Does Off-Farm Work Discourage Soil Conservation? Incentives and Disincentives Throughout Two Honduran Hillside Communities

   Soil conservation is widely regarded a critical component of sustainable livelihood strategies for the hillsides of Honduras. However, neoliberal polices have reduced economic incentives for agricultural intensification. Recent studies indicate off-farm work opportunities address poverty in a way conservation and development efforts do not. Yet off-farm work may discourage poor farmers from practicing soil conservation. A middle ground is needed. This study indicates micro-credit can substitute for off-farm work and encourage soil conservation practice. Many regions throughout Honduras have had extensive contact with soil conservation programs and would benefit more from credit services than redundant technological extension.

Ethics,evolution and culture

Recent work in the fields of evolutionary ethics and moral psychology appears to be converging on a single empirically- and evolutionary-based science of morality or ethics. To date, however, these fields have failed to provide an adequate conceptualisation of how culture affects the content and distribution of moral norms. This is particularly important for a large class of moral norms relating to rapidly changing technological or social environments, such as norms regarding the acceptability of genetically modified organisms. Here we suggest that a science of morality/ethics can benefit from adopting a cultural evolution or gene-culture coevolution approach, which treats culture as a second, separate evolutionary system that acts in parallel to biological/genetic evolution. This cultural evolution approach brings with it a set of established theoretical concepts (e.g. different cultural transmission mechanisms) and empirical methods (e.g. evolutionary game theory) that can significantly improve our understanding of human morality.

The Social Aspects of Fishing Effort

While economic literature inspired by the “tragedy of the commons” has emphasised people’s tendency to increase fishing effort beyond desirable levels, sociologists and anthropologists who have studied the social aspects of fishing have often emphasised the capacity of these factors to restrict fishing effort. The article addresses the influence of social norms and communication on fishing effort in an empirical study of the Atlantic blue whiting fishery. The data were generated at a time when this fishery had yet to see efficient quota regulations, and had been subject to a rapid growth in fishing effort, making it the largest fishery in the Atlantic. The article argues that social norms and communication patterns in the fishing fleet create a synergic effect of co-operation and competition on fishing effort. The article questions the view that social norms and communication necessarily represent a solution to the tragedy of the commons.

Is it a revolution?

Jablonka and Lamb's claim that evolutionary biology is undergoing a ‘revolution’ is queried. But the very concept of revolutionary change has uncertain application to a field organized in the manner of contemporary biology. The explanatory primacy of sequence properties is also discussed.

Adaptationism and the adaptive landscape

Debates over adaptationism can be clarified and partially resolved by careful consideration of the ‘grain’ at which evolutionary processes are described. The framework of ‘adaptive landscapes’ can be used to illustrate and facilitate this investigation. We argue that natural selection may have special status at an intermediate grain of analysis of evolutionary processes. The cases of sickle-cell disease and genomic imprinting are used as case studies.

Liberal and Conservative Protestant Denominations as Different Socioecological Strategies

It is common to portray conservative and liberal Protestant denominations as “strong” and “weak” on the basis of indices such as church attendance. Alternatively, they can be regarded as qualitatively different cultural systems that coexist in a multiple-niche environment. We integrate these two perspectives with a study of American teenagers based on both one-time survey information and the experience sampling method (ESM), which records individual experience on a moment-by-moment basis. Conservative Protestant youth were found to be more satisfied, family-oriented, and sociable than liberal Protestant youth, but also more dependent on their social environment, which is reflected in a deterioration of their mood when they are alone. Liberal Protestant youth appear to have internalized values that remain constant whether in the presence or absence of others. We relate these results to the social scientific literature on liberalism and conservatism and to evolutionary theory as a framework for explaining cultural systems as adaptations to multiple-niche environments.

Capacity-Building for Natural Resource Management: Lessons from the Health Sector

This paper examines capacity-building measures used by the health sector relevant to natural resource management (NRM) using the delivery of two programs in Australia through its recently formalized 56 community-based regional NRM Boards as a reference point. The delivery of NRM outcomes through devolved governance arrangements has been hampered by inadequate capacity in other countries (e.g., New Zealand, Canada). The inherent complexities of NRM, coupled with professional “comfort zones,” often limit actors from looking to other sectors confronting similar issues. This paper summarizes findings from ∼70 sources in health reviewing nine major capacity-building measures. The outcomes of research evaluating the relative benefits and disbenefits of applying these measures are discussed. The paper identifies several opportunities to trial some of these measures in NRM.

The Construction of “Cultural Difference” and Its Therapeutic Significance in Immigrant Mental Health Services in France

Since the early 1970s, the French public health system has been accorded considerable responsibility for immigrants identified by the educational, judicial or social service authorities as psychologically distressed or socially disruptive. In this paper we discuss three models of healing embedded in constructs of “cultural difference” and addressed at specialized mental health-care centers catering to immigrants in Paris: “cultural mediation,” transcultural psychiatry/ethnopsychiatry and clinical medical anthropology. Based on observations and interviews at three specialized mental health centers in Paris, we explore how these clinical approaches address migrant wellbeing and seek to resolve crises in migrant families, especially those of West African origin. We suggest that the prevalent approaches to therapy creatively blend concepts and practices of anthropology, psychiatry and psychology but, at the same time, confront challenges inherent in the use of a generic “African” healing modality. Cases studies demonstrate that in order for such interventions to be perceived as effective by patients, “cultural difference” must be acknowledged but also situated in broader social, political and economic contexts.

