For Whom the Bell Tolls: Anthropologists Advising on Public Policy

What knowledge do cultural anthropologists have to contribute to public policy? What problems have they encountered and what roles should they assume? After reviewing several positions, this paper suggests that anthropologists consider contributing to public policy through other branches of government in addition to the executive. Emphasis is given to the legislative branch in a representative democracy. Although the paper discusses the United States, the approach ought to be applicable to other representative systems as well. [public policy, political anthropology, applied anthropology, ethics]     

Interaction Mortality: Senescence May Have Evolved because It Increases Lifespan

Given an extrinsic challenge, an organism may die or not depending on how the threat interacts with the organism''s physiological state. To date, such interaction mortality has been only a minor factor in theoretical modeling of senescence. We describe a model of interaction mortality that does not involve specific functions, making only modest assumptions. Our model distinguishes explicitly between the physiological state of an organism and potential extrinsic, age-independent threats. The resulting mortality may change with age, depending on whether the organism''s state changes with age. We find that depending on the physiological constraints, any outcome, be it ‘no senescence’ or ‘high rate of senescence’, can be found in any environment; that the highest optimal rate of senescence emerges for an intermediate physiological constraint, i.e. intermediate strength of trade-off; and that the optimal rate of senescence as a function of the environment is driven by the way the environment changes the effect of the organism''s state on mortality. We conclude that knowledge about the environment, physiology and their interaction is necessary before reasonable predictions about the evolution of senescence can be made.     

Next issue (May 2007): Brain-specific Diseases

Edited by Dr. Nektarios Tavernarakis, Heraklion, Greece Highlight articles: – Neuronal death vs neurogenesis after transient ischemia – C. elegans mitochondrial mutants to study human neurodegenerative diseases – Human huntingtin antibody epitope mapping – Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – the tools of the trait – Biosensors for biogenic catecholamine detection – Comprehensive survey of p94/calpain 3 substrates by comparative proteomics – Molecular architecture of juxtaparanodal regions of myelinated fibers – Bio-electrosprays: A novel electrified jetting methodology for the safe handling and deployment of primary living organisms ... and much more: Read the next issue of BTJ!     

Normative Ethics Does Not Need a Foundation: It Needs More Science

The impact of science on ethics forms since long the subject of intense debate. Although there is a growing consensus that science can describe morality and explain its evolutionary origins, there is less consensus about the ability of science to provide input to the normative domain of ethics. Whereas defenders of a scientific normative ethics appeal to naturalism, its critics either see the naturalistic fallacy committed or argue that the relevance of science to normative ethics remains undemonstrated. In this paper, we argue that current scientific normative ethicists commit no fallacy, that criticisms of scientific ethics contradict each other, and that scientific insights are relevant to normative inquiries by informing ethics about the options open to the ethical debate. Moreover, when conceiving normative ethics as being a nonfoundational ethics, science can be used to evaluate every possible norm. This stands in contrast to foundational ethics in which some norms remain beyond scientific inquiry. Finally, we state that a difference in conception of normative ethics underlies the disagreement between proponents and opponents of a scientific ethics. Our argument is based on and preceded by a reconsideration of the notions naturalistic fallacy and foundational ethics. This argument differs from previous work in scientific ethics: whereas before the philosophical project of naturalizing the normative has been stressed, here we focus on concrete consequences of biological findings for normative decisions or on the day-to-day normative relevance of these scientific insights.