The Grundproblem in the Theory of Art

Ivanov's article presents background information and a methodological approach to Sergei Eisenstein's two-volume work on the method of art. Eisenstein himself considered film to be an art in which the basic problem of art is clearly visible. He argued that successfully combining regressive and progressive elements in art can solve the problem of form and content. The article demonstrates the personal cooperation that took place between Eisenstein, Marr, Luria, and Vygotsky at the beginning of 1930's.     

Russian comparative embryology takes form: a conceptual metamorphosis toward “evo‐devo”

This essay recapitulates major paths followed by the Russian tradition of what we refer to today as evolutionary developmental biology (“evo‐devo”). The article addresses several questions regarding the conceptual history of evolutionary embryological thought in its particularly Russian perspective: (1) the assertion by the St. Petersburg academician Wolff regarding the possible connections between environmental modifications during morphogenesis and the “transformation” of species, (2) the discovery of shared “principles” underlying animal development by von Baer, (3) the experimental expression of Baer's principles by Kowalevsky and Mechnikoff, (4) Severtsov's theory of phylembryogenesis, (5) Filatov's approach to the study of evolution using comparative “developmental mechanics”, and (6) Shmalgausen's concept of “stabilizing” selection as an attempt to elucidate the evolution of developmental mechanisms. The focus on comparative evolutionary embryology, which was established by Kowalevsky and Mechnikoff, still continues to be popular in present‐day “evo‐devo” research in Russia.     

‘To bring out the best that is in their blood’: Race,reform, and civilization in the journal of race development (1910–1919)

The Journal of Race Development [JRD], published out of Clark University in the United States between 1910 and 1919, aimed, in its founder's words, “to present … the important facts which bear upon race progress, and the different theories as to the methods by which developed peoples may most effectively aid the progress of the undeveloped”. Its basic premise was that scientific knowledge could harness racial or civilizational “evolution” and turn it into “development”. This article examines that project, the conceptual apparatus that the JRD's writers and editors brought to bear on it, and how racial ideas informed their conceptions of development and progressive social change through elite scientific and political intervention. Central to this project was an organic notion of “civilization” in which “nature” and “culture” did not so much overlap as flow seamlessly one into the other.     

Scientific motherhood,responsibility, and hope: umbilical cord blood banking in South Korea

This paper explores how concepts of hope, motherhood, responsibility, and science are mobilized and transformed in the marketing strategies of private cord blood banks in South Korea. Cord blood banking provides a useful case study of the “political economy of hope,” which emphasizes future expectations over current utility. In particular, appeals to hope are rendered natural as being applied in relation to various concepts of motherhood (e.g. “scientific motherhood” and “consumer motherhood”), thereby refiguring ideas of a mother's responsibility to her child. In South Korea, cord blood banks rely heavily on the discourse of “scientific motherhood,” which is based on certain gender norms and ideas about science, modernity, and “advanced society.” By exploring the discourse of scientific motherhood, this study reexamines the “political economy of hope” through the lenses of gender and transnationalism.     

An unethical trial and the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil: The case of Prevent Senior

The Brazilian Federal Senate created a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) to investigate the Bolsonaro government's irregularities in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the cases that drew attention was the research conducted by Prevent Senior, a private health insurance company, on the early treatment of COVID-19. The article analyzes the scientific validity of the research and the ethical problems related to its implementation. It is based on analysis of Prevent Senior's report of the clinical study, the Brazilian and USA clinical trial registries, the Senate's CPI report, and on the information reported by the media. This case of scientific fraud and political-ideological bias exemplifies how Prevent Senior, using a questionable protocol to enhance its reputation and gain government support, was instrumental in building the “early treatment” narrative for COVID-19, and shows how it served as a basis for a government public policy that promoted the use of ineffective drugs.     

