Being Truly Wrong: Enlightened Nihilism or Unbound Naturalism?

Does being wrong make Kettlewell wrong for science teaching ?

Biology textbooks, almost without exception, introduce students to evolutionary theory with reference to the phenomenon of industrial melanism, long regarded as the classic example of natural selection. Its status as an icon among biology teachers and the public stands in stark contrast to ongoing debates among scientists which reveal that this phenomenon is nowhere near as well understood as t...

So what's wrong with being fat?

This is question that my 55-year-old patient asked me in clinic last week. This was not the first time that I had heard this question. Indeed, obesity has become so commonplace in the United States that the asthenic individual has become the exception rather than the rule. With the increasing prevalence (and incidence, too, for that matter) of obesity in our society, patients have come to perce...

Efficient visual recalibration from either visual or haptic feedback: the importance of being wrong.

The human visual system adapts to the changing statistics of its environment. For example, the light-from-above prior, an assumption that aids the interpretation of ambiguous shading information, can be modified by haptic (touch) feedback. Here we investigate the mechanisms that drive this adaptive learning. In particular, we ask whether visual information can be as effective as haptics in driv...

Logical Nihilism

Naturalism and the social model of disability: allied or antithetical?

The question of how disability should be defined is fraught with political, ethical and philosophical complexities. The social model of disability, which posits that disability is socially and politically constructed and is characterised by systemic barriers, has enjoyed broad acceptance that is exemplified by the slow but steady progress in securing civil rights for persons with disabilities. ...