上海湿地生态系统的效益分析

上海是一座湿地面积占23.5%的海滨特大城市。由于湿地生态系统功能和服务的多面性,给人类尤其是上海带来巨大的生态效益、经济效益和社会效益。上海湿地的主要功能是为城市的持续发展提供生态屏障作用,维持生物多样性,净化和过滤等生态服务以及防风暴及保护海岸线功能。上海湿地的社会效益主要有旅游休闲、历史及文化价值、教育及科学研究等价值,促进湿地周边地区经济的可持续发展。上海湿地的直接经济效益主要指湿地生态系统产生的产品的价值,它包括食品、农业产品及其它生产原料、景观娱乐等产生的直接价值,直接经济效益可用产品的市场价格来估算。同时上海还有国际重要湿地,涉及国际共同利益和效益。因此,为求得上海湿地可持续开发和保护,必须将经济效益、生态效益和社会效益放在同等重要的条件上,不能片面追求单个效益目标,正确的做法是在提高经济效益中十分重视生态效益,在提高生态效益中尽可能争取高的经济效益,并达到社会效益的有效提高,从而实现上海湿地生态系统生态经济效益的最优化。     

The operational framework for quantum theories is both epistemologically and ontologically neutral

Operational frameworks are very useful to study the foundations of quantum mechanics, and are sometimes used to promote antirealist attitudes towards the theory. The aim of this paper is to review three arguments aiming at defending an antirealist reading of quantum physics based on various developments of standard quantum mechanics appealing to notions such as quantum information, non-causal correlations and indefinite causal orders. Those arguments will be discussed in order to show that they are not convincing. Instead, it is argued that there is conceptually no argument that could favour realist or antirealist attitudes towards quantum mechanics based solely on some features of some formalism. In particular, both realist and antirealist views are well accomodable within operational formulations of the theory. The reason for this is that the realist/antirealist debate is located at a purely epistemic level, which is not engaged by formal aspects of theories. As such, operational formulations of quantum mechanics are epistmologically and ontologically neutral. This discussion aims at clarifying the limits of the historical and methodological affinities between scientific antirealism and operational physics while engaging with recent discoveries in quantum foundations. It also aims at presenting various realist strategies to account for those developments.     

Scientific Instruments for Education in Early Twentieth-Century Spain

1898 marked a crucial point in the end of the nineteenth-century Spanish crisis. The military defeat ending the Spanish-American War was seen as proof that the country was in terminal decline. With the ideals of regeneration spreading throughout Spanish society, the State became more interested in supporting and sponsoring science and technology, as well as in creating a modern educational system. The resulting reforms reflected this strong interest in scientific education, and consequently, the first decades of the twentieth century saw a turning point in the development of science and technology in Spain. Some recent papers have discussed various initiatives taken by Spanish governments, particularly in the creation of new official institutions. Such institutions played an important role in the development of science and technology, but their activity in the promotion of scientific education was very limited. However, other governmental initiatives were taken in order to develop this area, particularly focusing on the acquisition of scientific instruments. Scientific instruments were needed not only to improve Spanish scientific research but also to improve the teaching of experimental sciences. These instruments were specifically adapted for use by students. This paper aims to present some of the lesser-known individuals and firms who, in the new social and cultural context, provided scientific instruments for educational centres in order to meet the increasing demand for this material in Spanish educational institutions during these years.     

Microbial carcinogenic toxins and dietary anti-cancer protectants

Several toxins are known which account for the ability of some bacteria to initiate or promote carcinogenesis. These ideas are summarised and evidence is discussed for more specific mechanisms involving chymotrypsin and the bacterial chymotryptic enzyme subtilisin. Subtilisin and Bacillus subtilis are present in the gut and environment and both are used commercially in agriculture, livestock rearing and meat processing. The enzymes deplete cells of tumour suppressors such as deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) and neogenin, so their potential presence in the food chain might represent an important link between diet and cancer. Over-eating increases secretion of chymotrypsin which is absorbed from the gut and could contribute to several forms of cancer linked to obesity. Inhibition of these serine proteases by Bowman–Birk inhibitors in fruit and vegetables could account for some of the protective effects of a plant-rich diet. These interactions represent previously unknown non-genetic mechanisms for the modification of tumour suppressor proteins and provide a plausible explanation contributing to both the pro-oncogenic effects of meat products and the protective activity of a plant-rich diet. The data suggest that changes to farming husbandry and food processing methods to remove these sources of extrinsic proteases might significantly reduce the incidence of several cancers.     

