Showing papers on "Wonder published in 1999"

A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet

Abstract: The only book that tells the whole story of the internet from its origins in the 1940s to the advent of the worldwide web at the dawn of the 21st century The Internet is the most remarkable thing human beings have built since the Pyramids John Naughton's book intersperses wonderful personal stories with an authoritative account of where the Net actually came from, who invented it and why, and where it might be taking us Most of us have no idea of how the Internet works or who created it Even fewer have any idea of what it means for society and the future In a cynical age, John Naughton has not lost his capacity for wonder He examines the nature of his own enthusiasm for technology and traces its roots in his lonely childhood and in his relationship with his father A Brief History of the Future is an intensely personal celebration of vision and altruism, ingenuity and determination and above all, of the power of ideas, passionately felt, to change the world

Bacterial growth: constant obsession with dN/dt.

Abstract: One of life's inevitable disappointments—one felt often by scientists and artists, but not only by them—comes from expecting others to share the particularities of one's own sense of awe and wonder. This truth came home to me recently when I picked up Michael Guillen's fine book Five Equations

Aristotle on the Conditions for and Limits of the Common Good

Abstract: Contemporary debates over liberal political theory should encourage renewed investigation of the common good, and it is appropriate to begin by interrogating Aristotle's account. Aristotle argues that injustice stands in the way of the common good. Injustice is motivated by both overgrasping for scarce external goods, such as money, honor, and power, and by excessive desires. Aristotle argues that the common good requires a reorientation away from external goods to satisfying activities that do not diminish in the sharing. He sketches an analogical account of familial and political relationships that leads us to wonder what the political conditions are for the common good. Reflecting on these conditions not only points to the strict limits of the common good but also speaks to both sides in debates over liberal theory.

Wonder, the Rainbow, and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences

Abstract: The Aesthetics of Rare Experiences Wonder and the Sublime Philosophy Begins in Wonder Visual Experience: Wonder and the Ordinary The Instant of Wonder and the Instant of Thought The Rainbow and Cartesian Wonder The Aesthetics of the Rainbow Noah's Rainbow and Religious Intelligibility From Wonder to Thought Descartes and the Scientific Passion of Wonder Descartes's Definition of Wonder Pascal's Alternative: Imagination, Terror, Abyss Wonder Fades with Age Wonder and the Steps of Thought The Template of Wonder: To Be Human Is to Learn One and Only One Step Plato's Meno and Learning by Wonder Socratic Silence Explanation and Demystification Explanation and the Aesthetics of the Rainbow Fear of Explanation and Explanation by Fear The Dull Catalogue of Common Things: Genus, or Explanation by Kind Singularity and the Everyday Rainbow and Raindrop: Explanation by Substitution Aristotle's Geometry of the Experience of Rainbows: Explanation by Structure From Wonder to Explanation Transition to Aesthetic Wonder Seeing What Cannot Be Seen The Visual, the Visible, and the Intelligible Ruling Out Memory Intelligibility, Wonder, and Recognition Rainbow, Explanation, Error Recognition: Can Only Memory Guide Intelligibility? The Newness Effect in Modern Art Thinking through the Work of Art Cy Twombly's "Blackboard Painting" Blackboards and Temporary Writing Master Metaphors and Bright Ideas The Work of Art as a Field of Details The Return of Recognition and Memory Notes Acknowledgments Index

Tomorrow's doctors: today's mistakes?

Abstract: Tomorrow's Doctors, published by the General Medical Council of the UK in December 1993, has prompted far-reaching changes to medical education in Britain. We draw attention to some inconsistencies in the document and to those aspects of it that we maintain are undesirable. We question the emphasis in Tomorrow's Doctors on change in view of the unchanging nature of the structure and function of the human body. We doubt the wisdom of exhorting students to learn through curiosity and experiment, such methods being wasteful of time and resources when used in the context of accepted core material. We do not accept that the information overload is an automatic result of traditional methods of delivering education, and we are by no means convinced that the university model is the right one for medical education. In the face of experts being unable to agree on or to define scientific method, we wonder if consideration of this is appropriate in an undergraduate medical course, and we doubt that ethics and criticism are rightly placed in the undergraduate curriculum. The drawbacks of systems-based teaching are considered in the light of the disease process, and we draw attention to the lack of evidence for the document's condemnation of departmental structures and its uncritical espousal of integration. Finally, we consider some of the ways in which these changes have affected anatomy.

Going Inside: A Tour Round a Single Moment of Consciousness

Abstract: Dealing with single moments in the life of the human brain, this book provides explanations of why a tennis player cannot be seeing the ball at the instant when it is struck, or even for most of its flight; and why surprises feel surprising, and boredom boring The author argues that, by understanding just how much subconscious decision-making the brain manages to get through before each moment of awareness, we can begin to appreciate the true wonder of consciousness - and see why the human brain is the most complex system that science is ever likely to encounter

Science, Religion, and Education.

