Kids Today

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Duckworth ◽  

Compared to 50 years ago, are children today better or worse at delaying gratification? If you answered “worse,” then you have company. Roughly 3 out of 4 parents believe that self-control has decreased over the past half-century. Likewise, when given a brief description of the famous marshmallow test, the same proportion of parents guess that preschoolers today are less able to delay gratification than their counterparts in the 1960s. Here's how one older gentleman described the decline of self-controlled behavior among kids of his generation. The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youhua Ran ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Guodong Cheng

Abstract. Temperature increases cause a unique type of damage to permafrost. This damage is often expressed as the degradation of permafrost thermal stability, which is very important for engineering design, resource development, and environmental protection in cold regions. This study evaluates the degradation of permafrost stability over the QTP from the 1960s to the 2000s using estimated decadal mean annual air temperatures (MAATs) by integrating remote sensing-based estimates of mean annual land surface temperatures (MASTs), leaf area index (LAI) and fractional snow cover values, and decadal mean MAATs taken at 152 weather stations using geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results reflect a continuous rise of approximately 0.04 °C/a in the decadal mean MAAT values over the past half century. Climate warming has led to a reduction in permafrost stability in the past half century. The total degraded area of stability is approximately 153.76 x 104 km2, which corresponds to 87.98 % of the permafrost area in the 1960s. The stability of 75.24 % of the extremely stable permafrost, 89.56 % of the stable permafrost, 90.3 % of the sub-stable permafrost, 92.31 % of the transitional permafrost, and 32.8 % of the unstable permafrost has been reduced to lower levels of stability. Approximately 49.4 % of the unstable permafrost and 95.95 % of the extremely unstable permafrost has degraded to seasonally frozen ground. The sensitivity of the permafrost to climate is dependent on its stability level. The mean elevations of the extremely stable, stable, sub-stable, transitional, unstable, and extremely unstable permafrost areas increased by 88 m, 97 m, 155 m, 185 m, 161 m and 250 m, respectively. The degradation mainly occurred from the 1960s to the 1970s and from the 1990s to the 2000s. This degradation has led to increases in risks to infrastructure, increased flood risks, reductions in ecosystem resilience, and positive climate feedback effects. It therefore affects the well-being of millions of people and sustainable development at the Third Pole.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 595-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youhua Ran ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Guodong Cheng

Abstract. Air temperature increases thermally degrade permafrost, which has widespread impacts on engineering design, resource development, and environmental protection in cold regions. This study evaluates the potential thermal degradation of permafrost over the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) from the 1960s to the 2000s using estimated decadal mean annual air temperatures (MAATs) by integrating remote-sensing-based estimates of mean annual land surface temperatures (MASTs), leaf area index (LAI) and fractional snow cover values, and decadal mean MAAT date from 152 weather stations with a geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results reflect a continuous rise of approximately 0.04 ∘C a−1 in the decadal mean MAAT values over the past half century. A thermal-condition classification matrix is used to convert modelled MAATs to permafrost thermal type. Results show that the climate warming has led to a thermal degradation of permafrost in the past half century. The total area of thermally degraded permafrost is approximately 153.76×104 km2, which corresponds to 88 % of the permafrost area in the 1960s. The thermal condition of 75.2 % of the very cold permafrost, 89.6 % of the cold permafrost, 90.3 % of the cool permafrost, 92.3 % of the warm permafrost, and 32.8 % of the very warm permafrost has been degraded to lower levels of thermal condition. Approximately 49.4 % of the very warm permafrost and 96 % of the likely thawing permafrost has degraded to seasonally frozen ground. The mean elevations of the very cold, cold, cool, warm, very warm, and likely thawing permafrost areas increased by 88, 97, 155, 185, 161, and 250 m, respectively. The degradation mainly occurred from the 1960s to the 1970s and from the 1990s to the 2000s. This degradation may lead to increased risks to infrastructure, reductions in ecosystem resilience, increased flood risks, and positive climate feedback effects. It therefore affects the well-being of millions of people and sustainable development at the Third Pole.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.


Author(s):  
Tim Clydesdale ◽  
Kathleen Garces-Foley

Few realize how much Americans’ journey through their twenties has changed during the past half-century or understand how incorrect popular assumptions about young adults’ religious, spiritual, and secular lives are. Today’s twentysomethings have been labelled the “lost generation”—for their presumed inability to identify and lead fulfilling lives, “kidults”—for their alleged refusal to “grow up” and accept adult responsibilities, and the “least religious generation”—for their purported disinterest in religion and spirituality. These characterizations are not only unflattering, they are deeply flawed. The Twentysomething Soul tells an optimistic story about American twentysomethings. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and a survey of thousands across America, it introduces readers to the full spectrum of American young adults, many of whom live purposefully, responsibly, and reflectively. Some prioritize faith and spirituality. Others reject their childhood religion to explore alternatives and practice a personal spirituality. Still others sideline religion and spirituality until their lives get settled or reject organized religion completely. There is change occurring in the religious and spiritual lives of young adults, but little of it is among the 1 in 4 American twentysomethings who have consistently prioritized religious commitment during the past half-century. The change is rather among the now 3 in 10 young adults who, though intentionally unaffiliated with religion, affirm a variety of religious, spiritual, and secular beliefs. The Twentysomething Soul will change the way readers view contemporary young adults, giving an accurate—and refreshing—understanding of their religious, spiritual, and secular lives.


This is the ninth volume of Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. As with earlier volumes, these essays follow the tradition of providing a non-sectarian and non-partisan snapshot of the subdiscipline of philosophy of religion. This subdiscipline has become an increasingly important one within philosophy over the last century, and especially over the past half century, having emerged as an identifiable subfield with this timeframe along with other emerging subfields such as the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. This volume continues the initial intention behind the series of attracting the best work from the premier philosophers of religion, as well as including work by top philosophers outside this area when their work and interests intersect with issues in the philosophy of religion. This inclusive approach to the series provides an opportunity to mitigate some of the costs of greater specialization in our discipline, while at the same time inviting wider interest in the work being done in the philosophy of religion.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sham Qayyum

Abstract Over the past half century, the trust has undergone momentous change. A generation of Chancery practitioners reduced it from being a doctrine to a loophole. What, perhaps, many did not realise was that the changes would mostly be for the worse. Before explaining which aspects of the modern express trust trouble my conscience, I divide its history into Three Ages of the Trust. We now live in the Age of the Loophole Trust (1969–). To help us understand this latest stage, I utilise equity’s most venerable teaching aid – the maxim. My remarks are structured around three new (surreptitious) maxims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 130 ◽  
pp. 104895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed S. Elrys ◽  
Sajjad Raza ◽  
Ahmed I. Abdo ◽  
Zhanjun Liu ◽  
Zhujun Chen ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Angrist ◽  
Jörn-Steffen Pischke

The past half-century has seen economic research become increasingly empirical, while the nature of empirical economic research has also changed. In the 1960s and 1970s, an empirical economist's typical mission was to “explain” economic variables like wages or GDP growth. Applied econometrics has since evolved to prioritize the estimation of specific causal effects and empirical policy analysis over general models of outcome determination. Yet econometric instruction remains mostly abstract, focusing on the search for “true models” and technical concerns associated with classical regression assumptions. Questions of research design and causality still take a back seat in the classroom, in spite of having risen to the top of the modern empirical agenda. This essay traces the divergent development of econometric teaching and empirical practice, arguing for a pedagogical paradigm shift.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document