A Gifted Amateur: The Case of George Washington Ellis

George Washington Ellis published Negro Culture in West Africa in 1914 in response to the social gospel prophets' racist and stereotypical perspectives of West Africa and Africans. In so doing. Ellis attempted to shift the discourse from one that emphasized African barbarism to one that repudiated the idea of African inferiority. Unwittingly, however, Ellis preached a brand of romantic racialism—a benign doctrine that was commonplace in the racial discourse of African American elites at the Turn of the Century. Asa consequence, his loyalties were divided between 19th-century ethnological science and the "new ethnology" of Franz Boas. [Keywords: George Washington Ellis, history of racism, antiracism, African American anthropology, social gospel prophets]     

Darwin,Wallace, and Huxley,and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Conclusion Publication of the Vestiges and the rather primitive theory of evolution it expounded thus played a significant role in the careers of Darwin and Wallace. In addition, in spite of his poor opinion of the Vestiges, it presented Huxley with a convenient topic for critical discussion and the opportunity to focus more attention on the subject of evolution. The dynamic interactions among these leading figures of nineteenth-century natural science helped spur the development of more sophisticated models of evolution.Darwin had a proper appreciation of Chambers's contribution to evolutionary thought, although he fully recognized the shortcomings of this work. He understood the importance of allowing fresh ideas about organic change to be ventilated. However, he was primarily concerned with his own theory and viewed all developments in evolutionary biology from this perspective. If he did not give full consideration to Chambers and his book early on, it was due mainly to his feeling that the concepts in the Vestiges were very different from his own; he was therefore reluctant to embrace them as the forerunners of his own theory. As a scholar, he was also troubled by the scientific errors in the book. However, the record demonstrates that he attempted to make amends for any oversight on his part. His generous letter to Chambers's daughter, and his gracious treatment of Chambers during the brief time the latter lived in London, are ample proof of that.The attacks of Huxley, Sedgwick, and other prominent natural historians and geologists at the time, the problems inherent in Chambers's evolutionary theory, and the publication of the Origin, are the major reasons why the Vestiges became a neglected work. Nevertheless, Chambers's contribution will always stand out because, together with those of other late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century predecessors of Darwin, it laid the foundations of modern evolutionary thought and, more importantly, helped prepare the scientific community for the more fully developed ideas of Darwin and Wallace.     

The treatment of autistic children with risperidone

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder characterised by impairment in social interaction and communication, with unusual behavior. In some cases the pharmacotherapy is prescribed and the most studied antipshychotic drugs include haloperidol and risperidone. In this paper we displayed the treatment of two cases of autism in boy and girl with risperidone. With the use of risperidone in girl, we have achieved reduction of psychomotor symptoms and reduction of hetero-aggressive and self-destructive behavior, and in boy we have also achieved reduction of psychomotoric symptoms, with improvement in contact with his surrounding, he had less learning problems and he has felt familiar not only with his mother, but with other persons. Research on the use of risperidone in the treatment of autistic disorders among children in Croatia are rare, given the limited use of risperidone in children younger than 15years, the question arises about the need to expand the scope of application of risperidone in younger age groups.     

W. Montague Cobb (1904–1990): Physical Anthropologist, Anatomist, and Activist

William Montague Cobb's life and work reflect a profound integration of art, literature, social activism, and science. This article presents some of the highlights of his academic development and professional contributions. We have considered his early academic development within the contexts of the formative years of American physical anthropology, Howard University Medical School, and the social issues in American society that influenced Cobb. His approaches to teaching, anatomical and anthropological research, and medicine are unique, and yet are closely reasoned and creative reflections of the major currents of academe and the broader society with which he dealt. Imbued with a sense of social responsibility, Cobb's applied anthropology involved the accumulation of extensive data on the one hand, and the formation of organizations for social activism on the other. It was directed toward solving problems of health care and racism. His work thereby served to balance the widespread distortion and neglect of medical and racial problems facing A fro-America between 1930 and the present day. He was also a principal builder of black medical and scientific institutions, and he preserved the record of his coworkers' contributions through his many biographies. This work represents no more than a sketch of his rich and prolific career (during which he produced more than 1,100 publications); the emphasis of this biographical study has been to ascertain the circumstances and attitudes that helped mold the first Afro-American Ph.D. in physical anthropology.     