Abstract: By Our ongoing cultural conversation about the relationship between science and religion is much more interesting and important than most educators appreciate, and it strikes Mr. Nord as scandalous that we don't let students in on this conversation. IN THE BEGINNING, some 10 or 15 billion years ago, was the Big Bang. It was neither good nor evil; it simply was. There was no purpose in the cosmic evolution that followed the Big Bang or in the biological evolution that followed on Earth. Because scientists have as yet been unable to identify sufficient mass in the universe to cause it to contract into a Big Crunch, many believe that the galaxies will continue to expand until they eventually run out of energy and die in the cold darkness of space some hundred billion years from now. It should come as no surprise that we human beings are but a minor detail in this overall scheme of things. As Carl Sagan once put it: There are cataclysms and catastrophes occurring regularly in the universe and on the most awesome scale. . . . It seems likely that every time a quasar explodes, more than a million worlds are obliterated and countless forms of life, some of them intelligent, are utterly destroyed. This is not the traditional benign universe of conventional religiosity in the West. Indeed, the very scale of the universe more than a hundred billion galaxies, each containing more than a hundred billion stars speaks to us of the inconsequentiality of human events in the cosmic context.1 Students might well wonder if it is reasonable to believe in God if this is the nature of the universe. Or is it reasonable to believe that this is an adequate picture of the universe if we do believe in God? Just what is the relationship between science and religion? The answer, of course, is that we disagree about the relationship. We disagree about how to make sense of nature. We disagree about the fundamental structure of reality. These are controversial matters among intellectuals and throughout our culture generally. The relationship between religion and science is much more complicated, much more interesting, and much more important for education than the usual debate about evolution and creationism. Defining the nature of this relationship has been one of the most profound intellectual problems of the last several centuries, and there is a vast literature of works by scientists, theologians, and philosophers that address it. Yet this literature is completely ignored in science textbooks and in the recent National Science Education Standards and it is all but completely ignored everywhere else in the curriculum as well. This is ironic, in that the discussion about science and religion among intellectuals has grown livelier with recent developments in science and theology. This is also scandalous, for it exposes just how shallow our thinking is about matters of some importance.2 The Scientific Revolution The astronomer Arthur Eddington once told a parable about a fisherman who, after a lifetime of fishing with a net having a three-inch mesh, concluded (falsely, of course) that there were no fish in the ocean smaller than three inches. Eddington's moral was that, just as one's fishing net determines what one catches, so it is with conceptual nets: what we find in the ocean of reality depends on the conceptual net we bring to our investigation. For example, the modern scientific conceptual net what we call scientific method allows scientists to catch only replicable events; the results of any experiment that can't be replicated are not allowed to stand. This means that miracles, which are by definition singular events, can't be caught in the net of science. Scientists can't ask God to replicate a miracle for the sake of a controlled experiment. As a result, miracles are ruled out of scientific consideration a priori. The methods of science require that evidence for knowledge claims be grounded in sense experience the kinds of experience that instruments can measure, though this rules out moral and religious experiences as sources of scientific knowledge about the world. …

The Portrait of the Lover

Abstract: There are a surprising number of stories from antiquity about people who fall in love with statues or paintings, and about lovers who use such visual representations as substitutes for an absent beloved. In a charmingly conversational, witty meditation on this literary theme, Maurizio Bettini moves into a wide-ranging consideration of the relationship between self and image, the nature of love in the ancient world, the role of representation in culture, and more. Drawing on historical events and cultural practices as well as literary works, "The Portrait of the Lover" is a lucid excursion into the anthropology of the image. The majority of the stories and poems Bettini examines come from Greek and Roman classical antiquity, but he reaches as far as Petrarch, Da Ponte, and Poe. The stories themselvesranging from the impassioned to the bizarre, and from the sublime to the hilariousserve as touchstones for Bettini's evocative explorations of the role of representation in literature and in culture. Although he begins with a consideration of lovers' portraits, Bettini soon broadens his concerns to include the role of shadows, dreams, commemorative statues, statues brought to life, and vengeful statuesin short, an entire range of images that take on a life of their own. The chapters shift skillfully from one theme to another, touching on the nature of desire, loss, memory, and death. Bettini brings to the discussion of these tales not only a broad learning about cultures but also a delighted sense of wonder and admiration for the evocative power and endless variety of the stories themselves."

A Sense of Place: Teaching Children About the Environment with Picture Books

Abstract: Celebrating nearby nature and the marvels of our own backyards, this book helps you introduce children to the world around them. With quality children's literature and simple activities, you can cultivate a child's sense of wonder and joy and teach him or her the importance of living in harmony with nature. These projects span the curriculum and are presented in reproducible format, so they're easy to use. Highlighting the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch), they build connections between students and the land and create in young learners a sense of place-a true necessity for living in the world today. Grades K-6.

The Complete Fairy Tales

Abstract: George MacDonald occupied a major position in the intellectual life of his Victorian contemporaries. This volume brings together all eleven of his shorter fairy stories as well as his essay "The Fantastic Imagination". The subjects are those of traditional fantasy: good and wicked fairies, children embarking on elaborate quests, and journeys into unsettling dream worlds. Within this familiar imaginative landscape, his children's stories were profoundly experimental, questioning the association of childhood with purity and innocence, and the need to separate fairy tale wonder from adult scepticism and disbelief.

Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions

Abstract: The robots.- Magnificent desolation.- 'Pin-point' landing.- Knowledge from the Moon.- The wonder of the unknown at Hadley-Apennine.- Surprise at Descartes-Cayley.- The beautiful valley of Taurus-Littrow.- Luna revival.- Apollo in context.

