Conceptual Developments in Environmental Law: An Interdisciplinary Approach

This paper’s point of view is that environmental law translates this particular evolutionary point in time into principles and rules, and highlights that given the extent and significance of the grave issues we are confronting, concepts that come from other sciences need to be dealt with carefully to ensure these are interpreted and implemented effectively. The grave concern about conservation of the environment and the urgent need for effective measures to protect it is a sign of the times, and it is growing deeper in view of the rapidly worsening climate crisis. Environmental law studies demonstrate that there is a line of force based on fluid, fruitful dialogue between different fields of knowledge. Lawyers are aware of the achievements made in environmental law, as well as its manifest deficiencies and limitations, and, just like Theseus who momentarily loses the golden thread offered by the bold Ariadne, they must find a way out of that labyrinth.

Estetyka ewolucyjna: między uniwersalizmem a adaptacją

The publication of Jerzy Luty’s book is a very good opportunity to look at the achievements of contemporary evolutionary aesthetics. In Jerzy Luty’s book one can find not only a successful and accurate presentation of the views of E. Dissaneyake and D. Dutton, but also the discussion of a number of difficult problems arising from the analysis of the nature and function of art from the evolutionary point of view. One such problem is undoubtedly the problem of the universalism of art, while another is the problem of art as adaptation. In the paper, I discuss and analyse the original solutions to the problems of universalism and the adaptive nature of art proposed by the author of the discussed book.

Itch Beyond the Skin—Mucosal Itch

Itch is a nociceptive sensation linked with reflexes and cognitive motor actions. We traditionally think of itch as a sensation of the skin related to allergy, an insect sting or interestingly, anxiety and frustration. Less understood and considered are the physiological processes involved in the itching sensation that occurs at mucosal and junctional dermal sites, which is extraordinary as from an evolutionary point of view these sites serve important guardian roles, rich in sensory nerves and inflammatory cells. Despite itch being an ancient reflex and evolutionarily conserved phenomenon, better clinical understanding of the nuances between sites of itch sensation may lead to improved clinical outcomes. This review invites readers to appreciate itch beyond the skin by highlighting several specific itch patterns—nasal, oral, auricular, vulvovaginal, anal, and perineal itch—the pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie them, the clinical patterns these may cause, and some unique treatments.

Controlling Tumor Regression about the Physiological System

It is proposed to study the mechanism of tumor regression from an evolutionary point of view. The proposal is based on the assumption that the evolutionary precursor of this mechanism is the resorption mechanism in sedentary modular invertebrates preparing for diapause in embryos. To understand how the tumor regression mechanism works, it is necessary to investigate the mechanism of resorption of these embryos in these invertebrates.

The SEEKING Drive and Its Fixation: A Neuro-Psycho-Evolutionary Approach to the Pathology of Addiction

Neuro-ethological studies conducted by Panksepp and his colleagues have provided an understanding of how the activity of the mesolimbic dopaminergic (ML DA) system leads to the emotional disposition to SEEK/Explore, which is involved in all appetitive motivated behavior and mental activity. In pathological addiction phenomena, this emotional disposition “fixes” itself on certain obsessive-compulsive habits, losing its versatility and its natural predisposition to spontaneous and unconditioned activation. Overall, the result is a consistent disinterest in everything that is not the object of addiction. From a neuro-psycho-evolutionary point of view, the predisposition to develop addictive behavior can be attributed to a loss of “functional autonomy” of the SEEKING/Explorative disposition. Indeed, as shown by animal and human studies, the tendency to be conditioned by situations and contexts that provide an immediate reward can be closely related to a deficit in the tonic endogenous activity of the ML DA-SEEKING system.

Two versions of the evolutionary debunking arguments and their challenges to moral realism

This paper assesses some challenges posed by evolutionary debunking arguments in Joyce’s function and Street’s contingency versions to moral realism, understood as the metaethical theory according to which there are moral facts that are absolute, universal and context-independent. Some argue that Copp’s society centred realism is untenable given that it cannot support counterfactuals. Shafer-Landau and Huemer’s arguments are also subject to debunking because they cannot persuasively show that human morality is unaffected by evolutionary forces. In Huemer’s view, moral progress is proof of moral facts. It requires moral realism due to progress being context-dependent. From an evolutionary point of view, there are no previous standards and ideals concerning the direction of progress. Finally, a possible answer to the function version of the evolutionary debunking arguments is the possibility that the nature of human language (including moral language) is such that, in essence, it cannot be convincingly divided in language about facts and language about value.

