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Association of cumulative prenatal adversity with infant subcortical structure volumes and child problem behavior and its moderation by a coexpression polygenic risk score of the serotonin system
- Henriette Acosta, Katri Kantojärvi, Jetro J. Tuulari, John D. Lewis, Niloofar Hashempour, Noora M. Scheinin, Satu J. Lehtola, Saara Nolvi, Vladimir S. Fonov, D. Louis Collins, Alan C. Evans, Riitta Parkkola, Tuire Lähdesmäki, Jani Saunavaara, Harri Merisaari, Linnea Karlsson, Tiina Paunio, Hasse Karlsson
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- Journal:
- Development and Psychopathology , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 03 April 2023, pp. 1-16
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Prenatal adversity has been linked to later psychopathology. Yet, research on cumulative prenatal adversity, as well as its interaction with offspring genotype, on brain and behavioral development is scarce. With this study, we aimed to address this gap. In Finnish mother–infant dyads, we investigated the association of a cumulative prenatal adversity sum score (PRE-AS) with (a) child emotional and behavioral problems assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at 4 and 5 years (N = 1568, 45.3% female), (b) infant amygdalar and hippocampal volumes (subsample N = 122), and (c) its moderation by a hippocampal-specific coexpression polygenic risk score based on the serotonin transporter (SLC6A4) gene. We found that higher PRE-AS was linked to greater child emotional and behavioral problems at both time points, with partly stronger associations in boys than in girls. Higher PRE-AS was associated with larger bilateral infant amygdalar volumes in girls compared to boys, while no associations were found for hippocampal volumes. Further, hyperactivity/inattention in 4-year-old girls was related to both genotype and PRE-AS, the latter partially mediated by right amygdalar volumes as preliminary evidence suggests. Our study is the first to demonstrate a dose-dependent sexually dimorphic relationship between cumulative prenatal adversity and infant amygdalar volumes.
Evaluating automated electronic case report form data entry from electronic health records
- Alex C. Cheng, Mary K. Banasiewicz, Jakea D. Johnson, Lina Sulieman, Nan Kennedy, Francesco Delacqua, Adam A. Lewis, Meghan M. Joly, Amanda J. Bistran-Hall, Sean Collins, Wesley H. Self, Matthew S. Shotwell, Christopher J. Lindsell, Paul A. Harris
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- Journal:
- Journal of Clinical and Translational Science / Volume 7 / Issue 1 / 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 14 December 2022, e29
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Background:
Many clinical trials leverage real-world data. Typically, these data are manually abstracted from electronic health records (EHRs) and entered into electronic case report forms (CRFs), a time and labor-intensive process that is also error-prone and may miss information. Automated transfer of data from EHRs to eCRFs has the potential to reduce data abstraction and entry burden as well as improve data quality and safety.
Methods:We conducted a test of automated EHR-to-CRF data transfer for 40 participants in a clinical trial of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. We determined which coordinator-entered data could be automated from the EHR (coverage), and the frequency with which the values from the automated EHR feed and values entered by study personnel for the actual study matched exactly (concordance).
Results:The automated EHR feed populated 10,081/11,952 (84%) coordinator-completed values. For fields where both the automation and study personnel provided data, the values matched exactly 89% of the time. Highest concordance was for daily lab results (94%), which also required the most personnel resources (30 minutes per participant). In a detailed analysis of 196 instances where personnel and automation entered values differed, both a study coordinator and a data analyst agreed that 152 (78%) instances were a result of data entry error.
Conclusions:An automated EHR feed has the potential to significantly decrease study personnel effort while improving the accuracy of CRF data.