Why Food Matters

Abstract: We who read this journal know food is important. There is in fact nothing more basic than food. Food is the first of the essentials of life, our biggest industry, our greatest export, our most frequently indulged pleasure, and also the object of considerable concern and dread. What we eat and how we eat it may also be the single most important cause of disease and death. On the positive side, food is central to our personal and cultural identities. In Kitchens, his elegant study of the culture of restaurant work, Gary Alan Fine writes: "Food reveals our souls. Like Marcel Proust reminiscing about a madeleine or Calvin Trillin astonished at a plate of ribs, we are entangled in our meals. The connection between identity and consumption gives food a central role in the creation of community, and we use our diet to convey images of public identity" (1996:1). Food reveals who we are, where we came from, and what we want to be. As the old saying goes, we are what we eat, and we also are what we do not eat. Food also has tremendous historical importance. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz argues that the domestication of plants and nonhuman animals for food in the Neolithic era (10,000 years ago) was "probably the single greatest technical achievement in the human record, more important than the internal combustion engine or nuclear energy. It was, from the beginning and long before these other triumphs, a remarkable way to capture and control energy" (Mintz quoted from Hirschoff and Kotler 1989:115-116). We also know that the European exploration and settlement of the Americas had a lot to do with food. As Henry Hobhouse writes in Seeds of Change, "The starting point for the European expansion out of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic continental shelf had nothing to do with, say, religion or the rise of capitalism—but it had a great deal to do with pepper. The Americas were discovered as a byproduct in the search for pepper" (Hobhouse 1985:xi). And out of that search for pepper came the foods of the Columbian Exchange—com, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, chocolate, and so on—that revolutionized the diet, economy, social structure, and politics of the entire world (Viola and Margolis 1991). I think we all know this. And yet not long ago, at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, I spoke at a session whose title—"Why American Studies Scholars Should Study Food"—implied a certain defensiveness about the subject at hand. Looking at the ASA program I did not see any panels devoted to justifying the study of gender, race, movies, or music. I think those battles were won long ago, or at least I hope so. But when it comes to telling others about our interests, we food scholars may still evoke a sense of surprise. It is not really a matter of outright disrespect, but rather, bemused wonder. In part, some people are surprised when academics do anything that touches on daily life. Thus I have received a similar reaction when I tell people that I have taught courses about the automobile (perhaps the single most important technology organizing the American landscape, economy, and social life) and television (one of the most powerful cultural influences). And there are, of course, those conservatives who regret any academic deviation from the canon of political history, classic literature, and dominant Anglo-American values (see Levine 1996). But it is more than that with food. I sense people are not just amazed or amused, they are also threatened. They fear I might spoil their dinner. Now that I have developed a reputation as the one and only "food person" at my university, I have noticed that at every reception I attend, people almost dare me to analyze the hors d'oeuvres, to tell them how bad those chicken fingers and pigs-in-blankets really are. I guess thinking seriously about food in our times is a little dangerous. Considering how complex and chemicalized our hypercapitalistic global food system is, it is so much easier to enjoy dinner in peaceful oblivion. I suspect that all "food people" face similar responses at their respective institutions. But what about my own research discipline, history? It is safe to say that food has been largely invisible in academic history. True, there are many amateur antiquarians and enthusiasts who have written histories of particular foods, dishes, cooks, or traditions. While such accounts perform invaluable service in preserving information and traditions, these histories rarely pay much attention to the things that interest professional historians: power, social relations, and context. But you could look through ten years' worth of programs of the annual meetings of the Organization of American Historians or the American Studies Association and not find more than a handful of sessions (out of thousands) devoted to food. The great French naturalist Jean Henry Fabre (18231915) wrote, "History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby

Papirius and the Chickens, or Machiavelli on the Necessity of Interpreting Religion

Abstract: No aspect of Machiavelli's thought elicits a wider range of interpretations than religion, and one may wonder why his utterances on this subject appear to move in so many different directions and cause his readers to see such different things. One reason is of course his famous challenge to conventional piety in the advice to princes (in chapter 18 of The Prince) that, while it is important to appear to be "all compassion, faith, integrity, humanity, and religione, and there is nothing more necessary for a prince than to appear to have the last of these," these "qualities" can actually be "damaging" if a prince insists on observing them at all times. For it is sometimes necessary to act "against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religione."' Machiavelli probably never wrote more famous or infamous words than these, even though they express an obvious, and hardly original, truth about all politics. But the world of the later sixteenthand seventeenth-century reformations and religious absolutisms could not tolerate such honesty, and Machiavelli's reputation was quickly tarred with accusations of devilish immorality by the very societies that thought it was godly to bum heretics. On the issue of religion Machiavelli became, and to some extent remains, a convenient scapegoat often blamed for the decline of religion in the modem world, all of which has no doubt intensified the polemical and ideological nature of the debates surrounding his views of religion in general and Christianity in particular.

"You Had to Be There" (And They Weren't): The Problem With Reporter Reconstructions

Abstract: Newspaper stories that rely on reconstruction of events from police reports, court records, and recollections of witnesses often sacrifice attribution for the sake of immediacy. Such stories make compelling reading, but they mislead readers by erasing the line between information obtained via observation and information obtained from human or documentary sources. This article argues that the lack of attribution is more distracting than it presence--because readers wonder how the reporters know what they know--and calls on reporters to make clear when they have left the realm of observation and entered that of reconstruction.

