Religion and the State: The Case of Faith–based Schools

It is always misleading, and sometimes dangerous, to suppose that the current problems represent no more than a recapitulation of earlier and intractable difficulties. An inhibiting sense of déjà vu numbs the mind and distracts attention from the essential novelty of deceptively familiar issues. The contemporary interaction of religion and politics in Western societies is as different from nineteenth–century contests between traditional faiths and their critics as it is distant from medieval versions of the church and state question. These truisms are well illustrated by the attempt made in this article to apply some of the harder lessons of historical and of cross–national studies to current debates on changing relations between organised religion and public education.     

Freud's adolescence and the prolegomena to psychoanalysis

The adolescence of creative individuals appears retrospectively preparatory. It is a period of apprenticeship permitting ego integrations of new identifications and the amalgamation of attachments from the past with goals for the future. A period of moratorium during which there is seeming inactivity permits the consolidation of new skills and interests. In Sigmund Freud's case, the period of early adolescence (following the onset of puberty) may have provided an opportunity for psychological discoveries through experiments with free association. These insights were repressed in later adolescence and did not reach fruition until subsequent maturity of the ego had taken place. It is suggested that early adolescence permits a prepatterning for later creative activity and the nascent contents are an anlage for the subsequent creativity.Received his M.D. from University of Toronto. Major interests are creativity and the relation between psychoanalysis and the humanities.     

Potential and pitfalls in establishing the provenance of Earth-related samples in forensic investigations

Earth scientists are often asked to establish or constrain the likely provenance of very small quantities of earth-related material as part of a forensic investigation. We tested the independent and collective interpretations of four experts with differing analytical skills in the prediction of sample provenance for three samples from different environmental settings. The methods used were X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, the assessment of pollen assemblages, and structural characterization of organic matter at the molecular level. Independent interpretations were less accurate than those where multiple techniques were combined. Collective interpretation was very effective in the assessment of provenance for two of the three sites where the mineralogy and plant communities were distinctive. At the other site, although the mineralogical analysis correctly identified the Triassic mudstone soil parent material, Carboniferous spores from domestic coal were initially interpreted as deriving directly from bedrock. Such an interpretation could be a common pitfall owing to anthropogenic redistribution of material such as coal.     

Tattoos, body experience, and body image boundary among violent male offenders

The author compared a measure of body image boundary and medically significant bodily experiences between 21 tattooed and 24 nontattooed men incarcerated for violent crimes. Although the tattooed and nontattooed subjects had no significant differences in their body boundary concepts or most other bodily experiences, the tattooed men were found to have a different distribution of scars on their bodies. Upon more detailed examination, it seemed that these different distributions could be explained by the observation that the tattooed subjects were the only ones with self-inflicted cuts. This finding further supports the notion that tattoos, despite their ostensibly decorative quality, may be a form of self-mutilation.