Natural Science Approach Research Articles

人間存在における「老い」に関する哲学的考察

Humans must resign themselves to the inevitable biological decline in their physical performance. How to deal with aging is a timeless problem for all humanity. Research adopting a natural scientific approach has focused on the problems associated with aging, especially in the realm of physical activity and the health of the elderly. On the other hand, deterioration of physical performance as a result of aging varies considerably among individuals. The present paper focuses on this problem by considering the meaning of physical aging from a philosophical viewpoint. Philosophy is based on philosophical anthropology and the existential viewpoint. This paper examines (1) Cicero's thoughts on aging, (2) the life-span developmental theory in an attempt to find a method for defining aging, and (3) the problem of freedom, in which the human body is regarded as an existential being. The main areas of discourse in this paper are as follows. 1. Cicero proposes a physiological rationale for aging, which is a natural process in humans. However, Milo focuses on the existential problem. 2. There are limitations to the life-span developmental theory. 3. The main limitation is a dimension of existence whereby our bodily freedom is lost as a direct result of aging, and the body exists as a subjective extension. Bodily freedom does not mean that our mind runs away from lost bodily ability. It means that our body as a subjective extension constitutes a new world. It is concluded that the problem of bodily freedom needs to be considered when addressing the issue of aging besides the field of natural science.

Water and Poverty in Southeast Asia – The Research Agenda from a Global Perspective

The views of many scientists about water are evolving towards a systems approach that accommodates both the multi-faceted dimensions of water resources and the accelerating pace of globalization and human development. The water system includes the water cycle and three major interacting elements: the physical, biological and biogeochemical, and the human components. Major drivers of change that affect the system are climate change, population growth, land cover change, the development of water diversions, economic development, and governance. Changes in any component of the system will cascade throughout the whole system. Research is needed to clarify the magnitude and mechanisms of change, and how society can best adapt to the system state changes. We need to develop condition indicators such as water availability per person, the water poverty index, pollution concentrations and source water quality. Also on the research agenda are new concepts, namely: blue and green water and environmental flows; virtual water in agricultural trade and associated nutrient flows; and the water systems discourse to integrate natural science and social science approaches. Water governance is a central issue to these concepts. There is a clear need to analyze the impacts of different types of governance of national and regional water resources in a global context.

Individual differences in Internet usage motives

The relationship between the psychobiological model of personality types (psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism) devised by Eysenck and Eysenck [Personality and individual differences: A natural science approach, Plenum Press, New York, 1985] and Internet use and usage motives was examined. A sample of 210 undergraduate students were asked to report on their motives for using the Internet and how often they engaged in a variety of Internet and web-based activities. The findings demonstrate distinctive patterns of Internet use and usage motives for those of different personality types. Specifically, those scoring high in neuroticism reported using the Internet to feel a sense of “belonging” and to be informed. Extraverts rejected the communal aspects of the Internet, and made more instrumental and goal-oriented use of Internet services. Finally, those scoring high in psychoticism demonstrated an interest in more deviant, defiant, and sophisticated Internet applications. Implications of the findings as well as suggestions for future research are included.

A systems network (SysNet) approach for interactively evaluating strategic land use options at sub-national scale in South and South-east Asia

This paper presents SysNet, a systems research network in South and South-east Asia, established to develop and evaluate methodologies for enhancing formulation of strategic land use policies. SysNet adopted theory and concepts from both natural and social science approaches. Multiple goal linear programming was used to integrate information on a broad range of alternative land use systems, resource availability and policy objectives, to reveal possibilities and limitations of agricultural resource use and trade-offs between policy objectives. The methodology was developed and applied in and with a network of researchers and stakeholders, for four case study areas in India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. An application is presented for Haryana State (India), to illustrate the methodology and its components, as well as the type of questions that can be explored and subsequently discussed with stakeholders. We discuss lessons learnt on how to communicate LUPAS to stakeholders in interactive settings, with details for the Kedah-Perlis case region in Malaysia.

Storms in nature

Storms occurring in the natural environment are distinguished by their rarity, unpredictability and severity, and are notable for their diversity and complexity. Their study is characterized by the acquistion and analysis of empirical data, consideration of the pertinent natural processes, identification of the key contributory factors, and the development of models to understand, predict, and mitigate a storm's influence. The transferability of this natural science approach to the examination of storms in the economic, political and social arenas, although subject to caveats, does offer an interesting comparative conceptual framework.

