Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

v. 1. La genesi fenomenologica della "logica" hegeliana.

Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in the mediating role of critical thinking abilities in the relationship between language learning strategies and the intermediate English as a Foreign Language learners’ writing performance. Oxford Placement Test was run to homogenize the participants, and 100 intermediate learners out of 235 were selected. Then, two valid questionnaires of Ricketts’ Critical Thinking Disposition and Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning were administered. Having administered the questionnaires, the researchers (...) asked the participants to sit for a writing test. The data collected from the questionnaires and as well as the scores of their writing performances were analyzed through SPSS. The results showed a significant relationship between learning strategies and learners’ writing performances, the sub-sets of learning strategies and learners’ writing performances, and CTA and learners’ learning strategies. However, CTA did not play a mediating role in the relationship between intermediate EFL learners’ learning strategies and writing performance. Based on the results of the study, one might also conclude that strategies seemed to play a more important role in the performance of learners especially their writing performances. Therefore, this study had useful contributions for students, teachers, and curriculum designers. Findings of this research could assist teachers to be aware of learners’ strategies in learning writing and help their students to be responsive to using learning strategies in their learning process and create a satisfactory learning context for using learning strategies. Therefore, learners were able to become independent and feel responsibility for their own learning. Secondly, curriculum developers could take advantage of the findings to include learning strategies training into the curriculum. As a result, students were able to use strategies in their learning process more easily and finally, the results might pave the way for improving the research findings. (shrink)

In this article we consider certain elements of the normative theory of Jürgen Habermas in the light of the proposals of Bruce Ackerman, with a view to strengthening a concept of deliberative democracy applied to the legitimation of juridical rules. We do not construct a hierarchy of the two positions, but seek to bring together certain elements to achieve a common project. As the starting point for examining the work of the two authors, we take the scheme proposed by Habermas (...) in Faktizität und Geltung. In this connection, through the work of Ackerman, we intend to fill in some of the gaps that Habermas appears to have left in the theory of radical democracy applied to the law. The work of Ackerman can make a significant contribution to deliberative democracy, to the discourse principle that Habermas defines, and to the contractualist theories from a liberal perspective. The study of these contributions makes possible a critical judgment that enables the legitimation of juridical rules carried out by Habermas to acquire greater practicity. In examining the epistemological status of juridical science and law, we attempt to determine the weight and the performance of normative democracy. In Tarr's view, it is a matter for philosophers to examine direct democracy and its desirability. (shrink)

James I. The Political Works of James I. Reprinted from the Edition of 1616. With an Introduction by Charles Howard McIlwain. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918. cxi, 354 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.