__Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools_ brings together the collective wisdom of more than thirty experts from a variety of fields to show how school leaders can create communities that support the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students._ It offers an essential guide for making sense of the myriad evidence‐based frameworks, resources, and tools available to create a continuous improvement system. Chapters illustrate how leaders can leverage the power of school-based teams to assess the needs of students in their (...) school and select appropriate interventions across a wide variety of domains, including social and emotional learning, trauma, restorative practices, cultural responsiveness, and student and family engagement. Filled with recommendations gleaned from research and ongoing work in every US state and territory, _Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools_ is a critical resource for understanding and adopting evidence-based practices and making programmatic decisions to ensure the ideal conditions for learning, growth, and development. (shrink)

While many philosophers of science have accorded special evidential significance to tests whose results are "novel facts", there continues to be disagreement over both the definition of novelty and why it should matter. The view of novelty favored by Giere, Lakatos, Worrall and many others is that of use-novelty: An accordance between evidence e and hypothesis h provides a genuine test of h only if e is not used in h's construction. I argue that what lies behind the intuition that (...) novelty matters is the deeper intuition that severe tests matter. I set out a criterion of severity akin to the notion of a test's power in Neyman-Pearson statistics. I argue that tests which are use-novel may fail to be severe, and tests that are severe may fail to be use-novel. I discuss the 1919 eclipse data as a severe test of Einstein's law of gravity. (shrink)

Despite the widespread use of key concepts of the Neyman–Pearson (N–P) statistical paradigm—type I and II errors, significance levels, power, confidence levels—they have been the subject of philosophical controversy and debate for over 60 years. Both current and long-standing problems of N–P tests stem from unclarity and confusion, even among N–P adherents, as to how a test's (pre-data) error probabilities are to be used for (post-data) inductive inference as opposed to inductive behavior. We argue that the relevance of error probabilities (...) is to ensure that only statistical hypotheses that have passed severe or probative tests are inferred from the data. The severity criterion supplies a meta-statistical principle for evaluating proposed statistical inferences, avoiding classic fallacies from tests that are overly sensitive, as well as those not sensitive enough to particular errors and discrepancies. Introduction and overview 1.1 Behavioristic and inferential rationales for Neyman–Pearson (N–P) tests 1.2 Severity rationale: induction as severe testing 1.3 Severity as a meta-statistical concept: three required restrictions on the N–P paradigm Error statistical tests from the severity perspective 2.1 N–P test T(): type I, II error probabilities and power 2.2 Specifying test T() using p-values Neyman's post-data use of power 3.1 Neyman: does failure to reject H warrant confirming H? Severe testing as a basic concept for an adequate post-data inference 4.1 The severity interpretation of acceptance (SIA) for test T() 4.2 The fallacy of acceptance (i.e., an insignificant difference): Ms Rosy 4.3 Severity and power Fallacy of rejection: statistical vs. substantive significance 5.1 Taking a rejection of H0 as evidence for a substantive claim or theory 5.2 A statistically significant difference from H0 may fail to indicate a substantively important magnitude 5.3 Principle for the severity interpretation of a rejection (SIR) 5.4 Comparing significant results with different sample sizes in T(): large n problem 5.5 General testing rules for T(), using the severe testing concept The severe testing concept and confidence intervals 6.1 Dualities between one and two-sided intervals and tests 6.2 Avoiding shortcomings of confidence intervals Beyond the N–P paradigm: pure significance, and misspecification tests Concluding comments: have we shown severity to be a basic concept in a N–P philosophy of induction? (shrink)

The key problem in the controversy over group selection is that of defining a criterion of group selection that identifies a distinct causal process that is irreducible to the causal process of individual selection. We aim to clarify this problem and to formulate an adequate model of irreducible group selection. We distinguish two types of group selection models, labeling them type I and type II models. Type I models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of (...) production of contained individuals. Type II models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of production of distinct new groups. Taking Elliott Sober's model as an exemplar, we argue that although type I models have some biological importance--they force biologists to consider the role of group properties in influencing the fitness of organisms--they fail to identify a distinct group-level causal selection process. Type II models if properly framed, however, do identify a group-level causal selection process that is not reducible to individual selection. We propose such a type II model and apply it to some of the major candidates for group selection. (shrink)

