Why there is reason to remain sceptical of Durston's scepticism

In this reply I argue that Durston's defence of his argument from the complexity of history ought to be unacceptable to the theist as it undermines not only common theistic attitudes towards God, such as gratitude and praise, but also the rationality of our ordinary moral practices.

Online self-and-peer-assessment for teamwork in architecture and business communications

There is considerable evidence of general student scepticism regarding the purpose of team assignments and high levels of concern for the fairness of assessment procedures when all members of a team receive the same grade. Some educators are similarly anxious about not only the validity of team grades, but also the need to assess ongoing team processes in addition to the final assignment product. This paper offers self-andpeer-assessment (SAPA) as a fair, valid and reliable method of producing information about ongoing team processes. The paper examines a pilot study investigating an online SAPA tool originally developed for a small class of architecture students. This tool is adapted for use for by students completing team assignment in two further architecture design units and for a very large class of 800 business communication students. The sample students studied on four campuses, as well as in off campus and offshore modes. The paper focuses on the initial stages of the study to demonstrate how researchers from very different backgrounds collaborated to adapt the online tool and implement a pilot study whilst maintaining both comparability of assessment and integrity of research design.

The evidence that exercise during growth or adulthood reduces the risk of fragility fractures is weak

There has never been, and will never be, a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial demonstrating that exercise in youth, adulthood or old age reduces fragility or osteoporosis-related fractures in old age. The next level of evidence, a randomized, controlled but unblinded study with fractures as an end-point is feasible but has never been done. The basis for the belief that exercise reduces fractures is derived from lower levels of ‘evidence’, namely, retrospective and prospective observation cohort studies and case–control studies. These studies are at best hypothesis generating, never hypothesis testing. They are all subject to many systematic biases and should be interpreted with extreme scepticism. Surrogate measures of anti-fracture efficacy are the next level of evidence, such as the demonstration of a reduction in risk factors for falls, a reduction in falls, a reduction in fractures due to falls, an increase in peak bone size and mass, prevention of bone loss in midlife and restoration of bone mass and structure in old age.

Sustainable property - the future of the New Zealand market

The New Zealand property industry has recently been introduced to the concept of sustainability. Even though targeted measures have been taken by the New Zealand Green Building Council and government, there is considerable hesitation and scepticism existing in the property market from both an investor’s and a building owner’s perspective. This paper discusses the results of an investigation into market perception of sustainable buildings from the investment community in New Zealand. Property investors from New Zealand were surveyed about their perception of sustainable buildings in New Zealand and their actions with regards to their own commercial portfolios, as well as the relationship between sustainability and property investment decisions.

The rise of China and South Korea : sunshine and beyond

While China’s re-emergence at both the regional and global levels has attracted much attention, a less discernible development has been South Korea’s bid to adopt a more robust foreign policy. For the decade following the establishment of bilateral relations with the mainland in 1992, South Korea viewed China as a valuable partner that could facilitate its foreign policy goals. Although differing in ambition and capacity, in several respects—their preferred methods of resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, their expanding trade and investment, and their scepticism about Japanese intentions—the regional perspectives of China and South Korea proved to be highly complementary. However, closer ties with China complicate Korea’s relations with the United States, whose regional leadership China is beginning to challenge. In light of the adverse impact of the rise of China on the Korea–US alliance and other developments (notably the dispute involving the Goguryeo kingdom), South Korea’s views of China have cooled. This paper traces the Korean debate about the rise of China and its implications.

Developing a stakeholder analysis to aid bio-based product innovation

Purpose – The results which that study seeks to report are the first part of a larger research programme funded by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science & Technology (FRST) aimed at gaining a better understanding of stakeholder perceptions in relation to bio-based products.

Design/methodology/approach – Utilising three chemically modified wood products, data were collected from focus groups and questionnaires and centred primarily on perceptions surrounding the acceptability of building materials that have been bio-modified. Irrespective of the type of chemical modification, family health and durability were the most important factors identified.