Nonmarket Labor Processes in an Advanced Capitalist Economy

In advanced capitalist economies, the treatment of labor as a commodity suggests that labor's cost and availability depend on market mechanisms. Although neoclassical economic thought recognizes the influence of collective bargaining and labor legislation on the cost and availability of labor, economists generally pay scant attention to the ways informal and formal relations of power, along with myths of sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality, combine within labor processes in advanced capitalist economies to influence the cost and availability of labor. This article presents data on the labor processes in the North Carolina seafood processing industry and compares them to the labor processes accompanying the annual, seasonal importation of legal alien farm labor by U.S. agricultural producers. The labor processes of the former rest on kinship and informal social relations while those of the latter rest on formal political authority. The analysis suggests that, even in advanced capitalist economies, employers faced with labor supply problems do not rely on market mechanisms but instead tap formal and informal systems of authority to assure supplies of labor, and support their behaviors with myths of sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality. The article concludes with a discussion of these behaviors in the context of post-World War II international divisions of labor.     

Two Renowned Nigerian Scholars: Ikenna Nzimiro and Victor Chikesie Uchendu

The article honors two Nigerian anthropologists of Igbo background who recently passed away. Both scholars made major contributions to a broad range of scholarly thought in anthropology and in general social science to crucial issues in Nigerian politics, society and life. Nzimiro is considered in terms of his traditional anthropological training in Germany and England, through which he investigated four Niger River basin communities, and then his emergence as a Marxist anthropologist for the rest of his life in Nigeria, where he consistently critiqued neocolonialism in Nigeria. He explored issues of ethnicity, the Nigerian civil war, militarism, the state of the social sciences, the environment, Oguta culture, where he was born, ethnic conflicts, conditions at Nigerian universities, and other issues. Nzimiro generally rejected the post-colonial world, arguing that it was not revolutionary enough. Uchendu dealt with many of the same issues, but in contrast to Nzimiro he did so by accepting the existence of post-colonial Nigeria, though suggesting many ways to improve education, the environment, cultural and national transition, dependency theory, and to study urbanization and ethnicity, while also writing a major work on Igbo culture. Both authors are honored for their critiques of Nigerian society, as well as their contributions to Igbo ethnology.     

Charles Mills for and against liberalism

Charles Mills both severely criticizes and reluctantly accepts liberal political theory’s approach to race and racism. In this new book, he develops contract theory’s understanding of race and racism in the effort to resuscitate liberalism from the racist deathbed on which it lies. To do this he must wrestle with political forms of black resistance that comport uneasily with liberalism, at best: nationalism notably, but also other types of racially oriented collective subjectivity, for example, identity politics. The book represents a major advance in Mills’s thought, but his work remains uneasy about the instability of race and the flexibility of racism.     

Philosophy's loss, neurology's gain: the endeavor of John Hughlings-Jackson

The year 2011 marked the centenary of the death of one of the founders of British neurology, John Hughlings-Jackson (1835-1911). By common consent he was a great clinician. But he was more. He endeavored to use clinical observations to throw light on one of the great problems of the modern world, the problem of mind. Hughlings-Jackson's daily contact with mentalities warped by neurological disease caused him to ponder deeply the nature of the mind-brain relationship, nowadays often known simply as the "hard problem." In particular, he saw the danger of conflating mind and brain, a danger that has grown greater with the spectacular growth of neuroscientific knowledge during the last century. Although Hughlings-Jackson's neuroscientific thought is long outdated, his philosophic endeavors remain highly instructive.     

Tusks and tools – Experiments in carving mammoth ivory

In the past, the author replicated several Stone Age art objects, preferentially those made from mammoth tusk, using authentic tools and techniques. This contribution describes the results of his research work and the experiences he collected during the experiments, not only in relation to the material and its properties but also concerning the use of flint tools and their technical aspects. In addition, the author gives a brief overview about his subsequent considerations regarding early artisans, their skills and their social position.     

Cross- and self-fertilization of plants

This essay considers Charles Darwin's late work, Cross- and Self-Fertilization of Plants, locating it in the overall context of Darwin's thought and ideas. It is shown how it is part of a long-term interest in the purpose of sexuality, and how it complements Darwin's earlier book on the fertilization of orchids. It is concluded, however, that Darwin had no full solution to his problem.     

Action being character: a promising perspective on the solution concept of game theory

The inconsistency of predictions from solution concepts of conventional game theory with experimental observations is an enduring question. These solution concepts are based on the canonical rationality assumption that people are exclusively self-regarding utility maximizers. In this article, we think this assumption is problematic and, instead, assume that rational economic agents act as if they were maximizing their implicit utilities, which turns out to be a natural extension of the canonical rationality assumption. Implicit utility is defined by a player's character to reflect his personal weighting between cooperative, individualistic, and competitive social value orientations. The player who actually faces an implicit game chooses his strategy based on the common belief about the character distribution for a general player and the self-estimation of his own character, and he is not concerned about which strategies other players will choose and will never feel regret about his decision. It is shown by solving five paradigmatic games, the Dictator game, the Ultimatum game, the Prisoner's Dilemma game, the Public Goods game, and the Battle of the Sexes game, that the framework of implicit game and its corresponding solution concept, implicit equilibrium, based on this alternative assumption have potential for better explaining people's actual behaviors in social decision making situations.     

