In order to facilitate personal development planning (PDP), the UK higher education sector is committed to introducing progress files. This article explores the experience of one institution in seeking to establish a system of progress files. It identifies the main practical problems in doing this, highlighting the lack of agreement on the skills that higher education students are expected to acquire and focuses on resourcing and strategic decision-making as keys to success. Effective implementation of progress files is seen as enhancing the learning experience of students. However, some concerns are expressed on whether this will be achieved across the whole of the UK higher education sector.
Preliminary statistical analysis of changes in health & in health programs in poor areas, where labor is the dominant factor of production, suggests a positive effect of health inputs on subsequent output. There is an econ rationale for such a relationship in poor lands, through changes in the vigor & motivation of the self-employed workers who are predominant in the LF. Such a positive role also fits new doctrines of growth, in which quality of factor inputs receives greater weight than quantity of labor or capital. There exists a need for such additional statistical analyses, & esp in small areas (villages, counties, districts), where outputs & production processes are more homogeneous than in nations as a whole. The results of such work could be fundamental to understanding the dynamic of health-pop-progress in poor lands. Existing documentation shows positive association between growth in pop & growth in output per person in the early progress yrs of today's rich lands. Parallel developments seem to pertain in the recent growth history of many of today's developing lands. The possibility that some measure of health inputs could serve as a tool & an index of econ & soc progress would call for changes in important current programs postulated on the negative influence of health inputs on the econ growth of today's poor lands. It would also encourage a re-allocation of the world's health resources in order to handle critical development tasks in areas with 'great unmet health needs_' HA.
Technology has been inextricably linked with capitalist development & notions of "progress." While technological development has undeniably brought benefits to certain sectors of society, its overall impact within the capitalist world has been detrimental. However, "first-epoch" socialist regimes such as the USSR were only marginally more successful at harnessing technology for egalitarian & ecologically sustainable ends. A truly socialist technology, one that puts people before profit, is feasible but will require wholesale political & conceptual transformations before it can be realized. K. W. Larsen
Preliminary statistical analysis of changes in health and in health programs in poor areas, where labor is the dominant factor of production, suggests a positive effect of health inputs on subsequent output. There is an economic rationale for such a relationship in poor lands, through changes in the vigor and motivation of the self-employed workers who are predominant in the labor force. Such a positive role also fits new doctrines of growth, in which quality of factor inputs receives greater weight than quantity of labor or capital. There exists a need for such additional statistical analyses, and especially in small areas (villages, counties, districts), where outputs and production processes are more homogeneous than in nations as a whole. The results of such work could be fundamental to understanding the dynamic of health-population-progress in poor lands. Existing documentation shows positive association between growth in population and growth in output per person in the early progress years of today's rich lands. Parallel developments seem to pertain in the recent growth history of many of today's developing lands. The possibility that some measure of health inputs could serve as a tool and an index of economic and social progress would call for changes in important current programs postulated on the negative influence of health inputs on the economic growth of today's poor lands. It would also encourage a re-allocation of the world's health resources in order to handle critical development tasks in areas with "great unmet health needs."
Today, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future, our very identity would be at stake. Written just before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic?which is now putting its argument to the hardest of tests?this lucid essay explores how science and technology have been, and can still be, a powerful engine for human and humane advancement --
Intro -- Foreword -- Contents -- 1 Is Progress in Science, Progress for Society? -- Abstract -- 2 Science and Social Communication -- Abstract -- Introduction -- The Internet: Its Impact on Science Communication -- Limits and Ethics of Scientific Communication -- Improving Scientific Communication -- The Social Perception of Science in Spain -- Scientific Communication in the European Union -- Conclusion -- 3 Understanding Phenomena by Building Models: Methodological Studies on Physical Chemistry -- Abstract -- Elements of Model-Building -- Building Models of Combustion Processes -- The Exploratory Use of Cognitive Models -- The Exploratory Use of Material Realizations -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- References -- 4 Making Education More Inclusive and More Integrated -- Abstract -- References -- 5 The Contribution of Social Sciences and the Humanities to Research Addressing Societal Challenges. Towards a Policy for Interdisciplinarity at European Level? -- Abstract -- Introduction -- A Brief History of Interdisciplinarity in the Framework Programmes -- The Promises of Horizon 2020 -- The Way Forward for a Genuine and Effective Policy of Interdisciplinarity at European Level -- Final Remarks -- Acknowledgements -- References -- 6 Science in an Age of (Non)Reason -- Abstract -- Introduction -- Extrinsic Constraints to Science-The Changing Role of Society -- Do the Mertonian Norms Still Have a Role in 'Post-Academic Science'? -- Science and Policy -- Intrinsic Constraints to Science-Agronomy and Food Production as an Example -- Conclusions -- References -- 7 New Perspectives in Genetic Therapies -- Abstract -- Introduction -- Somatic Gene Therapy -- Achievements -- In Vivo Gene Therapy -- Genome Editing -- Conclusions -- References -- 8 Technological Innovation as a Factor of Penetration of Science in Society -- Abstract
