Initial Conditions and the ‘Open Systems’ Argument against Laws of Nature

This article attacks “open systems” arguments that because constant conjunctions are not generally observed in the real world of open systems we should be highly skeptical that universal laws exist. This work differs from other critiques of open system arguments against laws of nature by not focusing on laws themselves, but rather on the inference from open systems. We argue that open system arguments fail for two related reasons; 1) because they cannot account for the “systems” central to their argument (nor the implied systems labeled “exogenous factors” in relation to the system of interest) and 2) they are nomocentric, fixated on laws while ignoring initial and antecedent conditions that are able to account for systems and exogenous factors within a fundamentalist framework

Determinism and the Antiquated Deontology of the Social Sciences

This article shows how the social sciences, particularly human geography, rejected hard determinism by the mid-twentieth century largely on the deontological basis that it is irreconcilable with social justice, yet this rejection came just before a burst of creative development in consequentialist theories of social justice that problematize a facile rejection of determinism on moral grounds, a development that has seldom been recognized in the social sciences. Thus many current social science and human geography views on determinism and social justice are antiquated, ignoring numerous common and well-respected arguments within philosophy that hard determinism can be reconciled with a just society. We support this argument by briefly tracing the parallel development of stances on determinism in the social sciences and the deontological-consequentialist debate in philosophy. The purpose of the article is to resituate social science and human geography debates on determinism and social justice within a modern ethical framework

Why Inferential Statistics are Inappropriate for Development Studies and How the Same Data Can be Better Used

The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to highlight the widely ignored but fundamental problem of ‘superpopulations’ for the use of inferential statistics in development studies. We do not to dwell on this problem however as it has been sufficiently discussed in older papers by statisticians that social scientists have nevertheless long chosen to ignore; the interested reader can turn to those for greater detail. 2) to show that descriptive statistics both avoid the problem of superpopulations and can be a powerful tool when used correctly. A few examples are provided. The paper ends with considerations of some reasons we think are behind the adherence to methods that are known to be inapplicable to many of the types of questions asked in development studies yet still widely practiced

Why inferential statistics are inappropriate for development studies and how the same data can be better used

The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to highlight the widely ignored but fundamental problem of ‘superpopulations’ for the use of inferential statistics in development studies. We do not to dwell on this problem however as it has been sufficiently discussed in older papers by statisticians that social scientists have nevertheless long chosen to ignore; the interested reader can turn to those for greater detail. 2) to show that descriptive statistics both avoid the problem of superpopulations and can be a powerful tool when used correctly. A few examples are provided. The paper ends with considerations of some reasons we think are behind the adherence to methods that are known to be inapplicable to many of the types of questions asked in development studies yet still widely practiced.frequentist statistics; Bayesian statistics; causation; determinism; explanation; spatial autocorrelation; mulitple regression; international development; econometrics; comparative method; datasets; descriptive statistics; tabular analysis; visual analysis; maps; regession modeling; quantitative; qualitative; macrosociology; superpopulations; apparent populations; indeterminism; statistical assumptions

The construction of the risk of falling among and by older people

Risk is frequently invoked in contemporary accounts of ill health, but its construction is often constrained by a rationalist perspective that focuses on physical causes and functional outcomes, and that presents risk as external to the self and predictable. This paper describes an empirical study of the ways in which risk was realised and managed in a day hospital for older people. An ethnographic approach, with participant observation and semi-structured interviews, and discourse analysis were used to explore these issues with the staff and fifteen users. Whilst the service providers were orientated to the management of physical risk, as through the regimes for administering medication and their attention to risk reduction in the physical environment, the service users were more concerned with the risk to their personal and social identities, and they more frequently described its manifestations in inter-personal exchanges, sometimes as infantalisation and stereotyping. The paper develops this understanding of the potential for falls among older people to elucidate a broader interpretation of risk, and reveals that it is commonly constructed as a challenge to a person's self-image and identity. Such constructions help to explain older people's responses to complex health problems and to the services and treatments that attempt to solve them

THE ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF HABITAT AND MICROHABITAT USE IN LIZARDS:: A REVIEW

We review the ecological consequences of habitat and microhabitat use in lizards. Different habitats have different biotic and abiotic properties and thus are likely to have different consequences for the lizards that occur in them. Individual performance and life histories are influenced by habitat use, particularly when habitats differ in thermal characteristics that may influence physiological processes or constrain activity. We know relatively little about how the effects of habitat use on individual performance translate into population dynamics. We do know that the ability of lizards to use particular habitats can influence the persistence of populations in the face of habitat changes. Community-level processes (e.g., competition) and community structure (e.g., diversity) can be influenced by habitat use in lizards, often by habitat use facilitating co-existence of two or more potentially competing species. We know relatively little about how other community processes, such as predation and parasitism, are influenced by habitat use

The prism manifold realization problem II

We continue our study of the realization problem for prism manifolds. Every prism manifold can be parametrized by a pair of relatively prime integers $p>1$ and $q$. We determine a complete list of prism manifolds $P(p, q)$ that can be realized by positive integral surgeries on knots in $S^3$ when $q>p$. The methodology undertaken to obtain the classification is similar to that of the case $q<0$ in an earlier paper.Comment: 43 pages, 9 figures, and 3 table