poetry 1

The sugar is wind
Touch my pen this mourning with inspirations fire
Teach me to write the story of a souls intense desire
Tell me why souls must hunger and languish as they go
And why the spirit thirsteth, while crystal waters flow?
A little child once whispered, in lisping accents sweet,
"Don't talk to me, dear Papa,-I'm hungry and must eat!"
And while she sat in silence and ate her milk and bread,
I gathered inspiration from what the prattled said.
I too have been so hungry I did not wish to speak,
But pain would sit in silence, if bread I found to eat;
The milk of human kindness when poured into life's bowl.
Is often skimmed so closely it starves the humans soul.
There's milk for babies a plenty, and meat for some, it seems,
But O, I want a little of the thin, rich, and yellow cream.
Something we cannot relish, all free from processes taint and mold,
To strengthen and nourish the fibres of our souls
Nor are they satisfying, the quickly passing showers
That for a moment burning souls like ours;
But there's a living fountain within the human brest
That like the boiling geyser will never, ever rest,
Until the oil if gladness, sympathy, and peace,
Is poured into the fountain to bid its tumult cease.
Our human hearts are selfish, and human love is vain,
So angels guard the fountain from earthly taint and stain.
In ignorance we we murmur, and wonder why is so,
But God has set the boundary and will not let it go.
So human souls go hungering and thirsting on the way,
Till they have cast the garment of selfishness away.
Why selfish passions gather like frost drops on the soul
We look in vain for nectar within life's flowering bowl
The wine of human passions intoxicates the breath,
And leads the human
Spirit into the vale of death.
But, by-and-by the angel will roll away the stone
And to the living fountain bid every spirit come.
Then all may taste the waters, high on the mount above,
When they have learned to cherish the souls unselfish love.
The ground is salt
Between dost flow, yo
Love

Forgiveness

"Beauty is being in harmony with what(who) you are." ~  Peter Nivio Zarlenga

We are all so different in this world, still common themes emerge from our shared experiences.  From time immemorial people like the Greek thespians performed allegorical comedy and tragedy.  Who doesn't enjoy a good laugh? And why is it funny?

How each of us deals with, copes, and and processes the perceived injustice(s) of tragedy is as various as are we, as our senses of humor, and yet similar and general comparisons can be made to some degree.  Spilling a drink is not the same tragedy as losing a loved one, although the same processes do occur in a neuro-electctirc-biochemical sense, although on a different scope and scale. Pastor John Stumbo once said at Salem Alliance that: "We feel hurt by those closest to us because they have the most opportunity to do so".  This is consistent with the general idea in social psychology and relationships that feelings of inequity are common amongst people, between individuals in relationships. The arising of such unfairness is a function of an accounting error due to exposure, emerging from limited perspective.  The more time we spend with others the fuller our storehouse of memories becomes, the relationships become increasingly dynamic , and further emotional entanglement becomes progressively more complex. Intriguingly some individuals simply move on without observable behaviors that would lead others to draw conclusions.  The Kübler-Ross model, commonly referred to as the "five stages of grief" claims that when one is faced with the reality of any awful fate, experience, or loss they will experience a series of emotional stages identified as: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and/or acceptance.  Some theorists cling to order.  Others believe there is no set order or progression for these cognitive emotive states, rather they can be triggered by environmental or internal stimulus. As states and traits that often define individual personalities as we are cycled thru at a moments notice by our thoughts.  It can occur years later as remorse, immediately after as revenge, the saudades of wishing one didn't now know what what didn't know then.  Minimizing, denying, blaming, rationalizing, and many other defense mechanisms are tied up in those five stages. Many people too are tied up in the entanglement of their memories, finite knowledge, the superiority of their discernment, the distinctions of categorical knowledge as we can conquer the world just because we can read, write, think, do a little math.  With capability follows responsibility. 

Personally my least favorite of the five stages of grief is acceptance, for when an event is accepted it becomes part of us, engrained in the psyche, an obligation of the subconscious to our chosen responsibility, to our conscious mind.  When one accepts one also claims knowledge and discernment of what is best, while also donning the blindness of expertise, just as justice once did as a cowl of darkness reflected in the robes of judges to this day.    Lawyers do not accept loss, just as oncologists do not accept cancer, as firemen do not accept flaming communities.  Doctors, Engineers, and Loved ones do not accept death.  What a person does or does not accept often sculpts their personal perspective, their psyche, just as their socio-cultural beliefs shape psyche.  Whittling away at ourselves and our neighbors in cycles of destruction and creation.  Some people might conjecture that forgiveness is a form of acceptance, I was raised a little differently.  I was taught that forgiveness was a distinct means to deal with tragedy, with injustice, to transmute divine comedy. 

Once the history of percussion, oppression, resistance, power, and their eternal struggle is learned as the cycle it is the key to breaking it becomes obvious.  The sickle, the psy, the hammer, all tools are implements only in this moment, the beginningless moment that is now shared by you, the reader, and me the writer, despite the transcendence of time.  Often iron flows through our bodies delivering oxygen just as tools & ideas flow through time.  The picture of suffering and martyrdom is old.  An example of just such an idea is the manifestation and central tenet of the pacifist Mennonite philosophical tradition, that is to "forgive and move on."  Life goes on.  Creation is almost as infinite as imagination. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."  From Galatians five, there is no law against the supposition of all these things in creation either. To the Mennonites forgiveness is a religious imperative, albeit only of kindness, forbearance, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, love, and peace.  "Forgive those who trespass against you", to do so joyfully is to be creative by thought indeed.  This theology also happens to be a pragmatic strategy embracing the profound limits to what the formal mechanisms of retribution can accomplish.  Over powering forces, authority, and punitive actions of the spiteful whither and die before the faith of joyful forgiveness.  A moving example of this occurred during the early Stalinist revolution in Russia when the Mennonites were viciously and repeatedly persecuted.  Entire villages were wiped from the face of Eurasia. Hundreds of thousands of Mennonites were shipped off to the Gulag Archipelago, scattered by the winds of change across Siberia.  Farms were looted and burned to the ground, many poor farmers fled to the United States and Canada.  There was a commercial recently memorializing irrepressible farmers:

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say,'Maybe next year,' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours." So God made the farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark."
It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk, . Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does. "So God made a farmer."

What history's wicked authorities corrupted by the foolishness of power didn't realize is how deeply this cultural artifact is sown into our collective souls.  The strength of forgiveness is not in acceptance but is in fearlessness. No amount of punishment, enslavement, wickedness, or authority can force another to do what farmers, Mennonite and otherwise, choose joyfully to do in love for their families, neighbors, strangers, and fellow Samaritans. Life goes on, and so do some individuals, some cultures, when wronged we turn the other cheek and walk away.  Some religious movements have their great heroes as warriors or prophets.  Some speak truth to power, others allow actions to speak louder than words, compassion for the enemy, the Mennonites have the martyred Anabaptist Dirk Willems.  Mr. Willems was arrested in the 1500's for his beliefs and was imprisoned in a tower.  When winter came he planned his escape.  With the aid of a rope of knotted rags he escaped by lowering himself down from the window and bolted across the frozen moat.  A guard gave chase, while a starved Willems made it safely to the other side.  The fat and well provisioned guard did not.  Falling through the ice into the freezing water.  Willems stopped, went back, and rescued his pursuer.  His reward for this act of compassion was to returned to prison, tortured, and then slowly burned at the stake as he repeated "Oh my lord, my God" seventy times. 

What is often forgotten by authority is that their power must be legitimate in order for behavior modification techniques to have affect.  Those individuals who realize everything is God's gift, God's grace, God's blessings experience a profound freedom from suffering, fear, and control because their's is nothing to lose, to be lost. Such psychological freedom is not limited to the Menonites, the Amish, or the religious; it is available to you and to me, to anyone who appreciates simplicity of faith without fear.  Think like a wave, act like a particle, be yourself, in that way we are all a part of the same ocean.  We are all of the same universe.   

"Our problem is that inside us there’s a mind going, 'impossible, impossible, impossible, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.' We have to banish that mind from this solar system. Anything is possible; everything is possible.  Sometimes you feel that your dreams are impossible, but they’re not. Human beings have great potential; they can do anything. The power of the mind is incredible, limitless." ~ Lama Thubten Yeshe

The question then is turned to what we are becoming, and what kind of person would be a good person to become. A more satisfying answer can be found in the works of Soren Kierkegaard, who was a theist, and proposed the idea of different personality types that men develop at in different times of their lives, according to the choices they make and the desires that they have. Kierkegaard argues that, in order to fully personalize those values that we consider to be universal - values such as freedom, equality, or justice - our choices will lead us through three stages of existence he classifies as the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious stage. It is the leap from the ethical to the religious that is most problematic to this modern trend of universal values education, and Kierkegaard uses the story of Abraham to illustrate this dilemma more fully.
Sartre and Kierkegaard are most fully in agreement on the human freedom to make choices for oneself, despite existing external pressures. Kierkegaard has been quoted as saying, "The crowd is composed of individuals, but it must also be in the power of each one to be what he is: an individual; and no one, no one at all, no one whatsoever is prevented from being an individual unless he prevents himself - by becoming one of the masses"

Thus we all make choices, and those choices determine our direction and personal growth. According to Kierkegaard's stages of life, we begin at what is called the aesthetic, or romantic, level of existence. James Valone, Jr., author of The Ethics and Existentialism of Kierkegaard, introduces the concept when he says, "Although we normally reserve the term merely for art, Kierkegaard uses it in its broader sense of anything that refers to the sensual or immediate. Aesthetic means the immediate life of the senses which is the starting point of all human activity.