A history of high-power laser research and development in the United Kingdom
- Part of
- Colin N. Danson, Malcolm White, John R. M. Barr, Thomas Bett, Peter Blyth, David Bowley, Ceri Brenner, Robert J. Collins, Neal Croxford, A. E. Bucker Dangor, Laurence Devereux, Peter E. Dyer, Anthony Dymoke-Bradshaw, Christopher B. Edwards, Paul Ewart, Allister I. Ferguson, John M. Girkin, Denis R. Hall, David C. Hanna, Wayne Harris, David I. Hillier, Christopher J. Hooker, Simon M. Hooker, Nicholas Hopps, Janet Hull, David Hunt, Dino A. Jaroszynski, Mark Kempenaars, Helmut Kessler, Sir Peter L. Knight, Steve Knight, Adrian Knowles, Ciaran L. S. Lewis, Ken S. Lipton, Abby Littlechild, John Littlechild, Peter Maggs, Graeme P. A. Malcolm, OBE, Stuart P. D. Mangles, William Martin, Paul McKenna, Richard O. Moore, Clive Morrison, Zulfikar Najmudin, David Neely, Geoff H. C. New, Michael J. Norman, Ted Paine, Anthony W. Parker, Rory R. Penman, Geoff J. Pert, Chris Pietraszewski, Andrew Randewich, Nadeem H. Rizvi, Nigel Seddon, MBE, Zheng-Ming Sheng, David Slater, Roland A. Smith, Christopher Spindloe, Roy Taylor, Gary Thomas, John W. G. Tisch, Justin S. Wark, Colin Webb, S. Mark Wiggins, Dave Willford, Trevor Winstone
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- Journal:
- High Power Laser Science and Engineering / Volume 9 / 2021
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 27 April 2021, e18
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The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.
Roles of instrumented farm-scale trials in trade-off assessments of pasture-based ruminant production systems
- T. Takahashi, P. Harris, M. S. A. Blackwell, L. M. Cardenas, A. L. Collins, J. A. J. Dungait, J. M. B. Hawkins, T. H. Misselbrook, G. A. McAuliffe, J. N. McFadzean, P. J. Murray, R. J. Orr, M. J. Rivero, L. Wu, M. R. F. Lee
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For livestock production systems to play a positive role in global food security, the balance between their benefits and disbenefits to society must be appropriately managed. Based on the evidence provided by field-scale randomised controlled trials around the world, this debate has traditionally centred on the concept of economic-environmental trade-offs, of which existence is theoretically assured when resource allocation is perfect on the farm. Recent research conducted on commercial farms indicates, however, that the economic-environmental nexus is not nearly as straightforward in the real world, with environmental performances of enterprises often positively correlated with their economic profitability. Using high-resolution primary data from the North Wyke Farm Platform, an intensively instrumented farm-scale ruminant research facility located in southwest United Kingdom, this paper proposes a novel, information-driven approach to carry out comprehensive assessments of economic-environmental trade-offs inherent within pasture-based cattle and sheep production systems. The results of a data-mining exercise suggest that a potentially systematic interaction exists between ‘soil health’, ecological surroundings and livestock grazing, whereby a higher level of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock is associated with a better animal performance and less nutrient losses into watercourses, and a higher stocking density with greater botanical diversity and elevated SOC. We contend that a combination of farming system-wide trials and environmental instrumentation provides an ideal setting for enrolling scientifically sound and biologically informative metrics for agricultural sustainability, through which agricultural producers could obtain guidance to manage soils, water, pasture and livestock in an economically and environmentally acceptable manner. Priority areas for future farm-scale research to ensure long-term sustainability are also discussed.
Which Consumers Are Most Responsive to Media-Induced Food Scares?
- Collin R. Payne, Kent D. Messer, Harry M. Kaiser
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- Agricultural and Resource Economics Review / Volume 38 / Issue 3 / December 2009
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 15 September 2016, pp. 295-310
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In understanding decreases in demand after exposure to media-induced food scares, aggregate data are almost exclusively presented without taking into consideration potential confounding variables. However, a better approach may be to use an experimental design coupled with targeting homogeneous willingness-to-pay (WTP) subgroups based on similarities in behavioral, psychological, and demographic characteristics of those who are most vulnerable to food scare information. This is accomplished through experimental economics and an analysis strategy called a classification and regression tree (CART). A stigma framework—which guides conceptual understanding of effects of media-induced food scares—suggests controlling contextual variables to better approximate ceteris paribus. To this end, we conducted an experiment that exposed people to information about mad cow disease and then asked them to bid their willingness-to-pay for an actual hamburger. The CART found distinct homogeneous WTP subgroups of individuals that could be used by government and industry professionals to create interventions to reduce potential consumer concern and producer losses.
