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Author: Thad Dunning
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-09-06
Total Pages: 379
ISBN-13: 1107017661
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The first comprehensive guide to natural experiments, providing an ideal introduction for scholars and students.
Author: Jared Diamond
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2012-10-01
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 0674076729
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Some central questions in the natural and social sciences can't be answered by controlled laboratory experiments, often considered to be the hallmark of the scientific method. This impossibility holds for any science concerned with the past. In addition, many manipulative experiments, while possible, would be considered immoral or illegal. One has to devise other methods of observing, describing, and explaining the world. In the historical disciplines, a fruitful approach has been to use natural experiments or the comparative method. This book consists of eight comparative studies drawn from history, archeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. The studies range from a simple two-way comparison of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, to comparisons of 81 Pacific islands and 233 areas of India. The societies discussed are contemporary ones, literate societies of recent centuries, and non-literate past societies. Geographically, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, western Europe, tropical Africa, India, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands. In an Afterword, the editors discuss how to cope with methodological problems common to these and other natural experiments of history.
Author: Judith A. Layzer
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 385
ISBN-13: 0262622149
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →EBM entails collaborative, landscape-scale planning and flexible, adaptive implementation.
Author: James N. Druckman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-04
Total Pages: 671
ISBN-13: 1108478506
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Novel collection of essays addressing contemporary trends in political science, covering a broad array of methodological and substantive topics.
Author: Steven Durlauf
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2016-06-07
Total Pages: 365
ISBN-13: 0230280811
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Specially selected from The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics 2nd edition, each article within this compendium covers the fundamental themes within the discipline and is written by a leading practitioner in the field. A handy reference tool.
Author: Robert G. B. Reid
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2009-08-21
Total Pages: 536
ISBN-13: 0262264420
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A critique of selectionism and the proposal of an alternate theory of emergent evolution that is causally sufficient for evolutionary biology. Natural selection is commonly interpreted as the fundamental mechanism of evolution. Questions about how selection theory can claim to be the all-sufficient explanation of evolution often go unanswered by today's neo-Darwinists, perhaps for fear that any criticism of the evolutionary paradigm will encourage creationists and proponents of intelligent design. In Biological Emergences, Robert Reid argues that natural selection is not the cause of evolution. He writes that the causes of variations, which he refers to as natural experiments, are independent of natural selection; indeed, he suggests, natural selection may get in the way of evolution. Reid proposes an alternative theory to explain how emergent novelties are generated and under what conditions they can overcome the resistance of natural selection. He suggests that what causes innovative variation causes evolution, and that these phenomena are environmental as well as organismal. After an extended critique of selectionism, Reid constructs an emergence theory of evolution, first examining the evidence in three causal arenas of emergent evolution: symbiosis/association, evolutionary physiology/behavior, and developmental evolution. Based on this evidence of causation, he proposes some working hypotheses, examining mechanisms and processes common to all three arenas, and arrives at a theoretical framework that accounts for generative mechanisms and emergent qualities. Without selectionism, Reid argues, evolutionary innovation can more easily be integrated into a general thesis. Finally, Reid proposes a biological synthesis of rapid emergent evolutionary phases and the prolonged, dynamically stable, non-evolutionary phases imposed by natural selection.
Author: Reza Hoshmand
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2018-10-03
Total Pages: 456
ISBN-13: 1420010646
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Written to meet the needs of both students and applied researchers, Design of Experiments for Agriculture and the Natural Sciences, Second Edition serves as an introductory guide to experimental design and analysis. Like the popular original, this thorough text provides an understanding of the logical underpinnings of design and analysis by selecting and discussing only those carefully chosen designs that offer the greatest utility. However, it improves on the first edition by adhering to a step-by-step process that greatly improves accessibility and understanding. Real problems from different areas of agriculture and science are presented throughout to show how practical issues of design and analysis are best handled. Completely revised to greatly enhance readability, this new edition includes: A new chapter on covariance analysis to help readers reduce errors, while enhancing their ability to examine covariances among selected variables Expanded material on multiple regression and variance analysis Additional examples, problems, and case studies A step-by-step Minitab® guide to help with data analysis Intended for those in the agriculture, environmental, and natural science fields as well as statisticians, this text requires no previous exposure to analysis of variance, although some familiarity with basic statistical fundamentals is assumed. In keeping with the book's practical orientation, numerous workable problems are presented throughout to reinforce the reader's ability to creatively apply the principles and concepts in any given situation.
Author: Richard J. Murnane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-09-17
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 0199890153
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Educational policy-makers around the world constantly make decisions about how to use scarce resources to improve the education of children. Unfortunately, their decisions are rarely informed by evidence on the consequences of these initiatives in other settings. Nor are decisions typically accompanied by well-formulated plans to evaluate their causal impacts. As a result, knowledge about what works in different situations has been very slow to accumulate. Over the last several decades, advances in research methodology, administrative record keeping, and statistical software have dramatically increased the potential for researchers to conduct compelling evaluations of the causal impacts of educational interventions, and the number of well-designed studies is growing. Written in clear, concise prose, Methods Matter: Improving Causal Inference in Educational and Social Science Research offers essential guidance for those who evaluate educational policies. Using numerous examples of high-quality studies that have evaluated the causal impacts of important educational interventions, the authors go beyond the simple presentation of new analytical methods to discuss the controversies surrounding each study, and provide heuristic explanations that are also broadly accessible. Murnane and Willett offer strong methodological insights on causal inference, while also examining the consequences of a wide variety of educational policies implemented in the U.S. and abroad. Representing a unique contribution to the literature surrounding educational research, this landmark text will be invaluable for students and researchers in education and public policy, as well as those interested in social science.
Author: Rosie Harlow
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780679820437
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A collection of hands-on nature experiments, activities, and crafts.
Author: James Robert Brown
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2005-09-26
Total Pages: 192
ISBN-13: 1134865791
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Thought experiments are performed in the laboratory of the mind. Beyond this metaphor it is difficult to say just what these remarkable devices for investigating nature are or how they work. Though most scientists and philosophers would admit their great importance, there has been very little serious study of them. This volume is the first book-length investigation of thought experiments. Starting with Galileo's argument on falling bodies, Brown describes numerous examples of the most influential thought experiments from the history of science. Following this introduction to the subject, some substantial and provocative claims are made, the principle being that some thought experiments should be understood in the same way that platonists understand mathematical activity: as an intellectual grasp of an independently existing abstract realm. With its clarity of style and structure, The Laboratory of the Mind will find readers among all philosophers of science as well as scientists who have puzzled over how thought experiments work.