Drawing with Peter: Autobiography, Narrative, and the Art of a Child with Autism.

Abstract: Introduction Drawing and Talking Peter was diagnosed as having high functioning autism after he failed to acquire language by the age of 3 years. Susan, his mother, began to draw pictures with him, in hope that these images might provide a link between the life of their family and the chaotic, tantrum-wracked world of her son, in a manner that language had not been able to do. Using a pencil on ordinary, lined notebook paper, Susan repeatedly drew the floor plan of their house, the location and shape of the objects in it, as well as characters in movies that Peter enjoyed, especially his favorite, The Wizard of Oz Susan's plans, maps, images, and her words that accompanied them, were an attempt to not only introduce Peter to language, but also to entice him to take part in the world around him. Susan's use of language and drawing did not lead to immediate success, however. One day Peter lost his teddy bear somewhere in the house. Susan, who knew the bear lay on the kitchen table, drew a rough plan of their dwelling, talking about each room and its pieces of furniture, stressing locations and relationships among the various parts and objects. Finally, she drew the table, enumerating its characteristics and indicating its location. "He found the table all right," she ruefully remarked. "But he never did find that big, old bear." This incident from Peter's early life goes directly to the heart of the matter, for it describes his introduction to image as map, as communication, and as a means to engage the world itself, even before he himself could pick up a pencil. It was in this manner that drawing as both tool and as alternative world first took root in Peter's life at the age of three. It developed over time into his most complex expressive language as well as his most absorbing activity. Now, at the age of 8, Peter's drawings are astonishing in both their quantity and variety as evidenced by the hundreds of drawings collected by his mother since the beginning of his art making. These include: (a) intense, jagged-pen or pencil sketches which form the bulk of his output created, during outbursts of agitation and rage; (b) carefully worked, schematic images of favorite stories that imply 3-dimensionality created in colored marker or pencil; (c) fully resolved line drawings often emphasizing motion, foreshortening, and other 3-dimensional qualities of characters from books or movies; (d) fanciful, 2-dimensional depictions in colored or graphite pencil of his favorite authors or domestic scenes grounded in reality. This wide variety of simultaneously created drawing styles, line qualities, spatial considerations, and topics evokes an almost irresistible desire to enquire into the origins and meanings of such diversity in the work of a single young artist with autism. At the same time, each type of drawing seems to be linked to a particular style. What might such linkages tell us? What might explain the different stylistic categories? How does art seem to function for Peter? What does Peter's art suggest for the autistic child artist? What do Peter's drawings suggest about art itself? For the past several years I have been documenting the art of children with autism in an anthropological manner, using a phenomenological approach to the interpretation of data to create case studies that focus on the child as an artist, rather than as an example of a handicapping condition. This is a new approach to research and interpretation about children with autism and their art, for it looks at the child with autism as a valid artist who is able to develop a visual vocabulary that seems to both create and express meaning for the child and, at the same time, provide insight into the child's world. This more individual, child by child, case by case approach builds over time an understanding of possibility that had, for the most part, not existed before. It shifts the focus of research away from the description of a child's struggles with a developmental disorder, or wonder at the juxtaposition of great artistic facility and personal difficulties, or an impersonal group inquiry, or a survey of symptoms, to consider the child we have before us now, as a purposeful individual and creative being. …

When Words Find Their Meaning: Renewal Versus Reform.

Abstract: Embedded in both "reform" and "renewal" are basic views of the world, basic views of human nature, and basic views of the way individuals do business in this world, Mr. Soder, who served as guest editor of this special section, reminds us. THIS SPECIAL section of the Kappan focuses on the differences between school renewal and school reform and on the implications of those differences for educational practice in a democratic society. Some might argue that we are splitting hairs here, engaging in abstruse and irrelevant disputes. In response, I (and in their various ways the authors of the subsequent articles) would argue that the differences and the implications of those differences are profound. Indeed, there is much at stake, much more than prevailing in an arcane academic disputation. For embedded in both "reform" and "renewal" are basic views of the world, basic views of human nature, and basic views of the way individuals do business in this world. We can get at these embedded views not by applying litmus tests for political correctness but by critically examining the likelihood that certain perennial and fundamental topics will underlie the respective rhetorical claims of renewal and reform. I do not mean to imply that someone in a "reform" camp is necessarily unconcerned with, say, racism and social injustice or that someone in the "renewal" camp necessarily regards these matters as crucial. By and large, we are talking about probabilities, which, of course, are central to rhetoric. Cast your eye on the rhetorical terrains of reform and renewal and determine how often particular topics are salient features of the landscape and how often others don't appear to matter. A careful examination of the topics of the rhetorical claims of reform and renewal will give readers a reasonably good sense of what is embedded in those claims.1 Thus, for example, in many of the major state and federal reforms, we find a rather complacent acceptance or even affirmation of given class and other social structures. The operant world view (usually implicit) would seem to be "don't rock the boat," with no need for explicit attention to such fundamental issues as social injustice, racism, sexism, "savage inequalities," and like matters. Renewal efforts, on the other hand, tend toward an alternative world view. Matters of justice, equity, diversity, access to knowledge, shared power, democracy, republican government, and so forth are often explicit issues to be worked on over the long haul. Fundamentally contrasting views of human nature are equally apparent, especially with regard to the basic relationship between human nature and freedom. We can accept the word of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor. People don't want freedom, the Grand Inquisitor reasons. They can't stand to have it, will do anything to get rid of it, and want to be ruled by miracle, mystery, and authority. Or we can argue that people want freedom and that freedom is an inherent part of the human condition. What do the rhetorics of reform and renewal say about freedom? As for the ways of doing business in the world, the choices are few. You can tell people what to do, or you can let people determine their purposes and the ways to achieve them. The prevailing but not necessarily "right" and certainly not attractive view involves the exercise of force from those on high and the requirement of compliance from those below. One common approach is to bribe people with big bucks (or sometimes even a few dollars) and punish them if they don't do what you want. Another common approach is the threat of force, that is, persuasion via Don Corleone's offer you can't refuse. This approach is reflected in the Bolshevik slogan "We shall drive mankind to happiness by force." All of these approaches demand compliance, and no other response is acceptable. But compliance is never edifying, it never rings with human dignity, and it never pulsates with excitement and curiosity and wonder. …