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
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- 05 August 2015
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- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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Preface to second edition
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp ix-x
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Summary
The Golem has attracted many reviews and much comment. In particular, the chapter on the foundation of relativity has given rise to a long debate which included a three-day workshop in which scientists, historians and sociologists met to discuss the history of relativity and its significance for The Golem. What we learned from the criticisms and the discussions has been incorporated in this new edition.
There is no doubt that, from the scientists' point of view, the original text had its faults. We have corrected these and all such changes are detailed at the end of the new Afterword. The main text has probably changed less than our scientist critics would have liked and the larger part of the Afterword is taken up with explaining why: We examine each serious criticism, either accepting it and making a change or putting the sociologist/historian's point of view. We have found the discussions enormously to our benefit even where the scientists and ourselves were unable to reach agreement.
From our point of view, one of the greatest benefits of writing The Golem has been the discovery that scientists and social scientists can discuss the issues in a register more familiar to academics than to religious zealots. As a result each of us has been able to learn from the other though this does not mean we agree about everything.
Afterword: Golem and the scientists
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp 151-180
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The two cultures and scientific fundamentalism
C. P. Snow, in his famous essay on the two cultures, set comprehension of the second law of thermodynamics as the standard for scientific literacy. The essays in The Golem represent a body of writing emerging from the humanities and the social sciences in which the authors have understood the second law of thermodynamics or its equivalent. Far from applauding, however, many scientists have reacted as though they would rather the scholars had stayed on their own side of the cultural divide. For these ‘science warriors’ the only acceptable way to talk about science is the scientists’ way.
The Golem became caught up in the ‘science wars’ because its authors, and those they represent, do not share the divisive model of the two cultures. We see it as a matter of building an island between the two territories on which species from both can flourish. Visitors to this new land do not have to agree about everything, they just have to know how to talk to each other and how to learn the customs and habits of their neighbours. Perhaps they will come to enjoy the strange fruits of the new territory even if they never become dietary staples.
Contents
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp vii-viii
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The Golem
- What You Should Know About Science
- 2nd edition
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012
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Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch liken science to the Golem, a creature from Jewish mythology, powerful yet potentially dangerous, a gentle, helpful creature that may yet run amok at any moment. Through a series of intriguing case studies the authors debunk the traditional view that science is the straightforward result of competent theorisation, observation and experimentation. The very well-received first edition generated much debate, reflected in a substantial new Afterword in this second edition, which seeks to place the book in what have become known as 'the science wars'.
2 - Two experiments that ‘proved’ the theory of relativity
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- 29 March 2012, pp 27-56
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Summary
INTRODUCTION TO PARTS 1 AND 2
Einstein's theory of relativity became widely known in the early part of the twentieth century. One of the reasons for its success among scientists was that it made sense of a number of puzzling observations. For example, the theory accounted for the orbit of the planet Mercury departing slightly from its expected path, and it made sense of a slight shift towards the red end of the spectrum which some had claimed to detect in the light coming from the sun. But the theory of relativity also achieved a popular success; it became the subject of newspaper headlines. This had something to do with the ending of the Great War and the unifying effect of science on a fractured continent. It had something to do with the dramatic circumstances and the straightforward nature of the 1919 ‘proof’ of relativity. And it undoubtedly had something to do with the astonishing consequences of the theory for our common-sense understanding of the physical world. When the implications of Einstein's insight – that the velocity of light must be constant whatever the velocity of the source – were worked out, strange things were predicted.
It turned out that, if Einstein's ideas are correct, time, mass, and length are not fixed but are relative to the speed at which things move. Things that go very fast – at speeds near to the velocity of light – would get very heavy and very short. People who travelled this fast would seem to everyone else to age slowly; identical twins could grow old at different rates if one stayed still and one went on a very rapid journey.
3 - The sun in a test tube: the story of cold fusion 5
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 29 March 2012, pp 57-78
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Summary
When two chemists working at the University of Utah announced to the world's press on 23 March 1989 that they had discovered fusion, the controlled power of the hydrogen bomb, in a test tube, they launched the equivalent of a scientific gold rush. And the gold was to be found everywhere – at least in any well-equipped laboratory. The two scientists were Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.
