Are Science and Religion Complementary Perspectives?

Eugene Goodheart provides an eloquent defense of the non-literalist, religious imagination before the aggressive atheism of several of today’s leading neo-Darwinists. But the position that he takes—that science and religion represent “complementary perspectives” serving different, yet equally permanent needs—is undermined by two fundamental problems. First, the claim that science can only tell us how the natural world works, while religion offers meaning, value, and moral guidance, may hold true when science is understood on the model of mathematical physics, but not when evolutionary biology and its derivatives are considered. Even Stephen Jay Gould, whose famous defense of science and religion as “nonoverlappling magisteria” resembles Goodheart’s, acknowledges that the case of evolutionary biology is profoundly different. Here evolutionary fact and moral values bleed together obscuring the boundary between science and religion. Second, religion and legacy of the religious imagination embedded in our culture, lose their ability to provide meaning, morals, and consolation when core elements of religious teaching are no longer believed to be true.

Competition,commercialization, and the evolution of nonprofit organizational structures

This article explores competition both in settings where nonprofits compete among themselves and where they compete with for-profits. Growing competition among nonprofits raises questions as to the impacts of this rivalry. How does competition affect nonprofit behavior and does it cause nonprofits to become more commercial in orientation? Does it alter organizational structures and does it cause nonprofits to become less focused on their charitable missions? The answers to these questions can influence public policy toward the nonprofit sector. A definition of competition is presented and Porter's five competitive forces are introduced and used to explore competition in nonprofit marketplaces. Conditions under which commercialization is likely to occur are discussed and the nature of competition is then examined in settings where nonprofits compete in mixed (for-profit/nonprofit) markets. Organizational structures from the health care industry are then used to highlight the evolving legal structures that nonprofits employ in competition with for-profits. Five policy implications of the analysis are examined and the need for additional information is highlighted.     

Postpartum depression syndrome as a defense to criminal behavior

Though history records that women have suffered from PPD for centuries, little attention is directed to this serious malady in today's medical and legal communities. Medical research indicates that PPD is the result of the physical stress of pregnancy and childbirth, the social stress of the mothering role, or a combination of both. There are four phases of PPD: maternity blues, postnatal exhaustion, postnatal depression and puerperal psychosis. Victims of puerperal psychosis manifest bizarre behaviors — including the murder of their own children. Approximately 18 cases in the United States have involved the use of PPD as a defense to murder. British medical and legal authorities recognize PPD as a serious women's health issue, and as a viable insanity defense. Legal experts in the United States believe that the PPD defense will be used more frequently in this country. A review of the basic principles of the insanity defense supports the admission of this defense in legal proceedings.