Reflection and Refraction: A Reflexive Look at an Evolving Model for Methods Instruction.

Abstract: I love teaching! I have loved teaching since Mrs. Suttles had me help Paul Morganton with his reading in the third grade and since Mrs. Pruett, my fourth grade teacher, asked me to be her voice on a day when she had laryngitis. Later she said, "Carol, you would make a good teacher." 1 started to build a teacher vision of myself on the spot. 1 played school at home with my imaginary companions: wrote their names and the assignment on the blackboard and lectured on important points from the old books I had in my room. In my neighborhood I, as the only girl and oldest kid, organized games and even set plays during touch football games. Twelve years after Mrs. Pruett made her suggestion, I did become a teacher, a high school English teacher, and 1 have loved teaching ever since. I even loved it through the tormenting days when 1 struggled to calm my high school Heroes and Heroines class and when I ran crying from my high school Stagecraft class. The African-American students, whose high school had been closed during integration, openly questioned the sincerity of my attempts to involve them in the school's upcoming musical production, and who could wonder why? 1 have loved teaching through struggles and accomplishments because it challenges me in ways nothing else does. Imagine my pleasure, after years of teaching English, serving as a cooperating teacher, student teacher supervisor and mentor, when I became a teacher educator. In 1983, accompanied by a renewed vision of teaching and a brand new doctorate, I entered my first university teaching position at the University of Houston as an English language arts

Science, Religion and Education

Abstract: By Our ongoing cultural conversation about the relationship between science and religion is much more interesting and important than most educators appreciate, and it strikes Mr. Nord as scandalous that we don't let students in on this conversation. IN THE BEGINNING, some 10 or 15 billion years ago, was the Big Bang. It was neither good nor evil; it simply was. There was no purpose in the cosmic evolution that followed the Big Bang or in the biological evolution that followed on Earth. Because scientists have as yet been unable to identify sufficient mass in the universe to cause it to contract into a Big Crunch, many believe that the galaxies will continue to expand until they eventually run out of energy and die in the cold darkness of space some hundred billion years from now. It should come as no surprise that we human beings are but a minor detail in this overall scheme of things. As Carl Sagan once put it: There are cataclysms and catastrophes occurring regularly in the universe and on the most awesome scale. . . . It seems likely that every time a quasar explodes, more than a million worlds are obliterated and countless forms of life, some of them intelligent, are utterly destroyed. This is not the traditional benign universe of conventional religiosity in the West. Indeed, the very scale of the universe more than a hundred billion galaxies, each containing more than a hundred billion stars speaks to us of the inconsequentiality of human events in the cosmic context.1 Students might well wonder if it is reasonable to believe in God if this is the nature of the universe. Or is it reasonable to believe that this is an adequate picture of the universe if we do believe in God? Just what is the relationship between science and religion? The answer, of course, is that we disagree about the relationship. We disagree about how to make sense of nature. We disagree about the fundamental structure of reality. These are controversial matters among intellectuals and throughout our culture generally. The relationship between religion and science is much more complicated, much more interesting, and much more important for education than the usual debate about evolution and creationism. Defining the nature of this relationship has been one of the most profound intellectual problems of the last several centuries, and there is a vast literature of works by scientists, theologians, and philosophers that address it. Yet this literature is completely ignored in science textbooks and in the recent National Science Education Standards and it is all but completely ignored everywhere else in the curriculum as well. This is ironic, in that the discussion about science and religion among intellectuals has grown livelier with recent developments in science and theology. This is also scandalous, for it exposes just how shallow our thinking is about matters of some importance.2 The Scientific Revolution The astronomer Arthur Eddington once told a parable about a fisherman who, after a lifetime of fishing with a net having a three-inch mesh, concluded (falsely, of course) that there were no fish in the ocean smaller than three inches. Eddington's moral was that, just as one's fishing net determines what one catches, so it is with conceptual nets: what we find in the ocean of reality depends on the conceptual net we bring to our investigation. For example, the modern scientific conceptual net what we call scientific method allows scientists to catch only replicable events; the results of any experiment that can't be replicated are not allowed to stand. This means that miracles, which are by definition singular events, can't be caught in the net of science. Scientists can't ask God to replicate a miracle for the sake of a controlled experiment. As a result, miracles are ruled out of scientific consideration a priori. The methods of science require that evidence for knowledge claims be grounded in sense experience the kinds of experience that instruments can measure, though this rules out moral and religious experiences as sources of scientific knowledge about the world. …