In everyday discourse and in the context of social scientific research we often attribute intentional states to groups. Contemporary approaches to group intentionality have either dismissed these attributions as metaphorical or provided an analysis of our attributions in terms of the intentional states of individuals in the group.Insection1, the author argues that these approaches are problematic. In sections 2 and 3, the author defends the view that certain groups are literally intentional agents. In section 4, the author argues that there (...) are significant reasons for social scientists and philosophers of social science to acknowledge the adequacy of macro-level explanations that involve the attribution of intentional states to groups. In section 5, the author considers and responds to some criticisms of the thesis she defends. (shrink)

According to many, joint intentional action must be understood in terms of joint intentions. Most accounts of joint intention appeal to a set of sophisticated individual intentional states. The author argues that standard accounts of joint intention exclude the possibility of joint action in young children because they presuppose that the participants have a robust theory of mind, something young children lack. But young children do engage in joint action. The author offers a revision of Michael Bratman’s analysis of joint (...) intention that reflects the socio-cognitive abilities young children do have. This revision makes sense of joint action among young children and equally well explains simple joint actions involving adults. Key Words: collective intentionality • joint action • child’s theory of mind • joint attention. (shrink)

Germund Hesslow has argued recently [2] that a probabilistic theory of causality as advocated by Patrick Suppes [4] has two problems that a deterministic theory avoids. In this paper, I argue that Suppes' probabilistic causal calculus is free of each of these problems and, moreover, that several broader issues raised by Hesslow's discussion tend to support a probabilistic conception of causes.

The fact that much of our knowledge is gained through the testimony of others challenges a certain form of epistemic individualism. We are clearly not autonomous knowers. But the discussion surrounding testimony has maintained a commitment to what I have elsewhere called epistemic agent individualism. Both the reductionist and the anti-reductionist have focused their attention on the testimony of individuals. But groups, too, are sources of testimony - or so I shall argue. If groups can be testifiers, a natural question (...) to ask is whether our beliefs based on the testimony of groups are ever justified and whether such a justification is to be conferred inferentially or non-inferentially. I consider and dismiss the possibility of extending an anti-reductionist account of justification to our group testimonial beliefs. I also argue against a version of reductionism that would have our group testimonial beliefs justified only in so far as we were able to monitor the trustworthiness of members of the group. However, there are forms of reductionism that can be extended to make sense of the justification of our group testimonial beliefs. There are mechanisms for monitoring the trustworthiness and competency of a group (rather than its members) and, further, a variety of background beliefs allow us to assess the testimony of a group for reliability. (shrink)

Floridi and Sanders, seminal work, “On the morality of artificial agents” has catalyzed attention around the moral status of computer systems that perform tasks for humans, effectively acting as “artificial agents.” Floridi and Sanders argue that the class of entities considered moral agents can be expanded to include computers if we adopt the appropriate level of abstraction. In this paper we argue that the move to distinguish levels of abstraction is far from decisive on this issue. We also argue that (...) adopting certain levels of abstraction out of context can be dangerous when the level of abstraction obscures the humans who constitute computer systems. We arrive at this critique of Floridi and Sanders by examining the debate over the moral status of computer systems using the notion of interpretive flexibility. We frame the debate as a struggle over the meaning and significance of computer systems that behave independently, and not as a debate about the ‘true’ status of autonomous systems. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that while levels of abstraction are useful for particular purposes, when it comes to agency and responsibility, computer systems should be conceptualized and identified in ways that keep them tethered to the humans who create and deploy them. (shrink)

In seeking general accounts of evidence, confirmation, or inference, philosophers have looked to logical relationships between evidence and hypotheses. Such logics of evidential relationship, whether hypothetico-deductive, Bayesian, or instantiationist fail to capture or be relevant to scientific practice. They require information that scientists do not generally have (e.g., an exhaustive set of hypotheses), while lacking slots within which to include considerations to which scientists regularly appeal (e.g., error probabilities). Building on my co-symposiasts contributions, I suggest some directions in which a (...) new and more adequate philosophy of evidence can move. (shrink)

