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Recent events have vividly underscored the societal importance of
science, yet the majority of the public are unaware that a large
proportion of published scientific results are simply wrong. The
Problem with Science is an exploration of the manifestations and
causes of this scientific crisis, accompanied by a description of
the very promising corrective initiatives largely developed over
the past decade to stem the spate of irreproducible results that
have come to characterize many of our sciences. More importantly,
Dr. R. Barker Bausell has designed it to provide guidance to
practicing and aspiring scientists regarding how (a) to change the
way in which science has come to be both conducted and reported in
order to avoid producing false positive, irreproducible results in
their own work and (b) to change those institutional practices
(primarily but not exclusively involving the traditional journal
publishing process and the academic reward system) that have
unwittingly contributed to the present crisis. There is a need for
change in the scientific culture itself. A culture which
prioritizes conducting research correctly in order to get things
right rather than simply getting it published.
Whom a prime minister or president will not shake hands with is
still more noticed than with whom they will. Public identity can
afford to be ambiguous about friends, but not about enemies. Rodney
Barker examines the available accounts of how enmity functions in
the cultivation of identity, how essential or avoidable it is, and
what the consequences are for the contemporary world.
Too Simple to Fail presents a startling dissection of what is wrong
with our educational system and a set of simple, common-sense steps
for improving it. This simplicity, Bausell argues, characterizes
both the schooling process and the science of education, as
witnessed by legions of researchers who have discovered precious
little that their grandmothers didn't already know. Yet
surprisingly, based upon the author's own studies and a review of
the past 30+ years of educational research, these discoveries boil
down to a simple but powerful theory: The only way schools can
increase learning is to increase the amount of relevant
instructional time for all students. Here, Bausell demonstrates
that classroom instruction is hopelessly obsolete, as are our
current testing practices, both contributing to the widening
opportunity gap between socioeconomic and racial groups. But with
an understanding of what is wrong with education today comes the
revelation that the answer to these deficiencies has been available
to us all along in the form of the tutorial model, the most
effective instructional paradigm ever developed. Only in recent
years has it become feasible to simulate this extremely effective
instructional medium as a universal option that, in effect, would
allow schools to provide relevant instruction as a rule and not an
exception. If implemented, a new world of opportunity and potential
will finally be available to children, whose learning is so crucial
for our future. The new model presented in this book has
implications for identifying not only what is wrong with the way we
educate our young, but also why it is wrong, and how the
educational process can be made more efficient, effective, and
fair.
The technological means now exists for approaching the
fundamentallimiting scales of solid state electronics in which a
single carrier can, in principle, represent a single bit in an
information flow. In this light, the prospect of chemically, or
biologically, engineered molccular-scale structures which might
support information processing functions has enticed workers for
many years. The one common factor in all suggested molecular
switches, ranging from the experimentally feasible proton-tunneling
structure, to natural systems such as the micro-tubule, is that
each proposed structure deals with individual information carrying
entities. Whereas this future molecular electronics faces enormous
technical challenges, the same Iimit is already appearing in
existing semiconducting quantum wires and small tunneling
structures, both superconducting and normal meta! devices, in which
the motion of a single eh arge through the tunneling barrier can
produce a sufficient voltage change to cut-off further tunneling
current. We may compare the above situation with today's Si
microelectronics, where each bit is encoded as a very !arge number,
not necessarily fixed, of electrons within acharge pulse. The
associated reservoirs and sinks of charge carriers may be
profitably tapped and manipulated to proviele macro-currents which
can be readily amplified or curtailed. On the other band, modern
semiconductor ULSI has progressed by adopting a linear scaling
principle to the down-sizing of individual semiconductor devices.
This book poses and ultimately answers the question of whether the
public schools would have been affected if no educational research
had been conducted during this century. To answer this question, 12
genres of educational research are evaluated. The genres are
accompanied by non-technical, annotated synopses examples of each.
A case is made that the science of education as a whole is
repetitive, non-cumulative, and is characterized by a circular
rather than a linear trajectory.
Biblical Foundations of Spirituality invites readers to "touch a
finger to the flame" of the Bible by offering guidance on what,
how, and why to read Scripture as a source of spiritual
nourishment. The second edition builds on Barbara Bowe's acclaimed
book with two new chapters by Laurie Brink and John R. Barker
introducing key theological concepts and exploring how biblical
spirituality was first experienced and expressed in early Christian
communities. The book begins by exploring the many meanings of the
word "spirituality," then leads readers through the Bible-from
Genesis to Revelation-to develop a biblically based spirituality
that can serve as a compass in the challenges of life. Updated to
reference the latest scholarship, this book helps make the Bible
more accessible and shows how it can be relevant to life today. The
book stresses the spiritual dimension of biblical figures' search
for God and shows how their insights about God-from successes to
dead ends-can reflect our contemporary searching and struggles.
