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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Chemtrails: Deadly Skies Or Dangerous Misinformation?, Abigail Foust Apr 2024

Chemtrails: Deadly Skies Or Dangerous Misinformation?, Abigail Foust

Undergraduate Research Symposium

A common sight on a clear day is a thin strip of white across the otherwise blue sky: A contrail. Most people do not think anything of these contrails, and assume they have little to no impact on the world at large. Suppose for a moment, however, that they are not as harmless as some believe. Suppose these cloud trails are actually composed of dangerous chemicals, and are being used by sinister forces in a conspiracy to kill off the weak, mind-control the population, or simply dull our minds in preparation for a government takeover. As far-fetched as this may …


The Roaring Lion Of Berlin: The Life, Thought, And Influence Of Eugen Dühring, Arden Roy Jan 2024

The Roaring Lion Of Berlin: The Life, Thought, And Influence Of Eugen Dühring, Arden Roy

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The life and influence of 19th-century German polymath Eugen Dühring remain but a mere footnote in the history of ideas, being primarily relegated to the status of little more than a theoretical rival to Marxism in the German socialist movement and the occasional object of Freidrich Nietzsche's rhetorical flogging. Despite the current consensus on the subject, Eugen Dühring was a scholar of vast, remarkable learnedness, contributing greatly to philosophy, economics, and the natural sciences. The aim of this talk will be to clear the fog surrounding the life and work of the controversial blind scholar and give an account of …


The Evolution Of Psychological Altruism, Gualtiero Piccinini, Armin Schulz Dec 2018

The Evolution Of Psychological Altruism, Gualtiero Piccinini, Armin Schulz

Philosophy Faculty Works

We argue that there are two different kinds of altruistic motivation: classical psychological altruism, which generates ultimate desires to help other organisms at least partly for those organisms’ sake, and nonclassical psychological altruism, which generates ultimate desires to help other organisms for the sake of the organism providing the help. We then argue that classical psychological altruism is adaptive if the desire to help others is intergenerationally reliable and, thus, need not be learned. Nonclassical psychological altruism is adaptive when the desire to help others is adaptively learnable. This theory opens new avenues for the interdisciplinary study of psychological altruism.