Defying Disaffection: How Schools are Winning the Hearts and Minds of Reluctant Students

Abstract: This book describes how disaffection is endemic in education systems in the west. It affects middle class young people as it does the working class, white and black. It is there because schools are not meeting the needs of many of our children. Instead they are alienating places which impose a curriculum for which many lack a literacy, and a regime which strips away individuality and expression. It's no wonder that so many walk out the door and never come back. And it's no wonder that youth crime, apathy and unemployment are the problems they are. The author examines some American models in the quest to tackle disaffection. Because of the sheer degradation of parts of the US public school system, certain educationalists have taken radical steps, successfully changing schools to meet the needs of their at risk pupils. The text describes innovative projects and schools in the US as well as in the UK and Europe. There are interviews and case studies of children who have been inspired to learn after having given up on their schools and accounts by educationalists of their journeys of discovering how to knock down the barriers to learning.

Contexts of the Aesthetic in Walter Benjamin

Abstract: How to talk about the aesthetic today?' In many circles the term meets with either suspicion or lack of interest. Discussions of the aesthetic are viewed as a diversion from cultural-political considerations in favor of merely formalist or antiquarian preoccupations. Aesthetics has been displaced on all sides-by cultural and media studies, by sociology of the arts, by psychology and biography of artists, by audience response, by various "anti-aesthetics" (including the postmodern). And the sponsorship which conceptual thought had provided for aesthetics at least up to Hegel is now seen as one of its principal liabilities. One difficulty, of course, is the diversity of meanings attached to the term. The modern origin of the problematic lies in the midand later eighteenth century, the period from Baumgarten to Hegel, a moment when the "aesthetic" was integrated within a comprehensive philosophical system, and in fact, when it assumed a key function therein. In the wake of the English Empiricists and of the French philosophes, the turn to aesthetics in German Romantic and Idealist thought may be seen as an effort to rehabilitate a sense of wonder, of divinity in nature, in a time of skepticism and disbelief. The effort of philosophy in this period was directed to awakening the "moribund language of nature" (Hamann) and giving it a place of honor in the system of philosophy.2 It is in this sense that aesthetic thought in this period-and preeminently Kant's Critique ofJudgment-came to view art and nature in strict analogy. The opening pages of Derrida's "Parergon" very properly put us on

Magic vs. enchantment

Abstract: This paper draws on a distinction by J. R. R. Tolkien between Magic (an exercise of the will to change something in the world) and Enchantment (the creation of and entering into a secondary world). After elaborating this contrast and some of its consequences—one of which is to illuminate the common ground between science and what is usually thought of as magic, as distinct (in both cases) from art—I suggest some complications and refinements, including a third category, Glamour. I then discuss contemporary modernist magic, including Weberian ‘disenchantment’ which, 1 argue, is actually central to the triumph of the former. One consequence of that triumph is to place an historically unique emphasis upon enchantment as a source of resistance and possibly re‐enchantment. I then take a closer look at wonder, as the hallmark of enchantment, and at the special relationship between wonder and nature, before concluding with some suggestions for how to recognise genuine contemporary re‐enchantment.

Aristotle's Philosophy of Soul

Abstract: DEBATE CONTINUES OVER WHETHER AN "Aristotelian philosophy of mind" is still credible(1) Recent commentators wonder whether Aristotle's view lies somewhere in the constellation of modern theories of mind, or whether he might point to an uncharted theory Because he viewed his own account as an alternative to both Platonic dualism and Presocratic materialism, moderns seeking a middle way between Cartesian dualism and reductionist physicalism have looked to Aristotle for inspiration As Jonathan Barnes observes, "Philosophy of mind has for centuries been whirled between a Cartesian Charybdis and a scientific Scylla: Aristotle has the look of an Odysseus"(2) The interpretation of Aristotle is problematic because he discusses what moderns call mental phenomena in the context of his own philosophy of soul ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), which has certain distinctive features Because he viewed soul as a principle of life, he saw nothing odd about a plant having a soul, although he would have dismissed as absurd the suggestion that a complicated artifact might have a soul In contrast, many modern philosophers think that computers have as much a claim to consciousness as humans; but the idea that plants have a secret mental life strikes most moderns as bizarre Moreover, certain problems might not have the centrality for Aristotle which they have for moderns: for example, he would not regard qualia and intentionality as necessary features of psychic states, because plants and lower animals do not exhibit them Also, modern controversies involve notions such as reducibility and scientific laws which lack clear correlates in Aristotle In view of all this it might be concluded that Aristotle's psychology is sui generis or incommensurable with modern theories of mind Yet such difficulties are unavoidable whenever one philosopher tries to understand another with a different conceptual scheme We may be able to offer a plausible reconstruction of Aristotle's psychology by drawing on some of our own concepts One method is to find counterparts in another framework to concepts of our own: even when there are different conceptual distinctions and interconnections, we still may be able to detect important overall similarities between the two networks of ideas It would, of course, be incredible and suspicious if such a reconstruction turned out to resemble any modern concept of mind too closely But this technique might shed valuable light on Aristotle's theory or modern theories or both In using the method of reconstruction, however, let us not forget that what we think of as Aristotle's philosophy of mind is only part of what he would have thought of as his philosophy of soul We should not emulate Heinrich Schliemann ploughing headlong through the mound of Hissarlik in pursuit of Priam's Troy We should try to respect and understand the broader framework to which Aristotle's discussions of mind belong I A satisfactory exegesis of Aristotle's philosophy of soul must pay close attention to De Anima 21, where he says that he is trying to determine what is the soul and what is the most common account of the soul(3) By "most common account" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), he evidently means the most inclusive account, an account of what souls of all kinds have in common(4) Although his discussion is very abstract, we may reasonably expect it to set parameters of a defensible interpretation This account of the soul has two interrelated stages: in the first the soul is an actualization,(5) and in the second it is an essence(6) The first stage begins with the category of substance ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), which is distinguished into three types: (1) matter, which is intrinsically or in itself not a this ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]); (2) shape or form, through which we call something a this; and (3) the composite of matter and form …

