomycin [ANT(9)-Ia] resistance genes. OptrA amino acid sequences differed by 0–20 residues. We report multiple variants of optrA on distinct plasmids in diverse strains of E. faecalis . It is important to identify the selection pressures driving the emergence and maintenance of resistance against linezolid to retain the clinical utility of this antibiotic.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Is Bayh-Dole Good for Developing Countries? Lessons from the US Experience

The US Bayh-Dole Act encourages university patenting of inventions arising from publicly funded research. Lessons from three decades of US experience serve as a cautionary tale for those countries that may choose to emulate Bayh-Dole