Retentissement sexuel, conjugal et social d’une population d’hommes stériles consultants en Andrologie: le point de vue du psychiatre de liaison

Material and methods

The study population consisted of 39 subjects divided into two groups: 21 azoospermic males and 18 oligoazoospermic males. These men were selected in andrology departments over a period of six months. The andrology and liaison psychiatry departments of Lille university hospital established a general infertility questionnaire. This semi-structured questionnaire comprising 40 questions was based on clinical experience and describes the clinical and symptomatic context of infertility. An individual 50-item questionnaire was then used to analyse the psychosocial, marital and sexual effects of male infertility and the representation of the psychiatrist in the andrology department.

Results

One third of patients discovered the diagnosis of infertility when the biologist gave them the results of the semen analysis. Our patients initially envisaged marital, psychological and social problems, but very few sexual problems. They imagined that infertility was more disturbing for women than for men, from a psychological and sexual point of view. 82% of our subjects imagined that their partner had no sexual problems. 48.7% of them thought that their partner had no psychological difficulties related to their infertility. The oligoasthenospermia group considered that the partner had significantly more “psychological difficulties” compared to the azoospermia group. 41% of our patients felt guilty towards their partner because of their infertility diagnosis. 10.3% of patients presented sexual disorders before the diagnosis of male infertility and 25.6% presented sexual disorders after this diagnosis. Contrary to data in the literature, a major change of sexuality was not observed in the majority of the couples after the diagnosis. When sexuality changed, it generally consisted of a reduction of the frequency of sexual relations. Among the patients who reported sexual difficulties, only 40% related them to infertility. 50% did not report any relationship between the psychological difficulties related to infertility and the sexual difficulties. Contrary to the data in the literature, neither the loss of spontaneity during sexual relations, nor the complementary investigations necessary for artificial insemination had any influence on sexuality. 89.8% of our patients are ready to change their sexual practices in order to be more fertile without causing any sexual or psychological problems. However, only 34.3% of patients reported a concern about reproductive efficacy during sexual relations. A more marked sexuality/reproduction dissociation was observed in oligoazoospermic males than in azoospermic males. 28.2% of patients reported that talking about their sexual and/or psychological problems with a psychiatrist was helpful.

Conclusion

Many contradictions and underestimations were observed in the answers to the questions. We confirmed the existence of a psychological and sexual distress, but which was quantitatively less severe than that described in “gynaecological” populations. However, a real psychological and sexual distress does exist in our population, which is why we propose from the outset a psychosomatic and sexological treatment of infertility in order to prevent the onset of these sexual difficulties. Our questionnaire was based on clinical experience and helped our patients to identify their psychological and sexual difficulties related to infertility and its treatment. It would therefore be useful for the practitioner, andrologist or psychiatrist, to help the patient express the effects related to this “new medicalized sexuality”.     

Husserl's Crisis as a crisis of psychology

This paper places Husserl's mature work, The Crisis of the European Sciences, in the context of his engagement with--and critique of--experimental psychology at the time. I begin by showing (a) that Husserl accorded psychology a crucial role in his philosophy, i.e., that of providing a scientific analysis of subjectivity, and (b) that he viewed contemporary psychology--due to its naturalism--as having failed to pursue this goal in the appropriate manner. I then provide an analysis of Husserl's views about naturalism and scientific philosophy. Some central themes of the Crisis are traced back to Husserl's earlier work and to his relationship with his teacher, Franz Brentano, with whom he disagreed about the status of "inner perception" as the proper scientific method for a phenomenological analysis. The paper then shows that Husserl was well aware of at least one publication about the crisis of psychology (Bühler's 1927 book), and it teases out some aspects of the complicated relationship between Husserl and members of the Würzburg School of thought psychology: The latter had drawn on Husserl's writings, but Husserl felt that they had misunderstood his central thesis. I conclude by placing Husserl's work in the wider context of scientific, cultural, and political crisis-discourses at the time.     

A Concept of Educational Activity for Schoolchildren

About two years ago, on a cool Southern California day, Vasili Davydov addressed a group of social scientists at the University of California, San Diego. He began his talk with a paradox. He had come, he said, to tell us about educational activity. He promised to exhibit principles that promote educational activity, and applied programs deriving from those principles. Then he laughed. "But you'll never see educational activity in the school," he said, and laughed again.     

