Analaysis of I think therefore I Err Epistemology cognition Essay

Analaysis of I think therefore I Err Epistemology cognition - Essay Example On the other hand, the latter is what is deemed as necessary and beneficial to the development of a given intelligent system. These good errors serve a functional role in the development of knowledge and, in turn, intelligence. It is in this regard that Gigerenzer makes â€Å"the study of human errors in experimental psychology† as his primary concern in inferring the laws of cognition (1). In his study, Gigerenzer defends an ecological versus that of a logical analysis of cognitive errors. In doing so, he claims that a proper analysis should not be based content-blind logical principles. Upon addressing the aforementioned problem, I shall deal with Gigerenzer’s analysis of the role of logic with regards to the workings of the human mind and intelligence. Specifically, I shall focus on his claim on logic as â€Å"a content-blind norm for good reasoning† (7). Herein, I shall argue that his analysis of the role of logic as a purely syntactic and content-blind theor y is mistaken. Like Daniel Kahneman and Amon Tversky, I agree that not all judgments can be analyzed by using empirical methods such as sampling and frequency estimates, for such are â€Å"unlikely to illuminate the processes that underlie such judgments† (589). Rather, I shall argue that Gigerenzer overlooks an important aspect of logic, that is, the intensional aspect of logic. By doing so, I shall focus on his explication of framing and invariance. In this essay, I intend to advocate the value of logic from an intensional point of view. In doing so, I shall show that Gigerenzer fails to prove that the study of cognitive errors in the light of logical forms of analyses fail to unravel the laws of mind. Summary In a section entitled, â€Å"Logic and Blunders,† Gigerenzer argues against the position of using logical theories as a foundation for analyzing and comparing the presence of errors in judgment, and thus, fails to define what really â€Å"errors of judgmentâ⠂¬  are, as well as to â€Å"open a window into the human mind† (4). In other words, logic does not help us understand and gain intelligence by pointing out our errors in judgment, rather; it blurs our understanding of what these â€Å"errors† really are, and thus, fails to open the possibility for progress and evolution of the human mind as an intelligent system. Given this perspective, Gigerenzer provides an example in logic to support his point, namely, framing. â€Å"Framing is defined as the expression of logically equivalent information in different ways† (Gigerenzer 7). Similarly, according to the principle of invariance, â€Å"different representations of the same choice problem should yield the same preference. That is, the preference between options should be independent of their description† (Gigerenzer 8). Thus, if different representations of the same choice problem yield different preferences, then it violates rational choice. Such violatio ns are deemed as errors in judgment that should not happen to any rational person. Gigerenzer gives the example of two ways of saying the following: â€Å"The glass is half full, and the glass is half empty† (8). Given the principle of invariance, these two formulations should not affect the choice of the person in picking which glass to hand over. However, it was shown that when asked to hand over the â€Å"half full glass, most participants picked the previously empty one† (Gigerenzer 8). The author then claims that such an example proves to show that two

International transport Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

International transport - Essay Example car and bus travel) make estimating the demand for transportation facilities difficult (Wikipedia 2007). This can also reflect on the essential characteristics of the development of models which are to be utilized in estimations of consumer behavior in case of predicting the likely choices between the many non-similar goods available in the market involved in the industry. Daniel McFadden was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in the development of an important branch of econometrics. Taking into account this marked difference in the general structure of this industry, subtle modifications of existing definitions, for the terms forming the basis of an economics oriented perspective are in order. For instance, the demand can be measured in terms of the number of journeys made or in total distance traveled. This type of an approach also results in an ambiguity, since the demand will vary as the points between which the journeys are undertaken are considered. However, for all practical issues, this will be sufficient. The units of measurement may be ‘passenger-kilometer for public transport or vehicle-kilometer of travel for private transport’ (Wikipedia 2007). Supply on the other hand may be calculated from the capacity of the various supply channels (modes of transport). The price of the goods is measured by the cost of travel, which includes money spent as well as the time expenditure. Here too, the details pertaining to the two points between which travel is carried out, i.e., the departure point and the destination is neglected, or generalized for uniformity. The study undertaken here takes into account the cases of two noted transport industries. The first is one of the most widely noted success stories in the history of the transport industry in recent times. The Indian Railway is the largest commercial employer in the world, having an