Collaborative explanation and biological mechanisms

This paper motivates and outlines a new account of scientific explanation, which I term ‘collaborative explanation.’ My approach is pluralist: I do not claim that all scientific explanations are collaborative, but only that some important scientific explanations are—notably those of complex organic processes like development. Collaborative explanation is closely related to what philosophers of biology term ‘mechanistic explanation’ (e.g., Machamer et al., Craver, 2007). I begin with minimal conditions for mechanisms: complexity, causality, and multilevel structure. Different accounts of mechanistic explanation interpret and prioritize these conditions in different ways. This framework reveals two distinct varieties of mechanistic explanation: causal and constitutive. The two have heretofore been conflated, with philosophical discussion focusing on the former. This paper addresses the imbalance, using a case study of modeling practices in Systems Biology to reveals key features of constitutive mechanistic explanation. I then propose an analysis of this variety of mechanistic explanation, in terms of collaborative concepts, and sketch the outlines of a general theory of collaborative explanation. I conclude with some reflections on the connection between this variety of explanation and social aspects of scientific practice.     

全球变化研究中的"科学政治化"倾向--以美国气候政策为例

在国际社会为防止、适应全球变化的努力中,会涉及到国家、地方和民族的诸多利益。全球变化研究成为与国家安全、食物供应、水资源、温室气体排放、人类健康等问题密切相关的社会问题。美国为国际全球变化研究做出了突出的贡献,但当国际气候框架与其国内经济发展出现冲突时,美国的气候政策也开始了以保障国内经济发展和企业利益的调整,作为国家支持的全球变化研究也需要针对这些调整而不断修正研究方向和关注重点,为有利于美国的政治和政策服务,表现出了明显的“科学政治化”倾向。本文分析了美国自2001年3月退出《京都议定书》以来的一系列的政策和研究支持的调整,尤其对美国的《京都议定书》替代方案《晴朗天空与全球气候变化行动》进行了深入的分析。根据这些分析,可以对国际全球变化研究与国家政治和利益的关系有一个总体的了解,为我国科研工作者和生产企业提供有益借鉴。     

The COVID-19 pandemic and global environmental change: Emerging research needs

The outbreak of COVID-19 raised numerous questions on the interactions between the occurrence of new infections, the environment, climate and health. The European Union requested the H2020 HERA project which aims at setting priorities in research on environment, climate and health, to identify relevant research needs regarding Covid-19. The emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be related to urbanization, habitat destruction, live animal trade, intensive livestock farming and global travel. The contribution of climate and air pollution requires additional studies. Importantly, the severity of COVID-19 depends on the interactions between the viral infection, ageing and chronic diseases such as metabolic, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and obesity which are themselves influenced by environmental stressors. The mechanisms of these interactions deserve additional scrutiny. Both the pandemic and the social response to the disease have elicited an array of behavioural and societal changes that may remain long after the pandemic and that may have long term health effects including on mental health. Recovery plans are currently being discussed or implemented and the environmental and health impacts of those plans are not clearly foreseen. Clearly, COVID-19 will have a long-lasting impact on the environmental health field and will open new research perspectives and policy needs.     

The COVID-19 pandemic and global environmental change: Emerging research needs

The outbreak of COVID-19 raised numerous questions on the interactions between the occurrence of new infections, the environment, climate and health. The European Union requested the H2020 HERA project which aims at setting priorities in research on environment, climate and health, to identify relevant research needs regarding Covid-19. The emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be related to urbanization, habitat destruction, live animal trade, intensive livestock farming and global travel. The contribution of climate and air pollution requires additional studies. Importantly, the severity of COVID-19 depends on the interactions between the viral infection, ageing and chronic diseases such as metabolic, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and obesity which are themselves influenced by environmental stressors. The mechanisms of these interactions deserve additional scrutiny. Both the pandemic and the social response to the disease have elicited an array of behavioural and societal changes that may remain long after the pandemic and that may have long term health effects including on mental health. Recovery plans are currently being discussed or implemented and the environmental and health impacts of those plans are not clearly foreseen. Clearly, COVID-19 will have a long-lasting impact on the environmental health field and will open new research perspectives and policy needs.     

Constructing dystopian experience: A Neurath-Cartwrightian approach to the philosophy of social technology

Social situations, the object of the social sciences, are complex and unique: they contain so many variable aspects that they cannot be reproduced, and it is even difficult to experience two situations that are alike in many respects. The social scientists' past experiences that serve as their background knowledge to intervene in an existent situation is poor compared to what a traditional epistemologist would consider ideal. A way of dealing with the variable and insufficient background of social scientists is by means of models. But, then, how should we characterize social scientific models? This paper examines Otto Neurath's scientific utopianism as an attempt to deal with this problem. Neurath proposes that social scientists work with utopias: broad imaginative plans that coordinate a multitude of features of a social situation. This notion can be used in current debates in philosophy of science because we notice that utopias, in Neurath's sense, are comparable to models and nomological machines in Nancy Cartwright's conception. A model-based view of science lays emphasis on the fact that scientists learn from the repeated operation of such abstract entities, just as they learn from the repetition of experiments in a laboratory. Hence this approach suggests an approximation between the natural and the social sciences, as well as between science and utopian literature. This is exemplified by analyzing the literary dystopia We, written by Yevgeny Zamyatin, to show that reasoning from and debating about utopian writings, even if fictional and pessimistic, creates phenomena of valuation, which are fundamental for constituting a background of experiences in the social sciences.     