关于人类发展的环境容量问题之哲学思考

关于人类发展的环境容量问题之哲学思考陈贻安（北京交通管理干部学院１０１６０１）ＡＰｈｉｌｏｓｏｐｈｉｃＴｈｏｕｇｈｏｎＥｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔａｌＣａｐａｃｉｔｙｆｏｒＨｕｍａｎＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔ．￥ＣｈｅｎＹｉａｎ（ＢｅｉｊｉｎｇＣｏｍｍｕｎｉｃ...     

Methodology in Aristotle’s Theory of Spontaneous Generation

Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation offers many puzzles to those who wish to understand his theory both within the context of his biology and within the context of his more general philosophy of nature. In this paper, I approach the difficult and vague elements of Aristotle’s account of spontaneous generation not as weaknesses, but as opportunities for an interesting glimpse into the thought of an early scientist struggling to reconcile evidence and theory. The paper has two goals: (1) to give as charitable and full an account as possible of what Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation was, and to examine some of its consequences; and (2) to reflect on Aristotle as a scientist, and what his comments reveal about how he approached a difficult problem. In particular, I propose that the well-recognized problem of the incompatibility between Aristotle’s concept of spontaneity and his theory of spontaneous generation presents an opportunity for insight into his scientific methodology when approaching ill-understood phenomena.     

The evidence for a meiotic process in the euglenineae

Summary Cells of Hyalophacus ocellatus are described which contain either a nuclear figure consisting of a double complement of highly condensed chromosomes arranged in pairs in the anterior half of the cell, or a huge posteriorly-placed nucleus consisting of long granular chromosomes which also show signs of pairing. These nuclear figures are quite unlike interphase nuclei or stages in mitosis and are thought to be stages in euglenoid meiosis.No evidence has been obtained for a sexual fusion of gametes or cells. Previous accounts of sexuality and autogamy in the Euglenineae are historically reviewed and critically discussed relative to the present observations.This paper is dedicated to Professor Dr. E. G. Pringsheim on the occasion of his 80th birthday, with gratitude both for his untiring advice on my research and for his friendship.     

Of Mice and Men: Evolution and the Socialist Utopia. William Morris,H.G. Wells,and George Bernard Shaw

During the British socialist revival of the 1880s competing theories of evolution were central to disagreements about strategy for social change. In News from Nowhere (1891), William Morris had portrayed socialism as the result of Lamarckian processes, and imagined a non-Malthusian future. H.G. Wells, an enthusiastic admirer of Morris in the early days of the movement, became disillusioned as a result of the Malthusianism he learnt from Huxley and his subsequent rejection of Lamarckism in light of Weismann’s experiments on mice. This brought him into conflict with his fellow Fabian, George Bernard Shaw, who rejected neo-Darwinism in favour of a Lamarckian conception of change he called “creative evolution.”     

Darwin and the linguists: the coevolution of mind and language, part 2. The language-thought relationship

This paper examines Charles Darwin's idea that language-use and humanity's unique cognitive abilities reinforced each other's evolutionary emergence-an idea Darwin sketched in his early notebooks, set forth in his Descent of man (1871), and qualified in Descent's second (1874) edition. Darwin understood this coevolution process in essentially Lockean terms, based on John Locke's hints about the way language shapes thinking itself. Ironically, the linguist Friedrich Max Müller attacked Darwin's human descent theory by invoking a similar thesis, the German romantic notion of an identity between language and thought. Although Darwin avoided outright contradiction, when he came to defend himself against Müller's attacks, he undercut some of his own argumentation in favor of the coevolution idea. That is, he found it difficult to counter Müller's argument while also making a case for coevolution. Darwin's efforts in this area were further complicated by British and American writers who held a naturalistic view of speech origins yet still taught that language had been invented by fully evolved homo sapiens, thus denying coevolution.     

Darwin and palaeontology: a re-evaluation of his interpretation of the fossil record

Charles Darwin's empirical research in palaeontology, especially on fossil invertebrates, has been relatively neglected as a source of insight into his thinking, other than to note that he viewed the fossil record as very incomplete. During the Beagle voyage, Darwin gained extensive experience with a wide diversity of fossil taxa, and he thought deeply about the nature of the fossil record. That record was, for him, a major source of evidence for large-scale transmutation, but much less so for natural selection or single lineages. Darwin's interpretation of the fossil record has been criticised for its focus on incompleteness, but the record as he knew it was extremely incomplete. He was compelled to address this in arguing for descent with modification, which was likely his primary goal. Darwin's gradualism has been both misrepresented and exaggerated, and has distracted us from the importance of the fossil record in his thinking, which should be viewed in the context of the multiple, sometimes competing demands of the multifaceted argument he presented in the Origin of Species.