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Cosmology
Kinds of Cosmology Selected AbstractsMoral Cosmology, Religion, and Adult Values for ChildrenJOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 1 2007BRIAN STARKS We hypothesize that the religiously orthodox, who are theologically communitarian/authoritarian in seeing individuals as subsumed by a larger community of believers and as subject to timeless divine law, are more likely to value obedience in children over autonomy than are theological modernists, who are theologically individualistic in seeing individuals, not a deity, as the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong. We hypothesize further that differences in moral cosmology (orthodoxy vs. modernism) within faith traditions are more important for the values adults seek to instile in children than are differences between traditions. Through analyses of national data from the 1998 General Social Survey, we find strong confirmation of both hypotheses. Moral cosmology is the single-most important factor in valuations of obedience and autonomy in children. While evangelical Protestants differ from Catholics, mainline Protestants, and those with no religion in their values for children, moral cosmology is associated with differences in values for children within each of the faith traditions, including evangelical Protestants. We conclude that intra-faith differences in moral cosmology are key in explaining values for children, but have not completely supplanted interfaith differences. [source] Cosmology and cluster halo scaling relationsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2009Pablo A. Araya-Melo ABSTRACT We explore the effects of dark matter and dark energy on the dynamical scaling properties of galaxy clusters. We investigate the cluster Faber,Jackson (FJ), Kormendy and Fundamental Plane (FP) relations between the mass, radius and velocity dispersion of cluster-sized haloes in cosmological N -body simulations. The simulations span a wide range of cosmological parameters, representing open, flat and closed Universes. Independently of the cosmology, we find that the simulated clusters are close to a perfect virial state and do indeed define an FP. The fitted parameters of the FJ, Kormendy and FP relationships do not show any significant dependence on ,m and/or ,,. One outstanding effect is the influence of ,m on the thickness of the FP. Following the time evolution of our models, we find slight changes of FJ and Kormendy parameters in high-,m universe, along with a slight decrease of FP fitting parameters. We also see an initial increase of the FP thickness followed by a convergence to a nearly constant value. The epoch of convergence is later for higher values of ,m, while the thickness remains constant in the low- ,m , models. We also find a continuous increase of the FP thickness in the standard cold dark matter cosmology. There is no evidence that these differences are due to the different power spectrum slopes at cluster scales. From the point of view of the FP, there is little difference between clusters that quietly accreted their mass and those that underwent massive mergers. The principal effect of strong mergers is to significantly change the ratio of the half-mass radius rhalf to the harmonic mean radius rh. [source] Cosmology: a matter of all and nothingASTRONOMY & GEOPHYSICS, Issue 4 2002John D Barrow John D Barrow gave the Gerald Whitrow Lecture for 2002. He reviews modern ideas about the Big Bang and the constants of Nature. Abstract The modern picture of the expanding Big Bang universe is described. Implications of the expansion for the evolution of life are highlighted, together with the new features contributed by the inflationary universe theory. Observational tests of inflation are described along with some of the possibilities introduced by new theories of strings and quantum gravity. These theories allow the numbers of dimensions of space and of time to be larger than the three and one we experience and permit the observed "constants" of Nature to vary slowly in time. We describe recent astronomical evidence that is consistent with small variations of the fine-structure constant and discuss some of its far-reaching implications. [source] Brane-bulk energy exchange and cosmological accelerationFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 6-7 2004E. Kiritsis The consequences for the brane cosmological evolution of energy exchange between the brane and the bulk are analyzed. A rich variety of brane cosmologies is obtained, depending on the precise mechanism of energy transfer, the equation of state of brane-matter and the spatial topology. An accelerating era is generically a feature of the solutions. [source] Abundances, masses and weak-lensing mass profiles of galaxy clusters as a function of richness and luminosity in ,CDM cosmologiesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2010Stefan Hilbert ABSTRACT We test the concordance , cold dark matter (,CDM) cosmology by comparing predictions for the mean properties of galaxy clusters to observations. We use high-resolution N -body simulations of cosmic structure formation and semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to compute the abundance, mean density profile and mass of galaxy clusters as a function of richness and luminosity, and we compare these predictions to observations of clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) maxBCG catalogue. We discuss the scatter in the mass,richness relation, the reconstruction of the cluster mass function from the mass,richness relation and fits to the weak-lensing cluster mass profiles. The impact of cosmological parameters on the predictions is investigated by comparing results from galaxy models based on the Millennium Simulation (MS) and the WMAP1 simulation to those from the WMAP3 simulation. We find that the simulated weak-lensing mass profiles and the observed profiles of the SDSS maxBCG clusters agree well in shape and amplitude. The mass,richness relations in the simulations are close to the observed relation, with differences ,30 per cent. The MS and WMAP1 simulations yield cluster abundances similar to those observed, whereas abundances in the WMAP3 simulation are two to three times lower. The differences in cluster abundance, mass and density amplitude between the simulations and the observations can be attributed to differences in the underlying cosmological parameters, in particular the power spectrum normalization ,8. Better agreement between predictions and observations should be reached with a normalization 0.722 < ,8 < 0.9 (probably closer to the upper value), i.e. between the values underlying the two simulation sets. [source] Hydrodynamical N -body simulations of coupled dark energy cosmologiesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010Marco Baldi ABSTRACT If the accelerated expansion of the Universe at the present epoch is driven by a dark energy scalar field, there may well be a non-trivial coupling between the dark energy and the cold dark matter (CDM) fluid. Such interactions give rise to new features in cosmological structure growth, like an additional long-range attractive force between CDM particles, or variations of the dark matter particle mass with time. We have implemented these effects in the N -body code gadget-2 and present results of a series of high-resolution N -body simulations where the dark energy component is directly interacting with the CDM. As a consequence of the new physics, CDM and baryon distributions evolve differently both in the linear and in the non-linear regime of structure formation. Already on large scales, a linear bias develops between these two components, which is further enhanced by the non-linear evolution. We also find, in contrast with previous work, that the density profiles of CDM haloes are less concentrated in coupled dark energy cosmologies compared with ,CDM, and that this feature does not depend on the initial conditions setup, but is a specific consequence of the extra physics induced by the coupling. Also, the baryon fraction in haloes in the coupled models is significantly reduced below the universal baryon fraction. These features alleviate tensions between observations and the ,CDM model on small scales. Our methodology is ideally suited to explore the predictions of coupled dark energy models in the fully non-linear regime, which can provide powerful constraints for the viable parameter space of such scenarios. [source] Understanding the halo-mass and galaxy-mass cross-correlation functionsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2008Eric Hayashi ABSTRACT We use the Millennium Simulation (MS) to measure the cross-correlation between halo centres and mass (or equivalently the average density profiles of dark haloes) in a Lambda cold dark matter (,CDM) cosmology. We present results for radii in the range 10 h,1 kpc < r < 30 h,1 Mpc and for halo masses in the range 4 × 1010 < M200 < 4 × 1014 h,1 M,. Both at z= 0 and at z= 0.76 these cross-correlations are surprisingly well fitted if the inner region is approximated by a density profile of NFW or Einasto form, the outer region by a biased version of the linear mass autocorrelation function, and the maximum of the two is adopted where they are comparable. We use a simulation of galaxy formation within the MS to explore how these results are reflected in cross-correlations between galaxies and mass. These are directly observable through galaxy,galaxy lensing. Here also we find that simple models can represent the simulation results remarkably well, typically to ,10 per cent. Such models can be used to extend our results to other redshifts, to cosmologies with other parameters, and to other assumptions about how galaxies populate dark haloes. Our galaxy formation simulation already reproduces current galaxy,galaxy lensing data quite well. The characteristic features predicted in the galaxy,galaxy lensing signal should provide a strong test of the ,CDM cosmology as well as a route to understanding how galaxies form within it. [source] An investigation of gravitational lens determinations of H0 in quintessence cosmologiesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2002Geraint F. Lewis Abstract There is growing evidence that the majority of the energy density of the Universe is not baryonic or dark matter, but rather it resides in an exotic component with negative pressure. The nature of this ,quintessence' influences our view of the Universe, modifying angular diameter and luminosity distances. Here, we examine the influence of a quintessence component upon gravitational lens time-delays. As well as a static quintessence component, an evolving equation of state is also considered. It is found that the equation of state of the quintessence component and its evolution influence the value of the Hubble constant derived from gravitational lenses. However, the differences between evolving and non-evolving cosmologies are relatively small. We undertake a suite of Monte Carlo simulations to examine the potential constraints that can be placed on the universal equation of state from the monitoring of gravitational lens systems, and demonstrate that at least an order of magnitude more lenses than currently known will have to be discovered and analysed to accurately probe any quintessence component. [source] Testing the modified Press,Schechter model against N -body simulationsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2001Andreu Raig A modified version of the extended Press,Schechter model for the growth of dark-matter haloes was introduced in two previous papers, with the aim of explaining the mass,density relation shown by haloes in high-resolution cosmological simulations. In this model, major mergers are well separated from accretion, thereby allowing a natural definition of halo formation and destruction. This makes it possible to derive analytic expressions for halo formation and destruction rates, the mass accretion rate and the probability distribution functions of halo formation times and progenitor masses. The stochastic merger histories of haloes can be readily derived and easily incorporated into semi-analytical models of galaxy formation, thus avoiding the usual problems encountered in the construction of Monte Carlo merger trees from the original extended Press,Schechter formalism. Here we show that the predictions of the modified Press,Schechter model are in good agreement with the results of N -body simulations for several scale-free cosmologies. [source] The cluster abundance in cosmic string models for structure formationMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2000P. P. Avelino We use the present observed number density of large X-ray clusters to constrain the amplitude of matter density perturbations induced by cosmic strings on the scale of 8 h,1 Mpc (,8), in both open cosmologies and flat models with a non-zero cosmological constant. We find a slightly lower value of ,8 than that obtained in the context of primordial Gaussian fluctuations generated during inflation. This lower normalization of ,8 results from the mild non-Gaussianity on cluster scales, where the one-point probability distribution function is well approximated by a ,2 distribution and thus has a longer tail than a Gaussian distribution. We also show that ,8 normalized using cluster abundance is consistent with the COBE normalization. [source] Scaling laws in gravitational clustering for counts-in-cells and mass functionsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2000P. Valageas We present an analysis of some of the properties of the density field realized in numerical simulations for power-law initial power spectra in the case of a critical density universe. We study the non-linear regime, which is the most difficult to handle analytically, and we compare our numerical results with the predictions of a specific hierarchical clustering scaling model that have been made recently, focusing specifically on its much wider range of applicability, which is one of its main advantages over the standard Press,Schechter approximation. We first check that the two-point correlation functions, measured from both counts-in-cells and neighbour counts, agree with the known analytically exact scaling requirement (i.e., depend only on ,2), and we also find the stable-clustering hypothesis to hold. Next, we show that the statistics of the counts-in-cells obey the scaling law predicted by the above scaling model. Then we turn to mass functions of overdense and underdense regions, which we obtain numerically from ,spherical overdensity' and ,friends-of-friends' algorithms. We first consider the mass function of ,just-collapsed' objects defined by a density threshold ,=177, and we note, as was found by previous studies, that the usual Press,Schechter prescription agrees reasonably well with the simulations (although there are some discrepancies). On the other hand, the numerical results are also consistent with the predictions of the scaling model. Next, we consider more general mass functions (needed to describe for instance galaxies or Lyman- , absorbers) defined by different density thresholds, which can even be negative. The scaling model is especially suited to account for such cases, which are out of reach of the Press,Schechter approach, and it still shows reasonably good agreement with the numerical results. Finally, we show that mass functions defined by a condition on the radius of the objects also satisfy the theoretical scaling predictions. Thus we find that the scaling model provides a reasonable description of the density field in the highly non-linear regime, for the cosmologies we have considered, for both the counts-in-cells statistics and the mass functions. The advantages of this approach are that it clarifies the links between several statistical tools and it allows one to study many different classes of objects, for any density threshold, provided one is in the fully non-linear regime. [source] Victims and Martyrs: Converging Histories of Violence in Amazonian Anthropology and U.S. CinemaANTHROPOLOGY & HUMANISM, Issue 1 2009Casey High SUMMARY Since the 1950s, indigenous Waorani people of Amazonian Ecuador have had a prominent place in the evangelical imagination in the United States and Europe because of their reputation for violence. Their symbolic status as "wild" Indians in popular imagination reached its peak in 1956, when five U.S. missionaries were killed during an attempt to convert the Waorani to Christianity. With the opening of a U.S.-produced film in January 2006 about the history of Waorani spear killing, entitled End of the Spear, Waorani violence has become part of a truly global imagination. In juxtaposing the film's Christian-inspired narrative with Waorani oral histories of violence, this article explores how indigenous ideas about predation and victimhood are related to the trope of martyrdom that has become prominent in Christian representations of the Waorani since the 1950s. It suggests that visual media such as popular film hold the potential to recontextualize ethnographic representations and allow us to rethink the ways in which Amazonian cosmologies are related to sociopolitical processes that transcend the temporal and spatial boundaries of ethnographic fieldwork. More generally, the article argues that new anthropological knowledge can be produced through the combination of fieldwork and attention to less conventional sources, such as historical missionary narratives and popular cinema. [source] Husserlian Meditations and Anthropological Reflections: Toward a Cultural Neurophenomenology of Experience and RealityANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 2 2009CHARLES D. LAUGHLIN PH.D. ABSTRACT Most of us would agree that the world of our experience is different than the extramental reality of which we are a part. Indeed, the evidence pertaining to cultural cosmologies around the globe suggests that virtually all peoples recognize this distinction,hence the focus upon the "hidden" forces behind everyday events. That said, the struggle to comprehend the relationship between our consciousness and reality, even the reality of ourselves, has led to controversy and debate for centuries in Western philosophy. In this article, we address this problem from an anthropological perspective and argue that the generative route to a solution of the experience,reality "gap" is by way of an anthropologically informed cultural neurophenomenology. By this we mean a perspective and methodology that applies a phenomenology that controls for cultural variation in perception and interpretation, coupled with the latest information from the neurosciences about how the organ of experience,the brain,is structured. [source] Nearby stars of the Galactic disk and halo.ASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 1 2004Abstract High-resolution spectroscopic observations of about 150 nearby stars or star systems are presented and discussed. The study of these and another 100 objects of the previous papers of this series implies that the Galaxy became reality 13 or 14 Gyr ago with the implementation of a massive, rotationally-supported population of thick-disk stars. The very high star formation rate in that phase gave rise to a rapid metal enrichment and an expulsion of gas in supernovae-driven Galactic winds, but was followed by a star formation gap for no less than three billion years at the Sun's galactocentric distance. In a second phase, then, the thin disk , our "familiar Milky Way" , came on stage. Nowadays it traces the bright side of the Galaxy, but it is also embedded in a huge coffin of dead thick-disk stars that account for a large amount of baryonic dark matter. As opposed to this, cold-dark-matter-dominated cosmologies that suggest a more gradual hierarchical buildup through mergers of minor structures, though popular, are a poor description for the Milky Way Galaxy , and by inference many other spirals as well , if, as the sample implies, the fossil records of its long-lived stars do not stick to this paradigm. Apart from this general picture that emerges with reference to the entire sample stars, a good deal of the present work is however also concerned with detailed discussions of many individual objects. Among the most interesting we mention the blue straggler or merger candidates HD 165401 and HD 137763/HD 137778, the likely accretion of a giant planet or brown dwarf on 59 Vir in its recent history, and HD 63433 that proves to be a young solar analog at , , 200 Myr. Likewise, the secondary to HR 4867, formerly suspected non-single from the Hipparcos astrometry, is directly detectable in the highresolution spectroscopic tracings, whereas the visual binary , Cet is instead at least triple, and presumably even quadruple. With respect to the nearby young stars a complete account of the UrsaMajor Association is presented, and we provide as well plain evidence for another, the "Hercules-Lyra Association", the likely existence of which was only realized in recent years. On account of its rotation, chemistry, and age we do confirm that the Sun is very typical among its G-type neighbors; as to its kinematics, it appears however not unlikely that the Sun's known low peculiar space velocity could indeed be the cause for the weak paleontological record of mass extinctions and major impact events on our parent planet during the most recent Galactic plane passage of the solar system. Although the significance of this correlation certainly remains a matter of debate for years to come, we point in this context to the principal importance of the thick disk for a complete census with respect to the local surface and volume densities. Other important effects that can be ascribed to this dark stellar population comprise (i) the observed plateau in the shape of the luminosity function of the local FGK stars, (ii) a small though systematic effect on the basic solar motion, (iii) a reassessment of the term "asymmetrical drift velocity" for the remainder (i.e. the thin disk) of the stellar objects, (iv) its ability to account for the bulk of the recently discovered high-velocity blue white dwarfs, (v) its major contribution to the Sun's ,220 km s,1 rotational velocity around the Galactic center, and (vi) the significant flattening that it imposes on the Milky Way's rotation curve. Finally we note a high multiplicity fraction in the small but volume-complete local sample of stars of this ancient population. This in turn is highly suggestive for a star formation scenario wherein the few existing single stellar objects might only arise from either late mergers or the dynamical ejection of former triple or higher level star systems. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] USING AND ABANDONING ROUNDHOUSES: A REINTERPRETATION OF THE EVIDENCE FROM LATE BRONZE AGE,EARLY IRON AGE SOUTHERN ENGLANDOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2007LEO WEBLEY Summary. It has recently been demonstrated that a number of roundhouses of the early first millennium BC in southern England show a concentration of finds in the southern half of the building. It has thus been argued that this area was used for domestic activities such as food preparation, an idea which has formed the basis for discussion of later prehistoric ,cosmologies'. However, reconsideration of the evidence suggests that this finds patterning does not relate to the everyday use of the buildings, being more likely to derive from a particular set of house abandonment practices. Furthermore, evidence can be identified for the location of domestic activities within contemporary roundhouses that appears to contradict the established model. [source] Open problems in string cosmologyFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 7-9 2010Article first published online: 16 MAR 2010, N. Toumbas Abstract Some of the open problems in string cosmology are highlighted within the context of the recently constructed thermal and quantum superstring cosmological solutions. Emphasis is given on the high temperature cosmological regime, where it is argued that thermal string vacua in the presence of gravito-magnetic fluxes can be used to bypass the Hagedorn instabilities of string gas cosmology. This article is based on a talk given at the workshop on "Cosmology and Strings", Corfu, September 6,13, 2009. [source] Inflation and string cosmologyFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 5-7 2009A. Linde Abstract I give a brief review of inflationary theory and of its recent progress related to string cosmology. [source] Towards effective Lagrangians for adelic stringsFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 5-7 2009Article first published online: 20 MAR 200, B. Dragovich Abstract p-Adic strings are important objects of string theory, as well as of p-adic mathematical physics and nonlocal cosmology. By a concept of adelic string one can unify and simultaneously study various aspects of ordinary and p-adic strings. By this way, one can consider adelic strings as a very useful instrument in the further investigation of modern string theory. It is remarkable that for some scalar p-adic strings exist effective Lagrangians, which are based on real instead of p-adic numbers and describe not only four-point scattering amplitudes but also all higher ones at the tree level. In this work, starting from p-adic Lagrangians, we consider some approaches to construction of effective field Lagrangians for p-adic sector of adelic strings. It yields Lagrangians for nonlinear and nonlocal scalar field theory, where spacetime nonlocality is determined by an infinite number of derivatives contained in the operator-valued Riemann zeta function. Owing to the Riemann zeta function in the dynamics of these scalar field theories, obtained Lagrangians are also interesting in themselves. [source] Quantum cosmology and tachyonsFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 4-5 2008D.D. Dimitrijevic Abstract We discuss the relevance of the classical and quantum rolling tachyons inflation in the frame of the standard, p -adic and adelic minisuperspace quantum cosmology. The field theory of tachyon matter proposed by Sen in a zero-dimensional version suggested by Kar leads to a model of a particle moving in a constant external field with quadratic damping. We calculate the exact quantum propagator of the model, as well as, the vacuum states and conditions necessary to construct an adelic generalization. [source] String and supergravity motivated cosmologyFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 7-8 2005Article first published online: 30 JUN 200, R. Kallosh In this pedagogical lecture we explain some basic part of the standard cosmological model which is most relevant for the fundamental theoretical physics. We stress the common features and differences between early universe inflation and late-time acceleration. We than proceed with some recent attempts to address the issues of cosmology in string theory and higher dimensional supergravity with the emphasis on successes and still unsolved problems. [source] Time-dependent orbifolds and string cosmologyFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 2-3 2004L. Cornalba First page of article [source] D-branes in Standard Model building, gravity and cosmologyFORTSCHRITTE DER PHYSIK/PROGRESS OF PHYSICS, Issue 2-3 2004E. Kiritsis This is a review of aspects of D-brane applications to particle physics and cosmology. D-branes provide interesting alternatives to standard unification of interactions. Moreover they entail new mechanisms in cosmology that have the potential to explain recent observational data. [source] Spectral estimation on a sphere in geophysics and cosmologyGEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2008F. A. Dahlen SUMMARY We address the problem of estimating the spherical-harmonic power spectrum of a statistically isotropic scalar signal from noise-contaminated data on a region of the unit sphere. Three different methods of spectral estimation are considered: (i) the spherical analogue of the one-dimensional (1-D) periodogram, (ii) the maximum-likelihood method and (iii) a spherical analogue of the 1-D multitaper method. The periodogram exhibits strong spectral leakage, especially for small regions of area A, 4,, and is generally unsuitable for spherical spectral analysis applications, just as it is in 1-D. The maximum-likelihood method is particularly useful in the case of nearly-whole-sphere coverage, A, 4,, and has been widely used in cosmology to estimate the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation from spacecraft observations. The spherical multitaper method affords easy control over the fundamental trade-off between spectral resolution and variance, and is easily implemented regardless of the region size, requiring neither non-linear iteration nor large-scale matrix inversion. As a result, the method is ideally suited for most applications in geophysics, geodesy or planetary science, where the objective is to obtain a spatially localized estimate of the spectrum of a signal from noisy data within a pre-selected and typically small region. [source] Identity Politics and the Domestic Context of Turkey's European Union AccessionGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2006Necati Polat This article observes a transformation in the largely essentializing, decontextualized form of identity politics that long defined political cosmology in Turkey, now in the process of negotiating accession to the European Union (EU). Accordingly, identity politics , not only the bread and butter of both Kurdish nationalism and Islamism, but also a justification for exhortations towards a limited, authoritarian democracy by Kemalists, the major power holders , is receding in favour of a civic, non-divisive political culture enabled by the EU anchorage. In danger of losing the longstanding centre,periphery configuration in an enhanced, participatory democracy and, concomitant with it, the periphery clientelism created by the waning identity politics, Kemalist nationalists, Islamists and Kurdish separatists appear to have stopped squabbling among themselves and joined forces against Turkey's EU bid. [source] Athens and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Edessa: Is there a Metaphysics of Scripture?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, Issue 2 2006JANET MARTIN SOSKICE Were the classic divine attributes simply lifted from Greek philosophers? This article does not set out to find a single metaphysic advocated by scripture but instead draws attention to the unique ,unhellenic' doctrine of creatio ex nihilo found in both Jewish and Christian teaching on metaphysics. Creatio ex nihilo marks a decisive break with ancient Greek cosmology. Philo is used as an example of the influence that creatio ex nihilo has upon his language about God. The essay concludes that the church Fathers did not simply baptize Aristotle but rather that their language is deeply rooted in a particular Judeo-Christian understanding of creation. [source] Moral Cosmology, Religion, and Adult Values for ChildrenJOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 1 2007BRIAN STARKS We hypothesize that the religiously orthodox, who are theologically communitarian/authoritarian in seeing individuals as subsumed by a larger community of believers and as subject to timeless divine law, are more likely to value obedience in children over autonomy than are theological modernists, who are theologically individualistic in seeing individuals, not a deity, as the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong. We hypothesize further that differences in moral cosmology (orthodoxy vs. modernism) within faith traditions are more important for the values adults seek to instile in children than are differences between traditions. Through analyses of national data from the 1998 General Social Survey, we find strong confirmation of both hypotheses. Moral cosmology is the single-most important factor in valuations of obedience and autonomy in children. While evangelical Protestants differ from Catholics, mainline Protestants, and those with no religion in their values for children, moral cosmology is associated with differences in values for children within each of the faith traditions, including evangelical Protestants. We conclude that intra-faith differences in moral cosmology are key in explaining values for children, but have not completely supplanted interfaith differences. [source] A Critique of Occidental Geist: Embedded Historical Culturalism in the Works of Hegel, Weber and HuntingtonJOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2006FETHI AÇIKEL Hegel's contribution to the philosophy of history is most clearly seen where he introduces a theory of historical development based on the secularisation of Christian cosmology. With Hegel, the Spirit (Geist), previously theologically understood, gradually becomes the embodiment of historical development. In the Hegelian vocabulary, the phenomenology of religion is formulated along with the theory of historical progress. In this article, I will argue that the question of historical development has been continuously elaborated in a culturalist fashion in works of Friedrich Hegel, Max Weber and Samuel Huntington as those scholars, through different intellectual traditions, essentialises the spiritual backgrounds of world religions and ties the phenomenology of religion with the philosophy of history in their historical analyses. This paper will argue that these scholars, by relying on the idealised images of religions and particularly of the Occidental Spirit, subtly