T.H. Huxley's Criticism of German Cell Theory: An Epigenetic and Physiological Interpretation of Cell Structure

In 1853, the young Thomas Henry Huxley published a long review of German cell theory in which he roundly criticized the basic tenets of the Schleiden-Schwann model of the cell. Although historians of cytology have dismissed Huxley’s criticism as based on an erroneous interpretation of cell physiology, the review is better understood as a contribution to embryology. “The Cell-theory” presents Huxley’s “epigenetic” interpretation of histological organization emerging from changes in the protoplasm to replace the “preformationist” cell theory of Schleiden and Schwann (as modified by Albert vonKölliker), which posited the nucleus as the seat of organic vitality. Huxley’s views influenced a number of British biologists, who continued to oppose German cell theory well into the twentieth century. Yet Huxley was pivotal in introducing the new German program of “scientific zoology” to Britain in the early 1850s,championing its empiricist methodology as a means to enact broad disciplinary and institutional reforms in British natural history.     

Chinese Traditional Bioethics

Chinese traditional bioethics is based on the life origin theory of “Qi (vital force) permeates everything under heaven”, the attitude towards life theory of “loving people” and “loving things”, and the life transcendence theory of “eternity” and “immortality”. The life origin theory answers the question of how life comes into being, which is the basis for exploring the mystery of life. The attitude towards life theory gives answers to the question of how to treat life properly and establishes the basic requirements and criteria for treating life. The life transcendence theory responds to the question of how to make life more meaningful. Those three thoughts support each other and explain each other with the inner logical band between these three basic thoughts, and tentatively offers a reasonable way for the reconstruction of traditional Chinese bioethics, which can be a special theoretical resource for today's bioethical research.     

Will and Intentionality in Child Psychology

The article deals with two closely related psychological terms “will” and “intentional self-regulation”. The last term is not exact translation of Russian “proizvol'nost”, because its two aspects usually are separated in English. The article is based on an academic thesis and provides an overview on historical development of the terms. The genesis of the phenomena is empirically studied in three stages: 1. Communicative and regulative functions of preschool children's speech at the age of 23–27 months; 2. Transition to internal speech regulation in early preschool age, and; 3. Mastering rules of play as a pathway to mastering behavior. In conclusion, empirical results are compared to some theoretical assumptions.     

Rouch's Reflexive Turn: Indigenous Film as the Outcome of Reflexivity in Ethnographic Film

Western modes of thinking are usually associated with logic, reason, rationality and the positivist scientific paradigm. This is juxtaposed against “spiritual” ways of perceiving the world and different world views as associated with non-Western contexts. The article explores negotiations of differing ontologies where the positivist paradigm fails to explain phenomena. The possibilities of ascribing truth and reality to such an encounter are sought here in literary theory of the fantastic and notions of the surreal. These scientifically unexplainable events are illustrated with reference to the pro-filmic experiences of particular documentary crews, explained through Todorov's literary theory of the fantastic, incorporating the uncanny and the marvelous.     

ICJ's Decision in Australia v. Japan: Giving up the Spear or Refining the Scientific Design?

The case Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan) decided by the International Court of Justice is a landmark that introduces new parameters for measuring the “reasonableness” of scientific research by permit under the International Convention on Whaling. However, aspects of these parameters and how they may be applied in future cases remain uncertain. Because the Court's interpretation of the language “for purposes of scientific research” avoids defining scientific research, the Court's decision provides only a limited degree of clarification for States that intend to operate scientific whaling programs under Article VIII of the Convention. The Court's reasonableness test is unlikely to prevent scientific whaling. States who no longer support the dual object and purpose of the Whaling Convention may want to consider negotiating a new international instrument that would be more protective of whales and their habitat.     

The “proletarian disease” on stage. Theatrical anti-tuberculosis propaganda in the early Soviet Union

The present contribution analyses sanitary theatrical performances as a means of anti-tuberculosis propaganda in the early Soviet Union. Starting in the 1920s, sanitary theatrical performances were demonstrated in open-air theatres and clubhouses for workers and farmers. Since 1925, the newly founded Moscow Theatre for Sanitary Culture centrally managed the theatrical hygiene propaganda. It became a role model for other theatres of hygienic enlightenment and numerous sanitary amateur stages. Their anti-tuberculosis repertoire ranged from the so-called “mock trials” where a person or even Koch's bacillus must stand trial for the spreading of tuberculosis, to “living newspapers” which used entertainment elements such as music or acrobatics to provide a mass audience with the hygiene knowledge. The contribution describes in which images, figures and actions knowledge about tuberculosis was presented on stage, which genre traditions and communicative instruments were used and which changing political implications those performances were based on. To achieve this goal, the archive sources, selected texts of theatrical performances, reports and reviews in daily press have been evaluated.     