Has the diversity of corporate boards of directors improved? Should it? What role does diversity play in reducing corporate wrongdoing? Will diversity result in a more focused board of directors or more board autonomy? Examining the state of Tennessee as a case study, the authors collected data on the board composition of publicly traded corporations and compared those data to an original study conducted in 1995. Data indicate only a modest improvement in board diversity. This article discusses reasons for the (...) scarcity of women on boards and concludes that, to enhance strategic decisions, board membership should reflect the corporation''s consumer population. Thus, women are a critical but overlooked resource. Areas for future research are also considered. (shrink)

In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school-goers acquire knowledge of pre-existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge itself. Since the object of (...) knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response. (shrink)

Is bioethics consultation a profession? Withfew exceptions, the arguments andcounterarguments about whether healthcareethics consultation is a profession haveignored the historical and cultural developmentof professions in the United States, the wayssocial changes have altered the work andboundaries of all professions, and theprofessionalization theories that explain howmodern societies institutionalize expertise inprofessions. This interdisciplinary analysisbegins to fill this gap by framing the debatewithin a larger theoretical context heretoforemissing from the bioethics literature. Specifically, the question of whether ethicsconsultation is a profession is examined fromthe (...) perspectives of trait theory, Wilensky''sfive-stage process of professionalization,Abbott''s interdependent system of professions,and Haug''s deprofessionalization thesis. Whilehealthcare ethics consultation does not meetthe criteria to claim professional status,neither could most professions pass these idealtheoretical standards. Instead of a yes or nodichotomous response to the question, it ismore helpful to envision a professionalizationcontinuum with sales clerks or carpenters atone end and medicine or law at the other. During the past decade healthcare ethicsconsultation has been moving along thiscontinuum toward greater professional status. (shrink)

Recent discussions of rational deliberation in science present us with two extremes: unbounded optimism and sober pessimism. Helen Longino (1990) sees rational deliberation as the foundation of scientific objectivity. Miriam Solomon (1991) thinks it is overrated. Indeed, she has recently argued (2006) that group deliberation is detrimental to empirical success because it often involves groupthink and the suppression of dissent. But we need not embrace either extreme. To determine the value of rational deliberation we need to look more closely at (...) the practice and practitioners of science. I offer a closer look here by exploring the joint agency of small research teams. Although there are factors that contribute to the suppression of dissent in group contexts, a closer look at the literature on group dynamics suggests that there are ways to mitigate the effects of groupthink. Thus, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the value of rational deliberation within certain scientific contexts. (shrink)

I argue that the Bayesian Way of reconstructing Duhem's problem fails to advance a solution to the problem of which of a group of hypotheses ought to be rejected or "blamed" when experiment disagrees with prediction. But scientists do regularly tackle and often enough solve Duhemian problems. When they do, they employ a logic and methodology which may be called error statistics. I discuss the key properties of this approach which enable it to split off the task of testing auxiliary (...) hypotheses from that of appraising a primary hypothesis. By discriminating patterns of error, this approach can at least block, if not also severely test, attempted explanations of an anomaly. I illustrate how this approach directs progress with Duhemian problems and explains how scientists actually grapple with them. (shrink)

Kuhn maintains that what marks the transition to a science is the ability to carry out ‘normal’ science—a practice he characterizes as abandoning the kind of testing that Popper lauds as the hallmark of science. Examining Kuhn's own contrast with Popper, I propose to recast Kuhnian normal science. Thus recast, it is seen to consist of severe and reliable tests of low-level experimental hypotheses (normal tests) and is, indeed, the place to look to demarcate science. While thereby vindicating Kuhn on (...) demarcation, my recasting of normal science is seen to tell against Kuhn's view of revolutionary science. (shrink)

Philosophers such as Dan Brock believe that surrogates who make health care decisions on behalf of previously competent patients, in the absence of an advance directive, should make these decisions based upon a substituted judgment principle. Brock favours substituted judgment over a best interests standard. However, Edward Wierenga claims that the substituted judgment principle ought to be abandoned in favour of a best interests standard, because of an inherent problem with the substituted judgment principle. Wierenga's version of the substituted judgment (...) principle and his counterexample to the principle's successful interpretation of valid surrogate consent is presented. A new version of what is meant by the substituted judgment principle is advanced. The new version is not beset with the problems Wierenga initially ascribed to the substituted judgment principle. (shrink)

