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PERIODICALS
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
Is "What Are Philosophers For?" byPhilt~~~phy Richard Rorty, in The Center Magazine (Sept.-Oct. 1983), Center for the Study of Philosophers Do Democratic Institutions, P.O. Box 4068,
Santa Barbara, Cal. 93103.
Few contemporary philosophers grapple with political and social is- sues in the way that Plato, John Locke, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau did. Where, one might ask, have all the sages gone?
"Only a Philistine would ask such a q...
Shirley Robin
Letwin, in Policy Review (Fall 1983), The
Heritage ~oundation, 214 MassachusettsJudges Decide Ave. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002.
"Courts are mere instruments of the law," declared Chief Justice John Marshall in 1824, "and can will nothing." After a long allegiance to ju- dicial activism, Anglo-American legal theorists appear to be returning to something like Marshall's traditional "rule of law" jurisprudence. But appearances, warns Letwin, a British...
Janet Raloff, in Science News,
(Aug. 20 & Sept. 10, 1983), 1719 N St.
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
For some people, violent behavior could be a matter of chemistry.
William Walsh, a chemical analyst at the Argonne National Labora- tory near Chicago, has been studying the crime-chemistry link in his spare time for 17 years, reports Raloff, a Science News editor.
Last spring, Walsh released the results of a five-year-long study com- paring concentrations of metallic "trace elementsu-calcium,...
stricter standards, the doubts linger.
Meanwhile, Walsh is pushing ahead with his work. At his new Health Research Institute near Chicago, he is beginning to treat delinquent boys for trace element abnormalities. No results yet.
If they are confirmed, notes Raloff, Walsh's findings would raise a host of ethical questions. Can the chemically imbalanced be held ac- countable for their crimes? Should a young child be tested for chemical hints of criminality? What if his test were positive?
"The...
1836, with the es- tablishment of the U.S. Patent Office, the screening requirement had been reinstated and the foundations of today's system were laid.
The question of what can be patented has also fallen to the courts. The peddling of "patent medicines" during the early 19th century led to a judicial ban on patents for "mischievous" creations. In 1822, a fed- eral court ruled that "mere abstractions" could not be patented. In 1978, the Supreme Court cited the 1822...
the aster and, within one minute, merges with the sperm nucleus. Almost imme- diately, the first steps toward creation of an embryo get underway.
Fertilization, the Schattens say, is "the riskiest of all biological pro- cesses." Small wonder then, that the egg has developed such aggressive mechanisms to ensure its success. No longer will it be possible to view fertilization as a solo act.
RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT
"Auchter's Record at OSHA Leaves Labor
at OS Outraged, Business Sat...
about 1,000 from 1980. Construction site inspections, however, were up from 28,000 to 31,000.
President Reagan's OSHA may not have broken much ground, Wines notes, but it probably hasn't lost much. Since the agency was created in 1970, job-related deaths have declined slowly, but workdays lost due to injury or illness have increased. That trend has not changed.
"The Trouble with Fusion" Lawrence Fusion Energy: M. Lidsky, in Technology Review (Oct.
1983), ~oom 10-140, ~assachusetts Insti-False...
Jasia Reichardt, in Art International (July-Aug. 1983), Via Maraini, 17-A, Lugano, Switzerland (CH-6900).
Colombian artist Fernando Botero's idiosyncratic paintings of fat peo- ple have won him a measure of fame in recent years. Yet the artist's ob- session with inflated figures remains a mystery.
Since his first "fat mode" painting in the mid-1950s. Botero's work has centered on depictions of overblown "bishops, generals, tarts, aunts, and ordinary citizens" from his native...
Carl E. Schorske, in The Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Oct. 1983), Norton's Woods, 136 Irving St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138.
At the turn of the century, two composers who would help to revolu- tionize classical music rose to prominence on opposite sides of the At- lantic. In their backgrounds, Charles Ives (1874-1954) and Gustav Mahler (1 860-1 91 1) could hardly have been more different, writes Schorske, a Princeton historian, yet each injected a strong note of popu- lism...
Martin Ma- lia, in The New York Review of Books (Sept. 29, 1983), Subscription Service
Not Out Dept., P.O. Box 940, Farmingdale, N.Y. 11737.
Among many Westerners, the December 1981 outlawing of the independent trade union Solidarity General Wojciech Jaruzelski's Soviet-backed regime raised fears that Poland will never be Poland. A look at Solidarity in the context of the nation's history, suggests Martin Malia, a Berkeley professor of Russian history, is more encouraging.
Poland has lived under...