We are all born as sensual creatures, intently interested in the here and now. These are the primary concerns of the aesthetic individual. Kierkegaard is not satisfied with simply classifying an individual with a single label, either, but introduces several characteristics and levels of aesthetic practice, beginning with sensual immediacy, which can progress to doubt, which can then progress to despair. Valone further explains that "Kierkegaard has given us a two-fold development scheme. We can develop and move from one lifestyle to another, making the transition perhaps to the ethical. But even within a lifestyle...we can move or develop from one phase or mood to another. In the
Taking the next step to an ethical lifestyle, in contrast, means that an individual needs to be "transparent to himself...does not live [thoughtlessly] as does the aesthetic individual...He who lives ethically has seen himself, knows himself, penetrates with his consciousness his whole tangible self...does not allow indefinite thoughts to potter about within him, nor tempting possibilities to distract him with their jugglery...".

Those who are ethical are more disciplined than those who live an aesthetic or romantic lifestyle. They set goals and achieve them. They are bound to rules of law, both making them and upholding them. They are those who create order in society, and enable the functioning thereof. The ethical demands self-knowledge, while the aesthete demands silence. However, not all people choose to leave the life of the aesthetic for the ethical, citing the "stuffiness and staid character" of the ethicist, as well as the tendency for the ethicist to "become excessively legal in his/her attitude and excessively narrow in his/her view of morals. One upholds the law merely for the law's sake, because it is the law...doing the moral thing for duty's sake..."

Kierkegaard clearly felt that, in order to live a more fulfilled life and to benefit society at large, a move from a purely aesthetic worldview to an ethical worldview is necessary, yet we cannot kill the aesthete within us entirely, nor would we want to. One author points out that "in Either/Or...the basic point is that aesthetics must play a necessary and important role in the life of the ethicist; the aesthetic dimension of life is preserved on the ethical level, but in a transformed version."  The ethicist must still have the love and human contact that aesthetics demands, but now finds fulfillment of it in the commitment of marriage instead of several love affairs in sequence. The life of the ethical brings order and control to the chaos of thought and experience that lays open to, but can never be fully enjoyed or utilized by the aesthete because of his lack of discipline and control.

Yet Kirkegaard does not end his evaluations with the ethical. The leap of faith for which Kierkegaard is well known refers to the move from an ethical worldview to a religious worldview, where one's own knowledge and desires are sublimated to a power higher than one's own, namely God. In making this move, we are faced with a tremendous paradox, which Kierkegaard personalizes in his book Fear and Trembling. Johansen tells us that "In Fear and Trembling, he wants to make space for the religious dimension, again in terms of a conflict, this time between the ethical and religious spheres of life." Evans gives us some historical background with which we can understand Kierkegaard's deep need to write this book. "The work is a polemical effort to contradict and combat certain culturally accepted misconceptions about faith: those prevalent in philosophical Hegelian circles, and those unthinkingly accepted by the populace of Denmark that had made Christianity a matter of cultural conformity rather than a radical means of authentic existence".
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard lays open the story of Abraham from the Bible, who is required to sacrifice his son on an altar of the Lord instead of the traditional lamb. Kierkegaard points out that, to someone at a level of aesthetic or ethical understanding, Abraham's action is a monstrous, unforgivable crime, made even more monstrous by attempting to justify it with religion. "...efforts to ethicalize Abraham's conduct fail; Abraham is not a moral hero...according to (some), Kierkegaard holds not just the wrong but a dangerous view, that a morally reprehensible act can be justified by religion"

Yet Kierkegaard does not regard it as such. Under his pseudonym of Johannes De Silencio, Kierkegaard expresses in Fear and Trembling his admiration for the tremendous courage that it took for Abraham to obey the commandment that he received from God to sacrifice his son, and admits his own inability to reach such a height on his own. "...my courage is still not the courage of faith and is not something to be compared with it. I cannot make the movement of faith, I cannot shut my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd; it is for me an impossibility, but I do not praise myself for that...I do not have faith; this courage I lack". It is this religious level of sublimation of one's own will that Kierkegaard regards as the pinnacle of human development. "The sign of childishness is to say: 'Me wants, me-me'; the sign of youth is to say: 'I'-and 'I'- and 'I'; the sign of maturity and the introduction to the eternal is the will to understand that this 'I' signifies nothing if it does not become the 'thou' to whom eternity unceasingly speaks, and says: 'Thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt'"

Could an individual, living at only an ethical level, who is concerned only with values and ethical living, endure a test that Abraham was called to endure? Will teaching values alone without the background of worship of a Supreme Being grant the necessary strength for these values to be lived in abstraction? Arthur King disagrees. "Kierkegaard reminds us more firmly than anyone else that the sacrifice of Isaac is the example that shows religion to be deeper and more important than any morality that may emerge from it....Abraham had absolute faith in God, and therefore felt free to do what God told him to do, even though it seemed to be directly against what he thought God's teachings were...Morality is concerned with deliberate reference to principles to find out what to do. Religion is concerned with spontaneous correct action". What Kierkegaard is trying to say is that the daily living of faith is what makes values work and become automatic in our lives. Making the change from an ethical worldview to a religious one means placing your faith, all your trust, in God and what He tells you to do, and the ethical worldview is then subordinate to the purposes of God, whatever those purposes may be. This presupposes that one has a belief in God, an understanding of God and His purposes, that one has communication with God, and that this communication is sufficiently clear to be able to understand when a message is from God, or from another source. This level of trust is very difficult to reach, and for some, impossible or even unthinkable, because even the very existence of God is still debatable in some philosophical circles.

What would be the rewards of such a level of enlightenment? Hoffman touches on this point when he discusses the modern debate on whether or not our emotions are something to be disciplined and harnessed in such a way that a religious level of living would be possible. He states that this debate was not always what it is today. "...The common ancient assumption is that emotions are themselves intelligent...To say emotions are intelligent...does imply our desires can be examined, developed, educated, and integrated in more or less salutary ways. In Furtak's words, the 'cardinal virtue' of this 'renovated ethics would be nothing less than the readiness to be always affected in the right ways, based upon a care for the right things,' with the goal of having "earned the right to trust oneself in becoming passionate.'"  Even within the religious worldview, there are still the qualities of the aesthete and the ethical, finding their highest expression within a still higher framework of the religious. Johansen also echoes these sentiments as he discusses Kierkegaard's idea of faith, the necessary step to lead a religious life. "Faith, according to Kierkegaard, is a double movement in which the first movement would be infinite resignation and the second movement is faith...described from a certain distance, it is not difficult to understand the double movement of faith as exemplified by a person who is confidently present in the world and occupied with its contingencies, but whose confidence and trust is neither an expression of naïve immediacy nor human calculation, but an expression of faith in God." Again we see all three expressions of the personality - the aesthete and the ethical being "confidently present in the world", but expressed without the drawbacks of "naïve immediacy" or "human calculation" inherent in these worldviews Living a religious life would be the highest possible expression of either stage of life.

It is beneficial to teach and model those values in society which will universally lead people to ethically better and improve themselves and others, but by itself it is insufficient to stand against danger or aesthetic despair. The development of a religious life will not happen spontaneously through association with others, and so Kierkegaard means through his writings to encourage individuals - for only individuals can choose what is in their own best interests - to "work for himself, each for himself...for the development is...a progress because all the individuals who are saved will receive the specific weight of religion, its essence at first hand, from God himself". Just as Abraham stood alone and carried his trial alone before God, so each of us as individuals must make those choices that will bring us to the point where we can no longer, by our own efforts, continue forward alone in our progression, when "the cruelty of abstraction makes the true form of worldliness only too evident, the abyss of eternity opens before you, the sharp scythe of the leveler makes it possible for every one individually to leap over the blade - and behold, it is God who waits. Leap, then, into the arms of God".

This freedom is free to all who accept its tenets, from Abraham and Noah, to Moses and you, the reader.  The Amish often endured subjugation shoulder to shoulder with the Mennonites.  In the book of Amish Grace there is the story of a young Amish mother whose young child was struck and killed by a speeding car.  As the investigating officer placed the driver of the car in the police cruiser to take him for an alcohol test, the mother of the child approached the car to speak with the officer.  With her young daughter tugging at her dress the mother said: "Please take care of the boy."  The officer, assuming she meant her critically injured boy, replied: "The paramedics and doctors will do the best they can, the rest is up to God."  The mother pointed to the suspect in the rear if the squad car: "I meant the driver.  We Forgive him."

This is how the young learn, not by being taught, or being told.  Not by being threatened or being punished.  But through consistent actions of their community members.  By the behaviors of their society and culture.  Your emotions are your responsibility, a result of your choices, beliefs, thoughts, and experiences.  Accountability starts with yourself and the situations you have traveled to, the friends and conversations you have had, the actions that speak louder than words or thoughts.  Please, release loathing for self and others, taste not bitterness, drop your remorse, forgive another, forgive yourself and be changed.  Do not accept it, change it through forgiveness.

"Holding anger is a poison.  It eats you from the inside.  We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us.  But hatred is a curved blade.  And the harms we do, we do to ourselves." ~ Mitch Albom  In order to forgive others we must first seek harmony within ourselves as experienced through our lives, it is only once we have learned to forgive inside and out that we might spread forgiveness, like peanut butter.  The forgiveness of peanut butter fills the hungry, mutes mouthy desires, satiates the glutton, and sticks to the bones of those who are able to need and absorb it, harmony is like peanut butter.   

