Biotechnology, Public Policy, and the Social Sciences: Critical Needs in Teaching and Research

1987 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Blank ◽  
Lynton K. Caldwell ◽  
Thomas C. Wiegele ◽  
Raymond A. Zilinskas

Science-based biotechnology is now introducing fundamental changes in the status of life on earth which have major implications for human society, yet the social sciences are largely failing to address these changes. Biotechnology offers immense opportunities for advancing the quality of human life, holding promise for overcoming numerous and heretofore intractable causes of suffering and impoverishment. Moreover, it may enable mankind to enjoy the benefits of science without degradation of the biosphere. But to obtain these advantages biotechnology must be guided by wise and timely public policies. Even the most beneficent innovation may create problems that, unless anticipated and prevented, may offset or cancel out social gains.

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanisław Kowalik ◽  

Despite the vast knowledge concerning factors determining the level of quality of life accumulated in social sciences there are still difficulties with its application to improve human existence. Limited possibilities of rational moulding of this feature may be traced back to the dichotomous approach to social and psychological determinants of the course of human life (the conflict between psychological individualism and sociological holism). Resorting to dimensional thinking may be a solution to this problem. By analysing various functions played by imagination in the lives of both individuals and communities it has been demonstrated how imagination can be used to improve the quality of life. Key words: quality of life, social sciences, psychology, imagination


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sina Saeedy ◽  
Mojtaba Amiri ◽  
Mohammad Mahdi Zolfagharzadeh ◽  
Mohammad Rahim Eyvazi

Quality of life and satisfaction with life as tightly interconnected concepts have become of much importance in the urbanism era. No doubt, it is one of the most important goals of every human society to enhance a citizen’s quality of life and to increase their satisfaction with life. However, there are many signs which demonstrate the low level of life satisfaction of Iranian citizens especially among the youth. Thus, considering the temporal concept of life satisfaction, this research aims to make a futures study in this field. Therefore, using a mixed model and employing research methods from futures studies, life satisfaction among the students of the University of Tehran were measured and their views on this subject investigated. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analysed together in order to test the hypotheses and to address the research questions on the youth discontentment with quality of life. Findings showed that the level of life satisfaction among students is relatively low and their image of the future is not positive and not optimistic. These views were elicited and discussed in the social, economic, political, environmental and technological perspectives. Keywords:  futures studies, quality of life, satisfaction with life, youth


1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (12) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. de Jong ◽  
J. T. van Buuren ◽  
J. P. A. Luiten

Sustained developments is the target of almost every modern water management policy. Sustainability is focused on human life and on the ecological quality of our environment. Both aspects are essential for life on earth. Within a river catchment area this means that well balanced relations have to be laid between human activities and ecological aspects in the involved areas. Policy analysis is especially looking for the most efficient way to analyse and to overcome bottlenecks. In The Netherlands project “The Aquatic Outlook” all these elements are worked out in a nationwide scale, providing the scientific base and policy analysis from which future water management plans can be derived.


Author(s):  
Mary L. Hirschfeld

There are two ways to answer the question, What can Catholic social thought learn from the social sciences about the common good? A more modern form of Catholic social thought, which primarily thinks of the common good in terms of the equitable distribution of goods like health, education, and opportunity, could benefit from the extensive literature in public policy, economics, and political science, which study the role of institutions and policies in generating desirable social outcomes. A second approach, rooted in pre-Machiavellian Catholic thought, would expand on this modern notion to include concerns about the way the culture shapes our understanding of what genuine human flourishing entails. On that account, the social sciences offer a valuable description of human life; but because they underestimate how human behavior is shaped by institutions, policies, and the discourse of social science itself, their insights need to be treated with caution.


1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Jafni Rianson

From the scope according to the teaching function of the Social Sciences seems clear concept (Expanding Communnity Approach)  which starts from the things nearest to the students (families) to the further (global). The fact that the case is still much do teachers in the field, a learning process that dominates without regard to the basic ability of students, (Teacher Contered) without involving students actively in it . In general problem in this research is the extent to which the effectiveness of the inquiry model of ' social' can improve learning outcomes of students in the Social Sciences in the sixth grade at SDN 12 Jurai Limes Tower District IV District, the South Coast, in the academic year 2013/2014? This type of research is classroom action research (classroom action research), which has the ultimate objective is to improve the quality of learning in schools, educational relevance, quality of the education, education management efficiency. The research location is in the sixth grade at SDN 12 Limes Tower District IV Jurai, South Coastal District , the school year 2013/2014 . research subjects are students of class VI SDN 12 Limes Tower , Genab the semester, academic year 2013/2014. The final goal of teaching social studies is the formation of the learner as an intelligent social actors (Socially Intelligent Actor) which is formed from a touch of pedagogy . Based on the research showed an increase in the quality of students in the sixth grade value SDN No. 12 Limes Tower, in the academic year 2013/2014, the graph continues to rise, excellent 61%, good 9.5% and quite 23% and increased sense of solidarity between friends, group shows real changes that have an impact on everyday life including relationships with people such as interviews and visits. Of the overall activities carried out can be concluded that the model of the inquiry socially very suitable to be applied to examine the social phenomena that arise in the community, a fact primary school age children third grade had been able to carry out the stages of the inquiry by the hypothesis as the direction in problem solving and uses the fact as a hypothesis.    