Planning Protected Areas Across Boundaries

SUMMARY This article, in two parts, starts by examining the process at play in the definition of a coherent planning unit for protected areas. The argument centers around the differences between the natural and social science approaches to defining the boundaries to such areas, indicating how the two have influenced planning. The difficult challenge of combining both visions is stressed, and illustrated by a discussion of the concepts of region and bioregion. The second part of the paper examines the biosphere reserve model and its application to areas spanning international boundaries. The five existing transboundary biosphere reserves, all situated in Europe, illustrate some of the issues facing transboundary planning.

The Peak and Decline of World Oil and Gas Production

Extrapolating the discovery trend of the past to determine future discovery and production should be straightforward, and the size distribution of the fields should be evident. But the atrociously unreliable nature of public data has given much latitude when it comes to interpreting the status of depletion and the impact of economic and political factors on production. This has allowed two conflicting views of the subject to develop. The first is what may be called the Natural Science Approach, which observes the factors controlling oil accumulation in Nature and applies immutable physical laws to the process of depletion. The second is what may be called the Flat-Earth Approach, in which the resource is deemed to be virtually limitless, with extraction being treated as if it were controlled only by economic, political and technological factors. This paper will endeavor to present the evidence for the Natural Science Approach, addressing the geological constraints; the technical basis of reserve estimation; the distribution of field sizes; and the obvious correlation between discovery and production after a time lag. It will further explain the reporting practices, and present both a realistic assessment of the resource and a practical model of depletion.

A lived experience of dualism between the natural and human science paradigms in nursing.

To describe the use of narrative as both phenomenon and method to illuminate college nurse educators' nursing knowledge development through their day-to-day stories on the institutional landscape, which shape and are shaped by health-care and nursing education changes. The Ontario health-care reform in Canada and a shift in nursing curriculum have brought to light a different dimension of a theory-practice issue. The traditional predominant natural science approach in nursing is now no longer considered responsive to the unique characteristics of patients' health-care needs. Emerging from current nursing education is an emphasis on a human science paradigm. However, as many college nurse educators moved back and forth between their classrooms to clinical settings, they experienced tremendous tensions in living between the new caring paradigm and the old culture of biomedical science ideology. Compounding this challenge is a lack of understanding by the policymakers and administrators of the importance of nurses' contribution vis-à-vis an ailing health-care system. This growing complexity demands that nursing, as a practice discipline, should articulate its unique body of knowledge for advancing contributions in health care. My stories of experience and those of my participants were analysed narratively to determine the knowledge and understanding developed from living the complex and interwoven changes in nursing education and practice. Through living, telling, retelling and reliving our stories, my participants and I recognized a false dualism between the seemingly polarized biomedical and human science paradigms. The meaning of certainty-uncertainty inherent in nursing teaching and practice demands that nurse educators rethink how stories of experience play out in their understanding of teaching future graduates the interrelationships between these two approaches.

The rise of qualitative research in psychology.

Abstract A study is presented on the rise of in psychology over the 20th century. The incidence of as indicated by several search terms (i.e., qualitative research, grounded theory, discourse analy*, empirical phenomenological, and phenomenological psychology) was traced through the PsycINFO and Dissertation Abstracts International databases. It was found that, with the exception of the search terms having to do with phenomenology, records containing these search terms were basically non-existent until the 1980s, when there was a sharp rise that intensified in the 1990s. The PsycINFO records were sorted according to (1) whether they came from psychology or other social and health science disciplines; (2) region of origin; (3) the types of document to which they referred; and (4) whether they focused on the methodology or the application of research. A number of interesting differences emerged from this comparative analysis. Implications of the findings for the supposition that a paradigm shift may be underway are discussed. The term qualitative research refers to a variety of approaches to enquiry in the health and social sciences that address the meaning of verbal text in verbal rather than numerical terms. More fundamentally, is more subjective than quantitative research; more exploratory than confirmatory; more descriptive than explanatory; more interpretive than positivist (see Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Thus, in many ways cuts across the grain of accustomed practice. Accordingly, there is resistance to accepting it in many quarters. Nevertheless, a path has been cleared for it in part by the postmodern critique of the modern quest for objective knowledge. More fundamentally, perhaps, the appeal of is so great for some investigators that they are engaging in it despite the resistance to it (McMullen, 2002; Stoppard, 2002). There seems to have been an uptake of in psychology in recent years. It also seems that no one has examined the extent of this uptake. A number of questions are of interest: When did the turn to in psychology begin and how has its growth developed? What kinds of publications constitute the resulting literature? Are there regional differences in the use of research? How much emphasis has been placed on methodology as opposed to its application? It appeared to us that the answers to questions like these would have a bearing on the most interesting question of all: What is to be made of the arrival of on the scene in terms of the predominance of the natural science approach to enquiry? Is its presence now large enough that it can be considered a major movement - the emergence of an alternative paradigm, as Kuhn (1970; cf. McMullen, 2002; O'Neill, 2002) might put it? Or alternatively, is it the case that, under close scrutiny, it becomes evident that has yet to make a significant impact on the psychology infrastructure? In an attempt to address these questions, we decided to study the psychological literature produced in the 20th century. This decision presented a number of difficulties having to do with changes in the use of language over that period of time. This problem could have been addressed through the study of whole documents. To do that would have necessitated sampling in order to handle the volume of them, however. The alternative was to apply search terms to an electronic database. This approach had the appeal of being more comprehensive. Even here, though, such a study would be limited by the scope of the particular database and by the particular search terms used. Thus, neither approach is ideal but, on balance, given that we wished to do an exploratory study, we decided that the latter strategy is the better of the two and so turned to PsycINFO, produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). …