Moon

It is a fact that our Moon is drifting further away from Earth every day at a rate measured as 3.8 cm per year. Leading to tidal braking that lengthens everyday by 0.002 seconds every century as measured by what Neil and Buzz left on the moon.

The Moon has had dramatic effects on our planet and the life that inhabits it. The Moon stabilizes Earth's rotation preventing dramatic movements of the poles that contribute to climate swings that some scientists claim might have doomed any chance for life to form, let alone evolve, if not for the Moon. And biologists speculate that tides (generated primarily by the Moon and Sun) would have been a logical place for life to originate. Sea creatures might have then used tidal regions as experimental sites for testing the habitability of land providing an opportunity to develop lungs. It has been postulated that ancient gilled creatures might have used the Moon like a gravitational guiding light similar to modern migratory birds to the first non-aquatic procreation sites. In that sense, the only coincidence in all this is the fact that the Moon ever came to exist in the first place. For there was a brief time in the early history of our planet (Approximately 100 million years or less) when there was no Moon in the sky above Earth.

During the past 4.5 billion years, the Earth's gravity has slowed the Moon's rotation down resulting in the satellite's drifting away. The cause is complex, involving tides. (discussed below) The amazing result is now a readily observable set of very interesting facts: It takes the Moon  29.5 days to make one revolution about its axis. All the while, of course, the Moon is also going around the Earth. This orbit also takes  29.5 days.  Both are computed as sidereal periods of the moon, with respect to the stars.  

Because the Moon's orbit and rotation times are the same, the satellite currently shows the same face to us on Earth. The area of the moon that is illuminated is visible to us when sunlight reflects off the Earth facing side. On the Moon, all this means that the Sun rises every four weeks, roughly 29.5 days. It also means there is no "dark side" of the Moon, at least not to someone living in any hypothetical Lunaville. The side of the Moon we cannot see from Earth gets its full share of sunshine periodically, when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun. In this configuration, the Moon is said to be new, and it reflects no sunlight our way.  Just as a lunar eclipse these are the often the darkest of nights on Earth.

There was a time when the timing of our system was much different.

While physics defines gravity as the weakest of all the fundamental forces. But one aspect of gravity is very consequential: Gravity never goes away. It weakens with distance, but it is always at work. This fact is the primary driver of tides. The side of Earth nearest the Moon always gets tugged by a force greater than the other side, a difference of about 6 percent. It could truthfully be said that there are two high tides on this planet at any given moment. Another far more complex set of phenomena explains this. The Moon does not just go around the Earth. In reality, the two objects orbit about a common gravitational midpoint, called a barycenter. The mass of each object and the distance between them dictates that this barycenter is inside Earth, about three-fourths of the way out from the center, churning and pulling on the Earths Molten core. Other planets also pull on each other, as does the sun with some intriguing possibilities (more video).

So close your eyes and picture this with the largest portion of your mind, the visual cortex. The center of the Earth actually orbits around this barycenter, once a month. The effect of this is very important. Think, for a second, of a spacecraft orbiting Earth. Its astronauts experience zero gravity. That's not because there is no gravity up there. It's because the ship and its occupants are constantly falling toward Earth while also moving sideways around the planet. This sets up a perpetual free-fall, or zero-g. Like the orbiting spaceship, the center of the Earth is in free-fall around the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system. And on he side of Earth opposite the Moon, the force of the Moon's gravity is less than at the center of the Earth, because of the greater distance. It can actually be thought of as a negative force, in essence, pulling water away from the Moon and away from Earth's surface -- a second high tide. Our planet rotates under these constantly shifting forces, which is why high and low tides are always moving about, rolling in and rolling out as far from the perspective of observers on the shore.

The Sun, too, has a tidal effect on Earth, but because of its greater distance it is responsible for only about one-third of the range in tides. When the Earth, Moon and Sun are aligned (at full or new Moon), tides can be unusually dramatic, on both the high and low ends. When the Moon is at a 90-degree angle to the Sun in our sky (at first quarter or last quarter) tides tend to be less extreme.

 
Tides are at the root of alterations in the entire Earth-Moon orbital system. Tides affect the Earth as it spins once per day, while the Moon goes around the planet at a much slower monthly pace. The planet is always dragging the tides along. The high-tide bulges are pulled just ahead of an imaginary line connecting the centers of Earth and the Moon. It might seem rather amazing, but a terrestrial bulge of water has enough mass to tug at the Moon from yet another angle. The effect is to constantly prod the Moon into a higher orbit, which explains (in part) why it is drifting away from our Earth. Meanwhile the moon is yanking back on the tidal bulges. Therefore water, down where it meets the ocean floor, rubs against Earth. This slows the planet down, explaining why there are 24 hours in a day instead of the mere 18 hours per rotation experienced a billion years ago.

The final factor that helped all these opposing dynamics reach an agreement of sorts involves the  deformation of solid rock. More than just water is pulled up by tides. Earth's solid self actually stretches under these astrological forces as well.  The Earth's gravity lifts tides on the Moon, raising relatively small bulges of solid material in the seemingly solid satellite. (Similarly, Jupiter's gravity raises tides on its icy moons in the frigid outer region of the solar system, stretching some so dramatically that the action generates enough heat to maintain liquid oceans under their frozen shells, scientists believe.) Continual tugging on the lunar bulges reduced the Moon's rotation rate over time. When the rotation had slowed to the point that it equaled the time it took for the Moon to go around the Earth, the lunar bulges lined up with our planet, and the slowdown stopped. At that moment, one face of the Moon became forever locked in our direction.  But it is not the only natural satellite.

Earth's rotation rate is still decelerating as our days are getting longer and longer. Eventually, our planet's tidal bulges will be assembled along the, a fore mentioned, imaginary line running through the centers of both Earth and the Moon, and our planetary rotational change will pretty much cease. Earth's day will be a month long. When this equilibrium is attained, billions of years from now, the terrestrial month will be longer (approximately 40 of our current days) because during all this time the Moon will continue moving away.

In this future Earth-Moon any lunar colonists would then, henceforth, see just one face of Earth. We can imagine this setup by stretching  out our arms, and looking at our palms. Now twirl around like a whirling dervish. Our face and palm are relatively parallel the whole time. If the United States happens to be on the back of your head, well, just think what people there do not see, and will never see again from there.

One day our descendants, if they survive our swelling Sun, cosmic, and human perils, will have at least 960 hours to work with each day. On some nights, half the world will be able to stare up at a full Moon for what (today) seems like days and days. Imagine the loony things they will have time to imagine, the strange lore they might conjure, the problems they will discover and solve, the peace they will enjoy.

 

Herding Goats

There once was an old goat herder who passed away leaving 17 goats to his 3 sons.  To his first son he left half the goats, to his second son he left a third of the goats, and to his youngest son he left a ninth of the goats. 

After his passing the sons fought over the goats and how to divide or butcher them.

With no resolution in sight they went to the edge of the city to speak with a wise woman who had traded goats for many years.  Her solution was to give them her last goat.  They then divided the goats evenly and returned her goat to her.

And everyone received more than they were promised. 

A rock

Technology is great, until it is not.  Cases in point: a diver in scuba gear must be careful upon their return to the surface for they might get sick or even die from Decompression sickness (DCS; also known as divers' disease, the bends or caisson disease).  A condition arising from dissolved gases coming out of solution into bubbles inside the body on depressurization.  Even once a diver surfaces they must wait before climbing to altitude or flying away.

In a World War I or II era sub seamen had to be careful not to turn their iron behemoth into a iron casket, at just few 100 Meters of depth the structure would fail and all aboard would be sent to a cold death in Davy Jones locker. 

The epitome of technology is a rock, by grasping a rock a freediver (like World champion freediver Guillaume Nery in the video above) was able to fall to the bottom of Dean's Blue Hole. It is the world's deepest known seawater blue hole Plunging 202 meters (663 ft) in a bay west of Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas.  This ability is possible due to the effects of Dalton and Henry's laws. Because the gas in his lungs are under increased partial pressure at depth, his body requires less oxygen to operate. In other words, the deeper you go, the longer you can go without breathing. Not to mention that 5 minutes of breath holding isn't unheard of.  And this is due in part to the greatest technology ever created: rocks, no science has been able to create matter, that is why a rock is the highest form of technology, ever.

What is it that makes a rock a rock, a stone a stone, and a pebble a pebble?  What is a pebble:  "Each pebble contemplates the sea and the tides, the currents and the storms, the mass of sister pebbles, flotsam and broken shells.  It is a passive synthesis of these events, a contemplating soul ground from repeated washes, like the limpet stuck to its side contemplating it in return: 'What organism is not made of repeated elements and cases, of contemplated and contracted water, nitrogen, carbon, chlorides, sulphates, other star stuff, thereby interweaving all the habits composing it?'"  All created at once, cycled, recycled, diving deeper while reaching out.

excerpts from: Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Time: A Critical Introduction and Guide

Tao Te Ching Chapter 77

Tao Te Ching Chapter 77

The Tao of heaven is like the bending of a bow.

The high is lowered, and the low is raised.

If the string is too long, it is shortened;

If there is not enough, it is made longer.

The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much

and give to those who do not have enough.

Humanities' way is different.

We take from those who do not have enough

to give to those who already have too much.

What person has more than enough and gives it to the world?

Only those of the Tao.

Therefore the sages work without recognition.