Biblical Foundations of Spirituality reveals the spiritual wisdom
of the Bible, connecting it with everyday life and spirituality.
With a chronology, reflection questions, a glossary, and updated
notes and bibliography, as well as two new chapters, the second
edition of Biblical Foundations of Spirituality is ideal for
classroom, parish, or individual reading.
The human race has altered the chemical composition of the
atmosphere, as evidenced by the notorious London smog,
photochemical air pollution, acid rain, stratospheric ozone
depletion, and elevated greenhouse gas concentrations. The aim of
this book series is to present invited summaries of important
current research on atmospheric chemistry in a changing world. The
summaries range from comprehensive scholarly reviews of major
subject areas to more narrowly focused accounts of recent advances
by individual research groups. The topics are tied to the important
societal issues of air quality, stratospheric ozone depletion, acid
deposition, the environmental fate of toxics, and climate change.
By gathering these new Advances in one series, we aim to catalyze
communication among the many researchers who are studying our
changing, contemporary atmosphere.
Every year millions of people flock to complementary and
alternative therapists offering a vast array of treatments ranging
from acupuncture to biofeedback to urine injections. Millions more
purchase over-the-counter alternative medications, such as
glucosamine, herbs, and homeopathic remedies. While consumer
motivations for turning to complementary and alternative medicine
(CAM) vary, there is one common element among them all: a belief in
their effectiveness. This belief appears to be prevalent among all
elements of society, from scientists and physicians to celebrities
such as Prince Charles and Oprah Winfrey to clerical workers and
senior citizens. Do these therapies actually work? And if they
work, how do they work? This book is about the science of
complementary and alternative medicine, about how that science is
conducted, how it is evaluated, and how it is synthesised to arrive
at a conclusion about whether CAM therapies work. It is also about
the phenomenon of the placebo effect, and the extent to which it is
at play in a given CAM therapy's efficacy. Are CAM therapies in
fact nothing more than creatively packaged placebos? In exploring
this question, Barker Bausell provides an authoritative and
engaging look at the nature of scientific evidence and at the
logical, psychological, and physiological impediments that can
confound such evidence in the world of CAM research. Ultimately,
the book is not so much opposed to CAM as to the shoddy science
upon which CAM claims are based, and in fact it closes with a
chapter about how one might maximise the placebo effect that
Bausell asserts is the main 'ingredient' of most CAM therapies.
This book is a learned, witty examination not just of the
scientific process as it is applied to CAM but also of the wonders
of the human mind/body system.
Published in 1998. This collection of papers, written by leading
lawyers and sociologists in the UK, focuses on the relationships
between gender and the law in the context of three areas of law:
family law, criminal law and equal rights. The papers argue that
gender roles within society affect the legal rights of individuals
and impact on procedures they go through to enforce their rights or
to gain redress for wrongs done to them. By failing to recognize
the social and economic situations in which men and women are
placed, the law perpetuates inequalities in their positions. Where
attempts are made to ensure equality between the sexes, the result
is often the exact opposite, because the legal system treats
individuals as equals operating in a vacuum, ignoring the argument
that equal treatment does not necessarily mean the same treatment,
but can mean different treatment to ensure equality of result.
Topics include: c Disputes in the area of parental child custody
rights c The rights of surviving spouses to their deceased
partner's estate c Theories for violent behaviour in women as
contrasted with men c Gender bias in criminal sentencing c The role
of European law in promoting sex equality in the work place c
Pornography and free speech c Homosexuality as a civil right of
citizenship
Published in 1998. This collection of papers, written by leading
lawyers and sociologists in the UK, focuses on the relationships
between gender and the law in the context of three areas of law:
family law, criminal law and equal rights. The papers argue that
gender roles within society affect the legal rights of individuals
and impact on procedures they go through to enforce their rights or
to gain redress for wrongs done to them. By failing to recognize
the social and economic situations in which men and women are
placed, the law perpetuates inequalities in their positions. Where
attempts are made to ensure equality between the sexes, the result
is often the exact opposite, because the legal system treats
individuals as equals operating in a vacuum, ignoring the argument
that equal treatment does not necessarily mean the same treatment,
but can mean different treatment to ensure equality of result.
