Is Hodges' model a selection machine?

Sober (1984) Child's toy

"It is gratifying to find these biological ideas already enshrined in the ordinary meaning of 'selection for' and 'selection of'. My young son has a toy which takes all the mystery out of this distinction. Plastic discs with circles cut out of them are stacked with spaces in between in a closed cylinder. Top-most disc contains very big holes, and the holes decrease in size as one moves down from disc to disc. At the top of the cylinder are found balls of different sizes. A good shaking will distribute the balls to their respective levels. The smallest balls end up arrayed at the bottom. The next smallest sized balls settle at the next level up, and so on. It happens that the balls of the same size also happen to have the same color. Shaking sends the black balls to the bottom, the pink to the next level up, and so on. The whole cylinder (plus paternal administered shaking) is a selection machine. The device selects for small balls (these are the ones which pass to the bottom). It does not select for black balls (even though these are the ones that pass to the bottom). But when we ask after a shaking what was selected, it is equally correct to say that the black balls were selected and that the small ones were. 'Selection for' focuses on causes; 'selection of' picks out effects." p.50-51.

Sober, E. Force and disposition in evolutionary theory. In. Hookway, C. (ed.) (1984). Minds, Machines And Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.43-61.

Image adapted from figure 4 within "Is art an adaptation? Prospects for an evolutionary perspective on aesthetic emotions" http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~sousa/artfunction/art.htm

See also: slide 35/47  http://slideplayer.com/slide/9735486/

Never give up on someone ...

individual
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ------------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

group

Never give up on someone with Mental Illness – 

when 'I' is replaced with -
'We'  'illness' becomes 'Wellness'

Thanks to colleague Julie Draper - apparently this is doing the rounds on Facebook and elsewhere.

At a glance 65: Better Life for older people with high support needs: the role of social care

Published: May 2014

Key messages

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has identified seven key challenges to be addressed for older people with high support needs to achieve a better quality of life. Social care has a key role to play in meeting these challenges.

1. Old age is not about 'them': it is about all of us
2. Older people are individuals and they are, as a group, becoming more diverse
3. Relationships matter to us whatever our age; we have a fundamental human need to connect with others meaningfully
4. Older people with high support needs have many assets, strengths and resources that they can also bring to the development and provision of services
5. Whatever our age or support needs, we should all be treated as citizens: equal stakeholders with both rights and responsibilities
6. The individual and collective voices of older people with high support needs should be heard and given power
7. We need both to innovate and improve existing models

SCIE's role is to share knowledge about what works and use this to produce practical resources. Many of these resources will support people working in all aspects of social care to address these challenges.

Activities of Daily Living ADLs and Hodges' model [1]

The Hodges' model matrix below lists some basic Activities of Daily Living. The intention is to read the table as per the numbers. In 1. - the sciences domain - is a list of basic ADLs, this represents my classification of 'where' these ADLs live within Hodges' model. This is followed by a qualification in the intra-interpersonal domain 2.:

2. While basic ADLs are typically designated as 'functional', that is related to physical abilities they are of course also very dependent upon mental health status. Including: mood, motivation, memory, orientation, confusion. Many ADLs are closely associated with disease and illness, which affects people's independence.	1. personal hygiene dressing - undressing eating and drinking toilet: (urinary and faecal) elimination (often taken for granted) transfers: e.g. bed to chair and back degree of mobility (sitting - standing balance)
4. We can appreciate the impact of the carer's burden by arriving here finally. The sciences, interpersonal and political domains weigh heaviest here, as the carer assumes responsbility for the care of another, themselves and often other dependents.	3. Assessment of ADLs covers aspects of safety and risk to SELF, OTHERS and risk of SELF-NEGLECT. Increasingly, however the emphasis is on self-care, independent living and strengths in the above ADL skills.

In further blog posts I will present a similar treatment of other ADLs with references.

Link:
"Activities of Daily Living Evaluation." Encyclopedia of Nursing & Allied Health. Ed. Kristine Krapp. Gale Cengage, 2002. eNotes.com. 2006. 30 Nov, 2009 http://www.enotes.com/nursing-encyclopedia/activities-daily-living-evaluation