Carved from the Heart.

Carved from the Heart. 1997. 30 minutes, color. VHS. film by Ellen Frankenstein and Louise Brady. For more information, contact New Day Films, 22D Hollywood Avenue, Hohokus, NJ 07423. 201/652-6590 or 888/367-9154. Fax 201/652-/973. Email: orders@newday.com, website: http://www.newday.com     

Purpose and Scope

Neurochemical Research -     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE-A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today's society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession's responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE-A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today's society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession's responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

Reconciling Wildlife Management's Conflicted Purpose With a Land Community Worldview

ABSTRACT To reach its potential wildlife management needs a coherent purpose. Traditional divisions between science, society, and nature, however, create conflicts between responsibility to science, the public, and nature. These divisions emerged as early as Plato's (400 BC) allegory of the cave. In Plato's allegory human society existed inside a cave formed by its own delusions, and a philosopher or scientist could leave the cave and apprehend reality in nature. Wildlife management's simultaneous responsibility to public preferences, objective truth, and biotic integrity provides the foundation for a conservation worldview capable of transcending the divisions embodied in Plato's allegory. In this paper we deconstruct the conflicted worldview standing on that foundation and describe a land community-based worldview for wildlife management that could replace it. The transition from traditional views of science, society, and nature to a land community worldview requires 1) changing scientific stewardship from seeking objective truth to seeking credible truth, 2) changing political stewardship from following societal dictates to representing wildlife within the land community, and 3) changing ethical stewardship from protecting biotic integrity to fighting permanent closure of land community boundaries. Adopting a land community worldview for wildlife management requires relinquishing the illusion of absolute objectivity and a fall from status as neutral arbiters of knowledge but provides a means for honorably seeking reliable knowledge, serving the public and respecting the land community.