C. James

Robustness properties of three equality of variances tests, the jackknife procedure, the k-sample Box-Andersen test, and Levene’s z test, were investigated and compared in a Monte Carlo study employing small samples from underlying gamma distributions and gamma mixtures. Overall, the jackknife test yielded rejection proportions usually closer to nominal levels under departures from normality, but the Box-Andersen test performed relatively well when departures from normality were not extreme. Four recommendations regarding testing variances were offered.

From the beginning, the implications of quantum theory for our most general understanding of the world have been a matter of intense debate. Einstein argues that the theory had to be regarded as fundamentally incomplete. Its inability, for example, to predict the exact time of decay of a single radioactive atom had to be due to a failure of the theory and not due to a permanent inability on our part or a fundamental indeterminism in nature itself. In 1964, John Bell derived a theorem which showed that any deterministic theory which preserved locality would have certain consequences for measurements performed at a distance from one another. An experimental check seems to show that these consequences are not, in fact, realized. The correlation between the sets of events is much stronger than any local deterministic theory could allow. What is more, this stronger correlation is precisely that which is predicted by quantum theory. The astonishing result is that local deterministic theories of the classical sort seem to be permanently excluded. Not only can the individual decay not be predicted, but no future theory can ever predict it. The contributors in this volume wrestle with this conclusion. Some welcome it; others leave open a return to at lease some kind of deterministic world, one which must however allow something like action-at-a distance. How much lit it? And how can one avoid violating relativity theory, which excludes action-at-a-distance? How can a clash between the two fundamental theories of modern physics, relativity and quantum theory, be avoided? What are the consequences for the traditional philosophic issue of causality explanation and objectivity? One thing is certain; we can never return to the comfortable Newtonian world where everything that happened was, in principle, predictable and where what happened at one measurement site could not affect another set of measurements being performed light-years away, at a distance that a light-signal could not bridge. Contributors: James T. Cushing, Abner Shimony, N. David Mermin, Jon P. Jarrett, Linda Wessels, Bas C. van Fraassen, Jeremy Butterfield, Michael L. G. Redhead, Henry P. Stapp, Arthur Fine, R. I. G. Hughes, Paul Teller, Don Howard, Henry J. Folse, and Ernan McMullin.

Most discussions of search engines focus on technology or user experience. By contrast, this paper asks about those who produce the recommendations that search engines gather. How are these people and institutions affected when search engines incorporate their work into search results, but no credit is given? The paper argues that the lack of attribution encourages the myth of automated meaning, the false belief that computers and algorithms have created rather than simply gathered these recommendations. It further argues that by concealing the role of these producers, search engines undermine public support for the individuals and institutions that create trustworthy recommendations, especially libraries. Because search engines borrow so extensively from public institutions and the public at large, their ethical obligations are far greater than previously recognized. The paper concludes with some comparisons between the ethical practices of libraries and those of search engines.

This chapter discusses some of the most engaging natural phenomena, those in which highly structured collective behavior emerges over time from the interaction of simple subsystems. Emergence is generally understood to be a process that leads to the appearance of structure not directly described by the defining constraints and instantaneous forces which control a system. Over time “something new” appears at scales not directly specified by the equations of motion. An emergent feature also cannot be explicitly represented in the initial and boundary conditions. A feature emerges when the underlying system puts some effort into its creation. These observations form an intuitive definition of emergence. For it to be useful, however, one must specify what the “something” is and in what manner it is “new.” Otherwise, the notion has little or no content, since almost any time-dependent system would exhibit emergent features.

The contemporary study of argumentation has adopted a fundamentally rhetorical account of the standards of rationality, although it has also developed several ways to deny this. One is by obscuring the fact that its standards of rationality are primarily communicative and that an audience of some kind is the ultimate judge of the strength of arguments. Another is by defining “rhetoric” in such a way that it can no longer play any role in providing rational normativity. I want to challenge these denials by pressing a single question. The question is: if formal validity is no longer the standard for evaluating arguments, then exactly what is? I direct this question at three highly developed, systematic, and..

The coming of new Information CommunicationTechnologies (ICTs) has prompted muchcontroversy in higher education. Scholars andadministrators have been excited by thepotential – perhaps the threat – of the`virtual' university. But whilst much has beenwritten about `virtual higher education', lesshas been said about the actual `work' involved.Drawing upon insights from the sociology oftechnology, this paper reports on the attemptsof one university to reconcile ideas about`virtuality' with the more established networksand infrastructures of traditional universitylife. This research is based upon aparticipant-observation study carried out inthe UK

Henry Johnstone's philosophical development was guided by a persistent need to reform the concept of validity -either by reinterpreting it or by finding a substitute for it. This project lead Johnstone into interesting confrontations with the concept of rhetoric and especiaUy with the work of Chaim Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca. The project culminated in a failed attempt to develop a formal ethics of rhetoric and argumentation, but this attempt was itself not consistent with some of Johnstone's other characterizations ofan ethics of argument ation. A virtue ethics would be truer to the Johnstonian philosophical project than a formal ethics of argument. Resume.