The merton thesis: Oetinger and German Pietism,a significant negative case

The Merton thesis identifies two movements — English Puritanism and German Pietism — as causally significant in the development of the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. It attributes this connection to a strong compatibility between the values of ascetic Protestantism and those associated with modern science. This article questions Merton's conclusion regarding one of these movements, German Pietism, by arguing that the Pietist ethos stood in sharp conflict with what Merton has called the normative structure of science. One manifestation of this conflict involves Friedrich Oetinger's articulation of a contending religious-mystical conception of science, which assigned a central place to feeling, intuition, the role of the divine, and a qualitative approach to nature. This conception of science, it is argued, provides the clearest indication of the conceptual and valuative distance that tended to separate Pietists from the new science of the 17th and 18th centuries.An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1990 meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, in Virginia Beach.     

Therapy for male couples experiencing relationship problems and sexual problems

This article examines four issues that need to be explored by the therapist as possible causes of stress for a male couple: stereotypic male roles, stereotypic sexual roles, homophobia, which includes the "coming out" process, and sexual dysfunctions. These issues can cause anxiety and stress, which may in turn cause relationship problems for a male couple. The role of the therapist is clarified and suggestions for treatment are given.     

Efficient Estimation of a Distribution Function under Quadrant Dependence

LetX₁,X₂, ..., be real-valued random variables forming a strictly stationary sequence, and satisfying the basic requirement of being either pairwise positively quadrant dependent or pairwise negatively quadrant dependent. LetF^ be the marginal distribution function of theX_ips, which is estimated by the empirical distribution functionF_n and also by a smooth kernel-type estimateF_n, by means of the segmentX₁, ...,X_n. These estimates are compared on the basis of their mean squared errors (MSE). The main results of this paper are the following. Under certain regularity conditions, the optimal bandwidth (in the MSE sense) is determined, and is found to be the same as that in the independent identically distributed case. It is also shown thatn MSE(F_n(t)) andnMSE (F^_n(t)) tend to the same constant, asn→∞ so that one can not discriminate be tween the two estimates on the basis of the MSE. Next, ifi(n) = min {k∈{1, 2, ...}; MSE (F_k(t)) ≤ MSE (F_n(t))}, then it is proved thati(n)/n tends to 1, asn→∞. Thus, once again, one can not choose one estimate over the other in terms of their asymptotic relative efficiency. If, however, the squared bias ofF^_n(t) tends to 0 sufficiently fast, or equivalently, the bandwidthh_n satisfies the requirement thatnh³_n→ 0, asn→∞, it is shown that, for a suitable choice of the kernel, (i(n) ?n)/(nh_n) tends to a positive number, asn→∞ It follows that the deficiency ofF_n(t) with respect toF^_n(t),i(n) ?n, is substantial, and, actually, tends to ∞, asn→∞. In terms of deficiency, the smooth estimateF^_n(t) is preferable to the empirical distribution functionF_n(t)     

The VFW — A case study in the “iron law of oligarchy” and goal displacement

The iron law of oligarchy is applied to the VFW. Using participant observation and qualitative interviews, membership of the VFW is dichotomized into a leadership oligarchy and a drinking membership. Opinions of members of the two groups about the purposes of the organization and about each other are documented. An historical analysis traces the change in organizational goals over time from promoting nationalism, fraternalism, and special benefits for members to political advocacy of veterans' rights.     

Fertility differences between the family of orientation and the family or procreation in Barbados

Data from an island-wide probability sample of 4119 Barbadian females aged 16-50 were used to study whether there has been an intergenerational fertility decline between the respondents and their mothers. The fertility of the respondents, all from the low or lower middle class, was significantly lower than that of their mothers. However, the size of the family of procreation was seen to be positively related to the size of the family of orientation; i.e., those from large families tended to have large families and vice versa. There was, however, a regression to the mean. There were no differences between women from small and large families as to fertility norms, age at 1st use of contraceptives, or actual practice of contraception. Women from small families did tend to enter sexual relationships and get pregnant at a later age. The women from small families were better educated, earned higher incomes, and had higher status occupations, all factors which might have influenced their fertility. Women from larger families cited higher numbers for both small and large families than did the women from small families. This indicates a perceptual difference which was, in turn, related to fertility differences.     