Home Depots Nightmarish EXIT from China Assignment

Home Depots Nightmarish EXIT from China - Assignment Example Thirdly, Home Depot wanted to get rid of the distribution network by eliminating middlemen and leverage worldwide supplier network which was hard. Lastly, Home Depot had been suffering from declining profits and only the change of the business model for example e-commerce (Saporta). The Chinese consumers haggle too much when doing their shopping which is unfavorable to the retailer. Furthermore, they do not buy some of the products for instance garage tools because they hire someone to do it for them (Saporta). In addition, Chinese do not shop alone without assistance which required Home Depot to hire and train tradesmen to meet their desired standards. A safe exit strategy from a foreign market would be liquidation because there is no worry about change of control and no negotiations are involved (Cross). From the article, I derived that closing some of the retail slowly is a safe exit strategy. Selling the retail stores to a friendly buyer would also serve as a safe exit strategy because the buyer is known. Lastly, offering an Initial Public Offer (IPO) for it would increase the worth of the company

Compare and contrast the education systems of the UK and other country Essay

Compare and contrast the education systems of the UK and other country - Essay Example School terms are similar. Both are divided in three terms, but they differ in terms of school year openings. School year in UK starts in September and ends in July. Each term has a break of few weeks, while the third term has two months vacation. The centralized system of curriculum is observed to both countries with certain dissimilarities in content. In UK, Emphasis of teaching in infant school is on reading, painting and practical lessons. At this stage children learn to read, write and count. As they move to junior level, they learn English, Math, science and technology, geography, and religion. They also learn about environment, art, music and P.E. At age 11, students go to junior level of a comprehensive school. At age 16, sixty percent of the children are ready to move to further education. All junior level students are qualified to enter FE level wherein they could enrol in vocational or academic, although this is no longer obligatory courses. FE courses prepare them for future employment. In Japan, the elementary school curriculum emphasizes study of Japanese, social studies, mathematics, science, music, arts and handicraft, and physical education. This is the stage where much emphasis and time is devoted to music, fine arts and curriculum. Japan introduced in its education system the promotion of respect for individuals, whereupon it was started in 1957 in elementary schools (Nemoto, Y. 1999) Students are required to practice moral education in their daily interactions in school and routine activities of cleaning and lunch, 2007. In high school Heirarchy and peer relations are intense and observed at this point. The method of teaching in Japan is very much different from UK in that they are concerned with developing the whole being of the child. Teachers consider it their duty to teach them with polite manners, personal hygiene,

Socially Desirable Merit Goods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Socially Desirable Merit Goods - Essay Example Merit goods are normally provided by the state because of the feeling that citizens tend to under-consume them, as well as the fact that they need to either be subsidized or provide freely to the people at the point of consumption so that its consumption is not tied to an individual’s ability to pay for the good. There are quite a number of merit goods that can be provided by the government namely health services, public libraries, education, inoculations for children, work training programmes, and Citizen's Advice Bureaux among others (Grant and Vidler 70). The National Health Services (NHS) is a good example of a merit good provided by the U.K. government. NHS is considered a merit good because the services received from the hospital confers personal benefit to the person receiving the services since there is personal satisfaction in becoming healthy or being healed of a disease. In addition, being healthy allows people to engage in development activities such as getting emp loyment that enables one to earn a living and live a decent life (Grant and Vidler 70). This is because an individual cannot work when he or she is sick. Being healthy also has certain social benefits attached that prompted the establishment of NHS. Firstly, healthy people tend to be more productive than unhealthy people are in the workplace. Unhealthy people are normally not able to perform certain jobs because of their unhealthy status, thus making them less productive ((Riccardo and Tryphon 1367). Healthy people, on the other hand, can perform different jobs in an organization including jobs that require the use of a lot of energy. Furthermore, healthy people are able to work longer hours thereby improving productivity in an organization they work for. Economists agree that many organizations prefer productive workforce to unproductive workforce because it enhances economic growth that increases the national income (Grant and Vidler 70). This statement can be proved by comparing the GDP of countries where health care service provision is poor and those with good health care services like the U.K. In this regard, it can clearly be seen that the GDP of the U.K. is higher than that of developing countries in the word that are still struggle with the proving of quality health care services. Role of the government in providing this merit good to the public Grant and Vidler note that the government plays a big role as far as provision of merit goods is concerned (71). NHS is an example of a merit good that the government of the U.K. has provided for its citizens in order to increase access to health care services in the country. The government took this initiative for a number of reasons. Firstly, the government introduced the NHS for the U.K. citizens to ensure that there is universal health care in the country for all regardless of status. This is because the government felt that leaving the provision of health services solely to the private sectors would make it had for low-income earners, the old, and the disabled in the country to afford this valuable service. The reason being most private health care providers charge high prices for their services to the people and would only be affordable to the rich in the country. Therefore, the provision of this valuable merit good by the state is a means of promoting the consumption of merit good so as to achieve positive externalities attached to

