Natural Experiments Of History

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674076729
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Natural Experiments of History written by Jared Diamond and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some central questions in the natural and social sciences can't be answered by controlled laboratory experiments, often considered to be the hallmark of the scientific method. This impossibility holds for any science concerned with the past. In addition, many manipulative experiments, while possible, would be considered immoral or illegal. One has to devise other methods of observing, describing, and explaining the world. In the historical disciplines, a fruitful approach has been to use natural experiments or the comparative method. This book consists of eight comparative studies drawn from history, archeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. The studies range from a simple two-way comparison of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, to comparisons of 81 Pacific islands and 233 areas of India. The societies discussed are contemporary ones, literate societies of recent centuries, and non-literate past societies. Geographically, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, western Europe, tropical Africa, India, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands. In an Afterword, the editors discuss how to cope with methodological problems common to these and other natural experiments of history.

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674076710
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Natural Experiments of History written by Jared Diamond and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In eight case studies by leading scholars in history, archaeology, business, economics, geography, and political science, the authors showcase the “natural experiment” or “comparative method”—well-known in any science concerned with the past—on the discipline of human history. That means, according to the editors, “comparing, preferably quantitatively and aided by statistical analyses, different systems that are similar in many respects, but that differ with respect to the factors whose influence one wishes to study.” The case studies in the book support two overall conclusions about the study of human history: First, historical comparisons have the potential for yielding insights that cannot be extracted from a single case study alone. Second, insofar as is possible, when one proposes a conclusion, one may be able to strengthen one’s conclusion by gathering quantitative evidence (or at least ranking one’s outcomes from big to small), and then by testing the conclusion’s validity statistically.

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674035577
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Natural Experiments of History written by Jared Diamond and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some central questions in the natural and social sciences can't be answered by controlled laboratory experiments, often considered to be the hallmark of the scientific method. This impossibility holds for any science concerned with the past. In addition, many manipulative experiments, while possible, would be considered immoral or illegal. One has to devise other methods of observing, describing, and explaining the world. In the historical disciplines, a fruitful approach has been to use natural experiments or the comparative method. This book consists of eight comparative studies drawn from history, archeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. The studies range from a simple two-way comparison of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, to comparisons of 81 Pacific islands and 233 areas of India. The societies discussed are contemporary ones, literate societies of recent centuries, and non-literate past societies. Geographically, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, western Europe, tropical Africa, India, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands. In an Afterword, the editors discuss how to cope with methodological problems common to these and other natural experiments of history.

Author : Thad Dunning
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107017661
Total Pages : 379 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences written by Thad Dunning and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive guide to natural experiments, providing an ideal introduction for scholars and students.

Author : Alberto Bisin
Publisher : Academic Press
ISBN 13 : 0128162686
Total Pages : 1002 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Handbook of Historical Economics written by Alberto Bisin and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2021-04-21 with total page 1002 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Historical Economics guides students and researchers through a quantitative economic history that uses fully up-to-date econometric methods. The book's coverage of statistics applied to the social sciences makes it invaluable to a broad readership. As new sources and applications of data in every economic field are enabling economists to ask and answer new fundamental questions, this book presents an up-to-date reference on the topics at hand. Provides an historical outline of the two cliometric revolutions, highlighting the similarities and the differences between the two Surveys the issues and principal results of the "second cliometric revolution" Explores innovations in formulating hypotheses and statistical testing, relating them to wider trends in data-driven, empirical economics

Author : Rebecca Lemov
Publisher : Hill and Wang
ISBN 13 : 0374707294
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book World as Laboratory written by Rebecca Lemov and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deeply researched, World as Laboratory tells a secret history that's not really a secret. The fruits of human engineering are all around us: advertising, polls, focus groups, the ubiquitous habit of "spin" practiced by marketers and politicians. What Rebecca Lemov cleverly traces for the first time is how the absurd, the practical, and the dangerous experiments of the human engineers of the first half of the twentieth century left their laboratories to become our day-to-day reality.

Author : Judith A. Layzer
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262622149
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Natural Experiments written by Judith A. Layzer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: EBM entails collaborative, landscape-scale planning and flexible, adaptive implementation.

Author : Robert G. B. Reid
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262264420
Total Pages : 536 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Biological Emergences written by Robert G. B. Reid and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-08-21 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critique of selectionism and the proposal of an alternate theory of emergent evolution that is causally sufficient for evolutionary biology. Natural selection is commonly interpreted as the fundamental mechanism of evolution. Questions about how selection theory can claim to be the all-sufficient explanation of evolution often go unanswered by today's neo-Darwinists, perhaps for fear that any criticism of the evolutionary paradigm will encourage creationists and proponents of intelligent design. In Biological Emergences, Robert Reid argues that natural selection is not the cause of evolution. He writes that the causes of variations, which he refers to as natural experiments, are independent of natural selection; indeed, he suggests, natural selection may get in the way of evolution. Reid proposes an alternative theory to explain how emergent novelties are generated and under what conditions they can overcome the resistance of natural selection. He suggests that what causes innovative variation causes evolution, and that these phenomena are environmental as well as organismal. After an extended critique of selectionism, Reid constructs an emergence theory of evolution, first examining the evidence in three causal arenas of emergent evolution: symbiosis/association, evolutionary physiology/behavior, and developmental evolution. Based on this evidence of causation, he proposes some working hypotheses, examining mechanisms and processes common to all three arenas, and arrives at a theoretical framework that accounts for generative mechanisms and emergent qualities. Without selectionism, Reid argues, evolutionary innovation can more easily be integrated into a general thesis. Finally, Reid proposes a biological synthesis of rapid emergent evolutionary phases and the prolonged, dynamically stable, non-evolutionary phases imposed by natural selection.

Author : John Gribbin
Publisher : Race Point Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781631064159
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Cat in the Box written by John Gribbin and published by Race Point Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Cat in the Box, prolific science writers John and Mary Gribbin distill the fascinating and oddball history of scientific innovation into a hundred world-changing experiments. All science is based on curiosity, hypothesis, experimentation, and analysis. This basic formula has been in place for thousands of years, and has led to some of humankind's greatest achievements. From modern feats like cracking the human genome and using gravitational waves to detect a new kind of nova, to harnessing the power of rivers to power mills, it leads back to initial kernels of curiosity and testing. Renowned science writing duo, John and Mary Gribbin, retell the enlightening, fascinating, and often oddball stories of scientific innovation through the ages in their new book, The Cat in the Box. The tradition of curiosity, experimentation, analysis is rarely a straight road, and you will not believe some of the incredible stories the Gribbins' pull from labs and workshops from around the world.

Author : Steven Durlauf
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0230280811
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Microeconometrics written by Steven Durlauf and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Specially selected from The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics 2nd edition, each article within this compendium covers the fundamental themes within the discipline and is written by a leading practitioner in the field. A handy reference tool.