Culture, Cosmopolitanism, and Risk Management

Most cultural approaches to risk management deal with the connections between the forms of social relations within groups and the risk concerns of those groups. According to these theories, a certain limited set of different relational forms (usually three, four, or five) lead to specific, different and conflicting, risk concerns. In contrast to these theories, cosmopolitanism is an approach to culture that focuses, not on forms of sociality, but on changes among forms—expansions and contractions in the inclusivity of forms and movement by persons from one form of sociality to another. Relative to other cultural theories, cosmopolitanism thus is much more concerned with the solution of risk management problems than with their origins. Cosmopolitanism can be thought of as a cultural continuum, with cosmopolitanism at one end and pluralism at the other. Cosmopolitan persons are more open to cultural change—and thus the solution of risk management problems. In this article, we outline our new theory of cosmopolitanism, describe a method for measuring it and present an experimental study that tests some implications of the theory. Results from the study support the theory by showing that, compared to pluralistic respondents, cosmopolitan respondents are more inclusive in their risk management judgments—that is, they express equal concern for a local and a national issue, whereas the pluralistic respondents express greater concern in the local case. We discuss the risk management implications of a cosmopolitan approach to culture.     

GM Foods and the Misperception of Risk Perception

Public opposition to genetically modified (GM) food and crops is widely interpreted as the result of the public's misperception of the risks. With scientific assessment pointing to no unique risks from GM crops and foods, a strategy of accurate risk communication from trusted sources has been advocated. This is based on the assumption that the benefits of GM crops and foods are self-evident. Informed by the interpretation of some qualitative interviews with lay people, we use data from the Eurobarometer survey on biotechnology to explore the hypothesis that it is not so much the perception of risks as the absence of benefits that is the basis of the widespread rejection of GM foods and crops by the European public. Some respondents perceive both risks and benefits, and may be trading off these attributes along the lines of a rational choice model. However, for others, one attribute-benefit-appears to dominate their judgments: the lexicographic heuristic. For these respondents, their perception of risk is of limited importance in the formation of attitudes toward GM food and crops. The implication is that the absence of perceived benefits from GM foods and crops calls into question the relevance of risk communication strategies for bringing about change in public opinion.     

Thank God you're here: the coming generation and their role in future‐proofing Australia from the challenges of population ageing

Like much of the industrialised world, Australia's population is ageing, the implications of which are twofold: increasing demand for publicly funded services and a decline in the supply of prime working‐age people. In grappling with the challenges of a diminishing workforce, the Australian Government is currently relying on its migration programs to provide both the much‐needed labour and skills for the resource boom and also to stimulate the economy through population growth. However, there may be another, not yet fully considered solution to the upcoming demographic problem. This paper investigates how the grandchildren of the baby boomers, termed here the Thank God You're Here generation (Gen TGYH), might impact on Australia's predicted workforce shortage. This generation of workers will enter the labour force as the last of the baby boomers reach retirement age, and will not only be bigger in size than preceding generations (Y, X and Baby Boomers), but also potentially be better educated than the retiring generation. This paper will also canvas the opportunities for both Gen TGYH and employers as well as the challenges for policymakers and governments in maximising the opportunity provided by this generation in the Australian economy.     

The Development of Object Construction From Infancy Through Toddlerhood

Early in development, children explore and combine objects in increasingly complex ways. One manual skill, object construction, represents a major shift in how objects are explored relative to other objects. Despite recent connections with cognitive functioning such as spatial skills, the development of object construction ability has rarely been studied and its trajectory has not been adequately described. The purpose of this study was to describe the development of three types of object construction (stacking, nesting, and affixing) across 5 monthly infant visits and 7 monthly toddler visits using a longitudinal design and a large sample size. Infants (10–14 months, n = 131) and toddlers drawn from the infant sample (18–24 months, n = 65) were given sets of age‐appropriate toys each of which elicited at least one type of constructive play. We described success at different construction tasks and identified trends for construction skill for infant and toddler development using multilevel modeling. We found that each of the three construction actions developed in unique ways across the 10‐ to 24‐month period. Infant construction skill predicted the development of toddler skill, but toddler construction skill diverged from infant trajectories. We discuss the role of combination strategies in the development of object construction skill and how object construction could be related to other domains of development.