Mdr Evans

The Legitimation of Inequality: Occupational Earnings in Nine Nations'

Comprehensive data on public beliefs about the legitimacy of income inequality gathered from large, representative national sample surveys in nine nations conducted by the International Social Survey Programme show: (1) broad agreement on the legitimate pay of low-status, ordinary jobs, (2) agreement that high-status, elite occupations should be paid more than the minimum, but (3) disagreement over how much more they should get. This disagreement is linked to politics and social structure, with older, high SES, politically conservative respondents preferring markedly higher pay for elite occupations, but usually not preferring lower pay for ordinary jobs.

Moral reasoning and political conflict: the abortion controversy.

We argue that the abortion controversy has one major source--religion--and two less important ones--attitudes towards sexual permissiveness and womens employment. Traditional Christianity promotes opposition to abortion using three distinct modes of moral reasoning: through deductive moral reasoning, by the Christian world views implication that abortion violates the sanctity of life and is a rebellion against Gods design; through authoritative moral reasoning by appeal to Catholic dogma; and through consequentialist moral reasoning, as a means of control over sexuality and as a means of confining womens activities to the home. Even aside from Christian belief, adherence to traditional morality promotes opposition to abortion on these consequentialist grounds. We posit a model in which religious belief, anti-feminism, sexual permissiveness, and attitudes towards abortion are distinct concepts (a four-factor model) rather than all simply aspects of a single conservatism factor. We develop reliable, multiple item attitude scales; show that our four-factor model fits the data much better than the one-factor alternative; and test our hypotheses on new data from a large, representative national sample of Australia (N = 4540). Using maximum likelihood structural equation methods, we find that deductive reasoning from Christian belief is the most important source of opposition to abortion, with strong effects both direct and indirect. Exposure to the authority of the Catholic hierarchy is a real but weaker source of opposition. Consequentialist reasoning from traditional moral views on sex--partly buttressed by religion, partly independent of it--is also influential. But views on womens employment matter only a little, contrary to received wisdom.

Attitudes Towards Childcare in Australia

Australians have reservations about formal childcare which have some impact on their approval of maternal employment, although concerns about deleterious effects of employment on mothering have an even stronger impact.

Strong Public Support for Treatment and Research Using Fetal Tissue, Particularly Among Those Accepting the Scientific World-View

Data from four large representative national sample surveys in Australia between 1993 and 2000 show strong public support for treatment using fetal tissue. Support remains high even if the treatment has only a remote chance of success, or if the goal is research rather than treatment. Regression analysis reveals striking new evidence on the links between science and moral beliefs. Even adjusting for religious denomination and numerous demographic characteristics, acceptance of evolution and of aspects of astronomy suggesting that life on earth is not unique greatly increases support for using fetal tissue. So does trust in scientists.

The Ethics of Gene Therapy and Abortion: Public Opinion

On the grounds that the public should be consulted in decisions concerning the legitimate scope of germ-line genetic therapy (GLGT), survey data on the ethics of GLGT were collected from a large (n = 1,403) representative national sample of Australians in 2002. The data show that opinion is quite divided over GLGT in the case of a ‘death sentence’ genetic defect: 36% would forbid it, 23% have mixed feelings and 41% would allow it. For less serious conditions there is more opposition to GLGT. Thus, 48% would forbid GLGT to remedy a minor physical defect and 52% would oppose GLGT to counteract a propensity to violence, but fully 73% would disallow GLGT for cosmetic reasons. The data also show that opposition to abortion is lower than opposition to GLGT in the case of a ‘death sentence’ genetic defect, but at about the same level as, or greater than, opposition to GLGT for less serious issues. The questions show good measurement properties, including low missing data rates, so they are likely to provide an accurate picture of the public’s views on the ethics of GLGT. It is suggested that a system for monitoring public opinion on these issues be developed.

Scholarly culture: How books in adolescence enhance adult literacy, numeracy and technology skills in 31 societies

A growing body of evidence supports the contention of scholarly culture theory that immersing children in book-oriented environments benefits their later educational achievement, attainment and occupational standing. These findings have been interpreted as suggesting that book-oriented socialization, indicated by home library size, equips youth with life-long tastes, skills and knowledge. However, to date, this has not been directly assessed. Here, we document advantageous effects of scholarly culture for adult literacy, adult numeracy, and adult technological problem solving. Growing up with home libraries boosts adult skills in these areas beyond the benefits accrued from parental education or own educational or occupational attainment. The effects are loglinear, with greatest returns to the growth in smaller libraries. Our evidence comes from regressions with balanced repeated replicate weights estimated on data from 31 societies which participated in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) between 2011 and 2015.

Making Memories: Why Time Matters

In the last decade advances in human neuroscience have identified the critical importance of time in creating long-term memories. Circadian neuroscience has established biological time functions via cellular clocks regulated by photosensitive retinal ganglion cells and the suprachiasmatic nuclei. Individuals have different circadian clocks depending on their chronotypes that vary with genetic, age, and sex. In contrast, social time is determined by time zones, daylight savings time, and education and employment hours. Social time and circadian time differences can lead to circadian desynchronization, sleep deprivation, health problems, and poor cognitive performance. Synchronizing social time to circadian biology leads to better health and learning, as demonstrated in adolescent education. In-day making memories of complex bodies of structured information in education is organized in social time and uses many different learning techniques. Research in the neuroscience of long-term memory (LTM) has demonstrated in-day time spaced learning patterns of three repetitions of information separated by two rest periods are effective in making memories in mammals and humans. This time pattern is based on the intracellular processes required in synaptic plasticity. Circadian desynchronization, sleep deprivation, and memory consolidation in sleep are less well-understood, though there has been considerable progress in neuroscience research in the last decade. The interplay of circadian, in-day and sleep neuroscience research are creating an understanding of making memories in the first 24-h that has already led to interventions that can improve health and learning.