Potential for gene-flow from cultivated Irish grasses and cereals

End of project reportThe importance of gene movement from cultivated plants has been highlighted in regard to minimising the movement of seed and/or pollen between GM and non-GM crops (i.e. gene flow). Although ryegrass covers in excess of 90% of Ireland’s agricultural area, very little is known about gene flow from ryegrass populations from an Irish context. The goal of this project was to address this lack of data by measuring the degree of pollen-mediated gene-flow between two Lolium spp. in a field environment. Ryegrass (esp. Lolium perenne) was selected because as the dominant pasture grass it is critical for the livestock industry as well as being a current target for novel improvements. The results from this research indicate that the potential for pollen-mediated gene flow from perennial ryegrass decreases exponentially with increased distance from the pollen source, with hybridisation events recorded out at 192m. In parallel to this research, a separate study was conducted to assess the degree of genetic diversity within feral and wild Lolium spp across Ireland and also within the important crop weed Avena fatua (‘wild oats’); thereby providing an insight into the degree of historic gene flow that has occurred within each species and in regard to the latter, identifying the potential for non-native A. fatua to colonise the Irish agrienvironment

Four-Dimensionalism, Evil, and Christian Belief

Four-dimensionalism and eternalism are theories on time, change, and persistence. Christian philosophers and theologians have adopted four-dimensional eternalism for various reasons. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that four-dimensional eternalism conflicts with Christian thought. Section I will lay out two varieties of four-dimensionalism—perdurantism and stage theory—along with the typically associated ontologies of time of eternalism and growing block. I shall contrast this with presentism and endurantism. Section II will look at some of the purported theological benefits of adopting four-dimensionalism and eternalism. Section III will examine arguments against four-dimensional eternalism from the problem of evil. Section IV will argue that four-dimensional eternalism causes problems for Christian eschatology

Closeness with God : A Problem for Divine Impassibility

Have you ever wondered what God’s inner emotional life might be like? Within Christian thought, there are conflicting answers to this question. The majority of Christian theologians throughout history have said that God cannot be moved by creatures to feel anything. God does not literally have empathy, mercy, or compassion. Instead, God only feels pure undisturbed happiness. This view is called divine impassibility. In the 20th Century, Christian theologians by and large came to reject this understanding of God in favour of divine passibility which affirms that God can be moved by creatures, and God can literally have empathy, mercy, and compassion. Yet the 21st Century has seen a renewed interest in this more historical understanding of God. How Christianity came to have two radically different portrayals of God is a puzzle, to be sure, but that is not one that I shall try to address here. Instead, my interest is in unpacking these two different conceptions of God, and briefly offering reasons for affirming divine passibility. The reasons that I discuss centre around a central theme within Christian thought—the goal of entering into a close, personal relationship with God. I start by defining some key terms, and then proceed to offer two arguments in favour of divine passibility. The first is the problem of knowing God well, and the second is based on the human desire for empathy.Peer reviewe

The Ontology of Time and Hope in the Resurrection : A Critical Examination of Eschatological Presentism

n this article I shall briefly describe the Christian hope in resurrection. I will explain that certain conditions must be in place in order for this hope to be realized. These are conditions about the ontology of time and personal identity over time. After articulating these conditions, I will examine a recent proposal called eschatological presentism, and see how it fares with The Problem of No Afterlife.Peer reviewe

One Hell of a Problem for Divine Love

In this paper, I offer some brief reflections on Jordan Wessling’s book, Love Divine: A Systematic Account of God’s Love for Humanity. I explain what I take to be its strengths in articulating an account of divine love that solves a variety of problems that classical theism cannot solve. Then I articulate a potential problem for Wessling’s account of divine love and hell.Peer reviewe

Neoliberalism: A Populist Crisis of Conscience

The following paper examines the relationship between Populism and Neoliberalism in the early 21st century in the U.S. Through the lens of a historical-structural analysis, it tests the hypothesis set forth by authors David Harvey, Dawson Barrett, and John B. Judis that the prominence of Populism in the 2016 election cycle could not be explained without the phenomenon of Neoliberalism in the U.S. To accomplish this, it examines the rise of income inequality and Neoliberal globalization and uses statistical and polling data to determine whether these variables were related to Neoliberalism and whether voters reacted to them in 2016. It further examines the issues espoused by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and looks at polling data to determine the beliefs of their supporters. By categorizing Bernie Sanders as an anti-Capitalist and Donald Trump as an anti-Globalist Populist, it sets up an empirical test to determine whether their supporters were primed for these Populist arguments. In finding that their supporters were indeed especially primed for these arguments and further finding that these rhetorical styles were linked to Neoliberalism via their opposition to the issues of income inequality and Neoliberal globalization – policy positions which are coded in this paper as anti-Neoliberal - this paper comes to the conclusion that the hypothesis that Neoliberalism provided a unique rhetorical catalyst for Populists to exploit is supported

Trinity, subordination, and heresy : a reply to Mark Edwards

In this article, I offer some analytic reflections on Mark Edward's paper, "Is Subordinationism a Heresy?" I shall discuss the desiderata for a conciliar Trinitarian theology, the divine essence, and the different notions of subordination that Edwards identifies. Then I shall consider two arguments that certain accepted, conciliar notions of subordination lead to heretical notions of subordination. Thus raising the worry that conciliar Trinitarian theology might involve some internal incoherence between the homoousios doctrine and the subordination of the Son and Holy Spirit to the Father.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Open Theism and Perfect Rationality: An Examination of Dean Zimmerman’s views on God, Time, and Creation

Dean Zimmerman has made significant contributions to metaphysics, philosophy of time, and philosophy of religion. In this paper, I set my focus on Zimmerman’s approach to God, time, and creation. Zimmerman has defended a model of God called open theism on which God is essentially temporal. In this paper, I will first articulate open theism. Then I will explore a series of puzzles related to God’s perfect rationality and creation. These can be stated as the following three questions. Why didn’t God create sooner? Why did God create anything at all? Why did God create this universe in particular

Divine Temporality and Providential Bodgery

In contemporary debates, one is presented with temporal and timeless conceptions of divine eternality. Each conception is said to have various consequences for understanding divine perfection and providence. In this paper, I shall consider a pair of arguments against divine temporality that suggest that a temporal God could potentially make mistakes, thus making the temporal God less than perfect. I shall develop these objections, and discuss various ways for the temporalist to reply

Synthetic APIs: Enabling Language Models to Act as Interlocutors Between Natural Language and Code

Large language models (LLMs) can synthesize code from natural language descriptions or by completing code in-context. In this paper, we consider the ability of LLMs to synthesize code, at inference time, for a novel API not in its training data, and specifically examine the impact of different API designs on this ability. We find that: 1) code examples in model training data seem to facilitate API use at inference time; 2) hallucination is the most common failure mode; and 3) the designs of both the novel API and the prompt affect performance. In light of these findings, we introduce the concept of a Synthetic API: an API designed to be used by LLMs instead of by humans. Synthetic APIs for LLMs offer the potential to further accelerate development of natural language interfaces to arbitrary tools and services