Religion and reducing prejudice

Drawing on findings from the study of prejudice and prejudice reduction, we identify a number of mechanisms through which religious communities may influence the intergroup attitudes of their members. We hypothesize that religious participation could in principle either reduce or promote prejudice with respect to any given target group. A religious community’s influence on intergroup attitudes will depend upon the specific beliefs, attitudes, and practices found within the community, as well as on interactions between the religious community and the larger social environment in which it is embedded. Basing our proposals on findings from the literature on prejudice formation and prejudice reduction allows us to outline useful directions for future studies of religion and prejudice

In defence of biodiversity

The concept of biodiversity has played a central role within conservation biology over the last thirty years. Precisely how it should be understood, however, is a matter of ongoing debate. In this paper we defend what we call a classic multidimensional conception of biodiversity. We begin by introducing two arguments for eliminating the concept of biodiversity from conservation biology, both of which have been put forward in a recent paper by Santana (Biol Philos 29:761–780. doi:10.1007/s10539-014-9426-2, 2014). The first argument is against the concept’s scientific usefulness. The other is against its value as a target of conservation. We show that neither of these objections is successful against the classic multidimensional conception of biodiversity. Biodiversity thus understood is important from a scientific perspective, because it plays important explanatory roles within contemporary ecology. Moreover, although it does not encompass all valuable features of the natural world, this does not show that we should abandon it as a target of conservation. Instead, biodiversity should be conceived as one of many grounds of value associated with ecosystems. This is consistent with concluding that a central aim of conservationists should be to protect biodiversity

The Colston Statue: What Next? ‘We are Bristol’ History Commission - Full Report

In the summer of 2021, the ‘We are Bristol’ History Commission consulted with the public about the future of the Colston statue and the Colston plinth. People had a chance to see the statue and learn about its history in a temporary display at the M Shed museum, as well as view the display online. Alongside the display was a survey that invited people from Bristol and beyond to share their views on a number of questions. Almost 14,000 people filled out the survey. The Mayor asked the History Commission to review the consultation and offer a number of recommendations in the light of it. This report summarizes the findings and also suggests what might happen next

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead