Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae

Päätoimittajilta

Anna Mauranen — 2023-05-30

AASF:n toinen numero tarjoaa mielenkiintoisen kokoelman kirjoituksia eri tieteenaloilta. Monessa artikkelissa tarkastellaan tieteellisen tiedon kehitystä eri aikaskaaloilla ja sitä, miten tutkimustiedon ja yhteiskunnan kehityslinjat ovat kietoutuneet toisiinsa.

The Social Brain Hypothesis Thirty Years On: Some Philosophical Pitfalls of Deconstructing Dunbar’s Number

Robin Dunbar — 2023-05-30

The social brain hypothesis was proposed 30 years ago as an explanation for the fact that primates have much larger brains than
all other animals. The claim was that primates live in unusually complex societies, and hence need a large ‘computer’ to manage the
relationships involved. The core evidence subsequently provided in support of this claim was a simple statistical relationship between the social group size characteristic of a species and the size of its brain, with humans fitting into this pattern. However, testing evolutionary hypotheses raises some challenging
philosophical and statistical issues that are often overlooked, and great care is needed to ensure that we test the hypothesis we think we are testing. Here, I examine some of these challenges and illustrate the traps they can create for the unwary.

Mielensä muuttamisesta

Olli-Pekka Vainio — 2023-05-30

It is a fact that we change our minds many times during our lives. However, changing our minds can potentially call our cognitive processes into question. How do we know if the change is for the better? In the worst case, our fickleness calls into question our own ability to evaluate the foundations of our worldviews. However, it is not justified to claim that worldviews have no truth value. Although comparing worldviews is difficult, it is still natural to assume that there can be a meaningful public debate about their foundations. However, this requires a public and open communal process that broadly manifests intellectual virtues and tolerance as it is common for humans to disagree about many things, which may even appear obvious to some.

Pacta sunt servanda

Kaius Tuori — 2023-05-30

Legal maxims written in Latin are a constant in European and American legal cultures, where they have great authority due to perceived antiquity and origins in Roman law. However, sometimes these maxims are actually fairly recent, neologisms that only purport to be ancient. The purpose of this article is to explore one such maxim, pacta sunt servanda, agreements have to be upheld, and the cultural, political and legal connotations and contemporary significances that the phrase has. Through the convoluted history of the maxim pacta sunt servanda, the article explores the role of tradition and history in the making and legimitizing rules.

Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture: novel materials for adapting to changing environmental conditions

Helena Korpelainen — 2023-05-30

Many present crop plants are in danger of failing due to extreme conditions induced by climate change. This along with a rapidly growing world population threatens global food security. In this paper, I provide an overview of different plant genetic resources, of possibilities to broaden their base by including crop wild relative species and other underutilized sources, and of conservation and characterization needs and tools. The increased environmental variability implies that we will need access to an even wider range of plant genetic resources than used today for breeding new crop varieties, which contain useful traits, such as pest and disease resistances and ability to withstand drought or extreme temperatures.

Yrityshistoria ja kasvuyrittäjyys

Niklas Jensen-Eriksen — 2023-05-30

In recent years, there has been lively discussion in Finland on why the country does not have more young and fast-growing companies. These debates usually lack historical perspective. Entrepreneurship has always existed in Finland. Yet, the operational environment, values, gender roles and social structures have had an impact throughout history on who is willing and able to establish a company. These factors also influence the ability and willingness of new companies to grow. History can provide us with insights into why the Finnish economy has certain weaknesses, for example a lack of economic and social diversity and a shortage of old and successful middle-sized companies as well as younger high-growth companies. The most successful startup period in Finland was 1850–1914. Many of the companies founded during that time grew quite large. Since then, it has been more difficult for the country to replicate this early success.

Quantum-Chemical Approach to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance of Paramagnetic Systems

Juha Vaara — 2023-05-30

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a central method for investigating the microscopic structure and dynamics of molecules and materials, with numerous applications in science, technology, and medicine. Computational modelling is indispensable in NMR research due to the indirect nature of NMR information and the rich physical phenomenology behind its observables. While NMR is conventionally used to study diamagnetic systems, paramagnetic NMR (pNMR) of electronically open-shell systems is rapidly gaining importance. This inaugural article concerns the methodology and application of computational molecular science to the observables pNMR, including current challenges and outlook for the future.

Miten edustuksellinen demokratiamme on muuttumassa? Digitaalisen käsitehistorian näkökulma

Pasi Ihalainen — 2023-05-30

Recent concerns about representative
democracy being in crisis should be related to longer-term histories of ‘representation’ and ‘democracy’. Conceptual history analyses diachronic change and synchronic contestability of such key terms. Digital history can help understand evolvement in tensions over popular representation and representatives' changing perceptions on their parliamentary role. N-gram analyses and visualizations of relative word frequencies reveal long-term patterns and justify selections for qualitative analysis. Contextualising close reading shows how representative democracy has been increasingly complemented with participatory and direct democracy in the UK parliament, for instance, since the 2000s. These observations lead to questions on parallel developments in other European countries.

Akateeminen vapaus tutkimuskohteena - havaintoja Afrikasta

Liisa Laakso — 2023-05-30

News about violations of academic freedom have increased with the erosion of civil liberties and the decline of democratization. However, there is little empirical research on the political effects of academic freedom. There is also no consensus on the exact definition of the term. In this article, the meanings of academic freedom are approached through literature and practical advocacy work, and by presenting the indicator published in 2020 by the Varieties of Democracy database. As an example, we examine research results on the link between academic freedom and democracy in Africa, where the university institution has developed in the midst of rapid political changes. Based on interview material, we will focus on the experiences of scholars in Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Research data shows that academic freedom and higher education support democratic development far into the future. That is why they deserve long-term support through development cooperation.