The problem of economic development was among the main preoccupations of the classical economists; and Karl Marx, Max Weber, and their followers continued to be interested in it. The Anglo-Saxon economists and their followers, however, during the century preceding the Second World War, all but forgot about economic development—perhaps because they took it for granted. The growth of most of the advanced economies was impressive enough to be taken for granted; as for the underdeveloped areas, next to nothing was known about their rates of growth, although economists (at least in the advanced countries) seem to have supposed that the magnitude of capital exports to these areas gave them a chance to develop even faster than, and ultimately to catch up with, the more highly developed Western economies. Only England's development received some attention and mild doubts were occasionally raised as to whether her rate of economic growth was as fast as it could and should have been. From the turn of the century onward, blue books and white papers appeared, uneasily comparing British with German and American industrial production, questioning the wisdom of exporting quite so much capital, stressing the need for more aggressive export drives—but next to nothing was done about all this. For one thing, the philosophy of laisser faire still ruled supreme; for another, business fluctuations obscured and rendered difficult a true assessment of the situation; for a third, Britain's continued political supremacy may have lulled concern over the deterioration of her relative economic position. The problem of development came to the forefront of economic discussion only with the Second World War, as a result of two important changes. In the West, political power shifted across the Atlantic; in the East, Russia's war record established her both as an important center of political attraction and as a shining example of the success of planned industrialization and development.
The article discusses the question raised by A.L. Nikiforov about the meaning and significance of scientific progress. It is shown that scientific progress, in accordance with the original meaning embedded in this concept, should be considered in the context of the universal development of the human reason, which covers not only the cognitive assimilation of the natural world, but also the construction of a harmonious society, and the improvement of man as such. Based on this, it is problematic to talk about autonomous scientific progress that does not affect the spiritual sphere. It is shown that changes in the understanding of progress refer not only to scientific or social progress, but to the whole complex of beliefs associated with the idea of the world development. The author traces the historical transformation of the three key concepts underlying the discourse of progress, which the researcher of the metaphysics of progress Alain de Benoist identifies as the most stable. First, the idea of linear progress, based on the mechanistic ontology and reductionism, is replaced by the concept of social evolution, based on the interaction of organic systems and subsystems. Secondly, the idea of the fundamental unity of humanity and a single science gives way to an irreducible multiplicity of cultures and metaphysics. Third, the idea of a controlled transformation of the world is replaced by the concept of uncertainty. The author traces the transformation of the idea of progress into the idea of the complication of the world. A characteristic feature of the discourse of complication is that it speaks of a distributed agent of the world process, thereby relieving man of exclusive responsibility for the course of history. The author defends the point of view that changes in the understanding of progress are an expression of increasing conceptual and ontological complexity.
Intro -- Dedication -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Foreword -- 1: The Withering Away of Progress -- Something Happened Between 1979 and 1989 -- A Look Back: The Invention of Progress -- The Experience with Progress: A Note on Method -- Dimensions of Progress -- A Look Forward: Embarking on the Work of Reconstruction -- Notes -- 2: Progress as Mechanism: The Epistemic-Economic Complex -- Progress of Knowledge: Science, the Endless Frontier? -- Economic Growth as Progress in the Satisfaction of Needs -- The Transformation of the Earth: The Emerging Great Divergence of Interpretations -- Progress Without End -- Notes -- 3: Progress as Struggle under Conditions of Ambivalence -- The Imaginary of Social and Political Progress: Equal Freedom -- Social Progress: Inclusion and Individualization -- Political Progress: Individual Rights and Collective Self-Determination -- The Ambivalence of Social and Political Progress and the Place of Critical Theory -- Notes -- 4: The Idea of Progress Revisited -- The Enlightenment Connection: Autonomy and Progress -- Critiques: Autonomy Undermining Progress -- Rereading the European Experience of Progress: Autonomy and Domination -- Progress between Personal Autonomy and Collective Autonomy -- Notes -- 5: The Past Half Century -- The Short-lived Return of Progress -- Progress within Borders: Organized Modernity and Its Discontents -- Protest and Progress at the End of Formal Domination -- The Trap of Hegemonic Discourse: the Erasure of Space and Time -- Preparing a Reality Test -- 6: Possible Progress Today -- The Issues at Stake -- The Reconstitution of Historical Temporality -- The Reconstitution of Meaningful Spatiality -- Progress Under Conditions of Autonomy: Agency and Critique -- Possible Progress (1): Building Democratic Agency -- Possible Progress (2): Overcoming New Kinds of Domination.