Decisions

They feel that they live in a time of big decisions, they know that they are not making any.

................No one has enough power to make a real difference; events are the results of an anonymous balance. For the power elite too, the model of balance solves the problem of power. Parallel to the market-economy, there is the leaderless democracy in which no one is responsible for anything and everyone is responsible for everything; the will of men acts only through the impersonal workings of the electoral process.


Mills, W.C., The Power Elite, Oxford Univ. Press, 1956

imperfect understanding

Humans had an imperfect understanding of God’s will. They differed in their understanding of the correct course of action, where the correct course of action was to carry out God’s will. Voting was a procedure for aggregating these imperfect individual judgments into a more reliable group judgment.


Iain McLean, Haidee Lorrey, Voting in the Medieval Papacy and Religious Orders, Oxfor Univ. Working papers (2006)

Jobs: a passport to independence

More than anything else, what Africa and the African people need to escape the abyss of poverty and the vicissitudes of Mother Nature is jobs. This need is fundamental because it is the passport to personal independence and to the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and prosperity, and all that it entails, including such basic essentials as clean water, food, health, and education. A job provides an opportunity to live a meaningful life and to contribute to society.

Africa needs the kinds of jobs that are created primarily by foreign and local investors and entrepreneurs -- jobs that will provide its people with incomes that allow them to produce, to consume, and to educate and care for their children.

Via Emeka Okafor, who also has a video of Monique giving a talk at Google on "Learning to Love Africa: My Story from Africa to Harvard Business School and Back." See her book by the same title.

In that same Case Foundation issue see "Africa: No Lost Cause" by Chris Johns, editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine, who also recommends two books: "The Tree Where Man Was Born" by Peter Matthiessen and No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu.

Source: http://ipienso.blogspot.com/search/label/Africa

It is trust that makes us human.

In 2002, using the brain scanning technique known as functional MRI, James Rilling, of Emory University, Georgia, showed that when people trust each other they engage particular parts of the brain, the “trust centres”.

In his paper in the journal Neuron, which he entitled “A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation”, Rilling showed that the brain’s trust centres are located in the recently evolved parts, the parts that define us as higher primates. It is trust that makes us human.

It's an intriguing thought, and it runs parallel to Adam Smith's discovery that 'sympathy,' our propensity to empathize with our fellow men and women, is a natural human characteristic. Atomistic individualism sometimes seeks to establish the clear principles which should govern a person's relationships with the rest of society. But it is possible that there might be propensities to be taken into account as well as abstract principles. These propensities might indeed include an ability to empathize, and an ability to establish relationships of trust on the basis of signals rather than through overt collusion. Humans, as social animals, might need more than intellectual analysis to explain their condition.

source: www.adamsmith.org/blog

Erudite Error

Yet even Plato lost sight of Providence when through an error common to human mind, whereby it measures the relatively unknown nature of others in accordance with itself, he raised the barbaric and rough origins of gentile humanity to the perfect state of his own exalted, divine and recondite knowledge, whereas he ought, on the contrary to have descended from his 'ideas' and sunk down to those origins.





God Accuracy

God knows every thing because he contains in himself the elements of which everything is composed. Man likewise tries to know everything by way of division so that human knowledge can be called an anatomy of the works of nature. Methaphysics studies being, arithmatic; geometry, figure and its measures; mechanics, motion around the center; physics, motion from the center; medicine, the body; logic, reason, ethics .....However, these sciences are, for the most parts, very imperfect and far from the truth; and having things only outside us, we cannot know them except by way of abstraction, thus, turning to our advantage that which is the mere defect of our mind. And by this abstraction are produced two sciences that are the most useful because they are the most certain: geometry and arithmatic from these two was begotten mechanics, whence all the arts needful to human kind were born.


Source: ...............Oxford Univ Press








Old thinkers were wrong endeavering to see the truth; human mind is not a mechanism for seeing the truth, in the sense meant by men of old. it is a mechanism for solving it's owner's problems from situtation to situation. it cannot function well apart from such situations.


