We appreciate the respondents’ comments on our debate article ‘Cultural evolution as inheritance, not intentions’ (Bentley & O'Brien 2024). We all agree that traditional cultural practices—such as manufacturing Acheulean handaxes—often take considerable amounts of time to learn; as Gladwell (2008) popularly proposed, it takes 10 000 hours of practice to make an expert. We also appear to agree that cultural practices are intergenerational. As Frieman (2024: 1421) notes, ideas and practices persist because they are “valued, recreated, manipulated, instrumentalised and enacted generation after generation”; and as Ingold (2024: 1417) puts it, traditional tasks “are not subject to the free will of the individual but fall upon practitioners as part of their responsibilities” to their communities. Drawing on the practice of Bronze Age metallurgy, Pollard (2024) asks the million-dollar questions: how does innovation occur, and what causes it? As both Prentiss (2024) and Pollard note, for example, the pace of technological change is often punctuated, an observation common across the natural and social sciences, but one that defies easy explanation (e.g. Duran-Nebreda et al. 2024; O'Brien et al. 2024).

Eusebius’ much-discussed catalogue of ‘acknowledged’, ‘disputed’ and ‘spurious’ works (Historia Ecclesiastica 3.25) is a key passage in the history of New Testament canon formation, but it is often extracted from its literary context and consequently misunderstood. This passage is in fact a summary of conclusions that Eusebius has already reached in the contributions to apostolic biography with which he supplements the Book of Acts in HE 2.1–3.24. Biographical passages relating the conclusion of the apostolic lives of James, Peter, Paul and John are accompanied by statements about the texts they authored or authorised, or that have been falsely attributed to them. This biographical context for differentiating genuine works of prestigious figures from their pseudepigraphal counterparts has its roots in Greco-Roman literary culture, as exemplified in the Lives of the Philosophers of Diogenes Laertius. Eusebius’ crucial contribution to the formation of the New Testament canon is thus rooted not in exclusively Christian concerns but in the wider literary culture of Late Antiquity.

The WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) does not legally define what entities should be covered by the Agreement. However, its member Parties list their ‘covered entities’ in a series of schedules. The list approach has complicated accession negotiations and discourages Parties from providing a ‘wider’ range of entity coverage. Moreover, the list approach raises some tensions and a lack of legal certainty, especially concerning those that are not strictly ‘government entities’, such as State-owned enterprises (SOEs). This problem is exacerbated in the case of modern SOEs in developing countries, many of which can bear both public and private features. Given these conditions, the author proposes a definition of ‘covered entities’ to facilitate accession negotiations and the future expansion of the GPA. The proposal is based on a comparative study of the GPA and the EU public procurement regulations. It develops a framework by which all publicly controlled entities are presumably covered by the GPA. Nevertheless, Parties can rebut GPA obligations by proving that an entity competes with other commercial entities under normal market conditions.

Certainty is a cornerstone of every criminal justice system. In instances where controversy arises as to the application of any law, it is essential for it to be addressed promptly. Contrary to this need for certainty, there is judicial ambiguity regarding the mens rea for the offence of attempted murder in Botswana. There are cases which hold that the mens rea required is a specific intention to kill, and that nothing else suffices. However, some cases hold that an intention to cause grievous harm and recklessness are also sufficient. Unfortunately, the Court of Appeal, the apex court in Botswana, has made decisions that support each of these divergent positions. This article addresses the controversy of the mens rea for attempted murder in Botswana and argues that the Court of Appeal should resolve the issue by specifically overruling some of its previous decisions.

Censorship in Iranian theatre sometimes prevents artists from staging some of the scenes in their plays. Among these are scenes involving embracing, kissing, raping and so on, or scenes containing ideological or political themes. Occasionally, after omitting such scenes, theatre directors try to find suitable alternatives and create a similar effect. The present research, with an analytical–descriptive approach, seeks to focus on alternative solutions, as well as creative models, developed by Iranian directors to circumvent social-regulatory censorship and identify alternatives in performances. In this research, I conduct a comparative analysis of five selected theatre recordings. Using the available theatre recordings, this paper examines the original text of the plays, identifies the omissions resulting from censorship, and analyses directors’ alternative solutions. This research demonstrates that artists use their creativity to express themes, analyses and aesthetic points in the face of censorship and obstacles. The paper focuses on eight creative-performance models that are executed using symbols and auditory elements instead of visual elements, and the function of narrative, stage design, stage direction, costume design, props and cross-dressing as devices to circumvent censorship.