Towards dynamical system models of language-related brain potentials

Event-related brain potentials (ERP) are important neural correlates of cognitive processes. In the domain of language processing, the N400 and P600 reflect lexical-semantic integration and syntactic processing problems, respectively. We suggest an interpretation of these markers in terms of dynamical system theory and present two nonlinear dynamical models for syntactic computations where different processing strategies correspond to functionally different regions in the system’s phase space.

The problem of adaptive individual choice in cultural evolution

This paper tries to explain how individuals manage adaptive individual choice (i.e., the decision to acquire a fitter than average behavior or idea rapidly and tractably) in cultural evolution, despite the fact that acquiring fitness information is very difficult. I argue that the means of solving this problem suggested in the cultural evolution literature largely are various types of decision rules employing representations of fitness correlated properties or states of affairs. I argue that the problem of adaptive individual choice is best solved where some of these learning rule representations are socially transmitted and some are biologically transmitted.

Leitlinien zur molekulargenetischen Diagnostik: Fragiles-X und Fragiles-X assoziiertes Tremor/Ataxie Syndrom

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Objects limit human comprehension

This paper demonstrates that the human visual system, the primary sensory conduit for primates, processes ambient energy in a way that obligatorily constructs the objects that we ineluctably perceive. And since our perceptual apparatus processes information only in terms of objects (along with the properties and movements of objects), we are limited in our ability to comprehend ‘what is’ when we move beyond our ordinary world of midsize objects—as, for example, when we address the micro microworld of quantum physics.

The two faces of revenge: moral responsibility and the culture of honor

Retributive emotions and behavior are thought to be adaptive for their role in improving social coordination. However, since retaliation is generally not in the short-term interests of the individual, rational self-interest erodes the motivational link between retributive emotions and the accompanying adaptive behavior. I argue that two different sets of norms have emerged to reinforce this link: (1) norms about honor and (2) norms about moral responsibility and desert. I observe that the primary difference between these types of retribution motivators lies in where the normative focus is placed after an offense. In the first form of retribution, the normative focus is on the offended party. In the second, it is on the offender. Next, I show how each class of norms is well tailored to the particular features of the environment in which these forms of retributive behavior emerge. Finally, I consider some philosophical implications of these observations. I suggest that my account, if correct, would pose tough challenges for contemporary philosophical theories of moral responsibility and punishment.

Where There is no Patient: An Anthropological Treatment of a Biomedical Category

This work anthropologically applies the concept of ‘personhood’ to the Western biomedical patient role, and through cross-cultural comparisons with wellness-seeker roles (e.g. among the Maya of Guatemala and others) it seeks to discern the implications for global healthcare of assuming the universality of the “patient” role. Here, particular ethnographic attention is given to the presumption of the “patient” role in places and situations where, because of cultural and linguistic variation in local wellness-seeker roles and practices, there may be no “patient.” It is hoped that establishing the biomedical patient role (with the clinical expectations, communicative and comportment practices that prefigure it) as acquired rather than intuitive, will help redirect cultural competence to the acquisition of patienthood, broadening it from an endless accrual of cultural inventories by physicians. Also it aims to shift existing biomedical associations of cultural variations in wellness-seeking away from a priori assessments of clinical defiance towards deeper understandings of the kinds of cultural differences that may make the difference treatment outcomes.

Individual variability of behavioural responses by Wandering Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) to human disturbance

Sub-Antarctic Marion Island has had a permanent research station for 50 years and the islands Wandering Albatrosses have been intensively studied for 20 years. The reactions of breeding birds to approaches by a human on foot were recorded. Three response variables were calculated: intensity of vocal reaction (IVR), intensity of non-vocal reaction (INR) and overall response index (ORI). At 5 m from the nest, twice as many birds stood and/or vocalised as at 15 m. Nearest neighbour distance, age and gender did not explain individual variability of responses. Study colony birds had higher IVR scores than non-study colony birds; birds at colonies closest to the station had the highest ORI scores. A better breeding record was associated with lower IVR and ORI scores, but a causative relationship remains to be demonstrated. A minimum viewing distance of 25 m is recommended for breeding Wandering Albatrosses.

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The Use of Human Tissue

The use of human tissue raises ethical issues of great concern to health care professionals, biomedical researchers, ethics committees, tissue banks and policy makers because of the heightened importance given to informed consent and patient autonomy. The debate has been intensified by high profile scandals such as the “baby hearts” debacle and revelations about the retention of human brains in neuropathology laboratories worldwide. Respect for patient’s rights seems, however, to impede research and development of clinical knowledge in contemporary health care. The Common clinical endeavour argument and a Presumption for beneficial use argument suggest that the use of tissues for research and teaching in contemporary health care can respect patients and their values in multicultural communities where there are provisions for oversight and for opting not to contribute, both of which should respect the diverse views of different ethnic or cultural groups.

Does Tenure Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Expansion in the Mosquitia Forest Corridor

This article compares how public protection of forests and common-property forest institutions serve to control outside encroachment into frontier forests in Honduras and Nicaragua. The article combines institutional analysis with ethnographically based fieldwork and analysis of land-cover images to evaluate how property-rights arrangements influence monitoring, enforcement, and compliance with rules to restrict agricultural expansion in two biosphere reserves in the Mosquitia Corridor. Findings show that territorial demarcation and common-property rights are important components for frontier forest conservation. In areas with weak enforcement mechanisms and heavy reliance on social norms over official regulatory measures, the findings suggest that the perceived legitimacy of tenure arrangements and their respective land-use rules are fundamental to controlling the agricultural frontier.