The Science Police

Abstract: A scientist, a philosopher, a sociologist of scientific knowledge and a science warrior are aloft in a balloon. The balloon begins to deflate. The scientist says: 'A micro-meteorite might have punctured the envelope do we have any sticky-tape?' The philosopher says: 'My inductive propensities convince me that if the balloon deflates we will fall to earth I must work out the rational basis for this belief'. The sociologist says: 'I wonder how they'll reach a consensus about the cause of our deaths'. The science warrior says: 'Told you so there is an external reality!' If I was up in the balloon with only one other, I would choose the scientist, but at least if I had the philosopher or sociologist with me my last thoughts would be interesting. Of these four it is, ironically, only the science warrior who is completely out of touch with reality; it is only a science warrior who could imagine that the sociologist and the philosopher had failed to notice that we are not free to live out our day-to-day interactions with balloons, airplanes, or cups of coffee and tables and chairs, for that matter, in any way we please.' The philosophical and sociological questions are interesting only because we experience the world as an external agency. Science warriors, and how extraordinarily disappointing it is to find philosophers among them, think that making the everyday world out to be an interestingly puzzling place is the same as losing touch with it. What a poverty-stricken way of thinking this is, compared to the thinking of their scientist heroes! Scientists are ready to endorse a 'Many Worlds theory of the universe', which tells us that an almost infinite number of new universes, all subtly different from ours, are being created every fraction of a second; or to toy with the idea that our whole universe is sitting in a fortuitous energy well over the edge of which we might tip ourselves into oblivion at any moment, without the remotest chance of a warning. The most radical relativism is tame compared to such ambitious descriptions of our state of being.2 It is philosophy upon which the history and sociology of scientific knowledge is founded. Philosophy is a wonderful subject. Just as I recall the moment when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot, so I

Engaging the Audience: Sexual Economies of Vision in Joseph Wright

Abstract: IN THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH WRIGHT written by his niece, there is an anecdote about the artist as a boy-one of those secondhand reminiscences I was taught to discount but that sticks in my mind. It relates how the young Joseph had eyes so strong that he would lie on his back in his father's garden gazing at the sun. The next sentence tells of him wearing glasses with a visor to paint as he aged, the elision implying that he had caused some damage to his eyes by staring at the sun this way.' The anecdote makes me wonder why, apart from the influences of artistic precedents and Enlightenment philosophy insisted on in the scholarly literature, Joseph Wright was so fascinated with special effects of light.2 The episode evokes a boy who was interested in looking per se, who gave himself over to its sensations and derived as much pleasure from the experience as he risked injury. This article explores the thematics of viewing in Wright's work and the combination of pleasure and discomfort that weaves its way through his motifs of viewing. I am interested in the way those sensations are linked, and the fact that they are that pleasure seems to be contingent on discomfort, its apparent condition. The element of perversion or sadism that surfaces in Wright's paintings intersects with his renderings of gender, through the different kinds of visual attention he shows female and male figures paying to things. I shall focus here on his involvement with and depiction of female forms of looking, not only because this aspect of Wright's work has been given short shrift in literature on the artist, but also because female figures played such a key role in his art as embodiments of an affectladen visual response to things.3 The role played by female looking within Wright's paintings echoes in some way the role of female looking within the culture for which he painted. Here I am particularly interested in teasing out some of the uncertainties about women's roles as members of an audience for art and science, about their looking at and responding to these phenomena in ways that modify and complicate the binary oppositions that initially structured so much of our thinking about the gendering of representation, where an active male was set against a purely passive female.

