Rationality as a Goal of Education

Abstract Those who believe education should involve more than learning facts often stress either (a) development or (b) thinking skills. A focus on development as a goal of education typically entails a conception of knowledge as organismic, holistic, and internally generated. In contrast, thinking skills programs commonly assume a mechanistic, reductionist perspective in which good thinking consists of some finite number of directly teachable skills. A conception of rationality as a goal of education is proposed that incorporates the complementary strengths and avoids the limitations of the developmental and thinking skills approaches. Rationality is defined as the self-reflective, intentional, and appropriate coordination and use of genuine reasons in generating and justifying beliefs and behavior. Philosophically, rationality is a justifiable goal of education, not only because it is a means to worthwhile ends but because it is an important end in itself and because it can be promoted via non-indoctrinative means. A psychological account of progressive rationality is provided that postulates continuing multiple interactions of (a) domain-specific developmental stages, (b) the learning of specific thinking skills, and (c) content-specific knowledge. Suggestions are made for fostering rationality at various educational levels. Finally, it is argued that the proposed conception of rationality as a goal of education complements and clarifies a variety of other educational goals

Listening in the dark: why we need stories of people living with severe and enduring anorexia nervosa

A bold step forward in our approach to Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa invites new paradigms for research and practice. It provides an opportunity for us to explore fault lines, both in our communities of practice and the social structures that inform them. This paper serves to question the medical metaphors on which treatment has been based, in favour of alternative perspectives that resonate more clearly with the lived experience of those for whom it has failed. We invite the consideration of alternative metaphors, which can disrupt the notion of heroic patients (and therapists), mediate against acts of self-silencing and sensitising us to more radical acts of listening. Beyond the randomised trials and manuals it is time for us to listen to the realities of suffering, the minutiae of resistance and the life that can still be lived

Mapping Peptidergic Cells in Drosophila: Where DIMM Fits In

The bHLH transcription factor DIMMED has been associated with the differentiation of peptidergic cells in Drosophila. However, whether all Drosophila peptidergic cells express DIMM, and the extent to which all DIMM cells are peptidergic, have not been determined. To address these issues, we have mapped DIMM expression in the central nervous system (CNS) and periphery in the late larval stage Drosophila. At 100 hr after egg-laying, DIMM immunosignals are largely congruent with a dimm-promoter reporter (c929-GAL4) and they present a stereotyped pattern of 306 CNS cells and 52 peripheral cells. We assigned positional values for all DIMM CNS cells with respect to reference gene expression patterns, or to patterns of secondary neuroblast lineages. We could assign provisional peptide identities to 68% of DIMM-expressing CNS cells (207/306) and to 73% of DIMM-expressing peripheral cells (38/52) using a panel of 24 markers for Drosophila neuropeptide genes. Furthermore, we found that DIMM co-expression was a prevalent feature within single neuropeptide marker expression patterns. Of the 24 CNS neuropeptide gene patterns we studied, six patterns are >90% DIMM-positive, while 16 of 22 patterns are >40% DIMM-positive. Thus most or all DIMM cells in Drosophila appear to be peptidergic, and many but not all peptidergic cells express DIMM. The co-incidence of DIMM-expression among peptidergic cells is best explained by a hypothesis that DIMM promotes a specific neurosecretory phenotype we term LEAP. LEAP denotes Large cells that display Episodic release of Amidated Peptides

Abnormal Dosage Compensation of Reporter Genes Driven by the Drosophila Glass Multiple Reporter (GMR) Enhancer-Promoter

In Drosophila melanogaster the male specific lethal (MSL) complex is required for upregulation of expression of most X-linked genes in males, thereby achieving X chromosome dosage compensation. The MSL complex is highly enriched across most active X-linked genes with a bias towards the 3′ end. Previous studies have shown that gene transcription facilitates MSL complex binding but the type of promoter did not appear to be important. We have made the surprising observation that genes driven by the glass multiple reporter (GMR) enhancer-promoter are not dosage compensated at X-linked sites. The GMR promoter is active in all cells in, and posterior to, the morphogenetic furrow of the developing eye disc. Using phiC31 integrase-mediated targeted integration, we measured expression of lacZ reporter genes driven by either the GMR or armadillo (arm) promoters at each of three X-linked sites. At all sites, the arm-lacZ reporter gene was dosage compensated but GMR-lacZ was not. We have investigated why GMR-driven genes are not dosage compensated. Earlier or constitutive expression of GMR-lacZ did not affect the level of compensation. Neither did proximity to a strong MSL binding site. However, replacement of the hsp70 minimal promoter with a minimal promoter from the X-linked 6-Phosphogluconate dehydrogenase gene did restore partial dosage compensation. Similarly, insertion of binding sites for the GAGA and DREF factors upstream of the GMR promoter led to significantly higher lacZ expression in males than females. GAGA and DREF have been implicated to play a role in dosage compensation. We conclude that the gene promoter can affect MSL complex-mediated upregulation and dosage compensation. Further, it appears that the nature of the basal promoter and the presence of binding sites for specific factors influence the ability of a gene promoter to respond to the MSL complex

Territoriality and the organization of technology during the Last Glacial Maximum in southwestern Europe

Climate changes that occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) had significant consequences in human eco-dynamics across Europe. Among the most striking impacts are the demographic contraction of modern humans into southern refugia and the potential formation of a population bottleneck. In Iberia and southern France transformations also included the occurrence of significant technological changes, mostly marked by the emergence of a diverse set of bifacially-shaped stone projectiles. The rapid dissemination of bifacial technologies and the geographical circumscription of specific projectile morphologies within these regions have been regarded as evidence for: (1) the existence of a system of long-distance exchange and social alliance networks; (2) the organization of human groups into cultural facies with well-defined stylistic territorial boundaries. However, the degree and modes in which cultural transmission have occurred within these territories, and how it may have influenced other domains of the adaptive systems, remains largely unknown. Using southern Iberia as a case-study, this paper presents the first quantitative approach to the organization of lithic technology and its relationship to hunter-gatherers' territorial organization during the LGM. Similarities and dissimilarities in the presence of morphological and metric data describing lithic technologies are used as a proxy to explore modes and degrees of cultural transmission. Statistical results show that similarities in technological options are dependent on the chronology and geographical distance between sites and corroborate previous arguments for the organization of LGM settlement in Southern Iberia into discrete eco-cultural facies.STSM COST action (ref. COST-STSM-TD0902-10855); FCT, contract ref. DL 57/2016/CP1361/ CT0026. Work at Vale Boi is funded by the project ALG-01-0145-FEDER-27833 - PTDC/HAR-ARQ/27833/2017.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Monetary Policy News and Exchange Rate Responses: Do Only Surprises Matter?

This paper shows that exchange rates respond to only the surprise component of an actual US monetary policy change and that failure to disentangle the surprise component from the actual monetary policy change can lead to an underestimation of the impact of monetary policy, or even to a false acceptance of the hypothesis that monetary policy has no impact on exchange rates. This finding implies that there is a need for reexamining the empirical analyses of asset price responses to macro news that do not isolate the unexpected component of news from the expected element. In addition, we add to the debate on how quickly exchange rates respond to news by showing that the exchange rates under study absorb monetary policy surprises within the same day as the news are announced