Higher education on urban forestry in Europe: an overview

In order to meet the demands of modern, information‐based society, higher education in natural resource management needs to be transformed. Enhanced mobility of students and staff, multi‐ and transdisciplinary approaches, as well as innovative educational approaches are called for. Moreover, the urban component needs to be better incorporated, as exemplified by the emerging field of urban forestry. This paper relates to the developments in higher education within the context of education on urban forests and urban trees in Europe. Presented here are the main findings of a comparative European study led by the Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute within the framework of the EU‐funded COST Action E12 ‘Urban Forests and Trees’. In order to obtain an overview of the status of higher education on urban forestry in Europe, 180 educational institutions in 28 countries were sent a questionnaire. Results show that urban forestry is an expanding element of European education, as urban elements are becoming incorporated in higher education on natural resources. Urban forestry is primarily taught as a part of educational programmes in related disciplines rather than at a more integrative level, dealing with all elements of urban green structures. Student numbers in urban forestry programmes and courses are still relatively small. High staff‐to‐student ratios seem to facilitate the use of a wide range of educational approaches and methods. Higher education in urban forestry involves a broad range of disciplines and tries to find ways of incorporating natural and social science approaches. Together with the general trend towards internationalization in education, this calls for better co‐operation between educational institutions, nationally and internationally.

Conceptions of Culture and Person for Psychology

This article argues that the current popularity of culture in psychology is likely to continue in the future if the conception of the person that psychologists adopt includes culture as an integral part of human nature. This thesis is illustrated in a brief historical account. Although the current discourse in psychology is marked by a metatheoretical tension between natural and cultural science approaches to mind, a consensus is emerging that assumes a materialist (or physicalist) ontology, a Darwinian evolutionism, and cultural-historical embeddedness of psychological processes and their development in social context. In this emerging consensus, culture is conceptualized as a species-specific property of Homo sapiens, which transmits information not only genetically across generations, but also symbolically between and within generations. Culture is thus integral to the ongoing process of tool use and symbol manipulation. Contemporary issues in the culture-mind relation are discussed against this common background.

The process of clinical behavior analysis: From the general to the specific.