Findings – The study finds that product cost rated lower in the 16 factors evaluated, and energy used in production was of little concern. When comparing the three products to one another, two distinct groups with quite differing purchasing philosophies were identified and these perspectives significantly influenced perceptions of product acceptability and willingness to purchase. Utilising a paired comparison technique, an investigation of trade-offs indicated preference for performance over cost and product familiarity. Similarly, low chemical emissions were also preferred over cost considerations. Among the findings, there was scepticism regarding trust in manufacturers to adequately safeguard health and safety and to have a minimum impact on the environment. Low levels of trust were expressed in regard to manufacturers' concern for future generations.

Originality/value – The paper develops an investigative framework which could be applied to the evaluation of products arising from bio-material technology innovation and recommendations for future research directions.

Reducing corruption in international business decisions : prospects, frameworks & techniques

This paper reports the results of a rare interview/questionnaire survey of 41 multinational business managers in India regarding their personal experiences of corrupt practices. Despite current trends and traditional scepticism, quite favourable prospects for reducing corruption are indicated, provided that multifaceted approaches are adopted that appeal to intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Accordingly, a corruption related decision-making model is proposed, for use as an heuristic guide in circumstances involving corrupt business practices.

Giorgio de Chirico and the idea of enigmatic imagery : the innocence of becoming

My paintings emerge from within a context best explained by reference to Nietzsche's perspectivism. That is an intellectual attitude that deprivileges rationalism and accommodates scepticism or unknowing as an acceptable starting point From this standpoint art/language can be seen as being in a state of becoming rather than as representing a state of being. This thesis aims to demonstrate, not only by a philosophical encounter with Giorgio de Chirico's work: ie. his use of myth, his Nietzschean perspectivism and his enigmatic interpretation of figuration, that the most helpful context and understanding of my work can be realied. De Chirico's art, like Nietzsche's philosophy seeks in its processes to explore the possible unity of Dionysian aesthetic force with the Apollonian. Neither Nietzsche nor de Chirico considered within a post-Socratic world that this unity was realizable. Nevertheless they both share in their respective art forms a need to represent the relentless struggle to enact the disjunction of the two aesthetic forces in a secular world. The artist’s enigmatic imagery is characterized by a consideration of appearance and reality and it is for this reason that the work was selected as a model for investigating the nature of enigma. His use of seemingly straightforward, ordinary images suggests a sense of accessibility, yet at the same time they are irreducible to knowing and my own image-making was greatly expanded by investigating these concerns. I am not arguing that de Chirico was influenced by Nietzsche but instead that Nietzsche's philosophical point of view and his use of poetic language to express these views lay in discovering the qualities and substance of the Dionysian spirit As well as working within a Nietzschean world-view set out in The Birth of Tragedy, de Chirico has also drawn on the Italian unification, specifically the Risorgimento and the lineage of these political and mythical figures were endemic to his art and they interface the with his use of the Apollonian-Dionysian disunity first explored by Nietzsche. The focus of the exegesis will be to present the poetic and philosophical use made of the latter in de Chirico’s art It is anticipated that this philosophical encounter with the aesthetic, social and political world of de Chirico will, not only assist in interpreting his life's work anew, but will also provide a context in which my paintings of enigma might be interpreted.

Prediction politics : the politics of econometric modelling in Australia

Examines the scepticism that accompanies econometric modelling in Australia in the context of the shift from public to commercial funding. It subsequently assesses scientific status claims while arguing that taking the politics of econometric modelling seriously promotes both better debate and better policy formation.

Formalizing the concept of entrepreneurial capacity

This study develops a definition of the concept of entrepreneurial capacity and formalizes it in two models explaining how value is created in the innovation process. The formalization integrates the influential opportunity-based definition of entrepreneurship research offered by Shane and Venkataraman (2000) with the consensus prevailing in the management, strategy, economics and entrepreneurship literatures that innovation is a process for transforming the inherent economic value of new knowledge into realized economic value for identified stakeholders. The linear flow and mathematical models presented in the study possess the clarity and richness required of a theoretical framework for generating and testing insightful hypotheses. This study, regarding Penrose (1959) more as theorist of entrepreneurship than of resources, deepens scepticism about the relevance to entrepreneurship of the literatures on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC). Finally, the arguments and perspectives of the study imply several pedagogic possibilities and challenges for entrepreneurship educators.