Parallels between sexual strategies and other allocation strategies

Allocation strategies in which a limited resource is apportioned among alternative activities are applicable to diverse structural, genetical and behavioral topics, including male versus female investments. In a model of sex allocation strategies, the absolute fitness of individuals are calculated by summing the production of male and female gametes or offspring, each weighted by its reproductive value. The ESS is obtained by examining the fitness advantage of one phenotype over another. An analogous method is used to obtain a general model of allocation strategies that incorporates some widespread features. Allocation strategies are affected by the sizes and shapes of the reward curves, stochastic factors, and constraints on the allocations permitted. A number of parallels among diverse types of allocation strategies, including the occurrence of fixed, conditional and mixed strategies, and matching rules, are discussed.     

Parallels between sexual strategies and other allocation strategies

Summary Allocation strategies in which a limited resource is apportioned among alternative activities are applicable to diverse structural, genetical and behavioral topics, including male versus female investments. In a model of sex allocation strategies, the absolute fitnesses of individuals are calculated by summing the production of male and female gametes or offspring, each weighted by its reproductive value. The ESS is obtained by examining the fitness advantage of one phenotype over another. An analogous method is used to obtain a general model of allocation strategies that incorporates some widespread features. Allocation strategies are affected by the sizes and shapes of the reward curves, stochastic factors, and constraints on the allocations permitted. A number of parallels among diverse types of allocation strategies, including the occurrence of fixed, conditional and mixed strategies, and matching rules, are discussed.     

Value-entanglement and the integrity of scientific research

Throughout much of the 20th century, philosophers of science maintained a position known as the value-free ideal, which holds that non-epistemic (e.g., moral, social, political, or economic) values should not influence the evaluation and acceptance of scientific results. In the last few decades, many philosophers of science have rejected this position by arguing that non-epistemic values can and should play an important role in scientific judgment and decision-making in a variety of contexts, including the evaluation and acceptance of scientific results. Rejecting the value-free ideal creates some new and vexing problems, however. One of these is that relinquishing this philosophical doctrine may undermine the integrity of scientific research if practicing scientists decide to allow non-epistemic values to impact their judgment and decision-making. A number of prominent philosophers of science have sought to show how one can reject the value-free ideal without compromising the integrity of scientific research. In this paper, we examine and critique their views and offer our own proposal for protecting and promoting scientific integrity. We argue that the literature on research ethics and its focus on adherence to norms, rules, policies, and procedures that together promote the aims of science can provide a promising foundation for building an account of scientific integrity. These norms, rules, policies, and procedures provide a level of specificity that is lacking in most philosophical discussions of science and values, and they suggest an important set of tasks for those working in science and values—namely, assessing, justifying, and prioritizing them. Thus, we argue that bringing together the literature on research ethics with the literature on science and values will enrich both areas and generate a more sophisticated and detailed account of scientific integrity.     

Book Reviews

José María Albareda (1902–1966) was an applied chemist and a prominent member of the Roman Catholic organization, Opus Dei, who played a crucial role in organizing the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the new scientific institution created by the Franco regime in 1939. The paper analyses first the formative years in Albareda's scientific biography and the political and social context in which he became an Opus Dei fellow. Then it discusses the CSIC's innovative features compared with the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE), the institution in charge of scientific research and science policy in Spain from 1907 up to the Civil War (1936–1939). Next it goes into Albareda's ideas about science and science policy. Finally, it shows how they shaped the organization of the CSIC, of which Albareda was the General Secretary from 1939 to his untimely death in 1966.     

Divergence of values and goals in participatory research

Public participation in scientific research has gained prominence in many scientific fields, but the theory of participatory research is still limited. In this paper, we suggest that the divergence of values and goals between academic researchers and public participants in research is key to analyzing the different forms this research takes. We examine two existing characterizations of participatory research: one in terms of public participants' role in the research, the other in terms of the virtues of the research. In our view, each of these captures an important feature of participatory research but is, on its own, limited in what features it takes into account. We introduce an expanded conception of norms of collaboration that extends to both academic researchers and public participants. We suggest that satisfying these norms requires consideration of the two groups' possibly divergent values and goals, and that a broad characterization of participatory research that starts from participants' values and goals can motivate both public participants’ role in the research and the virtues of the research. The resulting framework clarifies the similarities and differences among participatory projects and can help guide the responsible design of such projects.     