The Motif of Wonder in the Gospel of Mark

Abstract: The Motif of Wonder in the Gospel of Mark, by Timothy Dwyer. JSNTSup 128. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Pp. 243. L39.00/$58-50. Originating as a project at the University of Aberdeen under the direction of Ruth Edwards and 1. Howard Marshall, this monograph is a well-researched, well-written, carefully structured assessment of its titular topic. The introduction (chapter 1) establishes the need for Dwyer's study: by his reckoning Mark contains thirty-two occurrences of the motif of wonder, many of which have been heretofore absorbed into consideration of other subjects (such as miracle stories). "Of the 32 occasions where Mark uses the motif, eight involve miracles or exorcism (2.12; 4.41; 5.15, 33, 42; 6.50, 21; 7.37); teaching or passion predictions also have eight occurrences (1.22, 27; 6.2; 9.32; 10.24, 26; 11.18; 12.17); three occurrences are in the empty tomb narrative (16.5, 6, 8); five relate to the fear of various leaders, either Jewish or Gentile (6.20; 11.32; 12.12; 15.5, 44); the remaining eight are difficult to categorize (3.21; 5.20; 6.6; 9.6, 15; 10.32; 12. 11; 14.33)" (p. 20). Dwyer's method combines redaction criticism, by which he aims to focus on discrete pericopae in which the motif of wonder occurs in Mark, and narrative analysis, by which that motif may be exegetically synthesized with the Gospel's other salient features. Following a brief comparison of Markan reactions of wonder with those in Matthew and Luke-both of which tend to delete, soften, or stereotype that motif-- Dwyer turns to reactions of wonder in Greco-Roman literature (chapter 2), early Jewish writings (chapter 3), and early Christian literature (chapter 4). While occurring in the Greek magical papyri and with surprising rarity in miracle stories, the motif is found to play little part in the portraits of "divine-men" and esteemed teachers, in Greco-Roman biographies, in ancient drama, and in the rhetorical conventions of pathos. Across all genres wonder most commonly occurs "in reference to signs, portents and dreams, or divine interventions in general" (p. 46). Dwyer discerns the same phenomenon in the LXX, Philo, and josephus. Those works, as well as the QL and the Pseudepigrapha, tend also to associate wonder with the eschatological age and messianic expectation. Wonder serves a propagandistic purpose in early Jewish literature: "the God of Israel is [shown to be] the true God by the way God does things to astound people" (p. 67). In early Christian documents other than the Synoptic Gospels, reactions of wonder are infrequent and polyvalent. In John they are usually negative responses of Jesus' opponents, never reactions to specific miracles. in Acts and Revelation wonder can carry either strong negative or strong positive connotations, leading to faith or to deception. In texts canonical (2 Thess 1:10; Jas 2:19) and noncanonical (e.g., Gos. Thom. 2; Acts of Peter 5.12), wonder is depicted as an awe-inspiring encounter with the supernatural realm, akin to Rudolf Otto's characterization of essential religious experience as a mysterium tremendum. Chapters 5 and 6 examine those pericopae in, respectively, Mark 1:1-9:13 and 9:14-16:8 where the language of wonder occurs. in the first half of the Gospel, Dwyer repeatedly observes that wonder is not focused on "the naked miracle or exorcism" (p. 115; see Mark 1:22, 27; 5:15, 20); "beyond pure acts of power" wonder is prompted, rather, by "the acts of God in the breaking-in of the kingdom" (pp. 143, 144; see Mark 4:41; 6:50, 51; 7:37). Either obedience to Jesus or rejection of him may follow from this uncanny eschatological intervention (e.g., Mark 2:12; 6:2, 6a, 20). When followed by faith, "[w]onder is then integrated with Jesus' mission and serves as a vehicle to properly identify it" as the medium through which "God has acted .... to save" (p. 143; see esp. Mark 5:33, 42). For Dwyer, Mark's theological achievement is the (largely redactional) use of the motif of wonder to illumine the passion and resurrection, interpreted in Jesus' teaching as the in-breaking rule of God to save (thus, Mark 9:32; 10:24, 26, 32; 11:18; 15:5, 44; 16:5, 6, 8). …

Benjamin in Hope

Abstract: The dramatic-and nomadic-circumstances of Walter Benjamin's life are such that it is difficult not to be justly distracted by them: the political background competes with the enormous erudition, the sheer bookishness, of the foreground. Yet the attention of Benjamin the critic to what he reads or analyses, that attention called by Malebranche the natural prayer of the soul, is so strong that he comes across with revisionary perspectives and startling trains of thought that make one stop and wonder at the physiological and mental mechanisms he reveals. That wonder, at the same time, does not dissolve into either specialized knowledge or philosophy, although the pressure of conceptualization is always there, and philosophy is acknowledged to be a sibling of the work of art, useful in questioning art's strangeness, its combination of intimacy and discretion. Yet while art remains central as a structure of feeling, Benjamin sees it changing according to contemporary social and economic conditions. Art is no longer quite the cultural value it was; he is not tempted to say to it, in its singularity, charm, or in situ monumentality, "Verweile doch, du bist so sch6n." With film, especially, distraction (Zerstreuung) and concentration (Sammlung) enter into a new relationship, quite different from what used to characterize the plastic or verbal arts. Indeed, film helps us to become used to a new form of awareness or, rather, unconsciousness, which goes beyond the optic of intense individual contemplation that marks art criti-

Unconventional First Days: Encouraging Students To Wonder about Social Life and Learning.

Abstract: THE FIRST DAY Of a college course is important. Some sociologists advise teachers to see the first class as a meeting of "strangers in a strange land" (Goldsmid and Wilson 1980:160). These strangers will "develop a definition of the situation as they perceive each other" (Dorn 1987:61). Students may quickly create impressions of their college professors and courses (Ambady and Rosenthal 1993). Their early impressions may significantly color their experiences throughout the semester (Ambady and Rosenthal 1992; Dorn 1987:62-3). Consequently, sociologists advise professors how to conduct the first class. Their reasonable advice, however, may confirm students' expectations about first meetings and courses instead of challenging them. I discuss one unconventional first day and a modification of it intended both to encourage students to wonder about social life and to challenge their expectations about learning. Unconventional first days can intrigue students and put into practice how they will explore social life throughout the semester.