Throughout his work, Adorno contrasted liberal ideology to the newer and more pernicious form of ideology found in positivism. The paper explores the philosophical basis for Adorno's contrast between liberal and positivist ideology. In Negative Dialectics, Adorno describes all ideology as identity-thinking. However, on his view, liberal ideology represents a more rational form of identity-thinking. Fearing that positivism might obliterate our capacity to distinguish between what is and what ought to be, Adorno sought a more secure foundation for his critique (...) of existing conditions. He found this basis in liberal discourse. In the concept of freedom, for example, Adorno located ideas or ideals that negate and transcend the given. One of the conditions for the possibility of critical thought lies in such ideas; critical thinking consists in wielding the more emphatic content of concepts against the pathic rationality of existing conditions. Far from prescribing mimesis as the antidote to a damaged social, political and economic reality, then, Adorno advocates a more dialectically inflected use of concepts as the basis for social criticism. Key Words: Adorno • Critique • Identity • Ideology • Liberalism • Positivism. (shrink)

The issues of double-counting, use-constructing, and selection effects have long been the subject of debate in the philosophical as well as statistical literature. I have argued that it is the severity, stringency, or probativeness of the test—or lack of it—that should determine if a double-use of data is admissible. Hitchcock and Sober ([2004]) question whether this ‘severity criterion' can perform its intended job. I argue that their criticisms stem from a flawed interpretation of the severity criterion. Taking their criticism as (...) a springboard, I elucidate some of the central examples that have long been controversial, and clarify how the severity criterion is properly applied to them. Severity and Use-Constructing: Four Points (and Some Clarificatory Notes) 1.1 Point 1: Getting beyond ‘all or nothing’ standpoints 1.2 Point 2: The rationale for prohibiting double-counting is the requirement that tests be severe 1.3 Point 3: Evaluate severity of a test T by its associated construction rule R 1.4 Point 4: The ease of passing vs. ease of erroneous passing: Statistical vs. ‘Definitional’ probability The False Dilemma: Hitchcock and Sober 2.1 Marsha measures her desk reliably 2.2 A false dilemma Canonical Errors of Inference 3.1 How construction rules may alter the error-probing performance of tests 3.2 Rules for accounting for anomalies 3.3 Hunting for statistically significant differences Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

A toast is due to one who slays Misguided followers of Bayes, And in their heart strikes fear and terror With probabilities of error! (E.L. Lehmann).

The error statistical account of testing uses statistical considerations, not to provide a measure of probability of hypotheses, but to model patterns of irregularity that are useful for controlling, distinguishing, and learning from errors. The aim of this paper is (1) to explain the main points of contrast between the error statistical and the subjective Bayesian approach and (2) to elucidate the key errors that underlie the central objection raised by Colin Howson at our PSA 96 Symposium.

In Philosophical Problems of Statistical Inference, Seidenfeld argues that the Neyman-Pearson (NP) theory of confidence intervals is inadequate for a theory of inductive inference because, for a given situation, the 'best' NP confidence interval, [CIλ], sometimes yields intervals which are trivial (i.e., tautologous). I argue that (1) Seidenfeld's criticism of trivial intervals is based upon illegitimately interpreting confidence levels as measures of final precision; (2) for the situation which Seidenfeld considers, the 'best' NP confidence interval is not [CIλ] as Seidenfeld (...) suggests, but rather a one-sided interval [CI0]; and since [CI0] never yields trivial intervals, NP theory escapes Seidenfeld's criticism entirely; (3) Seidenfeld's criterion of non-triviality is inadequate, for it leads him to judge an alternative confidence interval, [CI alt. ], superior to [CIλ] although [CI alt. ] results in counterintuitive inferences. I conclude that Seidenfeld has not shown that the NP theory of confidence intervals is inadequate for a theory of inductive inference. (shrink)

