Recent content by changeseeker

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://bit.ly/G42Fe I was wondering what you all think about this. From your own experience in academia, is this true? Or this is a biased sample?

The idea is that there is an opportunity structure that can be characterized mathematically. Usually, opportunities for mobilization don't exist unless certain economic, political, demographic, or social factors make them possible. For example, a large migration of African Americans from the...

Your dismissiveness is surprising, particularly since you are asking about the subject, which one could interpret as your not knowing a lot about it and being interested in learning more. It's too bad that you judge this to be "nonsense" without even reading about the theory, its assumptions...

Great! Thank you so much! :-) Yosem

It seems that you are interested in learning more about the dominant approach to studying social movements, and more generally, political mobilization. I recommend you check the http://books.google.com/books?id=ADiJTD8s4KYC&dq=political+process+theory&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s" gives you a good...

They say create opportunities to mobilize. This neither means that they will mobilize nor does it mean that they will win, if they do so. The next question is one of resource mobilization. Can the disenfranchised group mobilize resources against the divided elite? Can they form the right...

My knowledge in physics is very limited. Could someone please explain what this means in regular English? :rolleyes: Thanks! Published on http://bit.ly/vtJBW": Here are the http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.2407" (PDF).

Thanks! :-) I already ordered the book. Should I read the book sequentially? Should I buy electronic kits related to the topics I am reading as I am reading the book? Last questions -- I promise :-)

Above all, good nutrition Exercise. Good book to read is Spark by John J. Ratey and Eric Hagerman Put it to work with art, mathematics, writing, etc. so you work out your entire brain Social interaction --> brain scans have shown isolation makes the brain atrophy Do puzzles that make you think

Congrats! Good luck... :-)

I agree completely. But how can we ever be sure we know the truth and have revealed through the scientific method? Our knowledge is only as good as our instruments. There was a time when people were thought to be crazy for proposing the Earth went around the Sun, or that there were invisible...

But how can any scientists see the forest and the trees at the same time? And what forest do we look at? And which trees? Who makes these decisions?

Hmm... But arm chair theorizing is OK? All the mathematical models we come up with that have no evidence? Do you spend any time on those? Don't forget the crime many empiricists commit and never attest to: fitting their data into theories so they can publish. As Einstein said: "If the...

And what are these supposed pseudo-sciences? If you are referring to something like anthropology, which uses participant-observation to gather empirical data, it is more accurate at description and elucidating mechanisms and producing testable hypotheses than experiments or regressions, which...

Agreed. In the Federalist Papers, Madison may have called this argument, tyranny of the majority. Who decides that a questionnaire is well designed? Who collects the data? How many errors are made in entering the data? Is the data ever fudged? etc.