It’s time to foster Africa’s science revolution

Science, Institutions & the Industrial Revolution

How Scientists Can Help Foster Science Appreciation

In the last issue of The Scienfi.st, Morris H. Shames, emeritus professor of physics at New York University, cast a cold eye on the concept of scientific literacy. He argued that a more reasonable goal in educating nonscientists about science might be science appreciation. Like music and art appreciation, science appreciation might be fostered without requiring the mastery of technical details ...

The science of attracting foster carers

Across the world the number of children needing a foster home is increasing; however, the number of individuals willing to foster a child is decreasing. It is therefore critical to gain insight into the barriers preventing people from fostering a child. Using data from a 2009 survey of 756 Australians, combinations of barriers are investigated by conducting a posteriori segmentation analysis wi...

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

There is substantial evidence that scientific teaching in the sciences, i.e. teaching that employs instructional strategies that encourage undergraduates to become actively engaged in their own learning, can produce levels of understanding, retention and transfer of knowledge that are greater than those resulting from traditional lecture/lab classes. But widespread acceptance by university facu...

Dialectical & Historical Materialism: the Science of Revolution

The tool of analysis is for us a further development of the historical materialist method, the dialectical method. We will not even waste our time debating the values of Marxism with those who are essentially hung up on white people – hung up to the point of ideological blindness. We understand the process of revolution, and fundamental to this understanding is this fact: Marxism is developed t...