Privacy,speech, and values: what we have no business knowing

In the United States the ascendancy of speech protection is due to an expansive and unjustified view of the value or primacy of free expression and access to information. This is perhaps understandable, given that privacy has been understood as a mere interest, whereas speech rights have been seen as more fundamental. I have argued elsewhere that the “mere interest” view of privacy is false. Privacy, properly defined, is a necessary condition for human well-being or flourishing. The opening section of this article will provide an overview of this theory. Next, after a few remarks on speech absolutism, privacy absolutism, and balancing theories, I will sketch several of the dominant argument strands that have been offered in support of presumptively weighty speech rights. While these arguments, taken together, establish that free speech is important, they do not support the view that speech should nearly always trump privacy. In final section I will present and defend a way to balance free speech and privacy claims.     

Theory of mind and social interest in zero-acquaintance play situations

Many studies have examined associations between children's theory of mind and social behavior with familiar peers, but to date none have examined how theory of mind might relate to behavior toward unfamiliar peers in a play setting. Forty-four 4-year-olds (21 girls, 23 boys) participated in standard theory-of-mind tasks and in a play session with 3 or 4 other children who were unfamiliar. Children were also tested on general vocabulary ability. No relations were found between theory of mind and social engagement. However, positive associations were found between theory of mind and time spent observing, but not interacting with, other children. Possible explanations of the links between theory of mind, temperament, and social interest are considered.     

Reporting Mobile Social Media Use: How Survey and Experience Sampling Measures Differ

Quantifying the ubiquitous, ephemeral, and highly diverse patterns of mobile social media (MSM) use is a challenge for communication research. Most researchers employ retrospective survey measurement, thus depending on the accuracy of users’ memories and generalizations. Alternatively, some researchers rely on in-situ measurement, being less dependent on users’ memories and generalizations, but requiring random situation samples. To assess differences and similarities between these two measurement approaches we analyzed whether characteristics (duration and frequency of a usage episode, habit, elaboration, and gratifications) of MSM use (regarding Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube) vary between retrospective survey and mobile experience sampling measurement. We observe a consistent pattern of higher estimates in retrospect as compared to individual averages of in-situ reports. The absolute magnitude of these differences varies considerably between platforms and characteristics studied. Nonetheless, for most constructs and platforms we find low significant positive correlations between retrospective and aggregated in-situ values.     

达尔文与基督教世界的沟通他的跨洋策略

在达尔文出生的那个年代,没有人会接受关于进化和人类起源的自然主义学说,他在那个时代分享了他关于自然、上帝以及历史的观念。在“贝格尔号”航行之后,他提出的“生命始于同一祖先”理论如何能令人信服,是他面临的巨大挑战。自从达尔文开始进化论的研究之后,他对“我的理论”的推广并非一定意在反驳宗教教义,而是作为宗教和科学的进步。达尔文深信的一条教义,就是人类具有共同祖先或者说所有种族皆兄弟——这可作为废除黑奴制度的一个理论根据。英国已于1838年废除了奴隶制,世界的目光于是转向美国——该国奴隶制正如火如荼,并得到一种支持奴隶制、主张人种多元的新特创论的支持。达尔文的跨洋策略自19世纪50年代开始便深深影响着美国反奴隶制的精英博物学家,他们对共同祖先理论的支持将被用来颠覆这一人种多元特创论——比用《圣经》中那不足凭信的人种同一论更为有效。因此,他的理论可作为道德和科学领域的进步而引起美国基督教世界废奴主义者的兴趣。然而,该策略却从未完全发挥自身所有的潜力,这使特创论在20世纪萌生了新的形式。