Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-241). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Maste). / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation employs techniques from folkecology to identify factors that have influenced lawmakers in their decision-making about animals. The purpose of this research is to understand the natural world as seen by lawmakers, identify and explain variation between lawmakers and scientists priorities, and, ultimately, consider ways to improve communication of understandings between these two cultures. The study is structured to follow Amadeo Rea's recommendation that scholars "note the etic while searching for the emic" (Rea 1998: xx) It compares priorities and then discusses findings to get at the question of meaning. What do different animals mean to lawmakers? What forces are operating when they make or interpret laws on behalf of animals? The answer "takes us into the realm of mythology," as Rea said it would (Rea 1998: xx), and provides an opportunity to consider the foundations of law and science, and the role of reason, narrative and imagination across the disciplines and across time, as lawmakers - who are keepers and shapers of their cultures -- continuously define and redefine what it means to be human, and what that means for other animals. Findings indicate that conservation efforts need to increase the cultural relevance of the natural world, rather than hope that science alone will change the ethic and priorities of lawmakers.

Many parasites of mammals avoid elimination by varying their exposed antigens. African trypanosomes—deadly parasites of humans and livestock in tropical Africa—possess a comprehensive system of antigenic variation (AV). Trypanosoma brucei undergo frequent, stochastic changes to their variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) coats, and therefore a developing immune response will be only partially effective against the trypanosome population as some trypanosomes will have already switched to a different VSG coat. The source of VSG variability is an archive of ~2000, mostly pseudogenic, silent VSG genes, of which only one is expressed. VSG genes can also be segmentally recombined: ‘mosaic’ VSGs, constructed from more than one silent VSG donor, allow both the reparation of pseudogenes and potentially generation of additional VSG variability. The aim of this research was to investigate the patterns of segmental VSG gene conversion in T. brucei, and assess its contribution to AV. Multiple, longitudinal samples were taken from chronic infections to follow the course of AV, and VSG cDNA sequences were analysed, building a detailed portrait of VSG expression across infection. VSG variability during an infection was extensive, and segmental gene conversion was found to be a frequent occurrence from approximately week three. Two main patterns were found: (i) expressed VSGs readily acquired a 3’ end different from their silent copy, a pattern that probably represents the 3’ boundary of gene conversion occurring within the coding sequence; (ii) expressed VSGs often appeared in sets of related ‘mosaics’, whereby more than one donor gene had contributed to the putative epitope-encoding part of the VSG. To test whether varying donor contributions represents an additional source of antigenic variability available to trypanosomes, a set of five mosaic VSGs retrieved from a single infection was expressed in non-switching trypanosomes and used to raise antibody responses. Indirect immuno-fluorescence, complement-mediated lysis, and agglutination assays using both polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies showed that although 4/5 mosaics were cross-reactive, one variant was completely antigenically distinct. Segmental gene conversion was therefore found to be both prominent in chronic African trypanosome antigenic variation, and capable of bringing antigenic novelty to an infection, with important consequences for the dynamics of AV, and the nature of selection pressure on the silent VSG archive.

This thesis revisits the liberal intellectual tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment by comparing two editions of The Natural History of Aleppo (1756: 1794) written and/or edited by Scottish physicians, half-brothers Alexander and Patrick Russell, in which they recorded their observations of Aleppo in northern Syria. There has been only one other monograph written about this text, entitled Aleppo observed by Maurits van den Boogert and published in 2010. As yet no comparative study of the two editions seems to have been made. As a result, this thesis should revitalize interest in The Natural History of Aleppo (1756 and 1794) across academic fields including Levantine and Ottoman studies, subject-specific disciplines and in the Scottish context. This thesis is divided into four parts. In the first part Chapter 1 provides a literature review and outlines the structure of this thesis. Chapter 2 is a synopsis of the authors’ life histories as background for subsequent discussion. In Part II, the popularity of the two editions (1756 and 1794) is assessed (Chapter 3). This assessment is followed by an appraisal of literary aspects of the two editions of an eighteenth-century text (Chapter 4). To assess the quality, originality and relative significance of Aleppo further, selected topics covered variously in the two editions are explored in Part III (Chapter 5 on medicine, Chapter 6 on flora and fauna, and Chapter 7 on aspects of the exotic). The final Part IV provides a range of conclusions to revitalize eighteenth-century texts and suggests topics for further research.

What are moral values and where do they come from? David Hume argued that moral values were the product of a range of passions, inherent to human nature, that aim at the common good of society. Recent developments in game theory, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, psychology and neuroscience suggest that Hume was right to suppose that humans have such passions. This dissertation reviews these developments, and considers their implications for moral philosophy. I first explain what Darwinian adaptations are, and how they generate behaviour. I then explain that, contrary to the Hobbesian caricature of life in the state of nature, evolutionary theory leads us to expect that organisms will be social, cooperative and even altruistic under certain circumstances. I introduce four main types of cooperation: kin altruism, coordination to mutual advantage, reciprocity and conflict resolution and provide examples of "adaptations for cooperation" from nonhuman species. I then review the evidence for equivalent adaptations for cooperation in humans. Next, I show how this Humean-Darwinian account of the moral sentiments can be used to make sense of traditional positions in meta-ethics; how it provides a rich deductive framework in which to locate and make sense of a wide variety of apparently contradictory positions in traditional normative ethics; and how it clearly demarcates the problems of applied ethics. I defend this version of ethical naturalism against the charge that it commits "the naturalistic fallacy". I conclude that evolutionary theory provides the best account yet of the origins and status of moral values, and that moral philosophy should be thought of as a branch of natural history.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / Bibliography : leaves [457]-484.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-245).

Thesis (D.Phil.)--University of Oxford, 2008. / Supervisors: Professor John Hedley Brooke, Professor Francis X. Clooney. Bibliography: p. 344-367.