Consciousness or the Art of Foul Play

The psychological literature about consciousness has been analyzed. It is argued that: 1) Only the higher symbolic cognitive powers like the ability to keep secrets, knowledge of self or self-consciousness, a long-term view on the future, the ability to determine long-term goals, and to freely plan future behavior, add positive fitness-value to consciousness. Without these higher intellectual abilities consciousness will have only negative fitness value and no positive one. The intellectual powers mentioned may therefore be considered as prerequisites for consciousness. Consciousness may therefore only be expected in those animal species that show these capacities in their behavior. So far these capacities have only been described for the anthropoid apes and humans. For the time being, they are therefore the only species in which consciousness may be expected. 2) Consciousness is not synchronous with real time. Human consciousness is, in as well in the perception of stimuli as in the experience of free will to act, most times running after the facts. 3) Consciousness has to be viewed as an instinct that has been developed late in evolution. It is partially based upon primarily innate neural circuits, fulfilling specialized cognitive functions by which information is interpreted and inferences are made, in a more or less automatical way. 4) Most information processing concerning daily decisions,is done by parallel non-consciously functioning neural modules using ‘sloppy logic’, and only the end-product of these modules can be pushed forwards to consciousness. For this reason consciousness will, most times, lack the necessary information to come to the correct inferences about the evaluations on which the decision is based. Therefore, only rarely will people have insight into their cognitive processes or the real sources of their behavior. When asked why they behaved as they did, they will produce confabulations. However, people's erroneous reports are not capricious, but regular and systematic in such a way that they will fit the pre-existing ideas and beliefs. The contents of these reports are therefore not based upon introspection, but, most times, on (sub)culturally accepted ideas. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Send in the Clones ... Don't Bother, They're Here

The creation of a cloned sheep from mammary tissue has raisedmajor social concern, and much talk about major ethical issuesoccasioned by this technology. It is necessary to separategenuine from spurious ethical issues here, a task made failureto initiate ethical discussion and explanation of new technologyas well as by fear reactions in society. As in geneticengineering of animals, issues about cloning fall into threecategories – suggestions that the technology is inherently wrong,risk emerging from the technology and harm to the creatureengendered. The issues regarding the cloning of humans can beanalyzed using the same categories.     

油气田采油(气)废水处理设施运行情况调查与评价

通过对全国19个油气田191套采油（气）废水处理设施进行调查，针对其工艺流程、建设投资、处理能力、运行费用、运行状况和处理效果，分析了现有处理方法存在的问题，并提出了解决的办法。对今后处理设施的管理、改进和处理技术的研究有一定参考价值。     

海南特区农村剩余劳动力资源的开发与利用

本文论述了海南特区农村剩余劳动力资源的现状及其影响劳动力资源开发利用的主要因素，提出了海南特区农村剩余劳动力资源开发与利用的途径。     

西藏自治区土地资源的适宜性评价与利用

本文综合评价了西藏自治区土地资源的适宜性及其质量．阐明了影响土地资源潜力发挥的主要限制因素，分析了土地资源利用现状、存在问题和开发潜力。并在此基础上、提出了西藏自治区土地资源合理开发利用的方向、对策和措施。     

淮河下游地区森林资源及其经营管理对策

本文论述了淮河下游地区常绿针叶林、落叶阔叶林，落叶常绿阔叶混交林，竹林等森林资源类型的特征，分析了该地区森林资源在经营管理中存在的问题，提出了应采取的森林资源经营管理对策。     

邵阳市旅游资源的定量评价与开发

本文介绍了邵阳市丰富的旅游资源，运用专家调查法建立了评价指标体系，对市域内主要旅游资源进行了定量评价；并在初步分析本市旅游业落后原因的基础上，提出了旅游资源开发利用对策。     

环境医学：人类生存发展战略的大课题

文章用大量翔实数据，分析论证：人类由于淡化环境意识，坚持急功近利的片面发展观，造成整个地球环境质量正在全面下降和恶化，全球已有１／５的人口受到环境污染之害的基点上，作者提出了只有跳出以自我生存为中心的狭隘圈，确立发展环境医学为主体的预防医学战略，并提示要遵循中国古代强调的“天人合一”论概念和钱学森提出的“开放的巨系统方法论”在当代科技领域进行“天地生人巨系统的综合集成研究”，树立“天地与我并生，万物与我同运”的自然生态观，为创建“生物心理社会自然”为模式的全科新医学，这是实现２１世纪“人类健康工程”的开拓性目标。     

岷江干流（成都段）水体污染防治对策研究

本文通过对岷江干流（成都段）地表水和地下水的综合研究，分别提出了地表水污染防治对策和地下水水质防护措施，划分出了地表水防治不同时期的目标以及地下水开采管理目标。