Inspection—Corruption Game of Illegal Logging and Other Violations: Generalized Evolutionary Approach

Games of inspection and corruption are well developed in the game-theoretic literature. However, there are only a few publications that approach these problems from the evolutionary point of view. In previous papers of this author, a generalization of the replicator dynamics of the evolutionary game theory was suggested for inspection modeling, namely the pressure and resistance framework, where a large pool of small players plays against a distinguished major player and evolves according to certain myopic rules. In this paper, we develop this approach further in a setting of the two-level hierarchy, where a local inspector can be corrupted and is further controlled by the higher authority (thus combining the modeling of inspection and corruption in a unifying setting). Mathematical novelty arising in this investigation involves the analysis of the generalized replicator dynamics (or kinetic equation) with switching, which occurs on the “efficient frontier of corruption”. We try to avoid parameters that are difficult to observe or measure, leading to some clear practical consequences. We prove a result that can be called the “principle of quadratic fines”: We show that if the fine for violations (both for criminal businesses and corrupted inspectors) is proportional to the level of violations, the stable rest points of the dynamics support the maximal possible level of both corruption and violation. The situation changes if a convex fine is introduced. In particular, starting from the quadratic growth of the fine function, one can effectively control the level of violations. Concrete settings that we have in mind are illegal logging, the sales of products with substandard quality, and tax evasion.

From Trees to Networks

Empirical models are very common in evolutionary approaches to economics, strategy, and technological innovation, particularly those models based on large samples of patent data. Patents are legal documents that protect technologies from imitation when there is novelty and non-obviousness with respect to a prior art. Dependence on prior art means that patents cite each other and, by implication, patent databases take the form of large citation networks. Despite this implicit network nature of patent data, most current studies in innovation tend to rely on patent-based measures that exploit information within the citation network only at the local level. Nevertheless, a new stream known as ‘connectivity analysis’ is slowly emerging in the patent literature. From an evolutionary point of view, this stream is of particular importance because of its approach to patent data from a global—rather than from a local—network perspective. The aim of this chapter is to review these new directions and propose some ideas for how they could be used for modelling some of the key evolutionary phenomena discussed in this book.

Caring Economics, Cooperation, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

For centuries, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations shaped profit maximization as the standard of economic action. The concept of caring economics published by the feminist law and systems scientist Riane Eisler under the title The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics (2007) contrasts this neoliberal, dominance-oriented model of society with the idea of partnership-oriented societies. The concept of caring economics was widely influenced by the social, economic, and welfare systems of the Nordic countries. In 2015-2016, the author of this article conducted a pilot study interviewing scientists from different disciplines with the aim of investigating whether the conditions in these countries reflect Eisler’s theoretical model (Hedenigg, 2019). While Eisler emphasized empathy and care as essential orientations of partnership societies, several of the interviewed scholars, in contrast, stressed cooperation, trust, solidarity, and functioning institutions as essential elements in addition to Eisler’s concept. This article hypothesizes that Eisler’s conception of caring economics should be supplemented by the elements mentioned above, in particular, cooperation. The aim is to identify, in a theory-guided manner, the elements that constitute the central operative mechanisms of the extended conception of caring economics. Resulting conclusions are discussed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Norway and Finland are among the 10 most successful nations in epidemic containment. This article assumes that the extended conceptualization of caring economics does not only allow us to gain insight into the complexity of the pandemic, but also to identify various successful containment mechanisms. In particular, cooperation appears to play a major role in this context. From an evolutionary point of view, multilevel selection can be regarded as an essential tool to cope with global problems and threats like the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, trust and solidarity as well as gender aspects in the context of political leadership and welfare regimes have been identified as successful pandemic containment mechanisms. In summary, the Covid-19 pandemic lends strong plausibility to the extended conception of caring economics.

Stability of uniformly labeled (13C and 15N) cytochrome c and its L94G mutant

Cytochrome c (cyt c) is widely used as a model protein to study (i) folding and stability aspects of the protein folding problem and (ii) structure–function relationship from the evolutionary point of view. Databases of cyts c now contain 285 cyt c sequences from different organisms. A sequence alignment of all these proteins with respect to horse cyt c led to several important conclusions. One of them is that Leu94 is always conserved in all 30 mammalian cyts c. It is known that mutation L94G of the wild type (WT) horse cyt c is destabilizing and mutant exists as molten globule under the native condition (buffer pH 6 and 25 °C). We have expressed and purified uniformly labeled (13C and 15N) and unlabeled WT horse cyt c and its L94G mutant. We report that labeling does not affect the thermodynamic stability of proteins. To support this conclusion, the secondary and tertiary structure of each protein in labeled and unlabeled forms was determined by conventional techniques (UV–Vis absorption and circular dichroism spectroscopy).