Are we Asking the Right Questions in Culturo-Behavior Science?

This study investigated the number and nature of gifted female and male students' scientific, societal, and moral questions concerning science. The participants ( 𝑁 = 6 5 8 ) of this study were 16–19-year-old international students from 55 countries and two continents, Asia and Europe. They applied to participate in the Millennium Youth Camp held in 2011 in Finland. The students came from scientifically and mathematically oriented schools, and they had shown an interest towards science through competitions, school success, and their own research. The students were asked to formulate questions they would like to get answers to during the camp. The nature and number of the students' questions were analyzed with qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The results showed that the boys asked more scientific questions than the girls, and the girls asked more societal questions than the boys. The students asked less questions about morality than scientific or societal questions. The most common questions about morality were related to pollution and fresh air, environmental problems, and water protection. The results point to the need for teachers to teach socioscientific issues and discuss moral questions related to science.

Microbial ecology, the scientific study of interactions between natural microbial communities and their environments, has been facilitated by the application of molecular and 'omics'-based techniques that overcome some of the limitations of cultivation-based studies. This has increased emphasis on community ecology and 'microbiome' studies, but the majority address technical, rather than scientific challenges. Most are descriptive, do not address scientific aims or questions and are not designed to increase understanding or test hypotheses. The term 'hypothesis' is increasingly misused and critical testing of ideas or theory is restricted to a small minority of studies. This article discusses current microbial ecology research within the context of four approaches: description, induction, inference to the best explanation and deduction. The first three of these do not follow the established scientific method and are not based on scientific ecological questions. Observations are made and sometimes compared with published data, sometimes with attempts to explain findings in the context of existing ideas or hypotheses, but all lack objectivity and are biased by the observations made. By contrast, deductive studies address ecological questions and attempt to explain currently unexplained phenomena through the construction of hypotheses, from mechanism-based assumptions, that generate predictions that are then tested experimentally. Identification of key scientific questions, research driven by meaningful hypotheses and adoption of scientific method are essential for progress in microbial ecology, rather than the current emphasis on descriptive approaches that address only technical challenges. It is, therefore, imperative that we carefully consider and define the fundamental scientific questions that drive our own research and focus on ideas, concepts and hypotheses that can increase understanding, and only then consider which techniques are required for experimental testing. This article is part of the theme issue 'Conceptual challenges in microbial community ecology'.

New Thinking About Thinking, Part 3. Advice on preparing a successful manuscript for Alzheimer's & Dementia.

The purpose of this study was to apply the microgenetic analysis method for development of information on an individual's change in a certain area during a consistent time period to seek change in scientific questions that elementary school students create. The study subjects were six 6th graders in I elementary school located in Kyunggido with the students conducting 6 sessions of two observational tasks about dry grapes contained in soda pop and candlelight. Information were collected through students' scientific question development paper, record of field observation and interviews. The results of this study are as follows: first, the number of scientific questions that the elementary school students developed showed a tendency for reduction; second, the changes in type of scientific questions bring different results, which depend on a particular characteristic of the tasks; third, By observing pattern changes in scientific questions of each individual, it was found that different results show for each time for the same task, which in other words means that there exists variability within an individual. Also, variability between individuals were shown by confirming that the change pattern for each person were diverse. Thus, the result of this study shows the following implications on education of scientific question development. For students, scientific question development mean more opportunities to increase the process of developing and acquiring knowledge. Therefore, it is important to create situations where one can come up with scientific questions. In addition, analysis in tasks' nature when selecting tasks would be necessary to develop diverse scientific questions.

Re: “Radiologists and Cardiologists Should Work Together on Advanced Cardiac Imaging”

The scientific questions and technological opportunities of flash sintering: From a case study of ZnO to other ceramics

The field of HIV prevention research has recently experienced some mixed results in efficacy trials of pre-exposure prophylaxis, vaginal microbicides, and HIV vaccines. While there have been positive trial results in some studies, in the near term, no single method will be sufficient to quell the epidemic. Improved HIV prevention methods, choices among methods, and coverage for all at-risk populations will be needed. The emergence of partially effective prevention methods that are not uniformly available raises complex ethical and scientific questions regarding the design of ongoing prevention trials. We present here an ethical analysis regarding inclusion of pre-exposure prophylaxis in an ongoing phase IIb vaccine efficacy trial, HVTN 505. This is the first large vaccine efficacy trial to address the issue of pre-exposure prophylaxis, and the decisions made by the protocol team were informed by extensive stakeholder consultations. The key ethical concerns are analyzed here, and the process of stakeholder engagement and decision-making described. This discussion and analysis will be useful as current and future research teams grapple with ethical and scientific study design questions emerging with the rapidly expanding evidence base for HIV prevention.

The intention of this editorial is to steer researchers through methodological choices in molecular evolution, drawing on the combined expertise of the authors. Our aim is not to review the most advanced methods for a specific task. Rather, we define several general guidelines to help with methodology choices at different stages of a typical phylogenetic ‘pipeline’. We are not able to provide exhaustive citation of a literature that is vast and plentiful, but we point the reader to a set of classical textbooks that reflect the state-of-the-art. We do not wish to appear overly critical of outdated methodology but rather provide some practical guidance on the sort of issues which should be considered. We stress that a reported study should be well-motivated and evaluate a specific hypothesis or scientific question. However, a publishable study should not be merely a compilation of available sequences for a protein family of interest followed by some standard analyses, unless it specifically addresses a scientific hypothesis or question. The rapid pace at which sequence data accumulate quickly outdates such publications. Although clearly, discoveries stemming from data mining, reports of new tools and databases and review papers are also desirable.