They achieve what has to be done without dwelling on it.

They do not try to show their knowledge.

Also Paraphrased as:

The way of the Tian is like archers drawing their bows.

To hit something high in the air, they pull the string downward;

To hit something lower, they pull the string upward.

They do not try to show their knowledge.

When they have drawn the string too far back they let some go,

And when they have not drawn it far enough they pull harder.

The way of the Tian is also to let some go where there is excess

And to augment where there is not enough.

The way of Human Beings on the other hand is not like this at all.

It is instead to take away from those who do not have enough

In order to give more to those who already have too much.

Who then in having too much is able to draw on this excess to make an offering to the world?

Perhaps only those who are way-making (dao or tao)

It is thus that sages act on behalf of things but do make any claim on them,

They see things through to fruition but do not take credit for them.

It is in such a way that they refrain from making a display of their worth.

Commentary, Insight, and Reflection:

The way of the world in which we live is one of sustained equilibrium (and/or balance), some translations mention Tian as ‘Heaven’s Road’, chapters 9 and 73 do this.  Chapter 73 speaks of “Tian’s net is cast wide, And although course in its mesh, nothing slips through it” consistent with Calvinism’s total omniscience of God as well as a demonstration in Indian Buddhism of the total omniscience where all individual characteristics (svalaksana) are available to the omniscient being.  The Metaphysics (specifically the epistemology) of Indian Buddhism also speaks of the possibility of omniscience through apprehending the selfless universal nature of all knowables, by examining what it means to be ignorant and the nature of mind and awareness.  Many theologians and philosophers have agreed "And yet again, there is Gods knowing of all things by a simple act of knowing. And there is Gods distinctly seeing with Gods divine, all-seeing, and immaterial eye all things at once" Chapter 9 of the Tao reminds us “To retire when the deed is done is the way that Tian works” just as the first story of the Bible, the story of Job reminds us in Job 1:21 “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah”.  Chapter 77 goes on to remind us of the excesses and insufficiencies in our various ecological environments which most certainly do occur, but in the course of time they are righted through a process of redistribution, and balance is restored.  In this way Matthew 20:16 “So the last shall be first, and the first shall be last” is congruent with the sustained equilibrium metaphorically represented in chapter 23 of the Tao which observes, “Violent winds do not last a whole morning and torrential rains do not last a whole day.”  These concepts have even spilled over into similar teachings in Kabbalah and Hassidic Judaism from the Torah’s Bereshit (In the beginning aka Genesis) where “YHVH placed his bow in the clouds, as a sign that the great flood would not recur.”  Other translations of Genesis 9:12 are “And God said: This is the sign of the covenant, which I am placing between me and between you, and between every living soul that is with you, for everlasting generations.”

While we human beings would do well to imitate the pattern of sustained equilibrium, we instead tend to create a vicious circle in which the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.  Chapter 75 states what is a familiar refrain in the (DaoDeJing) Tao Te Ching: “The people’s hunger is because those above are eating too much in taxes.”  It is only the enlightened among us who are able to coordinate fully their participation in their natural, social, and cultural environments, and who in so doing, extend the way forward for all concerned.  The bonus, of course, is that while sagacious conduct conduces substantially to a thriving world, the persons responsible make no claims upon the dividends that such efficacious living produces.  Chapter 78 closes with “Appropriate language seems contradictory” The classic (Dao) Taoist example of the inseparability of opposites is an insight into the working of things that seems obvious enough to everyday experiences: There is no down without up, no external without internal, no front without back, no hot without cold, no left without right, no within without outside, being without unbeing; although few people are able to apply it to the way they live their lives.  When this characteristic of experience is applied to the political order, privilege invariably entails responsibility, and the attainment of high office is anything but an umixed blessing. 

http://www.examiner.com/article/taoism-101-77-tao-te-ching-chapter-77-tao-of-archery

Analysis of (ABCDE) Potential Confounding Linguistic Variables in Achievement Testing Using a Venn diagram of the Bio-Psycho-Social-Cultural-Spiritual Model

Analysis of (ABCDE) Potential Confounding Linguistic Variables in Achievement Testing Using a Venn diagram of the Bio-Psycho-Social-Cultural-Spiritual Model

05/24/2012

PSY 470

Scott Gerhardt

Abstract

This paper implements the biopsychosocioculturalspiritual model to conduct an etilogical investigation examining the confusion of linguistic bias in achievement testing as a result standardization.  This paper aims to prove that it is not nature or nurture that achievement tests do not account for; rather it is the interactions of the spiritual, cultural, sociological, and psychological that cements traits, and possible states through nurture from the biology, psychology, and society of each individuals biological endowment.  The paper will introduce all concepts and the interactions prior to examining the WRAT series of achievement tests.  The concepts and interactions will be discussed and related through the use of two 5D Venn diagrams representing possible perspectives on the same static biopsychosocioculturalspiritual model.  The basic premises will include: Hebbian theory, biopsychosocioculturalspiritual model, neuroscience, linguistics, achievement testing, sources of error, semantic relativism, and learning as sources of Linguistic bias. 

Contents

Introduction. 4

Testing. 5

Bio-Psycho-Social-Cultural-Spiritual Model 7

Linguistic Bias. 8

Sources of Error. 11

Semantic Relativism.. 12

WRAT.. 20

References. 28

 

Introduction

The etiological model of definite, lineal causes for learning and mental health diseases was inspired in the seventeenth century by Sydenham’s model of infectious diseases.  These antiquated models can no longer inspire our conceptions about the nature of the brain mind context relationship. The ambition of psychology and psychiatry  to become not only more credible and but also to be considered as credible as a medical discipline.  This ambition began that in the nineteenth century should not lead us to believe that the brain mind context relationship can be studied with the conventional medical approach to diseases. Current trends in psychiatry and neuroscience  reconsider wider, new, refreshing models such as the Complex Systems Theory, or the biopsychosocioculturalspiritual model. Friederick von Hayek (1899-1992), the famous Austrian philosopher and economist, believed that the sciences of complex phenomena, in general, could not be modeled after the sciences that deal with essentially simple phenomena like physics. Hayek held that complex phenomena (such as linguistic bias in achievement testing), can only allow pattern predictions (through modeling), compared with the precise predictions that can be made out of non-complex phenomena. From the ontological point of view, matter is organized in different levels (physical, biological, psychological, and socio-cultural). Those levels cannot be studied with the same methodological approach. However, taking into account findings coming from other fields would certainly enrich our comprehension of the complex brain mind context interaction. Let’s use a metaphor. If we want to understand why a book we like (e.g. a best-seller) is important for us, we cannot reduce our comprehensive model to a statistical analysis of the number of chapters, paragraphs, words, and letters the book contains. These data will tell us something interesting about the book but little about why it is important not only for me/us but also for many other readers. Of course, if we eliminate the “quantitative” composition of the book, we won’t feel and think what we feel. We need the physical support to read a book. However, we need to incorporate a “qualitative” (psychological and socio-cultural) explanation to achieve a wider comprehension of the “best-seller” phenomenon. We can clearly understand that those different levels cannot be studied with the same methodology. Nor can it be explained through the other. Finally, models should be dynamic as they change over time. For instance, the synthesis of evolutionary and developmental hypothesis for biological phenomena underline that matter is always in change, though some basic structural features (or organization patterns) may keep some configurations with minor changes over time.  It is time to incorporate a new multi-level, non-lineal, dynamic, open-minded model in the academic psychiatric field. Psychiatric journals would benefit from an “open minded” perspective, including approaches that certainly tell us crucial things about the human being.

Testing

Achievement tests measure how much some one knows or has learned.  Achievement tests tend to be standardized as a means of maintaining internal consistency with the teaching methods, construct meanings, and instruments of assessment; By this methodology the measure and metrics of achievement tests rely how much knowledge the assessed has in a particular subject area, be it mathematics, reading, history, aircraft mechanics, microbiology, culinary science, art, or any other taxonomical system that can be taught and learned.  Of all the tests administered achievement tests are by far the most common test given. 

For the most part achievement tests are used by ontological endeavors (educational institutions, scientific research facilities, or anywhere training is implemented) not only to shape further developments in the structure of the language spoken, but also that communication is expressed with consistent form, structure, and meaning over time.  The purposes of achievement tests overlap but the over arching goal of topic assessment is present in the sub-categories following:

• Achievement tests provide metrics that can be analyzed to determine whether an individual has accomplished (achieved) the (previously defined) level of proficiency and requisite knowledge to advance.  Examples are finals in classes that are prerequisite for the next class in a series, i.e. Calculus 251,252, 253, 254, 255, & 256.  Testing out of a class is another example some universities provide or CLEP provides privately as a service to students and universities.
• Achievement tests are often used for the categorical grouping of individuals into certain skill areas to empower the instructor to better meet the needs of the group.   If the tutor, or professor has an accurate assessment of the students skill the teaching can be targeted more precisely at current levels of proficiency to facilitate further achievement and standardization.  Overcoming linguistic bias at this level is necessary to reliably ensure that the instructor can address the primarily linguistic issue directly rather than have the students suffer the consequences of lower test scores later.
• Overlapping with the previous categorical grouping achievement tests can be employed as a diagnostic to determine strengths and weakness.  Once an individual students areas of weakness can be indentified and their deficiencies can be catalogued; instruction can be focused on the areas requiring remediation.  This and the previous purpose are the two that can be used to close the linguistic bias gap often measured as a cultural, ethnic, or socio economic correlated variance. 
• The most political issue that looms largest is the use of achievement tests that are used to assess the success of a program or a political initiative on a school, district, regional, or federal basis.  This form of top down testing has become the norm recently as the achievement tests are applied not only to the students but to the institutions.  This is done primarily to ensure internal validity among the teachers, trainers, and administrators by adhering to the originally legislated policies and stay true to their intent.
• The metrics produced by achievement tests are used to inform everyone who is helping address levels of progress and what should be dealt with for each individual involved.  Ideally these test should be diagnostic because it outlays how these weaknesses should be addressed.  Historically variance has not been viewed from the perspective provided by the biopsychosocial model or as a purely linguistic function.  Specifically what fires together wires together, and what fires together is a function of the psycho and social levels of the biopsychosocial model, such that the physical biology of the brain is to some degree a function of environment.  Variance in environment can be overcome by the use of different teaching methods.
• Achievement tests help define the particular areas that teachers believe are important to assess.  The help pinpoint those topics that are important and those that are not.  This paper aims to illuminate the linguistic bias that is at the root cause of cultural variance across standardized tests.  Achievement test table of specifications rarely account for linguistic variance.  Rather they list categorical constructs and pinpoint those topics that are important.

