A Method for Introducing the Concepts of Chaos Theory to Medical Students

Chaos theory is beginning to find applications in the field of medicine. The theory of chaos should be introduced to students to help them as they make the transition from learning the scientific literature to actually applying this newly acquired knowledge in clinical situations. Chaos theory will give the students a powerful conceptual framework from which they can better understand the limits of predictability in clinical situations. Failure to understand the limits of predictability in chaotic natural systems will invariably lead to frustration in both patients and physicians.     

"Solar love": Nietzsche,Merleau-Ponty and the fortunes of perception

Both Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty repudiate the mirror view of perception and embrace what Nietzsche refers to as solar love or creative perception. I argue that Merleau-Ponty thinks of this type of perception primarily in terms of convergence and Nietzsche in terms of divergence. I then show how, contrary to their own emphases, Merleau-Ponty's notion of flesh and Nietzsche's idea of chaos suggest that convergence and divergence are abstractions from an ontologically prior realm of hybrid perceptions. In this realm, each perception is shot through with the others, simultaneously inside and outside one another. The creative tension among these perceptions continually produces new perspectives or voices, that is, a realm whose very being is metamorphosis. Moreover, this realm of hybrid perceptions suggests a political principle that might prove attractive for communities in an age of diversity and cultural hybridity.     

Innumeracy in social problems construction: Missing children,vanishing workers,and other statistical claims

Statistical claims are often central to the contemporary construction of social problems. The failure to subject these figures to critical analysis is a form of innumeracy, the inability to deal effectively with mathematical concepts. Two cases from the United States -estimates of the number of missing children, and projections for the workforce in the year 2000 -illustrate how the uncritical acceptance of inaccurate statistics can shape policy debates. Claimsmakers, the mass media, and the media audience all contribute to the innumerate interpretation of social statistics.     

Coping behavior and locus of control in children1

Several investigators report a distinction between inward (withdrawn, somaticizing, fearful) behavior and outward (antisocial, hostile, aggressive) behavior. The present study was designed to clarify the relationship between type of coping behavior and locus of control (i.e., the attribution of causality to internal vs. external factors) for children aged 4 to 12 years. Two locus of control (LOC) instruments were administered—the Nowicki-Strickland and a new measure which distinguished between LOC for desirable and undesirable events. Measures of coping behavior were completed by parents. Results indicated that the new LOC scale related to type of coping behavior: external LOC children tended to have a greater proportion of inward behavior. Furthermore, desirable-event items were better able to distinguish between inward and outward behavior than were undesirable-event items. The Nowicki-Strickland scale was significantly correlated with the new scale, but not with coping behavior. Replication of the findings was obtained in a subsequent study. Discussion centered on the relationship between generalized perceptions of control and situationally manipulated perceptions of control, and differences between perceptions of control involved in inward and outward behavior.     

Similarities and differences in social attitudes in four Western countries1

A referents scale (single words and short phrases) constructed to measure social attitudes and values was administered to 500 graduate students of education in the United States, 427 mature evening students in Spain, 130 German students, 270 Dutch students, and 685 Dutch adults, a random sample of the Netherlands. The attitudes of the samples were compared by analysis of the means of clusters of referents associated with the factors common to all samples. The means of selected individual referents of social significance were similarly compared across samples. In general, the U.S. student sample and the Netherlands random sample were more conservative than the Spanish, Dutch, and German student samples. On the other hand, the Dutch, Spanish, and American students were more liberal than the Dutch random sample and the German students. The correlations between the profiles of means of referents common to pairs of samples were mostly substantial (average r's of .75 for conservative referents and .62 for liberal referents), indicating considerable cross-cultural agreement in the rank ordering of the referents within the conservative and within the liberal categories, and thus, presumably, common cores of reaction to the two kinds of referents. The use of attitude-value referents, especially in cross-cultural research, was judged valid and useful.     

Sex differences in symbol-digit substitution task performance

Estes (1974) proposed that the superior performance of women over men on the Digit-Symbol Substitution subtest of the Wechsler scales was due to their greater ability to encode symbols verbally. Three forms of a symbol-digit substitution task were administered to 62 female and 96 male college students. The symbol sets of the three forms differed in the relative amount of figural and spatial orientational information. Women performed better than men on the form which used the Wechsler symbol set in which all symbols are figurally different and, presumably, most easily coded verbally. Men performed better than women on the form which had the greatest amount of spatial orientational information. Estes' hypothesis is supported by these findings.     

On the precision of a euclidean structure

This paper is concerned with the development of a measure of the precision of a multidimensional euclidean structure. The measure is a precision index for each point in the structure, assuming that all the other points are precisely located. The measure is defined and two numerical methods are presented for its calculation. A small Monte Carlo study of the measure's behavior is performed and findings discussed.The authors are indebted to Bert F. Green, Jr., Ronald Helms, Andrea Sedlak, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.