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Science
Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's
war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars"
defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make
the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an
application of science be successful? Is a militarized space
inevitable, necessary or impossible?
Read Debates, a
new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every
Thursday.
 
  (840 previous messages)
lchic
- 09:07pm Mar 26, 2002 EST (#841
of 868)
PROBLEM SOLVERS - who are they ????
An interesting study by
the Australian Government http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4026560%5E12333,00.html
Skills are built by the degree By Patrick
Lawnham / March 27, 2002
WHEN it comes to the generic skills employers love, it seems a
university education enhances the abilities that students already
have.
The higher the tertiary entry scores needed for a course, the
better the abilities of first-year students in such skills as
critical thinking, problem solving and communication.
The same is true of students as they finish their courses,
only more so.
Take problem solving. The best performers, going into
university and coming out, are people in medicine and dentistry –
reassuring when you visit a surgery.
Arts students, on the other hand, don't do so well at problem
solving, and, perhaps surprisingly, information technology
students are almost back with them.
Business and commerce students tend to do worse at problem
solving than arts counterparts.
The indications come from early cohorts in the federal
Government's graduate skills assessment, a test of critical
thinking, problem solving, written communication and interpersonal
understanding, which students can take as they enter and leave
university.
New medicine and dentistry students are followed in
problem-solving skills by engineering and architecture students,
law students, and those doing science or maths, IT, arts and
humanities, business or commerce, nursing and education/social
courses.
This order is loosely maintained between new and graduating
students, although exiting students have substantially higher
scores across the disciplines, suggesting university life improves
virtually everyone's generic skills.
On completion of courses, the best problem solvers are in
medicine/dentistry, then engineering/architecture, science/maths,
law, IT, arts, business, education/social and nursing. The
Australian Council for Educational Research began running the
tests for the government in 2000. Findings from tests of
third-year students in 2000 and students entering university in
2001 have just been released.
The tests are subsidised by the government. The universities,
usually, pay $10 a head for the tests.
They consist of two hours of multiple-choice items and one
hour of writing tasks.
Students get a personal report which may be useful in
impressing employers, and universities can monitor performance
growth.
ACER cautions that comparisons between the two tests – on
entry and exit – are difficult because participation was voluntary
and different students were involved.
Only about 1600 students at 19 universities did the 2000 exit
test, and about 2000 students from 20 universities did the 2001
entry test.
But the test results so far show a remarkable consistency.
The patterns by field of education for the other
components of the test are similar to those for problem solving,
with a few shifts in order. These are critical thinking,
interpersonal relations, and report and argument writing. Among
new students last year, those in medicine and dentistry led in
critical thinking, interpersonal understandings and report
writing, followed by the tiny band of law participants (18) in
all three cases.
Law students led medicine and dentistry when it comes to
writing arguments, with arts students third.
In arts, where graduates are well regarded for generic
skills, students were also placed third in report writing,
critical thinking and interpersonal understandings.
The latter
was the most prevalent skill for nursing students.
IT skills
may be included in future tests.
lchic
- 09:17pm Mar 26, 2002 EST (#842
of 868)
Interested, therefore, to note Showalter's reference to world
Doctors (above) .. as is seen these guys are right in there when it
comes to getting to the core of the matter :) http://www.worldofyak.com/flops/flops.cgi?page=lyrics&for=goodness-gracious-me
lchic
- 09:27pm Mar 26, 2002 EST (#843
of 868)
MAX COLTHEART: Well a delusion is a forced belief that is
inconsistent with what the person knows and what everyone else is
saying to the person.
Such as that your boss is about to get you and you're living on
Mars, or whatever.
We want to know two things about those delusions, where do they
come from in the first place and why do they hang around rather than
simply disappear because of the persuasions of others.
KERRY O'BRIEN: What do you believe the answer is?
MAX COLTHEART: We believe anybody who is deluded must be
suffering from two different kinds of cognitive and mental deficits.
The first one is responsible for where the strange idea came from
.... (2) a problem with judging whether the beliefs are true or not
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/s514276.htm
~~~~
One wonders if the national paranoia related to 'war' is a type
of schizophrenia
- a behaviour
- requiring management
rshow55
- 09:34pm Mar 26, 2002 EST (#844
of 868) 
Mmmmmm . . . or smart doctors.
There are some smart physicians - including the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War http://www.ippnw.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/07/opinion/L07NUKE.html
MD296 rshow55
3/9/02 4:36pm
MD441 rshow55
3/13/02 1:01pm
MD814 lchic
3/25/02 1:30am
lchic
- 09:41pm Mar 26, 2002 EST (#845
of 868)
NOBEL - persepective International Writers(Afrian, French,
Portugal, etc ) ... the writers look at GAZA -- they have 'the
words', have comparisons, and know how to phrase questions.
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