The Lens of Science: Anthropometric Photography and the Chippewa, 1890–1920

ABSTRACT

Nineteenth-century anthropologists struggled to establish themselves as scientists in a cultural milieu of enthusiasm for “curiosities.” Because commercial photographers appropriated the “authenticity” of photographic realism, the need increased for ethnographic photographers to distinguish between such realism and the “scientific authority” of their own visual productions. Through a case study of anthropometric photography of the Chippewa, this article examines the tension between, on the one hand, ethnographers' exploitation of the technological and symbolic attributes of photography to promote the scientific and political goals of the discipline, and on the other hand, the influence and function of visual genres and visual allegories in conditioning and framing what viewers accepted as “real” and “true.”     

The proximate/ultimate distinction in the multiple careers of Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr's distinction between “ultimate” and “proximate” causes is justly considered a major contribution to philosophy of biology. But how did Mayr come to this “philosophical” distinction, and what role did it play in his earlier “scientific” work? I address these issues by dividing Mayr's work into three careers or phases: 1) Mayr the naturalist/researcher, 2) Mayr the representative of and spokesman for evolutionary biology and systematics, and more recently 3) Mayr the historian and philosopher of biology. If we want to understand the role of the proximate/ultimate distinction in Mayr's more recent career as a philosopher and historian, then it helps to consider hisearlier use of the distinction, in the course of his research, and in his promotion of the professions of evolutionary biology and systematics. I believe that this approach would also shed light on some other important “philosophical” positions that Mayr has defended, including the distinction between “essentialism: and “population thinking.”     

The Williams' legacy: A critical reappraisal of his nine predictions about the evolution of senescence

Williams' evolutionary theory of senescence based on antagonistic pleiotropy has become a landmark in evolutionary biology, and more recently in biogerontology and evolutionary medicine. In his original article, Williams launched a set of nine “testable deductions” from his theory. Although some of these predictions have been repeatedly discussed, most have been overlooked and no systematic evaluation of the whole set of Williams' original predictions has been performed. For the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of the Williams' article, we provide an updated evaluation of all these predictions. We present the pros and cons of each prediction based on recent accumulation of both theoretical and empirical studies performed in the laboratory and in the wild. From our viewpoint, six predictions are mostly supported by our current knowledge at least under some conditions (although Williams' theory cannot thoroughly explain why for some of them). Three predictions, all involving the timing of senescence, are not supported. Our critical review of Williams' predictions highlights the importance of William's contribution and clearly demonstrates that, 60 years after its publication, his article does not show any sign of senescence.     

GLP机构档案室的建立和管理与科研档案管理之比较

档案的建立和管理在药物非临床安全性评价和科学研究中都起到非常重要的作用。我们通过查阅文献发现,关于GLP机构档案管理的文献综述极少,涉及到将它与科研档案管理作系统全面的比较的文章是没有的。现从资料档案保存机构的硬件设施、档案管理规范和应注意的问题3个方面详细介绍了资料档案管理的相关规定和经验,并将GLP档案管理规范与科研档案管理规范作比较,我们根据国家档案局发布的《科学技术研究档案管理暂行规定》和7年GLP档案管理经验以及多次国家食品药品监督管理局(SFDA)认证现场检查的经历,总结出两者在功能实现、硬件设施、温湿度要求、档案防护、制定SOP、档案管理人员资质、各方人员职责、归档范围、归档形式、资料档案的接收与审查、归档时间、保管期限、借阅返还规定、资料的书写规范性、进出记录和电子文件的保存这16个方面的异同之处,突出GLP档案管理规范的特点和重点。通过这一深入全面的比较分析,得出GLP档案管理更加明确、具体、细致和可操作。     

The significance of Aleš Hrdlička's “Neanderthal phase of man”: A historical and current assessment

Ale? Hrdli?ka's hypothesis on a Neandertal phase of human evolution is examined in light of current data and interpretations on Neandertals. Hrdli?ka's interpretations are related to his ideas regarding the peopling of the New World. A major early statement of Hrdli?ka's views on Neandertal was his Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1927. We assess this formulation and subsequent development of his hypothesis. Hrdli?ka's position is compared with the “presapiens” and “pre-neandertal” hypotheses on the basis of current theory and data.     