The Formation Of Gender Identity Essay Example for Free

The Formation Of Gender Identity Essay The debate over the factors affecting the formation of gender identity has more than a 100-year history, whereas the professional evidence-based level of the debate has been represented since the 1950s. In the Western sociology and psychology, gender identification is composed of a number of aspects, including perception of one’s gender roles, social identity and self-perception in general. The present paper is designed to address the role of biological, social and psychological factors in gender identity-shaping. In fact (Ellison, 2000), human behavior greatly depends upon hormonal secretion, as it is widely known that adrenaline is released when the brain receives a message about certain environmental threats and results in anxious and uneasy behavior, whereas   endorphins are released during exercise and result in a positive inspiration and sociability. Female sex hormones derive from ovaries and include progesterone and estrogens (mainly 17-beta-estradioll), whereas the major male hormone, testosterone, is produced by the testes. These chemicals are responsible for the formation of secondary sex characteristics and determine behaviors, attributed to the specific gender role. Masculinity in terms of gender identity is normally associated with assertiveness, self-control and aggression, provided by testosterone (Ellison, 2000), whereas femininity is conceptualized as compliance to dependence, interest in care about others and comfort creation. Byne and Parsons (1993), the followers of the classic model, indicate in their theoretical research of biological and neurobiological conditioning of   gender identification that a person’s gender is determined during conception, but the fetus begins to develop sex organs only at the 6th week of pregnancy.   Therefore, the developing testes or ovaries might begin hormonal secretion â€Å"off schedule†, which affects the development of the neural network of the brain and results in the person’s inability to accept their biological sex and the sense of gender dysphoria. Dittmann (1990) states that girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, the disease that refers to the overproduction of androgens, are more committed to the masculine roles like violent games, inclination to leadership in peer groups, willingness to increase physical strength, and are more likely to fell to certain degree uncomfortable in their female body, as the scholar notes that a number of teenage girls are unwilling to accept their physical development and differentiation. Similarly, boys with the Turner syndrome that refers to the excessive release of female hormones tend to de-valuate their biological sex (Tiefer, 1992). It needs to be noted that the evolution of sexuality in childhood is associated mostly with sex role games and self-observation:   â€Å"Children this age are very curious about bodies – their own and other peoples. They are trying on roles and behaviors† (Haffner and Needleman, 2001, p.41). At this stage, children experience a gradual transition from unconsciousness to awareness of their sexuality, so Dittmann holds that parents, aware of the child’s hormonal disease, can diplomatically interfere then and assist children in developing a superstructure of gender roles over their biological sex. One of the most interesting approaches to gender identity is biological psychology. On the one hand, Sharpe (2003) writes that the brain structures, which refer to communication (listening and speech) and emotions or empathy are notably better developed in females , whereas the male brain is hard-wired for system construction and perception/analysis of visual information. However, Haffner and Needleman (2001) write that infancy is characterized by the active synaptogenesis, or the strengthening of neural connections, to great extent dependent upon the environment. As the researchers write, â€Å"the development is on the one hand genetically determined, but the formation and pruning of synapses are controlled by the environment† (Haffner and Needleman, 2001, p.46). As a result, parental taboos upon sex role games and the lack of gender-sensitive childrearing (neutral treatment of infants and pre-school boys and girls as sexless) that stabilize the synaptic connections between neurons in the specific brain structures (e.g. the growth of hippocampus in boys playing spatial memory games) might   bring in the future a misperception of one’s biological sex up to the manifestation of androgyny   in the later adolescence (sporadic display of male and female behavioral patterns). Furthermore, it is important to take into consideration the cognitive and moral development of 3-5-year-old children as discussed by Paiget (Haffner and Needleman, 2001) who alleges that this period is characterized by the first sparkles of self-awareness and the reflex-based belief in the relationship between â€Å"naughtiness† and punishment. Hence it is quite easy to cause an imbalance in the child’s sex and gender awareness through imposing excessively stringent moral restrictions upon the child’s behavior. The dominant social psychological approach to gender role taking is Bem’s comprehensive gender schema theory that stresses the meaning of environmental factors. In 1971, I created the Bem Sex Role Inventory to measure how well the person fits into their traditional gender role by characterizing their personality as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated† (Bem, 1981, p. 355). The scholar believes that under the ever-lasting influence of the environment and broader cultural context the person carefully sorts all behaviors into the categories of masculinity and femininity and then employs them with relation to the cultural and social context. However, a substantial gender identity collapse might occur when professional values and desire for equality in career opportunities begin to interfere with gender beliefs; for instance, female leaders and executives recognize they are â€Å"tomboyish† and excessively committed to the masculine behaviors in non-wo rkplace settings (Bem, 1981, p. 356). To sum up, gender identity is rather a social construct than a set of biological, namely hormonal determinants. As a result, increasingly more specialists in neuroscience consent to the fact that the degree of consistency between biological sex and upbringing determine the formation of gender identity in the future (Dittmann, 1990; Haffner and Needleman, 2001) . For instance, the paper has incorporated the article showing the effect of parental guidance and the degree of progress in the cognitive and moral areas on the stability of synaptic connections in young children. Similarly, hormonal secretion is not pre-planned before the birth, but might occur under the specific social and psychological conditions (e.g. girls with anorexia nervosa are rather androgynous in demeanor than feminine and suffer from the deficiency of estrogens). Thus, the environmental factors might reinforce the inborn somatic substrates referring to the aspects of gender identity or result in their alteration, increasing or decreasing the person’s responsiveness to the neural impulses, which drive sex-related behaviors. Reference list Bem, S. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88, 354-364. Byne, W. and Parsons, B. (1993). Human Sexual Orientation: the Biologic Theories Reappraised.   Archives of General Psychiatry, 50 (3), 228-239. Dittmann, B. (1990). Congenital adrenal hyperplasia. I: Gender-related behavior and attitudes in female patients and sisters. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 15, 401-420. Ellison, C. (2000). Human Sexual Response. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Haffner, D. and   Needleman, R. (2001).   Childhood sex play and synaptogenesis. The Family Journal, 11: 39-50. Sharpe, R. (2003). Adult Sexuality. The Family Journal, 11: 420-426. Tiefer, L. (1992). Historical, scientific, clinical and feminist criticisms of â€Å"the Human Sexual Response Cycle† mode. Annual Review of Sex Research, 2: 1-23.

