Evaluation of Ecological Economics in the Context of Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology

There is no clear consensus on what will be the ontological foundations of ecological economics. A similar situation is valid for the epistemologies related to ecological economics and the methodologies to be constructed afterward. In this study, evaluations have been made on the subject area, which tries to contribute from many fundamentals. As a result of the evaluations, it was concluded that instead of subjective judgments about the foundation that is in the process of being formed, the ecological reality dominated by causation can be beneficial for a more effective scientific activity.

Anger Damns the Innocent

False accusations of wrongdoing are common and can have grave consequences. In six studies, we document a worrisome paradox in perceivers’ subjective judgments of a suspect’s guilt. Specifically, we found that people (including online panelists, n = 4,983, and working professionals such as fraud investigators and auditors, n = 136) use suspects’ angry responses to accusations as cues of guilt. However, we found that such anger is an invalid cue of guilt and is instead a valid cue of innocence; accused individuals (university students, n = 230) and online panelists ( n = 401) were angrier when they are falsely relative to accurately accused. Moreover, we found that individuals who remain silent are perceived to be at least as guilty as those who angrily deny an accusation.

COVID-19 and the Paradox of Scientific Advice

The scientific advisory committee is a neglected political institution whose importance became clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. What I call “the paradox of scientific advice” consists in that the two basic expectations from scientific advisory committees—neutrality and usefulness—are inherently in tension. To be useful, advisers must help governments set and attain their goals. Judgments about values and ends are necessary for useful advice, as are subjective judgments in the face of uncertainty and disagreement. This puts the committee in a double bind: if it tries to be more useful, it compromises the neutrality that is the source of its authority and legitimacy; if it tries to remain neutral, it sacrifices usefulness. I argue that this dilemma cannot be solved within the committee but that broader democratic scrutiny could mitigate its force. Advisory committees, in turn, should be structured to facilitate this scrutiny.

A Study on the Readability of the English Versions of Chinese Red Tourism Based on Readers’ Response

The year 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. With the rapid development of red tourism in China, the importance of red publicity translation has become increasingly prominent. How to evaluate the readability of red publicity translation has gradually become a hot issue. Taking the English versions of Museum of the War of Chinese People’s Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Jinggangshan Revolution Museum, Chongqing Hongyan Revolution History Museum and Nanhu Revolution Memorial Museum as examples, this article collects 16 target language readers’ feedbacks on the red tourism publicity translations through questionnaire and interview. The results show that the readability of the translation is influenced by many factors such as the quality of the text, the length of the text and the background of the readers. Due to the lack of understanding of the target language and text functions, there are various problems in the translation of words, sentences and discourses. Studies show that the emphasis of the importance of target language readers in quality assessment of red tourism publicity texts may effectively prevent researchers from substituting their own subjective judgments for readers’ feedback, thus; it is important to provide a more readable publicity text. This article attempts to improve the readability of red publicity translation, so as to better promote Chinese red tourism and spread Chinese red culture.

RESOURCE AND ECOLOGICAL ZONING OF FORESTS OF THE NIZHNY NOVGOROD REGION

A critical assessment of the methodological decisions taken by the scientific community in the development of thematic maps-schemes of forest zoning is given. It is indicated that in most cases the authors operate with landscape, climatic and geobotanical characteristics of territories, do not rely on the concepts of taxa as elementary territorial units united in homogeneous groups. Most of the zoning schemes recommended for practical use are based on the intuitive and subjective judgments of the authors and, often, do not have a criterion-proven statistical reliability. Most of the zoning schemes recommended for practical use are based on the intuitive and subjective judgments of the authors and, often, do not have a criterion-proven statistical reliability. The article, using the example of the Nizhny Novgorod region, presents a methodology for developing models of multidimensional zoning of forests growing in 40 forest areas (taxa), endowed with 35 indicators characterizing the geographical coordinates of forest centers, soil productivity in 6 classes, climate in 7 indicators, the structure of forest lands in 17 categories, productivity and closeness of plantings under 3 types of forests. In the multidimensional classification (grouping) of forest areas, the methods of factor, cluster and discriminant analysis were used. As a result of analytical calculations, 7 typical forest areas were identified on the territory of the subject of the Russian Federation. The reliability of the classification of forest areas and the resulting zoning map-scheme is confirmed by the statistical criteria of the total intercluster and intracluster distance of Mahalanobis, the Wilkes lambda and Pearson’s Chi-square criteria.

Coverage of Robin Williams' Suicide in Australian Newspapers

Background: Australia's Mindframe guidelines provide media professionals with advice on ways to safely report on suicide. Aims: We aimed to examine the extent to which Australian newspaper articles on Robin Williams' suicide conformed to the Mindframe recommendations. Method: We searched Factiva for relevant articles appearing in Australian newspapers during the 5 months following Williams' death on August 11, 2014. We retrieved the text of these articles from Factiva and, wherever possible, sourced scanned copies from the National Library of Australia. Trained coders rated the articles for quality, using a 10-item coding framework derived from the Mindframe guidelines. Results: Our search yielded 303 articles. In general, there were high levels of adherence to the Mindframe guidelines, with 67% of articles adhering to at least eight (80%) of the Mindframe guidelines. Limitations: We may have missed some articles and the coders' task involved some subjective judgments. Conclusion: Australian newspaper reporting of Robin Williams' suicide was largely consistent with the Mindframe guidelines. In particular, there was good adherence to recommendations designed to minimize the risk of imitative acts, which is positive. The poorer performance of articles in terms of recommendations to do with public education about suicide may be a missed opportunity.

Falsifiable Hypotheses, Alternate Hypotheses and the Methodological Conundrum of Biblical Exegesis

It has become fashionable to bemoan the state of diachronic biblical criticism since the application of its method involves subjective judgments. Should diachronic criticism be laid to rest? This programmatic essay engages Popper’s view of scientific propositions as falsifiable hypotheses, and reevaluates the importance of alternate hypotheses. The discussion considers the way the different purposes of scholars inform their practice of method and their evaluation of opposing explanations. The methodological observations are illustrated with examples from the Covenant Code and Deut 1–12.

A Challenge for Capability Measures of Wellbeing

The measurement of wellbeing is among the central aims of the capability approach. I develop one particular challenge to the operationalizability of the approach in the context of wellbeing measurement. I argue that the capability approach is both committed to Individuation of Wellbeing—the view that the wellbeing contribution of different capabilities and functionings is person-dependent—as well as Rejection of Subjectivism—the view that wellbeing should not be conceptualized in terms of subjective judgments of preference-satisfaction or happiness. I argue that there is a tension between these two commitments that cannot be resolved in a viable way.