In memoriam: Napoleon A. Chagnon

Anthropologist Napoleon A. Chagnon was a central figure in the development and foundation of evolutionary approaches to human behavior. We highlight his ethnographic fieldwork, contributions to studies of kinship and marriage, and his foundational role in the development of evolutionary approaches to human behavior. As a holistic anthropologist Chagnon led anthropology toward the integration of cultural and evolutionary theory. Finally, his leadership was central in the foundation of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.EpigraphRicardo, a Brazilian Protestant missionary who was assisting the scientific team and who has worked with the Yanomami for over 25 years … told me to run and get my camera. “There's going to be a fight,” he said. Then he turned to leave. “Aren't you going to stay?” I asked. “Nah, happens all the time. You stay, you're an anthropologist, should be interesting. Call me if anyone gets hurt.”     

Logical-Semantic Analysis and the Development of L.S. Vygotsky's Ideas About “Units” and “Elements” of Psychological Systems

Based on an analysis of L.S. Vygotsky's concepts of “units” and “elements” of psychological systems, this article highlights five of their attributes. It shows that these attributes are logically symmetrical, since in their wording they can be converted into one another by negation or by replacing some words with their opposites. This suggests that the concepts of the “unit” and “element” of a system are different poles of one theoretical construct of the activity of human psychology. Thus methods for the study of psychological systems by breaking them down into elements or by separating them into units can be seen as complementary. The article describes differences among the concepts of “unit,” “minimal unit,” and “cell” of a psychological system. It reviews several problems that are solvable using the “method of units,” as well as some concepts of the theory of psychological systems that are understood as holistic, conceptual, and active processes and/or results of human interaction with the world. Among the examples of such systems are “systems of psychological functions” (according to Vygotsky), as well as separate activities (according to A.N. Leontiev), human actions and operations (interactions with the world on the level of objects and mental or physical means). The “component” of a psychological system is defined as any “something” that in some sense belongs to or is included in human interaction with the world. A component that belongs to the system is called an “element” of it, but a component that is included in the functioning and development of the system is called a “part” of it. The article presents the mathematical and psychological foundation of these definitions. It identifies and discusses the substantial (independently existing) components of psychological systems and their attributes (properties and conditions). It describes the relationships between them using the bipolar theoretical constructs “part-element” and “substantial-attributive” component of a system.     

Stability, sensitivity, science and heurism

We examine recently proposed justifications of sensitivity analysis sensu Wheeler (1995 ), here referred to as weighted‐classes sensitivity analysis (WCSA). We refute Giribet's (2003a) claim that WCSA is the strictest possible test for a given phylogenetic hypothesis. Giribet's (2003a) classification of data exploration methods as evaluating “nodal stability” or “nodal support” is arbitrary, at odds with common usage and actually obscures the relationships between the methods he examined, all of which seek to assess the sensitivity of results to variation in analytical conditions. Stability, whether statistical or taxonomic, is not a goal of phylogenetic science. Statistical stability necessarily involves trial repetition, which is impossible in ideographic sciences like phylogenetics. Taxonomic stability can be nothing more than an unintended by‐product of scientific inquiry, i.e., the repeated failure to refute a hypothesis. Schulmeister's (2003 ) “robust‐choice” defense of WCSA does not succeed in placing non‐arbitrary bounds on parameters, and her interpretation of this approach as simultaneously verificationist and falsificationist is logically inconsistent. WCSA is neither scientific nor heuristic and therefore does not contribute to the advancement of objective knowledge claims. © The Willi Hennig Society 2005.