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-93
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Subetto

It is proved that the current era is characterized by many governments around the world as dictatorship of "appearance" or "simulation" of the most activities transforming politics, even the tragic events like local ecological catastrophes, local wars, "colour revolutions", the elections in a "theatre", "acting", on the background of market ecocide – really accelerating processes of the first phase of a Global Environmental Disaster, which, at the transition "point of no return" in the near future, may turn into a process of irreversible environmental destruction of all mankind. This dictatorship of "appearance" or simulation as a "curtain" market democracy, hiding the capitalism-led, process of dehumanization of man, is an indicator of the inadequacy of states and political "elites" imperative of survival of mankind, as the imperative out of the ecological impasse of history in market-capitalist format. There comes a reckoning for this departure into the " market-capitalist illusion of apparent prosperity. The societies of the world, including Rossiya, have faced a dilemma:either environmental destruction, or the Noosphere Breakthrough, which, in its essence, is a change in the social organization of social life and its reproduction – the transition from the dominance of capitalism and the market to the Noosphere Ecological Spiritual Socialism on the basis of scientific and educational society and the management of socionatural evolution.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 62-66
Author(s):  
Krystyna Klimaszewska ◽  
Mariola Bartusek

Abstract Introduction. Urinary incontinence, meaning irrespective of will leakage of urine, is a serious health problem, and has the status of social disease basing on the epidemiological data concerning number of affected populations suffering from it Taking into consideration the chronic character of the disease and increasing social discomfort including social exclusion, the costs of treatment and rehabilitation should be lower so patients could improve the quality of their lives in other aspects. That is why it is important to deeply analyze the costs of urinary incontinence in terms of diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation. Aim. Costs analysis related to diagnostics and treatment of urinary incontinence incurred by patient, or co-financed/funded by the National Health Fund on the basis of the literature review. Summary. The few but regularly prepared reports show that there is a clear need for changes in the funding of services provided to patients with health needs. Both the social and economic aspects are important for each patient and should be deeply analysed by public funds decision makers. It would be much easier to take an action if the probability of complete cure was high.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-805
Author(s):  
Carlo Rotella

This article addresses urbanists in various fields—history, the social sciences, planning, and more—who are interested in incorporating literary works into their teaching and research and may be looking for critical approaches that connect such work to their own expertise. It begins from the premise that the traits that make a city a city present writers with opportunities to tell stories, experiment with form, make meaning, and otherwise exercise the literary imagination. When we use “urban literature” as a category of analysis, when we try to identify relationships between cities and the writing produced in and about them, we are asserting that this writing takes shape around confronting the city as a formal, social, and conceptual challenge. This article explores examples of texts ranging from Sister Carrie to I Am Legend and beyond that engage signature urban processes such as urbanization, development, and the dense overlap of orders.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Drance Elias da Silva

This Article may be situated within the rapport field between Philosophy and Social Sciences, at the search regarding to the concept concerning the Representation. Regarding to Philosophy, under a general view, the concept, concerning Representation, has been, since a long time, understood as a trail which one would get througl reaching to the real and true ones. Representation, as the thought contents expression form had not been known departing from Philosophy as a barrier against the objectivity concerning the knowledge. Representation, in its source, has been constituting itself a cognictive, inmanent reflection, related to the conscience inner subjectivity. But departing from the episthemological point of view, it has been not so easy for the campus concerning the Culture Sciences as a totality. In the theory regarding to knowledge, the Social Sciences campus and, more specifically, in the human life Symbolic dimension constitutive aspects, it has been, often, accepted negatively as an entry door for the histotical social reality. Nowadays, one may conclude that the contents concerning the Culture are deeply rooted within the histotical reality, which may present new dimension the reading regarding to the Symbolical side concerning the human life, under the view regarding to the unseen aspect, such as the intellectualistic Western dominant Culture allows understanding the way which could be in.


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