The Primary Care Clinic Essay Example for Free

The Primary Care Clinic Essay A small primary care clinic has 69 employees, representing 9 different clinical professions and 12 other skills. It operates two (2) sites, one (1) of which is bigger and has the departments for medical specialists, diagnostic labs, and patient services. The clinic also contracts for a variety of services, such as repair and maintenance, referral specialists, and advanced diagnostic services. You are the manager. You report to the owners who are four (4) of the family practitioners and their wives. Two of the wives still work at the clinic as registered nurses. Write a five to seven (5-7) page paper in which you: 1.Discuss the key political, economic, and social forces that may have influenced the development of the clinic. 2.Create a comprehensive mission statement and explain what makes it a comprehensive mission statement. 3.Identify three (3) performance measures you would use to measure the clinic’s effectiveness and provide the rationale for each performance measure. 4.Describe how you would approach decisions regarding clinic expansion and annual plan approval. 5.Describe the role of the clinic as a component of the healthcare delivery system in your community. 6.Examine how public healthcare policy has influenced the formation of outpatient clinics in the healthcare system. 7.Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: †¢Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. †¢Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length. The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are: †¢Examine the political, economic, and social forces that have influenced the organizational foundations of the United States healthcare system †¢Explain how public policy has shaped the development of the U.S. healthcare system. †¢Analyze the critical management issues, purpose, functions, and performance measures of different departments within healthcare organizations. †¢Use technology and information resources to research issues in health services organization management. †¢Write clearly and concisely about health services organization management using proper writing mechanics. Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic / organization of the paper, and language and writing skills, using the following rubric.