Topics include: c Disputes in the area of parental child custody
rights c The rights of surviving spouses to their deceased
partner's estate c Theories for violent behaviour in women as
contrasted with men c Gender bias in criminal sentencing c The role
of European law in promoting sex equality in the work place c
Pornography and free speech c Homosexuality as a civil right of
citizenship
Bausell provides a restrictive but defensible view of the purpose
of educational research which is to produce instructional,
curricular, or assessment products rather than seldom read and soon
forgotten academic papers.This book poses and answers two
questions: (a) whether it is possible for the science of education
to develop into a discipline that could constructively impact the
education of students and, if so (b) what type of research would be
required for this transformation. Three genres of research were
identified that possess the potential for impacting school
instruction if the end result of this work is an instructional
product capable of increasing learning by increased access to
instruction or engagement therewith. Finally, specific suggestions
are tendered for creating the infrastructure needed to realize this
unique vision of what the science of education should be.
A new playbook for effective crisis management in higher education.
Unlike other industries, in higher education an institution's most
important asset is its reputation. Yet as fundamental as it is,
many leaders continue to view managing reputation as dishonest and
counterproductive, a suspect process that undermines the very idea
of reputation as an organic outcome of reality. When leadership
credibility is on the line, though, and an institution's reputation
is facing potentially irreparable damage, the concept of
reputational risk moves from being nebulous to all too tangible. In
Preventing Crises at Your University, Simon Barker demonstrates how
critical it is for colleges and universities to align strategy and
values with decision-making during times of crisis. Arguing that
leaders must stop considering the discussion of reputational risk
as unseemly, he demonstrates that this discussion is in fact a
strategic imperative for every leader. Significant reputational
damage, Barker asserts, is not the inevitable outcome of a crisis
but of a poor response. Defining a new crisis leadership playbook
to deal with self-inflicted crises, he also * explains what
typically goes wrong in a crisis; * describes how to prevent crises
from escalating; * demonstrates how a stakeholder-centric model of
communications can help mitigate reputational damage; and *
introduces a number of original concepts, including a Reputational
Risk Management Framework, a Reputational Risk Maturity Model, and
a Culture and Capability matrix. Moving beyond the theoretical by
presenting case studies of real crises involving sexual assault,
freedom of speech, student protests, faculty misconduct, and a
broad range of financial, social, and ethical issues, the book
highlights and underscore key concepts around effective management
of reputational risk. Ultimately, Preventing Crises at Your
University serves as a wake-up call for all higher education
leaders and board members.
Full indexes by topic, keyword and individual work\author form a
complete subject-index, based on the indexes in source
bibliographies. This is a complete bibliography of Arthurian
literature to 1978, the result of five years' work by Professor
Cedric Pickford and Dr Rex Last of the University of Hull. It
consists of a complete alphabetical author-listing, with key
numbers for each item, of all critical material recorded in the
standard Arthurian bibliographies (Bruce, Modern Languages
Quarterly, BBSIA and various other minor lists) with full indexes
by topic, keyword and individual work, /author. The total is over
10,000 main entries, with all recorded reviews listed after each
entry. Where summaries exist in BBSIA, this is indicated in the
main entries. The computer programs have been specially devised and
written for this bibliography by Dr Last, and programming and
editing of the material has taken more than two years. Updating
volumes are planned to appear at five-year intervals
This series presents authoritative invited summaries of research on
atmospheric chemistry in a changing world. These range from
comprehensive reviews of major subject areas to focused accounts by
individual research groups. The topics may include laboratory
studies, field measurements, in situ monitoring and remote sensing,
studies of composition, chemical modeling, theories of atmospheric
chemistry and climate, feedback mechanisms, emissions and
deposition, biogeochemical cycles, and the links between
atmospheric chemistry and the climate system at large.Volume 2
comprises chapters describing research on multiphase chemistry
affecting air quality in China, on multiphase chemistry of organic
compounds leading to secondary organic aerosol formation, on
biogeochemical cycles involving ammonia, on oxidation of aromatic
compounds, on reactions of Criegee intermediates (important in
oxidation of alkenes), and on laboratory and field measurements of
isotopic fractionation in the atmosphere.