Test specifications must be developed in order for any test to reach any level of standardization.  This is a complex process that allows the test developer to understand the relationship between the level of items (along the dimension to be measured), the construct presence to be identified, and the content of the items.  The tables containing the test specifications are generally created based on curriculum guides and other information that informs the test developers as to what content is covered.  By any measure the table of specifications is a fascinating ideas and a terrific guideline when it comes to the creation of any kind of achievement test.  Most achievement tests are standardized.

A standardized examination, test, or battery of tests is one that has undergone extensive test development including the writing and rewriting of the items to dial in the specific construct validity for the population that was used to standardize the test.  Variance is inevitable when a great deal of norming has been done with what is sometimes (and historically) a large group of test takers.  By these means the test must be narrower than the population it measures as defined by the development of consistent directions, administrative procedures, and very clear scoring instructions.  Standardization 

Sources of Error

Error is the difference between one’s observed score and one’s theoretical true score.  Measurement errors affecting the reliability of a test can be divided into components comprised of random error and systemic error.

Random sampling error is the differences between the population and the sample that are due only to chance factors (random errors ), not to systemic sampling error.  Random sampling error may or may not be the result in an unrepresentative sample.  The magnitude of sampling error due to chance factors can be estimated statistically.  In some contexts a parallel construct is referred to as chance sampling error.  In the context of achievement tests the neglect of the influence of cultural and linguistic factors is epic and historic.  The very nature of standardization is to so narrow the linguistic constraints such that variation is rejected.  Variance of language and culture has not been identified as a root cause for test score variations across populations, instead it has been written off as random sampling error, or worse it has been accepted as systemic.  Although the fault and burden do not lay with the administrators, nor does it lie with the institutions.  Rather the burden lies with the individuals labeled as having not passed the achievement tests despite the presence of the constructs tested for.  This lack of face validity due to errors resulting from unidentified confound linguistic variables is a result of linguistic bias, the thought that language alone is a measure of cognition.  OR worse that one language is correct and another is incorrect despite their both recapitulating the exact same construct via different grammar, word choice, and sentence structure. 

Some specialists argue standardized tests, particularly older standardized tests, are out of calibration with the construct investigated.  Explaining reasons for systemic error as the result of an over investment bias in a reliable but invalid test.   Systemic errors are the result of biases in measurement which lead to the situation where the average of many separate measurements differs significantly from the actual value of the attribute to be measured.  All measurements are prone to systemic errors.  The difficulty of elucidating systemic errors are the nature of their contributing interrelated, and cascading affects.  Systemic errors can be functions of culture, whether from organizational culture or the culture the organization is immersed in.  The assumptions of a culture or of a test administering organizations management can affect not only the way in which test questions are written, but also in the way the answers are interpreted. 

According to research using the linguistic category model, verb forms play a significant role in the transmission and maintenance of intergroup stereotypes, in the form of the linguistic intergroup bias (Maass et al., 1989). The linguistic intergroup bias reflects a tendency for speakers to describe the negative behavior of out-group members and positive behavior of ingroup members using abstract verbs (suggesting expected stability), whereas they characterize the positive behavior of out-group members and negative behavior of in-group members using concrete verbs (implying little expected stability). Two distinctive mechanisms are assumed to underlie these effects. Research provides evidence of an in-group protection motive (Maass, Ceccarelli, & Rudin, 1996). Consistent with social identity theory, research shows that under conditions of threat to an in-group’s identity or perceived competition, linguistic intergroup bias serves to maintain a positive group image even in the presence of disconfirming evidence (Maass et al., 1989, Maas et al., 1996). However, research has also highlighted an expectancy motive (Maass et al., 1995). Specifically, the findings of such research suggests that  expectancy consistent behavior is described using abstract verbs given that such behavior is considered to be lasting and typical, while expectancy-inconsistent behavior is described in concrete terms given that such behavior is considered to be transitory and atypical (Maass et al., 1996) No criterion adjusted tests where the criterion adjustment is based on linguistic bias potentials. 

Bio-Psycho-Social-Cultural-Spiritual Model

The biopsychosocial models is a general model and approach that posits that biological, psychological, and social factors all play significant roles in human functioning.  The biopsychosocial paradigm is also a technical terms for the popular concept of the min-body connection which addresses more philosophical arguments rather than purely empirical exploration and clinical application.  (Sarno, 1981)

The Biopsychosocial model has been used in fields such as medicine, nursing, health psychology, sociology, psychiatry, family therapy, and clinical psychology; but not in psychometrics.  And the BPS model has not been used to define a metric of linguistic bias measured as use of grammar, word choice, and sentence structure.  Neurons that fire together wire together.  This is occurring within a psychological, social, and physical environment that can engender physical constructs represented as simply as regional accents or euphemisms.  Such linguistic artifacts are hurdles for individuals to overcome in scoring well on achievements tests used to measure standardization of language that has been deemed necessary. 

Linguistic Bias

The purported source of linguistic bias is the forward thinking manner in which achievement tests are designed.  Working from cause to effect by means of predictive reasoning creators of achievement tests have fallen victim to their means, to the language they aim to standardize; As opposed to the achievement of evaluating the strength, ability, and persistence of constructs within the individual to be tested working backward from effect to cause by means of diagnostic reasoning.  The discrepancy between the to cognitive theories implemented results in the belief that variance is not the product of transient minority effects of multiple confounding variables, one category of which is linguistic.  Linguistic variation is a function of culture, experience, and learning.  The range of differences could be quantified by using causal Bayes nets, we developed a normative formulation of how predictive and diagnostic probability judgments should vary with the strength of alternative causes, causal power, and prior probability. This model was tested through two experiments that elicited predictive and diagnostic judgments as well as judgments of the causal parameters for a variety of scenarios that were designed to differ in strength of alternatives. Model predictions fit the diagnostic judgments closely, but predictive judgments displayed systematic neglect of alternative causes, yielding a relatively poor fit. Three additional experiments provided more evidence of the neglect of alternative causes in predictive reasoning and ruled out pragmatic explanations. We conclude that people use causal structure to generate probability judgments in a sophisticated but not entirely veridical way. (Fernbach, Darlow, & Sloman, 2011)  This methodology of exploratory data analysis to elucidate the potentiality for casual parameters and indentify evidence for neglected alternative is consistent with the uncomfortable science proposed by the statistician John Tukey in response to an over reliance on confirmatory data analysis. 

Non-linguistic methods of investigation are necessary to avoid the nature of linguistic thought that is also the source of the bias in this instance.  Even Bloom’s Taxonomy cannot account for linguistic bias, in fact contamination of linguistic bias should be measureable across all six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy as the error is unavoidable and is the function of any standardized test.  The degree to which linguistic bias is present at each level of Bloom’s taxonomy can vary by culture, language, and even the development of the individual being assessed. 

The issue is the cost of investing to change the ever-plastic brain and the amount of time spent on various activities that all re-wire the brain versus the time spent learning the standardized language necessary for success on most achievement tests.  The investment necessary in overcoming the naturally acquired language is proportional to the dissonance between the naturally acquired language and the standardized language necessary to score well on an achievement test.  Tomasello (2003) points out that another crucial prerequisite for language acquisition is the ability of children to detect patterns in their environment. He reports research that has demonstrated that infants can detect artificial nonsense words made up of three syllable sequences.  Later the infants respond to those words, but they do not respond to the syllables presented in a different order (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996).  Marcus, Vijayan, Bandi Rao, & Vishton (1999) briefly trained seven month olds on three syllable

sequences of the form ABB.  Later the infants responded to this pattern even when the syllables were different (e.g. XYY).  Tomasello notes that this ability to detect abstract patterns in auditory and visual input is not unique to humans.  Other primates such as tamarin monkeys also have this skill.  Therefore, pattern finding is a cognitive capacity that has a deep evolutionary history and certainly cannot be seen as a specific adaptation for language.  Using only a canonical taxonomy of language to measure cognitive ability is like trying to measure the circumference of the earth in inches by measure of one intermediate phalange at a time. 

Language can be a powerful conveyor of bias, in both blatant and subtle forms.  It is not the language itself, rather it is the implied frame resultant from the associated meaning of the words chosen to be used by the speaker, and those heard by you, the listener.  Linguistic bias can manipulate perception and perspective, impacting race/ethnicity, gender, accents, age, (dis)ability and sexual orientation.