elaborate the historical culturalist notion of development within Western thought. By arguing for an inherent link between religion and development, these scholars implicitly institutionalize a Eurocentric understanding of Western Christianity and the Occidental path of development within mainstream social theory. Be they philosophical (Hegel), sociological (Weber) or political (Huntington), the historical culturalism of these approaches shape our understanding of historical change, and ironically, instead of countering the excesses of crude materialism, they lead social theory into a form of Eurocentic historical culturalism. [source] FINDING AND FOSTERING THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPULSE IN YOUNG PEOPLE: A TRIBUTE TO THE WORK OF GARETH B. MATTHEWSMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2008SARA GOERING Abstract: This article highlights Gareth Matthews's contributions to the field of philosophy for young children, noting especially the inventiveness of his style of engagement with children and his confidence in children's ability to analyze perplexing issues, from cosmology to death and dying. I relate here my experiences in introducing philosophical topics to adolescents, to show how Matthews's work can be successfully extended to older students, and I recommend taking philosophy outside the university as a way to foster critical thinking in young students and to improve the public status of the profession. [source] The potential of X-ray cluster surveys to constrain primordial non-GaussianityMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010B. Sartoris ABSTRACT We present forecasts for constraints on deviations from Gaussian distribution of primordial density perturbations from future high-sensitivity X-ray surveys of galaxy clusters. Our analysis is based on computing the Fisher matrix for number counts and large-scale power spectrum of clusters. The surveys that we consider have high sensitivity and wide area to detect about 2.5 × 105 extended sources, and to provide reliable measurements of robust mass proxies for about 2 × 104 clusters. Based on the so-called self-calibration approach, and including Planck priors in our analysis, we constrain at once nine cosmological parameters and four nuisance parameters, which define the relation between cluster mass and X-ray flux. Because of the scale dependence of large-scale bias induced by local-shape non-Gaussianity, we find that the power spectrum provides strong constraints on the non-Gaussianity fNL parameter, which complement the stringent constraints on the power spectrum normalization, ,8, from the number counts. To quantify the joint constraints on the two parameters, ,8 and fNL, that specify the timing of structure formation for a fixed background expansion, we define the figure of merit . We find that our surveys constrain deviations from Gaussianity with a precision of ,fNL, 10 at 1, confidence level, with FoMSFT, 39. We point out that constraints on fNL are weakly sensitive to the uncertainties in the knowledge of the nuisance parameters. As an application of non-Gaussian constraints from available data, we analyse the impact of positive skewness on the occurrence of XMMU-J2235, a massive distant cluster recently discovered at z, 1.4. We confirm that in a WMAP -7 Gaussian ,CDM cosmology, within the survey volume, , 5 × 10,3 objects like this are expected to be found. To increase the probability of finding such a cluster by a factor of at least 10, one needs to evade either the available constraints on fNL or on the power-spectrum normalization ,8. [source] Abundances, masses and weak-lensing mass profiles of galaxy clusters as a function of richness and luminosity in ,CDM cosmologiesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2010Stefan Hilbert ABSTRACT We test the concordance , cold dark matter (,CDM) cosmology by comparing predictions for the mean properties of galaxy clusters to observations. We use high-resolution N -body simulations of cosmic structure formation and semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to compute the abundance, mean density profile and mass of galaxy clusters as a function of richness and luminosity, and we compare these predictions to observations of clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) maxBCG catalogue. We discuss the scatter in the mass,richness relation, the reconstruction of the cluster mass function from the mass,richness relation and fits to the weak-lensing cluster mass profiles. The impact of cosmological parameters on the predictions is investigated by comparing results from galaxy models based on the Millennium Simulation (MS) and the WMAP1 simulation to those from the WMAP3 simulation. We find that the simulated weak-lensing mass profiles and the observed profiles of the SDSS maxBCG clusters agree well in shape and amplitude. The mass,richness relations in the simulations are close to the observed relation, with differences ,30 per cent. The MS and WMAP1 simulations yield cluster abundances similar to those observed, whereas abundances in the WMAP3 simulation are two to three times lower. The differences in cluster abundance, mass and density amplitude between the simulations and the observations can be attributed to differences in the underlying cosmological parameters, in particular the power spectrum normalization ,8. Better agreement between predictions and observations should be reached with a normalization 0.722 < ,8 < 0.9 (probably closer to the upper value), i.e. between the values underlying the two simulation sets. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||