The technological means now exists for approaching the
fundamentallimiting scales of solid state electronics in which a
single carrier can, in principle, represent a single bit in an
information flow. In this light, the prospect of chemically, or
biologically, engineered molccular-scale structures which might
support information processing functions has enticed workers for
many years. The one common factor in all suggested molecular
switches, ranging from the experimentally feasible proton-tunneling
structure, to natural systems such as the micro-tubule, is that
each proposed structure deals with individual information carrying
entities. Whereas this future molecular electronics faces enormous
technical challenges, the same Iimit is already appearing in
existing semiconducting quantum wires and small tunneling
structures, both superconducting and normal meta! devices, in which
the motion of a single eh arge through the tunneling barrier can
produce a sufficient voltage change to cut-off further tunneling
current. We may compare the above situation with today's Si
microelectronics, where each bit is encoded as a very !arge number,
not necessarily fixed, of electrons within acharge pulse. The
associated reservoirs and sinks of charge carriers may be
profitably tapped and manipulated to proviele macro-currents which
can be readily amplified or curtailed. On the other band, modern
semiconductor ULSI has progressed by adopting a linear scaling
principle to the down-sizing of individual semiconductor devices.
Power analysis is an essential tool for determining whether a statistically significant result can be expected in a scientific experiment prior to the experiment being performed. This comprehensive, accessible book provides practicing researchers with step-by-step instructions for conducting power/sample size analyses, assuming only basic prior knowledge of summary statistics and normal distribution. It contains a unified approach to statistical power analysis, with numerous easy-to-use tables that make further calculations or statistical expertise unnecessary.
Designing and conducting experiments involving human participants
requires a skillset different from that needed for statistically
analyzing the resulting data. The Design and Conduct of Meaningful
Experiments Involving Human Participants combines an introduction
to scientific culture and ethical mores with specific experimental
design and procedural content. Author R. Barker Bausell assumes no
statistical background on the part of the reader, resulting in a
highly accessible text. Clear instructions are provided on topics
ranging from the selection of a societally important outcome
variable to potentially efficacious interventions to the conduct of
the experiment itself. Early chapters introduce the concept of
experimental design in an intuitive manner involving both
hypothetical and real-life examples of how people make causal
inferences. The fundamentals of formal experimentation,
randomization, and the use of control groups are introduced in the
same manner, followed by the presentation and explanation of common
(and later, more advanced) designs. Replete with synopses of
examples from the journal literature and supplemented by 25
experimental principles, this book is designed to serve as an
interdisciplinary supplementary text for research-methods courses
in the educational, psychological, behavioral, social, and health
sciences. It also serves as an excellent primary text for methods
seminar courses.
Power analysis is an essential tool for determining whether a
statistically significant result can be expected in a scientific
experiment prior to the experiment being performed. Many funding
agencies and institutional review boards now require power analyses
to be carried out before they will approve experiments,
particularly where they involve the use of human subjects. This
comprehensive, yet accessible, book provides practising researchers
with step-by-step instructions for conducting power/sample size
analyses, assuming only basic prior knowledge of summary statistics
and the normal distribution. It contains a unified approach to
statistical power analysis, with numerous easy-to-use tables to
guide the reader without the need for further calculations or
statistical expertise. This will be an indispensable text for
researchers and graduates in the medical and biological sciences
needing to apply power analysis in the design of their experiments.
Since the 1980s, the language used around market-based government
has muddied its meaning and polarized its proponents and critics,
making the topic politicized and controversial. Competition,
Choice, and Incentives in Government Programs hopes to reframe
competing views of market-based government so it is seen not as an
ideology but rather as a fact-based set of approaches for managing
government services and programs more efficiently and effectively.
Published in cooperation with IBM.
Hailed in the New York Times as "entertaining and immensely
educational," Snake Oil Science is not only a brilliant critique of
alternative medicine, but also a first-rate introduction to
interpreting scientific research of any sort. The book's ultimate
goal is to illustrate how the placebo effect conspires to make
medical therapies appear to be effective--not just to consumers,
but to therapists and poorly trained scientists as well. Bausell
explores this remarkable phenomenon and explains why research on
any therapy that does not factor in the placebo effect (and other
placebo-like effects) will inevitably produce false results.
Moreover, as the author shows in an impressive survey of research
from high-quality scientific journals, studies employing credible
placebo controls do not indicate positive effects for alternative
therapies beyond those attributable to random chance. Readers will
come away from this book with a healthy skepticism of claims about
the latest "miracle cure," be it St. John's Wort for depression or
acupuncture for chronic pain.
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