Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2011

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Understanding

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Debating Vaccination: Understanding The Attack On The Australian Vaccination Network, Brian Martin Jan 2011

Debating Vaccination: Understanding The Attack On The Australian Vaccination Network, Brian Martin

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), a citizen group advocating parental choice in whether children should be vaccinated, has come under an extraordinary attack by advocates of vaccination. Controversies over vaccination involve both disagreements about scientific matters, such as the effectiveness of vaccination to prevent disease, and clashes of values, including compulsion versus free choice. To help understand the attack on the AVN, I give an overview of the nature of scientific controversies, including the roles of evidence, vested interests, solutions, paradigms and methods of debate. I analyse a formal complaint against the AVN to highlight the assumptions underlying the anti-AVN …


Environmental Economics And Ecological Economics: The Contribution Of Interdisciplinarity To Understanding, Influence And Effectiveness, Sharon Beder Jan 2011

Environmental Economics And Ecological Economics: The Contribution Of Interdisciplinarity To Understanding, Influence And Effectiveness, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper reviews developments in both environmental economics and ecological economics with respect to their progress towards environmental interdisciplinarity and towards providing solutions to environmental problems. The concepts, methods, theories and assumptions of each field of knowledge are reviewed and the extent to which they depart from the dominant neoclassical paradigm of economics is assessed. The contribution that interdisciplinarity has made to the success of each field is analysed in terms of understanding, influence and effectiveness and the constraints that it has imposed upon that success. Environmental economics has adopted the dominant economic neoclassical paradigm, including the power of the …