Students in the high disciplines of philosophy, psychology and logic must first learn straight thinking, hence, logic above all, then scientific method. They must challenge problems and wrestle with them, and finally come to solutions, in a way that thinkers e.g. in mathematics, make discoveries.


While in natural sciences the aim is to understand laws that rule, in social sciences the aim is to understand subjectively meanings captured in expereinces. Hence, in qualitative research, the researcher attempts to understand and interpret meaning and motivation behind actions within the context that they have taken place. Understanding the situation is either through interpretation and observation or through explanation. Social, historical and cultural factors are recognised to play important role in shaping people's mind in their world making.

Qualitative research practice, for that matter, has evolved and bcame more complex in using methods which attempt to provide a holistic account of research participants' views and actions in the context of their lives.

Spaces

Since early days America has been another name for opportunity......movement in new spaces has been America's dominant fact. American energy continually demands a wider field for its exercise to satisfy the zest for advancement. İnitially, a vast expanse of fertile and unsettled land became available almost free to those who would cultivate it. Across this new space, a frontier of settlement pushed steadily West, and along this frontier individuals who had advanced ahead of society's usual institutional controls accepted a lowering of standards at the time for the sake of progress in the future. Constantly repeating over again a democratic experience, they reinforced the national democratic tradition.

By exhausting offers of freeland available other frontiers have been explored. A recognition of the adjustment to technological advance, to urban growth, and to the high standards of living all of which contribute to the fluidity and facility of change. The frontier was pioneering stage of grasping spaces and one form of offering abundance. Furthermore, freedom and opportunity is to be created at the edge of the unused. This implies also to science which has its frontiers, and to industry, to technology, and so long to advance standards of living and maintain the fluidity of living and capacity for change along these frontiers........

George Wilson Pierson, The frontier and American institutions, New England Quarterly XV, 1942



Report published by the Public Land Law Review Commission,for advice on what to do about the 755 million acres that were federally owned.

'Get rid of some of the land, but keep most of it. Give commercial interests, like the huge mining, timber, and farming industries, more leeway to make money from the public domain, but make them pay the Government more in doing so. Cut the tax-shy and land-shy states and localities in on more of the public-land benefits, but reserve a goodly amount for outdoor museums and parks.'

The New York Times, June 25, 1970, 26


Source: Kammen, M., People of Paradox, Oxford Univ. Press, 1978

The lonely crowd

The hypothesis is that changes in population and technology everywhere are the chief correlates of changes in the social character. We have, in past generations, accepted conformity with adult authority, while member of modern society, today, is by contrast more the product of his peers, his friends at school or in neighborhood.

Growing up he continues to identify with the same group values, not only conforming as do people in all times and places, but also in a deeper sense, in his aspirations and in the making of his world view. However, he doesnt come closer to others reflecting the loner in the crowd, because he is disinterested in affairs other than those yield imminent benefice. He keeps the distance by leaving the option open for disengagement, and for the ease of ignorance. İn the past he may have been alone too but then, he was identified strongly with his family, whom he had internalized within, an inseperable support, being with him at all times.

Nevertheless, there lies the space for autonomy beyond adjustment to the prevailing mode of conformity, beyond obedience to or fascination by the peers. Autonomy in his social role is in reach, but it is never all of character. With the change in social character from inner to other new problems arise, since in the age of consumption, when one is inspired only by his gadgets, he no longer so easily find autonomy to make a living. Before he could remain uninvolved in the lacks of others in the custody of his family. He had a large measure of confidence in what ever pattern of sociability and consumption he chose. His right to play was supported and limited as well by his class position and his power to assume himself of moral and physical privacy. But yesterday's escape and protections are closed to many today. One may not be able to rescue himself either from the peer groups or the prevailing advocates, all by himself, and may sink in these meanings. This is due to the assumption that if we widen the social space within which a person can move we may only induce abnormal dread of being in overtly open space. Terrifying images and contacts with future opportunities vanish only through some guides and signals, which illuminate the path, more often through institutional channels.


