It’s a curious event: in January, thousands of red-winged blackbirds fell out of the sky in a relatively small area in Arkansas. Days earlier, in western Arkansas, 85,000 drum fish died. About the same time, in Baton Rouge, 500 dead birds were found in one area. That seems unusual. Let’s get to the bottom of…
A friend of mine was taking certification test for a well-known technology certification program. He studied for months, and passed both of them, though, he noted, “just barely.” I asked to see the printouts. There was one word on the certification that caught my eye, buried in the second sentence; in fact, it was the…
I was reviewing my IRA quarterly performance statement today, the legal form that gives statistics about the performance of mutual funds over the last quarter. The sheet has about 400 statistics reported, from 8 to 9 figures for each fund. As I type, an ad for T. Rowe Price is playing on the television, and…
A friend of mine is a professor at a top-tier university. As with most universities, large or small, top-tier or third-ranked, grade inflation is a problem. Harvard University, for example, has reported that most of its students have an A average in their classes. The problem is repeating itself all over the country. At the…
It has become a ritual of buying a used car, an icon of authority. You go to the dealers, scan ads in the paper, and pore over web sites to check out what’s available. After hours or days of searching, you find that special new-to-you vehicle that you want. You kick the tires, drive the…
What’s the difference? We all know what zero is. It’s a number, and yet it’s not a number. If we are counting, it means “none” of something. Zero is one less than one. Zero is the amount we want to owe on our taxes on April 15. Zero is the balance we want to see…
Part 2: The research of purpose. It is a curious thing that we must first examine the purpose of research in order to better understand the research of purpose. This is because I will present evidence over the course of these writings that our current research methods are not designed to research human concepts such…
Part 1: The purpose of research. It’s in all the science and social studies texts: What is the purpose of science? or What is the purpose of research? Usually the answer is simple, one designed to memorize for the test: The purpose of science is to predict behavior. The purpose of research is to understand…