The invincible summer : on Albert Camus’ philosophical neoclassicism

What follows is a work of critical reconstruction of Camus' thought. It aims to answer to the wish Camus expressed in his later notebooks, that he at least be read closely. Specifically, I hope to do three things. In Part I, we will show how Camus' famous philosophy of the absurd represents a systematic scepticism whose closest philosophical predecessor is Descartes' method of doubt, and whose consequence, as in Descartes, is the discovery of a single, orienting certainty, on the basis of which Camus would proceed to pass beyond the 'nihilism' that conservative critics continued to level against him (MS 34). Part II will unfold the central tenets of Camus' mature thought of rebellion, and show how Camus' central political claims follow from his para-Cartesian claim to have found an irreducible or 'invincible' basis for a post-metaphysical ethics, consistent with the most thoroughgoing epistemic scepticism. Part III then undertakes to show that the neoclassical rhetoric and positioning Camus claimed for his postwar thought—as a thought of moderation or mesure, and a renewed Greek or Mediterranean naturalism—is more than a stylistic pretension. It represents, so I argue, a singular amalgam of modern and philosophical classical motifs which makes Camus' voice nearly unique in twentieth century ideas, and all the more worth reconsidering today. So let us proceed.

Working around a contested diagnosis : borderline personality disorder in adolescence

This discourse analytic study sits at the intersection of everyday communications with young people in mental health settings and the enduring sociological critique of diagnoses in psychiatry. The diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is both contested and stigmatized, in mental health and general health settings. Its legitimacy is further contested within the specialist adolescent mental health setting. In this setting, clinicians face a quandary regarding the application of adult diagnostic criteria to an adolescent population, aged less than 18 years. This article presents an analysis of interviews undertaken with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) clinicians in two publicly funded Australian services, about their use of the BPD diagnosis. In contrast with notions of primacy of diagnosis or of transparency in communications, doctors, nurses and allied health clinicians resisted and subverted a diagnosis of BPD in their work with adolescents. We delineate specific social and discursive strategies that clinicians displayed and reflected on, including: team rules which discouraged diagnostic disclosure; the lexical strategy of hedging when using the diagnosis; the prohibition and utility of informal ‘borderline talk’ among clinicians; and reframing the diagnosis with young people. For clinicians, these strategies legitimated their scepticism and enabled them to work with diagnostic uncertainty, in a population identified as vulnerable. For adolescent identities, these strategies served to forestall a BPD trajectory, allowing room for troubled adolescents to move and grow. These findings illuminate how the contest surrounding this diagnosis in principle is expressed in everyday clinical practice.

The Asian/Chinese century from the Chinese perspective

Front and centre in Australia's contemporary discourse about Asia is no longer the 'Yellow Peril', but the Asian Century. Nowhere is this new Asia discourse more prominent than in the recently released White Paper titled Australia in the Asian Century, whose broad themes on getting on to the Asia bandwagon have received rare bipartisan support in Canberra. Yet, in China, one of the main actors in the so-called 'Asian Century', this concept has yet to be widely embraced. While there has been some upbeat Chinese assessment of China's future in the new century, overall Chinese attitude has been characterised by ambivalence, caution and even scepticism about this notion (and its 'Chinese Century' variant). This article examines both Chinese perspectives on the Asian/Chinese Century and their implications for Australia's engagement with Asia and China. It argues that the Chinese ambivalence, conditioned by their historical memory and contemporary awareness of the US-dominated strategic order, needs to be taken more seriously by Australian observers and policy-makers, for such China knowledge could help Australia better reflect on its own hope and anxiety about the future of Asia and its at once promising and uneasy place within the region.