David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, Yale Univ. Press, 1950

David M. Potter, People of Plenty, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1973

David Nye, Narration and Spaces, Columbia Univ. Press, NY. 2003

Associating Variables

The Pearson product moment is a parametric statistic used when both variables are at least approx normally distributed (ie. scale data). when you have ranked data or when other assumptions are markedly violated, one should use a nonparamtric equivalent of the Pearson correlsation coefficient. One such nonparametric, ordinal statistic is Spearman's rho.

Both types of correlations can vary from -1.0 (a perfect negative relationship or association) through 0.0 (no correlation) to +1.0 a perfect positive correlation. Note that +1 and -1 are equally high or strong, but they lead to different interpretations.

- The correlation coefficient tell us the strength with which the two variables are asociated or related.

- r squared signifies the percentage of variance in common between the two variables.

- The Pearson correlations have somewhat higher values than the Spearman correlations, but they have similar sıgnificance/p levels. Usually the Pearson r is somewhat more powerful.

- İf one or both of the variables are clearly ordinal data, we would use the Spearman rho.








Statistical technique for comparing two or more independent groups on the central tendency of the dependent variable is called one-way ANOVA in SPSS, which compares the means of the samples or groups in order to make inferences about the population means. As with the t test, ANOVA assumes that the dependent variable is scale data (ie approx. normally distributed in the population) and the variances of the groups are equal. One-way ANOVA is also called single factor analysis of variance, because there is only one independent variable. the answer to the question - why would one compute a t test when one-way Anova (F) can be used to compare two groups as well as three or more groups? Because F= t 2, provide same with the same information, and the output looks very similar. Thus the choice is the matter of preference. However, t tests can be either one tailed or two tailed, while ANOVAs are always two tailed. Thus, with clear directional hypothesis predicting which group will have the higher mean, one may want to use a t test rather than one-way ANOVA when comparing two groups.



SPSS for Windows, Lawrence Erlbaum Asso, Publishers, New Jersy

Service of Fundamental İmportance

İn Oxford he rose to great scholarly distinction, lecturing to large classes, and esteemed the ablest theologian of its faculty. Philosophically, he was realist, in contrast to the prevailing nominalism of his age. He was deeply influenced by Augustine, and through Agustine, by Platonic conceptions.........................Convinced that the Bible is the Law of God, Wyclif determined to give it to the people in English tongue. Between 1382 and 1384 the Scriptures were translated from the Vulgate. What share Wyclif had in the actual work is impossible to say. İt has been usually thought that the New Testament was from his pen, and Old from that of Nicholas of Hereford. At all events, the New Testament translation was vivid, readable, and forceful and did a service of fundamental importance for the English language - to say nothing of English piety.


W. Walker, (1918) A History of Christian Church, Charles Scriber's Son Publishing, NY

Oxford is a law school for the whole world

Reasoning

.....The mind alone is incapable of working itself out to conclusions that deserve the name of religious. All that one demands is that his intellect, because it is a part of the divine gift to man, shall not be degraded and insulted by being asked to accept things that are contrary to its normal processes. İn his belief his intellect must have its rights, and so long as this is denied him, he cannot dignify propositions with the name of beliefs. They may be sentiments, impulses, feelings, fancies, - What you please, only not beliefs. The word he likes best in this connection is reason, and by reason he means, not any definable process of reasoning, not dialects, but that just balancing of all considerations which results in 'reasonableness.'............

Ephraim Emerton, Prof of Church History in Harvard Univ, 1916

Employability

The higher the level of the appointment, the less important the candidate's CV

Employers often feel that they need candidates whose recent appointments closely resemble to the job on ofer. Search consultants often foster this belief, which narrows the field of research. İn fact - at the board level - the key management skills can be highly portable across industry sectors and een across the disciplines. İf your primary requirements are innate intelligence, ability to manage change, power to build and motivate teams..why confine your vision in your own industry sector? Especially if you are looking for new ideas and support for a radical strategy.



Source: Saxton Bampflyde Hever
http://www.saxbam.com/pdfs/Twenty-Points-To-Consider.pdf

Now here, said the Red Queen, 'İt need all the running you can do to keep in the same place, İf you want to get somewhere else you must try to run at least as twice as fast as that'.

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land

Related links:
http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/