The apparatus was simple enough (see figure 3.1): a beaker of heavy water (like ordinary water but with the hydrogen atoms replaced by ‘heavy hydrogen’, otherwise known as deuterium); a palladium ‘electrode’ known as the cathode, and a platinum electrode, known as the anode. A small amount of the ‘salt’, lithium-deuteroxide, was added to the heavy water to serve as a conductor. Though these substances are not in everyday use, and are rather expensive, they are quite familiar to any modern scientist; there is nothing exotic about the apparatus. Put a low voltage across this ‘cell’ for a period of up to several hundred hours, and out should come the gold: fusion power. The heavy hydrogen atoms should fuse together into helium, releasing energy; this is the way the sun is powered. The telltale signs of fusion were heat and nuclear byproducts such as neutrons – sub-atomic particles – and traces of the super-heavy hydrogen atom, tritium.
7 - Set the controls for the heart of the sun: the strange story of the missing solar neutrinos
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp 121-138
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The many stars we see burning in the night sky have one thing in common. They all convert matter into energy by a process known as nuclear fusion. This is the same process that occurs in hydrogen bombs. Because stars are continually eating up their own mass of hydrogen over time, they slowly change. The process of change or evolution is usually gradual, but can have dramatic moments such as the cataclysmic end of a star in a huge explosion, a supernova. The changing history of stars, including our own sun, is described by stellar evolution theory: one of the most fundamental theories in modern astrophysics. This theory successfully explains the different transitions undergone by most stars. For astronomers and astrophysicists, stellar evolution theory is taken for granted as much as Darwin's theory of evolution is for biologists.
Yet, despite the undoubted successes of the theory, its central assumption – that nuclear fusion is the source of a star's energy – has only recently been directly tested.
In 1967, Ray Davis, of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, tried to detect solar neutrinos: sub-nuclear particles produced by nuclear fusion in our own sun. This was the first direct experimental test of stellar evolution theory. All other radiation coming from the sun is the result of processes that took place millions of years earlier. For example, light rays take millions of years to escape from the sun's core as they work their way to the surface. Neutrinos, because they interact so little with matter, travel straight out of the sun.
Conclusion: putting the golem to work
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp 139-150
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Looking forward and looking back
We have followed several episodes of science as they have unfolded. We have described not only the work of the most revered scientists, the Einsteins, Newtons and Pasteurs, but also work which it appears will not be acclaimed: Joseph Weber's high fluxes of gravity waves and Ungar and McConnell's memory transfer. In some of the cases examined-the solar-neutrino problem and the sexual behaviour of the whiptail lizard-the jury is still out. Will they make it into the scientific canon or will they be scientific cannon fodder? It remains to be seen, but don't expect to find the answer in the experiments and theories alone.
It is no accident that we have chosen to look at high science and low science together. We have tried to level out the scientific mountain range which rises up as a result of the forces of celebratory history. Look back whence we came in science and there are what seem to be unconquerable peaks – Mount Newton, Mount Pasteur, Mount Einstein – a mountain range of truth. But look forward and the terrain is flat. A few new foothills wrench themselves from the plain every time we glance backwards. What are those new peaks? Were they there yesterday? To understand how science works we must examine how we cause these foothills and mountains to emerge. To do this we must understand science which fails as well as science which succeeds.
6 - The sex life of the whiptail lizard
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp 109-120
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Summary
Introduction
David Crews, a professor of zoology and psychology at the University of Texas, might be thought of as a sexual voyeur. This is because he spends much of his time observing the bizarre sex lives of reptiles such as lizards and snakes. His work is of great interest to biologists. It is sometimes controversial. Our focus in this chapter is on one particular set of observations which Crews made of the mating behaviour of a particular species of whiptail lizard. However, by way of introduction to the sexual world of reptiles which Crews studies, we will first look at his less controversial work on the red-sided garter snake.
The Arctic environment of western Canada provides perhaps the harshest conditions encountered by any vertebrate on the planet. It is here that the red-sided garter snake lives. In order to survive the long Arctic winter, snakes have learnt the trick of cryopreservation. Their blood becomes extremely thick, and crucial bodily organs stop functioning almost completely, exhibiting barely detectable levels of activity. However, when Spring arrives, they undergo rapid transformation in preparation for mating.