BackgroundHas the COVID-19 crisis overwhelmed health democracy? This question may have arisen since extraordinary measures taken in response to the pandemic were developed almost exclusively by scientific expert committees. Citizens,...

Jung and the Question of Science brings to the foreground a controversial issue at the heart of contemporary Jungian studies. The perennial debate echoes Jung’s own ambivalence. While Jung defined his analytical psychology as a science, he was aware that it did not conform to the conventional criteria for a scientific study in general psychology. This ambivalence is carried into twenty-first century analytical psychology, as well as affecting perceptions of Jung in the academia. Here, eight scholars and practitioners have pooled their expertise to examine both the history and present-day ramifications of the ‘science’ issue in the Jungian context. Behind the question of whether it is scientific or not there lie deeper issues: the credibility of Jung’s theory, personal identity as a ‘Jungian’, and conceptions of science, wisdom, and truth. The book comprises a collection of erudite essays (Part I) and linked dialogues in which the authors discuss each other’s ideas (Part II). The authors of Jung and the Question of Science share the conviction that the question of science is important, but differ in their understanding of its applicability. Drawing upon their different backgrounds, the authors integrate Jung's insights with bodies of knowledge as diverse as neuroscience, literary theory, theology, and political science. Clinical practitioners, psychoanalysts, psychologists, scholars and students interested in the Jungian perspective and the philosophy of science will find this book to be insightful and valuable.

Assessing the knowledge of ChatGPT and Google Gemini in answering peripheral artery disease-related questions.

In IR, representation of knowledge is not neutral, but follows tacit conventions that have become naturalised in the field. In many ways, these conventions are shaped by the so-called ‘science question’, which has shaped the field since the first debate. This article explores three ways in which knowledge is represented in the discipline: numbers, graphical models, and metaphors. Numbers and formal models reinforce the ‘science question’ by the ways in which they exclude audiences, objectify representation and desocialise knowledge. Metaphors also fulfil objectifying functions, particularly through the ways that they link in with ‘commonsense’ knowledge and academic jargon. As will be argued in the concluding section of this article, attempts to escape these logics through the linguistic turn have not been successful at overcoming the politics of scientific representation in the field, and in some ways have even sustained them.

The 'German Question' in the History of Science and the 'Science Question' in German History

In this research, secondary school science questions in the Primary and Secondary Education Institutions Scholarship Examination (IOKBS) were examined. IOKBS science questions from 2018 to 2023 (6 years) constitute the sample of the research. While examining the questions, evaluations were made according to the renewed Bloom taxonomy (RBT) criteria. Qualitative research, which is based on understanding and questioning an event in depth, constitutes the research method of the study. Document analysis, which is a qualitative research method and allows access to written sources without wasting time, was used to collect data. In total, 600 science questions in IOKBS were analyzed. The questions were categorized according to knowledge and cognitive process dimensions of RBT, and their frequencies were calculated. When 600 IOKBS questions were evaluated according to the knowledge dimension of RBT, it was determined that most questions were conceptual (71 questions) in fifth grade, factual (73 questions) in sixth grade, conceptual (65 questions) in seventh grade and conceptual (58 questions) in eighth grade. No question containing metacognitive information could be identified. It has been observed that the accumulation is greater in factual and conceptual knowledge. When the questions were evaluated according to cognitive level, it was determined that the most questions in the fifth grade were from the comprehension level (54 questions), in the sixth grades from the remembering level (68 questions), in the seventh grades from the understanding (55 questions) and remembering levels (55 questions), and in the eighth grades from the comprehension level (54 questions). It has been determined that there is no question in the creation step. It was observed that the number of tests evaluated in the exam measured lower-level questions was higher than the number of measurements in higher-level questions. The study concluded that the science questions in IOKBS consist of a structure that does not prioritize creativity and supports a rote-based thinking style. Science test questions in IOKBS may focus on cognitive domain steps that will reveal higher-level thinking.

The study assessed the content validation of Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) questions in Basic Science set by Adamawa State Educational Resource Centre (ERC), Yola, Nigeria. This was to determine the representativeness of the topics and their levels of the cognitive domain in the Junior Secondary School Basic Science curriculum in the Basic Education Certificate Examination in Basic Science question papers from 2013 to 2017. Document analysis research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all past Basic Education Certificate Examination questions in Basic Science. The research instrument used for the data collection was a designed checklist along table of specification. A pilot study was conducted and a reliability index of 0.86 was obtained using Cronbach alpha analysis. Three research questions were raised with two hypotheses tested at 0. 05 level of significance. The result of the findingp=0.000 revealed that there is no significant difference between the topics in the Basic Science curriculum and those examined in the Basic Education Certificate Examination questions in Basic Science. Again, the result 0.675 showed that there is significant difference between the weights assigned to the various levels of cognitive domain in the Basic Science curriculum and those weights assigned to them in Basic Education Certificate Examination Basic Science question papers. Based on the findings, it was recommended that re-training, workshops, conferences and seminars should be organized for Basic Science teachers and external examiners regularly to update their knowledge on test construction.