Joe Cautilli (1999-2000) described the Clinical Behavior Analysis (CBA) SIG at ABA as devoted to the study of comprehensive behavior analytic adult outpatient treatments (pg. 2), which meshes nicely with my professional objectives as a psychologist. As a private practitioner, I operate in a context that does afford me opportunities to influence client repertoires outside of the box. And the box is typically one forty-five minute session weekly. Abolishing operations, establishing operations, stimulus control, derived relational responding, and reinforcement are general processes that describe behavior-environment relationships and how they pattern over time. However, the stimuli that are relevant or give meaning (DeGrandpre, 2000) to any one person are particular to that individual, and when we are referring to verbally competent adult outpatients, delineating their histories of these processes can become very bewildering indeed. CBA's unique contribution is the thoroughgoing explanation of these phenomena from a functional perspective, thus enabling practitioners to situate the specific particulars into their proper place. It suggests which should be manipulated and with what technique. My belief is that if I am truly working from a functional perspective, I cannot rely on a predetermined set of techniques only. Of course, Beck's cognitive therapy is very likely to be effective for depression, as exposure with response prevention is likely to be effective with obsessive-compulsive disorder, etc. The advantage of CBA is that it allows for the meaningful augmentation of these interventions, taking into account the so-called therapeutic variables that influence treatment outcome. In my private practice it seems that these nonspecific phenomena are quite common, and I want to get a handle on them. Sorting this all out is why I return to ABA every year. The organization, and in particular those individuals who are CBA affiliated, are my professional verbal community. However, when the convention is over, I return to a private practice setting that is a different sort of verbal community, one that is unfamiliar with a natural science approach to traditional psychological issues. Certainly, discourse with psychologists from other orientations is as rich and valuable as any other professional experience. However, I have ongoing private dialogues that translate these discussions into behavior analytic terminology. The language, concepts, and philosophy of CBA allow me to make sense of my experience with clients. There are a wide variety of presentations at ABA that are relevant to CBA in the basic, applied and theoretical domains. There have also been several in the applied domain that have illuminated the process of therapist-client interactions in a unique manner, that is, in a case study format. Lucianne Hackbert has presented at least twice in the past few years, and Chauncey Parker did likewise this past May. These presentations were significant because they enabled me to perceive stimulus control and reinforcement only as abstract concepts that help consolidate a worldview, but also as fully lived processes that are tangible in an interpersonal context. The clinician is a major source of reinforcement, stimulus control, and establishing operations when she asks about a client's desperation resulting from panic attacks in the middle of the night, his sense of a failure, losing control and not being a man, or when she encourages the client to deliteralize language functions, or when she assists him with identifying the negative cognitive triads related to depression. Likewise, the client is a source of reinforcement, stimulus control and establishing operations relative to the clinician, whether it's in adult outpatient therapy or any other type of therapeutic social interaction. These processes are just in the relationship, they are the relationship. …

The rejection of natural science approaches to psychotherapy: language and the world.

Many postmodernists appeal to theses about the relationship between language and reality as one basis for rejecting natural science approaches to psychotherapy. The theses include one or more of the following: (a) There are multiple worlds rather than just one, (b) worlds are constructed rather than discovered, and (c) worlds are not independent of mind and language. I refer to the conjunction of these three propositions as the multiple worlds-constructionist view. After examining the most systematic defense of the multiple worlds-constructionist view. I conclude that it fails, and that each component of the view is false.

An Academic Home for a Natural Science

The definitive characteristics of a natural science of behavior are reviewed and contrasted with the characteristics of the traditional social sciences. Differences are traced to the different origins of those disciplines. While philosophical and scientific factors auger for the disciplinary independence of a natural science approach to the discipline, arguments against independence are fueled by economic and political contingencies. Efforts by natural scientists to change disciplines rooted in mysticism have been unsuccessful for reasons that could have been anticipated, and the resulting compromises to the integrity of the natural science discipline are explored. Based on the fundamental incompatibility of the disciplines in questions, natural scientists of behavior must choose between the integrity of their discipline and the seductions of the extensive resources currently controlled by their mystical counterparts.

Integrated Product Design in Chemical Industry. A Plea for Adequate Life-Cycle Screening Indicators

The ever expanding growth of energy and material fluxes and the associated environmental impact challenge the chemical industry to integrate ecological issues into the design of new chemical substances and products (integrated product design). To achieve this goal, product developers as well as marketing and application specialists need appropriate tools for incorporating ecological issues at every stage of product development. Life-Cycle Design, an approach based on the screening indicators of the streamlined Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, is an appropriate concept that can be used even at early development stages. Still today, however, many product designers regard screening indicators, e.g. energy and/or material intensity, summary emission indicators (DOC, TOC, VOC, etc.) as rather subjective judgements, even if they are based on experts' knowledge, panel discussions, etc. Thus, there is a strong need for defining an appropriate set of objective screening indicators based on a natural science approach. These enable an accurate description of environmental effects of a chemical substance in all environmental compartments (air, soil, water, and biota). In this work, we present a conceptual framework for screening indicators that take into account both process inputs and outputs at every single life-cycle stage. Finally, first results based on several case studies (solvents, dyestuffs, …) are shown.

Training in Behavioral Social Work: A Pilot Study

Social work practice has recently become much criticized. Misapplication of procedures and ill-defined theoretical approaches have led to a view of social work as a semiprofession. A thorough theoretical and procedural revision is necessary. In this article, we will argue that a natural science approach to human behavior, such as that offered by behavior analysis, constitutes a fundamental basis for effective and accountable social work practice. A program that was designed as part of a postgraduate social work course is introduced and evaluated. The aim of this program was to establish students' professional social work competence using well-established knowledge of the principles of behavior. Contingency arrangements for students included tests, project work, and oral presentations. Program design and student progress are reported. A number of examples of student projects are given.