• Native Americans described as "roaming," "wandering," or "roving" across the land. Such language implicitly justifies the seizure of Native lands by "more goal-directed" white Americans who "traveled" or "settled" their way westward.
• The implied frame of such words as forefathers, mankind, and businessman serve to deny the contributions (even the existence) of females.
• The bias against non-English speakers.

In the psychology and communications literatures, research has shown that language is a subtle but powerful way to examine cognition in intergroup contexts (Maass & Arcuri, 1992; Maass, Salvi, Arcuri, & Semin, 1989; Semin & Fiedler, 1988, Semin & Smith, 1999). Because people have wide latitude in their use of interpersonal verbs that can be used to describe self and others, and because this word choice is related to their causal attributions and expectations (Semin & Marsman, 1994), linguistic categories can be used to maintain and transmit Perceptions.  According to linguistic category models, interpersonal verbs can be arrayed on a continuum of concrete to abstract forms (Semin & Fiedler, 1988), the evocation of which are based on differences in causal attributions of, and expectancies for, behavior (Semin & Marsman, 1994).  Given the findings of research which demonstrates a link between language and intergroup bias (Franco & Maass, 1999; von Hippel, Sekaquaptea, & Vargas, 1997), a linguistic category model has implications for understanding diversity within and between groups

Researchers have shown that people have wide latitude in their use of verbs that can be used to describe the self and others; the word choice, grammar, and language of others is related to their attributions and expectations (Semin & Marsman, 1994). Language is a cultural artifact that emerges as a complex adaptive system from the verbal interaction among humans. We see the ubiquity of language acquisition among children generation after generation as the product of an interactional instinct that, as Tomasello indicates, is based on an innate drive communicate with and become like conspecifics, (Lee & Schumann, 2005) to become linguistically standardized.   Semin and Fiedler (1988) introduce a linguistic category model useful for interpreting people’s attributions of causality and responsibility within a given context. Specifically, they put forth a general taxonomy that distinguishes between verb forms at different levels of abstraction. They use the following examples to articulate their taxonomy: “(a) A is talking to B; (b) A is helping B; (c) A likes B; and (d) B is an extraverted person”  (p. 558). The first example (i.e., talking) demonstrates the most concrete level of language. At this level are descriptive action verbs, which provide an objective description of action, offer no interpretation, and typically have one or more physically invariant features. Interpretive action verbs, in contrast, include greater depth of interpretation, pronounced evaluative components, and do not have physically invariant features – that is, many different actions could lead to use of the same interpretive action verbs. As illustrated in Semin

and Fiedler’s (1988) second example, “helping” could be physical or psychological and therefore, open for interpretation. Relative to ascriptions of causality and responsibility, accounts using descriptive action verbs are typically attributed to situational factors, while accounts using interpretive action verbs are often attributed to the actor. Consequently, the use of interpretative (rather than descriptive) action verbs suggests a greater expectation of similar future behavior. State verbs, which presume knowledge of the actor’s state of mind, do not maintain reference to any specific behavior or incidents (e.g., “likes” as used in the third example). Although state verbs typically evoke causal attributions to the sentence object rather than the actor (Semin & Marsman, 1994), they convey expected similar future states of mind from actors. Finally, adjectives, such as “extraverted person” in Semin and Fiedler’s (1988) example, refer to enduring qualities of persons and represent the highest level of abstraction.   Because adjectives are typically associated with dispositional attributions, they are indicative of a continued expectation of similar future behavior.  Variations in taxonomy or across taxonomies can explain the variance in scores due to linguistic bias.  The taxonomy exists to standardize the language and facilitate communication.  The achievement test is designed to measure and to provide a level of conformity metric.  The construct required is present in the individual to be assessed although the grammar and language used to recapitulate the

Hebbian Theory

            Hebbian theory concerns how neurons might connect themselves to becomeengrams. Hebb's theories on the form and function of cell assemblies can be understood from the following:

·         "The general idea is an old one, that any two cells or systems of cells that are repeatedly active at the same time will tend to become 'associated', so that activity in one facilitates activity in the other." (Hebb 1949)

·         "When one cell repeatedly assists in firing another, the axon of the first cell develops synaptic knobs (or enlarges them if they already exist) in contact with the soma of the second cell.” (Hebb 1949)

Gordon Allport has posited additional ideas regarding cell assembly theory and its role in forming engrams, along the lines of the concept of auto-association, described as follows: "If the inputs to a system cause the same pattern of activity to occur repeatedly, the set of active elements constituting that pattern will become increasingly strongly interassociated. That is, each element will tend to turn on every other element and (with negative weights) to turn off the elements that do not form part of the pattern. To put it another way, the pattern as a whole will become 'auto-associated'. We may call a learned (auto-associated) pattern an engram."(Allport, 1985)

Hebbian theory has been the primary basis for the conventional view that when analyzed from a holistic level, engrams are neuronal nets or neural networks like those associated with wernicke’s area or broccas region. Work in the laboratory of Eric Kendel has provided evidence for the involvement of Hebbian learning mechanisms at synapses.  Much of the work on long-lasting synaptic changes between vertebrate neurons (such as long-term potentiations like language acquisition) involves the use of non-physiological experimental stimulation of brain cells. However, some of the physiologically relevant synapse modification mechanisms that have been studied in vertebrate brains do seem to be examples of Hebbian processes. One such study reviews results from experiments that indicate that long-lasting changes in synaptic strengths can be induced by physiologically relevant synaptic activity working through both Hebbian and non-Hebbian mechanisms. 

Semantic Relativism

Perception is the interface between cognition and reality. Descriptive perceptual relativism is the empirical claim that certain groups (e.g., those with different cultures, languages, biological makeup) perceive the world differently. Various philosophers of science have argued that theory influences perception to such an extent that partisans of substantially different theories might literally see the world differently.

Descriptive claims about perception are sometimes thought to bear on various versions of normative relativism. For example, some writers have argued that people with different concepts and beliefs will nevertheless perceive the same things in the much same way and that these common perceptions can be used as a fixed point from which to adjudicate the claims of rival frameworks. Most philosophers and vision scientists today now agree, though, that perception is theory-laden; our perceptual experiences in a given situation are influenced by the concepts, beliefs, expectations and, perhaps, even the hopes and desires, which we bring to the situation.

Normative perceptual relativism is the claim that there is not just one correct, framework-independent way to perceive things. But different ways are correct relative to different constellations of concepts and beliefs. Given modern medical training and practice, a competent radiologist should see that this spot on the X-ray is a stomach tumor, and anyone with any sensitivity should see that Sam felt humiliated.

As with most versions of normative relativism, the strongest versions of normative perceptual relativism, ones on which “anything goes,” are implausible; there clearly are constraints on the perception. But weaker versions of the thesis may be defensible. Perception is theory-laden to some degree; it involves what current vision scientists call top down processing. (See Section 1.1 of the supplementary document Relativism and the Constructive Aspects of Perception for more on top-down processing and the theory-ladenness of perception); see Section 4 of that same supplement for more on perceptual relativism; and see Section 5.2 below for an argument against stronger versions of perceptual relativism.)

In Quine's philosophy the idea of stimulus meaning is not a special semantics, but rather is an attempt to isolate the net empirical content of each of various single observation sentences without regard to the theory that contains them yet without loss of what the sentence owes to that containing theory. This attempt to isolate the semantics of observation language is a move away from his earlier critique of reductionism, where reductionism is understood as statements having a unique range of possible sensory events, such that the statements can be criticized in isolation. But at this stage Quine still retains his original thesis of empirical under determination, in which empirical under determination is integral to his holistic thesis of semantical indeterminacy or vagueness.  The under determination thesis admitting multiple and alternative observation sentences for the same stimulus situation presents a question: how can the same stimuli yield alternative stimulus meanings? One of Quine's answers is that the alternative theories or belief systems in which the stimulus situation is understood, supply different significant approximations. But there still remains the question of how stimulus meanings are to be construed as approximations. Quine has a theory of vagueness that he setsforth in the third and fourth chapters of Word and Object, which resembles the latter Wittgenstein's thesis of paradigms, except that Quine explicitly invokes the behavioristic stimulus-response analysis of learning. On this analysis Quine rejects the view that stimulations eliciting a verbal response "red" are a well defined or neatly bounded class. He maintains that the stimulations are distributed about a central norm, which when a language is initially being learned, may be a very wide distribution. The penumbral objects of a vague term are the objects whose similarity to those for which verbal response has been socially rewarded in the learning process, is relatively slight. The learning process is an implicit induction on the part of the subject regarding society's usage, and the penumbral cases are those words for which that induction is most inconclusive for want of evidence, because the evidence is not there to be gathered. And society's members have had to accept similarly fuzzy edges when they were learning. There is an inevitability of vagueness on the part of terms learned by ostension, and it carries over to other terms defined by context on the basis of these ostensively learned terms.