Theories of statistical testing may be seen as attempts to provide systematic means for evaluating scientific conjectures on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate observational data. The Neyman-Pearson Theory of Testing (NPT) has purported to provide an objective means for testing statistical hypotheses corresponding to scientific claims. Despite their widespread use in science, methods of NPT have themselves been accused of failing to be objective; and the purported objectivity of scientific claims based upon NPT has been called into question. The (...) purpose of this paper is first to clarify this question by examining the conceptions of (I) the function served by NPT in science, and (II) the requirements of an objective theory of statistics upon which attacks on NPT's objectivity are based. Our grounds for rejecting these conceptions suggest altered conceptions of (I) and (II) that might avoid such attacks. Second, we propose a reformulation of NPT, denoted by NPT*, based on these altered conceptions, and argue that it provides an objective theory of statistics. The crux of our argument is that by being able to objectively control error frequencies NPT* is able to objectively evaluate what has or has not been learned from the result of a statistical test. (shrink)

We argue that a responsible analysis of today's evidence-based risk assessments and risk debates in biology demands a critical or metascientific scrutiny of the uncertainties, assumptions, and threats of error along the manifold steps in risk analysis. Without an accompanying methodological critique, neither sensitivity to social and ethical values, nor conceptual clarification alone, suffices. In this view, restricting the invitation for philosophical involvement to those wearing a "bioethicist" label precludes the vitally important role philosophers of science may be able to (...) play as bioevidentialists. The goal of this paper is to give a brief and partial sketch of how a metascientific scrutiny of risk evidence might work. (shrink)

We argue that the common attribution to Zhuangzi of both perspectivalism or relativism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other is fundamentally mistaken. While granting that it is reasonable to construe Zhuangzi as offering a perspectiva! position on judgement, we argue that Zhuangzi's perspectivalism does not commit him to a relativist position on truth or to scepticism about human knowledge. Rather, we maintain that Zhuangzi's attacks on the concepts of truth and knowledge are better seen as his articulation (...) of a species of epistemological nihilism which rejects, as ultimately meaningless, the concepts of truth, reality, and knowledge. (shrink)

The bias paradox emerges out of a tension between objectivism and relativism.If one rejects a certain the conception objectivity as absolute impartiality and value-neutrality (i.e., if all views are biased), how, then, can one hold that some epistemic perspectives are better than others? This is a problem that has been most explicitly dealt with in feminist epistemology, but it is not unique to feminist perspectives. In this paper, I wish to clearly lay out the nature of the paradox and the (...) various attempts to avoid it. I also intend to show why it is a problem for any epistemological view that rejects absolute objectivity. Finally, I wish to briefly outline a possible solution to the paradox, a solution that requires recognizing that rationality necessarily requires both objective and subjective elements. (shrink)

I document some of the main evidence showing that E. S. Pearson rejected the key features of the behavioral-decision philosophy that became associated with the Neyman-Pearson Theory of statistics (NPT). I argue that NPT principles arose not out of behavioral aims, where the concern is solely with behaving correctly sufficiently often in some long run, but out of the epistemological aim of learning about causes of experimental results (e.g., distinguishing genuine from spurious effects). The view Pearson did hold gives a (...) deeper understanding of NPT tests than their typical formulation as accept-reject routines, against which criticisms of NPT are really directed. The Pearsonian view that emerges suggests how NPT tests may avoid these criticisms while still retaining what is central to these methods: the control of error probabilities. (shrink)

In this paper I use the concept of forbidden knowledge to explore questions about putting limits on science. Science has generally been understood to seek and produce objective truth, and this understanding of science has grounded its claim to freedom of inquiry. What happens to decision making about science when this claim to objective, disinterested truth is rejected? There are two changes that must be made to update the idea of forbidden knowledge for modern science. The first is to shift (...) from presuming that decisions to constrain or even forbid knowledge can be made from a position of omniscience (perfect knowledge) to recognizing that such decisions made by human beings are made from a position of limited or partial knowledge. The second is to reject the idea that knowledge is objective and disinterested and accept that knowledge (even scientific knowledge) is interested. In particular, choices about what knowledge gets created are normative, value choices. When these two changes are made to the idea of forbidden knowledge, questions about limiting or forbidding lines of inquiry are shown to distract attention from the more important matters of who makes and how decisions are made about what knowledge is produced. Much more attention should be focused on choosing directions in science, and as this is done, the matter of whether constraints should be placed on science will fall into place. (shrink)