The Obstacle and the Threshold : Two Fundamental Metaphors Governing the Natural and Human Sciences

AbstractThe essay presents a description of two metaphors, that of the threshold and that of the barrier, each characterizing a different, but complementary, fundamental attitude toward the world. The metaphor of the threshold addresses a human world of conversation centered on the question: "Who are you?" The metaphor of the barrier describes work-oriented human situations that reflect a never-ending human struggle with a resistant nature. Natural scientific approaches guided by the metaphor of the barrier are allied to technology and to the profane workaday world. Human science understood as an inquiry guided by the metaphor of the threshold makes possible an understanding of festive reality and of human encounter.

New Directions in Conservation Biology: Graduate Programs

Only a decade has passed since conservation biology became an identifiable and proliferating element at universities in the United States. While a number of programs addressing conservation themes were available in the past, comprehensive approaches are just emerging. Recent theoretical and applied developments in science are offering insights and new directions, particularly in the areas of landscape ecology, ecosystem management and restoration, and sustainable development (Lubchenco et al. 1991). Concomitantly, public interest has increased in a natural resource management philosophy that includes values associated with complex, diverse, and healthy ecosystems. Conservation biology, when broadly defined to include new and integrated natural and social science approaches, offers the hope for appropriate environmental management in the future. Jacobson (1990) traced the birth of conservation biology and the development of programs at U.S. academic institutions. The following summaries of conservation biology curricula in graduate programs across the U.S. reflect the maturation as well as the diversity of this growing field. Descriptions of graduate programs in conservation biology were requested from universities (1) represented at the 1993 annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology; (2) listed in the 1992 Conservation Directory published by the National Wildlife Federation, Washington, D.C.; and (3) participating in the national initiative, Integrated Approaches to Training in Conservation and Sustainable Development (Jacobson et al. 1992). The graduate program descriptions we feature represent the universities that responded to our request for information. Descriptions are limited to one paragraph with a list of up to eight representative faculty. The program summaries reveal that the institutionalization of curricula in conservation biology varies among graduate schools. Programs run the gamut from full-fledged master's and doctoral degrees to majors, concentrations, emphases, minors, and coursework. Many of the programs are ensconced in existing biology or natural resources departments; others are components of interdisciplinary programs. The 51 programs described here serve as a menu of current training and research in the field of conservation biology and foretell what will be on our plate in the future.

The Early history of Phenomenological Psychological Research in America

AbstractThis article on the early history of phenomenological psychological research in the academic context in America focuses on the four approaches of the following respective psychologists: 1) Donald Snygg, Arthur W. Combs, and Anne C. Richards and Fred Richards; 2) Robert B. MacLeod; 3) Adrian L. van Kaam; and 4) Amedeo P. Giorgi. It begins by first addressing the "context" for this early history namely, the European origin of philosophical phenomenology and the connection of it with the psychology of its times in Europe, and then the American background for the development of a sensibility for phenomenology and an eventual connection of phenomenology with psychology. Each of the four positions was examined in terms of basic approach to the study of human experience and behavior. That is, examination was directed toward whether the respective position was under the aegis of psychology as a human science or as a natural science. Also examined were the research postures and the methodologies of the four positions in terms of their respective degrees of reflecting either the human science or the natural science approach, and in terms of their approximation to a phenomenological psychology. It was found that syncretism characterized the approaches of the first three positions, and that there was either an absence of phenomenological psychological method in the psychologies of those positions or, in the case of MacLeod, an undeveloped and non-worked-out method. Only the work of Amedeo Giorgi presented 1) a human science approach that was radical and not compromised by natural science syncretions, and 2) an articulated phenomenological psychological method based on Husserl's concept of intentionality and on mediation of Merleau-Ponty's philosophical phenomenological method.

On the rhetorics of social science: Let's not conflate natural science and human science.

Abstract The thesis that all forms of science are rhetorical is taken up with respect to social science. It is pointed out that, although the natural science approach to social science continues to prevail, it is now being challenged by qualitative research as a methodological instantiation of the human science of Dilthey and Wundt. It is argued that the rhetorics of these two approaches to social science are fundamentally different, that this difference is difficult for gatekeepers in the mainstream to assimilate and that there is thus a tendency to absorb the rhetoric of human science into that of natural science. It is also argued that there are several views within the human science community on the appropriate rhetoric of human science. Practically, these tensions have led to a proposal of guidelines for the publishability of qualitative research. Implications of this development are discussed.