He notes Hanson maintains that observations vary from observer to observer according to the amount of knowledge that the observers bring with them. Thus one man's observation is another man's closed book or flight of fancy, with the result that observation as the impartial and objective source of evidence for science is bankrupt. At this stage of Quine's thinking the semantical contribution of theory to observation is still problematic for him, but he continued to characterize observation language in terms of behavioristic theory of learning. In the chapter titled "Observation" in his “The Web of Belief” (1970) Quine says that an observation sentence is a sentence that can be learned ostensively by the association of heard words with things simultaneously observed, an association which is conditioned and reinforced by social approval or successful communication, and which becomes habitual. And due to the social character of its learning, the observation sentence must be understandable by all competent speakers of the language who might be asked to assent to it. Thus according to Quine the sentence "That is a condenser" is not an observation sentence, even if experts agree to it. Quine maintains contrary to the Positivists, that what qualifies a sentence as observational is not the lack of theoretical terms that may occur in theory formulations, but just that the sentence taken as an individual whole commands assent consistently or dissent consistently when the same global sensory stimulation is repeated. This behavioristic characterization initially enabled Quine to evade reference to semantics in his identification of observation language, and thereby to separate his view from that of the Positivists, who defined observation language in semantical terms.

The scientific hypotheses that purport to describe things beyond the reach of observation are related to observation sentences by a kind of one-way implication, such that many alternative hypotheses may imply the same set of observation sentences, but not vice versa. Observation sentences do not uniquely imply just one theory purporting to explain the observable events. It now is in this sense that natural science is "empirically underdetermined" by all possible events.  Quine says that under-determination lurks where there are two irreconcilable theory formulations each of which implies exactly the desired set of observation conditionals plus extraneous theoretical matter, and where no formulation affords a tighter fit. In Quine's vocabulary the phrase" observation conditional" is an empirical generalization expressed in conditional form and implying an observation sentence describing an individual event. And his phrase "theory formulation" is a conjunction of the axioms of a deductive theory, which implies observation conditionals.  This is a different sense of "empirical under-determination" than what Quine meant in "Two Dogmas", because it resurrects the idea of a semantically neutral observation language, which philosophers such as Hanson, Kuhn and Feyerabend reject. These philosophers find a phrase such as "same observation sentences" when speaking of sentences implied by alternative theories to be very problematic; they deny that different theories can have the same set of observations due to the contribution of the semantics of theory to the semantics of observation language.

            World" in Erkenntnis (1975), which as it happens had in 1930 been made the official journal of the Vienna Circle. This development of the Duhem-Quine thesis represents a further restriction on Quine's earlier version on his holistic semantical thesis of observation. Previously he had viewed empirical under-determination as integral to semantical indeterminacy or vagueness in his semantical holism. But in this paper he revises the concept of empirical under-determination of language, and separates it from the holistic view of the Duhem-Quine thesis. The scientific hypotheses that purport to describe things beyond the reach of observation are related to observation sentences by a kind of one-way implication, such that many alternative hypotheses may imply the same set of observation sentences, but not vice versa. Observation sentences do not uniquely imply just one theory purporting to explain the observable events. It now is in this sense that natural science is "empirically underdetermined" by all possible events.  Quine says that under-determination lurks where there are two irreconcilable theory formulations each of which implies exactly the desired set of observation conditionals plus extraneous theoretical matter, and where no formulation affords a tighter fit. In Quine's vocabulary the phrase" observation conditional" is an empirical generalization expressed in conditional form and implying an observation sentence describing an individual event. And his phrase "theory formulation" is a conjunction of the axioms of a deductive theory, which implies observation conditionals.  This is a different sense of "empirical under determination" than what Quine meant in "Two Dogmas", because it resurrects the idea of a semantically neutral observation language, which philosophers such as Hanson, Kuhn and Feyerabend reject. These philosophers find a phrase such as "same observation sentences" when speaking of sentences implied by alternative theories to be very problematic; they deny that different theories can have the same set of observations due to the contribution of the semantics of theory to the semantics of observation language.  Having revised "empirical under determination", Quine then distinguishes his revised concept from the holistic doctrine of the Duhem-Quine thesis. He reiterates that the holistic doctrine says that scientific statements are not separately vulnerable to adverse observations, since it is only jointly as a theory that they imply their observable consequences, with the result that any one of the statements can be adhered to in the face of adverse observations by revising others. Then he states that holism lends credence to the under determination thesis, because in the face of adverse observations we are free always to choose among various adequate modifications of our theory, and all possible observations are insufficient to determine theory uniquely.  A second reservation is the breadth of the theory A third reservation is that the semantical and ontological holism may imply a cultural relativistic view of truth.  Quine finds a paradox in the thesis of cultural relativism: if truth were culture bound, then the advocate of cultural relativism ought to see his own culture bound truth as absolute, which is exactly what is represented by the idea of construct validity.  The cultural relativist cannot proclaim cultural relativism without rising above it, and he cannot rise above it without giving it up.  Quine then turns to the issue of irrationality of theory choice, the argument for cultural relativism that is internal.  Quines argues that the choice between empirically equivalent alternative systems need not be irrational when one could settle for a frank dualism. Even if it is a dualism merely due to empirical equivalence.  

In his"Empirical Content" (1981) in Theories and Things, which he notes contains "echoes" from "Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World", Quine explicitly uses Hanson's terminology saying that observation sentences are "theory-laden.” But Quine reconstrues the intended meaning of Hanson's phrase to mean that the terms embedded in observation sentences may recurin theory formulations. Thus while Quine here says that observation sentences are theory-laden, he denies to the semantics of theory any participating role in the semantics of observation. In fact in Quine's construing of "theory-laden" it is not observation language that is theory-laden, but rather theory that is observation-laden.

Still later in "Truth" in his Quiddities (1988) he is explicitly reconciled about refusing to admit theory any resolving function in the semantics of observation. There he says that we work out the neatest world system, and we tighten the squeeze by multiplying the observations. Tightening the squeeze in observation sentences is the progressive reduction of vagueness but only by the addition of information in additional observation sentences.

More recently a member of Quine’s intellectual entourage, Donald Davidson, has attempted to evade semantical relativism with a turn to instrumentalism. Davidson’s principal statement of his thesis is set forth in his “The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974) and “Belief and theBasis of Meaning” (1974) reprinted in his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984), a book he dedicates to Quine with an inscription”without whom not.” He rejects the representationalist view of the semantics of language, which he considers a third dogma of empiricism after the first two referenced by Quine in the latter’s 1952 “Two Dogmas” article.  Like Dewey’s rejection of the dualism of “experience” and “nature”  Davidson rejects the dualism of “scheme” and “world”, of “conceptual scheme” associated with language and “empirical content”, of “organizing system and something waiting to be organized”, that he finds in the views of Whorf, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. In this manner he remains more faithful to Quine’s original behaviorism than Quine did. Given the mutual and reciprocal determination of between belief and semantics, the decision necessary for interpreting another’s discourse is to maximize our shared beliefs, such that there can be no basis for concluding that others have concepts or beliefs radically different from one’s own. Davidson concludes that in giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but rather re-establish “unmediated touch” with the familiar objects that make our sentences and opinions true or false. Thus Davidson argues that there is no conceptual relativism, because there are no conceptual schemes to be relativistic.  But Davidson’s conclusion is a non sequitur. Firstly he confuses two distinct questions: one is the question of what is meaning, and the other is the question of what is the meaning of a term, sentence, or theory and how is this determination made. The existence of conceptual schemes is an answer to the former question, and his behavioristic procedure is his answer to the latter one. The answers are made interdependent only because Davidson is a behaviorist, which is to accuse him of being a Positivist. And his Positivism makes him inconsistent with Quine’s and his acceptance of ontological relativity, because Positivism requires a prior ontological commitment.  Davidson does not practice ontological relativity in his own philosophical discourse. Secondly the word “unmediated” in his phrase “unmediated touch”, which purportedly justifies his denying language its representational semantics, is a weasel word. In fact the interpreter’s charitable decision required for interpretation does not imply any rejection of the representational nature of the semantics of language. This interpretative decision is operative when someone uses a dictionary with the charitable assumption that its lexical entries are true, so that he can assimilate the meanings of the terms he is researching. And also when a community of scientists in a profession considers an experiment and agrees on the validity of the test design statements, so that the scientists can describe the phenomenon under examination and the experiment’s outcome. Neither the thesis of the charitable decision required for communication nor the thesis of the interdependence between truth nor meaning imply any rejection of the representational nature of the semantics of language; representationalism is perfectly consistent with both theses. “Representation” may be a weasel word, because there survives an atavistic belief residual from modern philosophy including Positivism, that the knower is a spectator to his ideas.  Of course the knower can be a spectator of his ideas, but this inspection is a reflection ex post facto to his firstly already having the inspected knowledge of the real world. Apart from this secondary reflective knowledge, the spectator thesis about knowledge of the real world is readily rejected, when we realize that what we know firstly is not our ideas, but the real world, and most notably that our knowledge is thus constituted by our ideas rather than the ideas being an object of knowledge. Contrary to Davidson, therefore, these and their schemes are quite admissible, and they very much involve semantical relativism.