Mating occurs over a short, intense period. The males emerge first from their long winter deep-freeze and spend from three days to three weeks basking in the sun near the entrance to the den. When the females emerge, either alone or in small groups, the males are attracted by a pherome (a messenger substance) on their backs.
5 - A new window on the universe: the non-detection of gravitational radiation
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp 91-108
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Detecting gravity waves
In 1969, Professor Joseph Weber, of the University of Maryland, claimed to have found evidence for the existence of large amounts of gravitational radiation coming from space. He used a new type of detector of his own design. The amount of radiation he saw was far greater than the theoretical predictions of astronomers and cosmologists. In the years that followed, scientists tried to test Weber's claims. No-one could confirm them. By 1975, few, if any, scientists believed that Weber's radiation existed in the quantities he said he had found. But, whatever it looks like now, theory and experiment alone did not settle the question of the existence of gravitational radiation.
Gravitational radiation can be thought of as the gravitational equivalent of electromagnetic radiation such as radio waves. Most scientists agree that Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that moving massive bodies will produce gravity waves. The trouble is that they are so weak that it is very difficult to detect them. For example, no-one has so far suggested a way of generating detectable amounts of gravitational radiation on Earth. Nevertheless, it is now accepted that some sensible proportion of the vast amounts of energy generated in the violent events in the universe should be dissipated in the form of gravitational radiation, and it is this that may be detectable on Earth.
Frontmatter
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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Preface to first Canto edition
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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In the short time since The Golem was first published, it has received a number of reviews. This gives us the opportunity to clear up a source of misunderstanding. The Golem is not meant to be statistically representative of the ordinary science that is done every day in laboratories throughout the world. On the contrary, most science is uncontroversial. Thus, as an introduction to the day-to-day world of science for scientists, the book would be misleading; the average scientist would be lucky indeed (or unlucky!) to be personally involved in the kind of excitement represented here. In spite of this, as we suggest, citizens as citizens need understand only controversial science. One reviewer argues: ‘it is quite easy to think of political decisions with a scientific side to them where the science is non-controversial’ and offers as an example the effect on medical institutions of the development of a predictive test for Huntingdon's disease. But if the science is non-controversial, why do those running the medical institutions need to understand the deep nature of the science that gave rise to the results? If the test is uncontroversially valid they can make their decisions without understanding how agreement about the test was reached. Thus, while thanking our reviewers for the many generous comments about the importance, the informativeness, and they style of the book, we stand by our claim that ‘For citizens who want to take part in the democratic processes of a technological society, all the science they need to know about is controversial. ‘ For this purpose, The Golem represent s science properly.
4 - The germs of dissent: Louis Pasteur and the origins of life
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- 29 March 2012, pp 79-90
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Spontaneous generation
‘Spontaneous generation’ is the name given to the doctrine that, under the right circumstances, life can form from dead matter. In a sense, nearly all of us believe in spontaneous generation, because we believe that life grew out of the primeval chemical slime covering the newly formed earth. This, however, is taken to be something that happened slowly, by chance, and once only in the history of the earth; it ought never to be seen in our lifetimes.
The question of the origin of life is, of course, as old as thought but, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the debate raged within the scientific community. Could new life arise from sterile matter over and over again, in a few minutes or hours? When a flask of nutrients goes mouldy, is it because it has become contaminated with existing life forms which spread and multiply, or is it that life springs anew each time within the rich source of sustenance? It was a controversial issue, especially in nineteenth-century France because it touched upon deeply rooted religious and political sensibilities.
Our modern understanding of biochemistry, biology and the theory of evolution is founded on the idea that, aside from the peculiar conditions of pre-history, life can only arise from life. Like so many of our widespread scientific beliefs we tend to think that the modern view was formed rapidly and decisively; with a few brilliant experiments conducted in the 1860s, Louis Pasteur speedily defeated outright those who believed in spontaneous generation.
References and further reading
- Harry M. Collins, Trevor Pinch
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- The Golem
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- 05 February 2014
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- 29 March 2012, pp 181-184
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