Models and the dynamics of theory-building in physics. Part II—Case studies

In Part I, it was argued that models are best explained by considering the strategies from which they issue. A distinction was proposed between two classes of modeling that contribute to theory-building: H-modeling and L-modeling. Case studies are presented in this Part II to illustrate the characteristic features of these modeling strategies; examples are drawn from classical statistical mechanics and quantum physics.     

What was classical genetics?

I present an account of classical genetics to challenge theory-biased approaches in the philosophy of science. Philosophers typically assume that scientific knowledge is ultimately structured by explanatory reasoning and that research programs in well-established sciences are organized around efforts to fill out a central theory and extend its explanatory range. In the case of classical genetics, philosophers assume that the knowledge was structured by T. H. Morgan’s theory of transmission and that research throughout the later 1920s, 30s, and 40s was organized around efforts to further validate, develop, and extend this theory. I show that classical genetics was structured by an integration of explanatory reasoning (associated with the transmission theory) and investigative strategies (such as the ‘genetic approach’). The investigative strategies, which have been overlooked in historical and philosophical accounts, were as important as the so-called laws of Mendelian genetics. By the later 1920s, geneticists of the Morgan school were no longer organizing research around the goal of explaining inheritance patterns; rather, they were using genetics to investigate a range of biological phenomena that extended well beyond the explanatory domain of transmission theories. Theory-biased approaches in history and philosophy of science fail to reveal the overall structure of scientific knowledge and obscure the way it functions.     

美国再制造业与我国的研究评述

基于再制造、传统生产运行管理内涵及实践感受,提出再制造生产模式概念,并归纳其七项特征,以此评述全文。将美国的研究发展过程划分两阶段,归纳了第一阶段对我国有借鉴作用的七条经验;阐述了第二阶段的研究内容和特点,并分析了两阶段的形成机理和可能的发展趋势。总结出我国研究的形成过程和特点,通过与美国对比,指出了两个层面的差距,并提出中国特色和跨越式发展的论点,由此分析了发展的可能性及当前和未来应研究的方向、内容和方式。     

Can patents prohibit research? On the social epistemology of patenting and licensing in science

A topic of growing importance within philosophy of science is the epistemic implications of the organization of research. This paper identifies a promising approach to social epistemology—nonideal systems design—and uses it to examine one important aspect of the organization of research, namely the system of patenting and licensing and its role in structuring the production and dissemination of knowledge. The primary justification of patenting in science and technology is consequentialist in nature. Patenting should incentivize research and thereby promote the development of knowledge, which in turn facilitates social progress. Some have disputed this argument, maintaining that patenting actually inhibits knowledge production. In this paper, I make a stronger argument; in some areas of research in the US—in particular, research on GM seeds—patents and patent licenses can be, and are in fact being, used to prohibit some research. I discuss three potential solutions to this problem: voluntary agreements, eliminating patents, and a research exemption. I argue against eliminating patents, and I show that while voluntary agreements and a research exemption could be helpful, they do not sufficiently address the problems of access that are discussed here. More extensive changes in the organization of research are necessary.     

Social environmental effects on gene regulation

Social environmental conditions, particularly the experience of social adversity, have long been connected with health and mortality in humans and other social mammals. Efforts to identify the physiological basis for these effects have historically focused on their neurological, endocrinological, and immunological consequences. Recently, this search has been extended to understanding the role of gene regulation in sensing, mediating, and determining susceptibility to social environmental variation. Studies in laboratory rodents, captive primates, and human populations have revealed correlations between social conditions and the regulation of a large number of genes, some of which are likely causal. Gene expression responses to the social environment are, in turn, mediated by a set of underlying regulatory mechanisms, of which epigenetic marks are the best studied to date. Importantly, a number of genes involved in the response to the social environment are also associated with susceptibility to other external stressors, as well as certain diseases. Hence, gene regulatory studies are a promising avenue for understanding, and potentially developing strategies to address, the effects of social adversity on health.     

Knowledge transfer in agent-based computational social science

This article addresses knowledge transfer dynamics in agent-based computational social science. The goal of the text is twofold. First, it describes the tensions arising from the convergence of different disciplinary traditions in the emergence of this new area of study and, second, it shows how these tensions are dealt with through the articulation of distinctive practices of knowledge production and transmission. To achieve this goal, three major instances of knowledge transfer dynamics in agent-based computational social science are analysed. The first instance is the emergence of the research field. Relations of knowledge transfer and cross-fertilisation between agent-based computational social science and wider and more established disciplinary areas: complexity science, computational science and social science, are discussed. The second instance is the approach to scientific modelling in the field. It is shown how the practice of agent-based modelling is affected by the conflicting coexistence of shared methodological commitments transferred from both empirical and formal disciplines. Lastly, the third instance pertains internal practices of knowledge production and transmission. Through the discussion of these practices, the tensions arising from converging dissimilar disciplinary traditions in agent-based computational social science are highlighted.