The role demographic, personality, and situational factors play in the ethical decision making process has received a significant amount of attention (Ford and Richardson, 1994). However, the empirical research on students' decisions to engage in collegiate cheating has not been included in this literature. This paper reviews the last 25 years of empirical research on collegiate cheating. The individual/situational factor typology from Ford and Richardson's review (1994) is used to compare the two literatures. In addition, issues pertaining to the quantification (...) of academic dishonesty, the perception that cheating is increasing, and methodological considerations are addressed in this review. (shrink)

The article explores the character of Adorno’s materialism while fleshing out his Marxist-inspired idea of natural history. Adorno offers a non-reductionist and non-dualistic account of the relationship between matter and mind, human history and natural history. Emerging from nature and remaining tied to it, the human mind is nonetheless qualitatively distinct from nature owing to its limited independence from it. Yet, just as human history is always also natural history, because human beings can never completely dissociate themselves from the natural (...) world, nature is inextricably entwined with human history. Owing to the entwinement of mind and matter, humanity and nature, a version of dialectical materialism can be found in Adorno’s work. Key Words: body • dialectics • Hegel • history • idealism • Marx • materialism • mind • nature • Timpanaro. (shrink)

Research in animal behavior begins by identifying what animals are doing. In the course of observation, the observer comes to see animals as performing a particular activity. How does this process work? How cn we be certain that behavior is identified correctly? Wittgenstein offers an approach to these questions. looking at the uses of certainly rather than attempting to find rules that guarantee it. Here two stages in research are distinguished: first, watching animals, and second, reporting the results to other (...) scientists. Certainly about what animals are doing, has different uses at each stage. (shrink)

I offer a very qualified argument to the effect that rights are grounded in a certain sort of prejudice that privileges individualistic and perhaps masculinist ways of thinking about moral life. I also propose that we look carefully at other conceptions of social ontology and moral life, including the much discussed care conception.

In a recent discussion note Sober (1985) elaborates on the argument given in Sober (1982) to show the inadequacy of Ronald Giere's (1979, 1980) causal model for cases of frequency-dependent causation, and denies that Giere's (1984) response avoids the problem he raises. I argue that frequency-dependent effects do not pose a problem for Giere's original causal model, and that all parties in this dispute have been guity of misinterpreting the counterfactual populations involved in applying Giere's model.

I discuss six problems with Warwick Fox’s “The Deep Ecology–Ecofeminism Debate and Its Parallels” and conclude that until Fox and some other deep ecologists take the time to study feminism and ecofeminist analyses, only disputes—not genuine debate—will occur between these two parties. An understanding of the six issues that I discuss is a precondition for such a debate.

The challenge of excellence in community health services has been taken up by medical educators in Colombia. Confronted with a nation where the primary indicators of disease mortality and morbidity (cardiovascular disease and infant mortality) were characteristic of First and Third World patterns, respectively, the Ministry of Health and La Asociacion Colombiana de Facultades de Medicina (ASCOFAME), representatives of institutions of medical education, have collaborated to conduct a needs assessment of the country's health needs and devised an implementation plan designed (...) to better address the needs of the majority of that nation's people. -/- As a model, the Colombian reorganization of medical education is an example which could be emulated by the U.S. where policy makers are struggling with troublesome questions of cost, equity and quality. (shrink)

This article relates the emergence of a group of faculty researchers utilizing complexity science approaches. The narrative emerges from three projects combining research into complexity, communities, and technologies. Details of how the research was initiated, and the nature and quality of the conversational method, are provided. In addition, theoretical concepts that were consciously applied and others that arose through insights from the data as it was collected are discussed. Although this is like most real narratives, a never-ending story, it concludes (...) with a presentation of some of the ideas that separate complexity-informed research from other paradigms. (shrink)