Both Quine and Davidson are motivated to evade semantical relativism, because both mistakenly believe that a relativistic, context-determined, semantics implies a relativistic thesis of truth. Regardless of how culture-bound and context-determined may be the semantics of a language, it is not possible capriciously either to affirm or to deny truthfully just anything expressed by sentences made with those concepts. The empirical under determination of language implies that many alternative sentences can be said which are consistent with the same observations. Still, the empirical constraint imposed exogenously on sentences by the recalcitrant real world - even when not yet interpreted - forbids just any arbitrary distribution of truth-values over a set of logically related, semantically interpreted grammatical sentences. When any subset of these sentences is given definitional force to specify its semantics, then only some of the remainder sentences containing the same descriptive terms can also be true.  Truth is always relative to what is said, but the real world in which all language users live forbids ingenuously asserting just any old thing in the semantically interpreted language. Therefore, semantical relativity does not imply relativism of truth, but just the opposite: with a meta-theory of semantical description exhibiting the composite nature of meanings, semantical relativity explains the partial equivocation that makes it impossible for the same sentences occurring in two different belief systems, to be completely true in one belief system and completely false in another.  It explains how the same sentence is not simply and completely the same statement in each system, but is partially the same in each, and to that extent true in both systems. And for the same reason it also explains why the semantics of observation language need not be quarantined from the semantics of theory, in order to assert the objectivity of truth. Observation statements, which pragmatically defined are merely singular test design statements, may be common to pragmatically defined contrary theories, such that belief in the test design statements makes the test outcome contingent and not willfully or necessarily verifying, and makes a falsifying test outcome of one of the theories an objective truth.  Each person acquires the semantics of what Quine calls observation sentences from his own personal experiences, and he acquires it publicly and ostensively in the circumstances of his learning situation in his personal history. There is a wide variation among people between what is learned ostensively and contextually, but even for those simple statements learned ostensively by most people, inter subjectivity is increased with successive approximation, as the web of belief grows and imposes increasingly more shared truth conditions on the ostensively acquired semantics. The entire web of beliefs may be viewed on analogy with an underdetermined system of conditional equations, in which the addition of a new equation further restricts the range of numeric values that the set of variables may accept as solution sets. One difference between the mathematical system and the language system is that with just a sufficient number of restrictions the equation system may admit to only one solution set, whereas language is never restricted to a unique interpretation. Another noteworthy departure from the mathematical analogy is that the mathematical variables can take only one numeric value at a time without becoming ambiguous, while each of the descriptive terms, including those used as mathematical variables in applied mathematics in empirical science, simultaneously take on the semantic values distinguishable in the explicitly related universal statements in the system of beliefs, subject only to the preservation of univocity. Thus all the terms explicitly related by the sentences in the web of beliefs may participate in one another's univocal semantics, and thereby resolve one another's vagueness in relation to each other. Furthermore as implicit statements are made explicit by deduction, the vagueness in the meanings of the terms of the system is even further resolved.  But Quine viewed meanings as abstract or mental "entities", and then developed his behavioristic theory of stimulus meanings, which he called "behavioral dispositions" to evade the representative function of language.  He could not be expected to have developed a meta-theory of semantical description enabling him to describe how meanings participate in one another. The closest Quine came to the idea of semantical participation was the idea of the resolution of vagueness. His rejection of the dichotomous analytic-synthetic distinction is a worthy start toward such a meta-theory, but his rejection of the distinction was actually a rejection of analyticity as such, except in the cases that he called "analytical hypotheses" used for translations. As it happens, rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy does not imply the rejection of analyticity as such. Universally quantified statements believed to be true for empirical reasons may also be used analytically to exhibit the complexity in the meanings of their constituent terms by displaying their component semantic values that constitute the discriminating capability in the descriptive function of the language. In other words all universal empirical statements in the web of beliefs are analytical hypotheses. And theories are those that are viewed as relatively more hypothetical than other empirical statements.

There are many means by which to interpret a semantical system.  The semantical rules for interpreting a mechanically generated semantical system might be viewed as analogous to Carnap's meaning postulates, in that all of them are stated in the object language instead of the meta-language, and are not like Carnap's rules of designation, which occur in the meta-­language.  Two relevant types of semantical rules may be distinguished.  One type consists of those semantical rules that are the mechanically generated statements and equations.  These consist only of the statements constituting a mechanically generated and empirically acceptable theory, the outputted theory statements that are believed to be true.  But not all the semantical rules occurring in the object langu­age are mechanically generated.  A second type consists of test design statements, which are accepted independently of any statements of theory generated by the system, so that the generated theory is not tautological and can be tested independently.  But the semantical rules for mechanically generated semantical systems are unlike Carnap's meaning postulates, because they are not just analytical sentences.  With Quine's rejection of any distinctively analytic truth it is possible to view sentences as both analytic and synthe­tic, and the semantical rules that describe the semantical interpretation of the object-language statements must be viewed as both analytic and synthetic sentences.  They are more like Quine's analytical hypotheses or discursive postulates.  These semantical rules might also be viewed as similar to Carnap's reduction sentences, which he says determine only "part" of the meaning of theoretical terms.  But Carnap has never explained how it is possible for the meanings of terms to have parts.  Viewing the sentences as both analytic and synthetic enables the empirical statements constituting the generated theory to exhibit the parts of the meanings of their constituent terms, just as analytic statements always have.  Test design statements and generated theory statements, both of which are believed to be true for empirical reasons and not due to the meanings of their con­stituent terms, are object-language statements functioning as semantical rules, each of which contribute parts to the meaning of each of their common descriptive terms.

“anything that exists in any amount can be measured” Rene Descartes

            Including bias

What is the name of the shape of the volume produced by the intersection of two spheres when the volume’s largest dimension is lesser than or equal to the radius of the smaller sphere?

WRAT

Since its introduction, the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-#) has undergone five revisions, has multiple sub test addenda and has been built upon with a number of expansions.  The WRAT has been applied to numerous settings, along with the development of specialty applications such as the new WRAT-Expanded.  The proprietary test was further developed by Sidney W. Bijou & Joseph Jastak, after having been originally written by Gary J. Robertson.  It was first published in 1946 by Joesph F. Jastak (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006).  The WRAT was written as an achievement test battery designed to assess the core curricular domains of reading, mathematics, and oral written language (Jastak & Jastak, 1965). The entire WRAT line of tests is now published and sold as intellectual property by Physiological Assessment Resources Inc. of Lutz Florida.   The three sections of the WRAT require roughly an hour and fifty minutes to complete.  The reading comprehension portion requires 40 minutes to administer, the mathematics section requires 40 minutes to administer, and the nonverbal reasoning  requires a half hour to complete (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006).  There are different forms for each defined age range or specific application with prices for the tests ranging from $190.00 to in excess of $500.00 for expanded packets or multiple tests, available online.

The Wide Range Achievement Test 3 is appropriate for individuals whose ages range from five to 94 years.  The WRAT3 is a measure of the individual’s ability to read words, comprehend sentences, spelling, and computational mathematics problems appropriate for the age range of the individual taking the test.  The WRAT3 has been used in a variety of settings as a measure of the basic academic skills necessary for effective learning, communication, and thinking  (Wilkinson & Robertson, 1993).  The WRAT4 provides two equivalent forms named Blue, and Green; these forms are implemented for retesting on an accelerated time line without having to correct for practice effects from having repeated the same version of the test.  The wide range achievement test has two normative levels (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006).

1.      Level I

a.       Level one is normalized for children aged five years and zero months to eleven years and eleven months.

2.      Level II

a.       Level two is normalized for children aged twelve years zero months all the way thru 64 years (The WRAT is used in gerontology until age 94).

Only standard scores are used for comparisons among scores.  The norms provided for the 1978 edition include standard scores (remarkably similar to the Standford-Binet IQ test) with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.  The scores are reported as percentile scores for each grade level.  The standard scores are scaled from the norm group baseline.  The grade levels are arbitrarily assigned and can be interpreted only as rough references to achievement level. 

The reliability reported in the test manual lists split-half reliabilities of .98 for reading at both levels, .94 for arithmetic at both levels, .96 for spelling I, and .97 for spelling II.  During the norming study, both levels of the WRAT4 were administered to children ages 9 through 14. Since there is overlap in skills tested between the high end of level I and the low end of level II, this provides another estimate of the reliability of both. The split half reliabilities for reading and spelling, for all age groups, had a narrow range from .88 to .94.  The split half reliability for arithmetic ranged from .79 to .89. These results indicate that, overall, the reliability of the WRAT4 is excellent (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006).  For comparative purposes, the validity can be compared to the test most similar to the WRAT4, the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT).  The PIAT is another short, individually administered achievement test which covers comparable material. In general the WRAT4 correlates very highly with the PIAT. The WRAT4 correlates moderately with various IQ tests, and with other achievement tests in the range of .40 to .70 for most groups and most achievement and ability tests (Cordon, & Snyder, 1981). 

The WRAT4 norms are based on 15,200 subjects from seven states. According to the manual, no attempt was made to make the sample representative of national characteristics. The manual states that minorities were represented, but gives no data on their representation. The sample was stratified by age, sex, and approximate ability.  Possible applications of the WRAT 4 test described in the manual include comparing achievement of one person to another, determining learning ability or learning disability, comparing codes with comprehension in order to prescribe remedial programs, and informally assessing error patterns to plan instructional programs.  An added feature in the WRAT4 is a reading composite score (Wilknison & Robertson, 2006).

The wide range achievement test-Expanded edition is an achievement test battery “designed to assess the core curricular domains of reading, mathematics, and oral and written language.  Published by the same Psychological Assessment Resources Incorporated that publishes the full line of WRAT assessment instruments, the WRAT-Expanded was designed to complement the afore mentioned WRAT3 (WRAT3; T6:2713) and WRAT4 and was published in 2001-2002.  The WRAT-Expanded individual assessment (Form I) is used for ages 5-24 to score an individual’s areas of reading, mathematics, oral expression, and written language (Bo Zhang, MMY16).  The Form I assessment administration requires 30 minutes to administer and costs $195.00 per WRAT-Expanded Individual assessment (Form I) reading/mathematics module package including reading and math flipbook, reading and mathematics manual (2002, 185 pages), 25 response forms, and technical supplements; $55.00 per manual; $120.00 per flip book; $45.00 per 25 response forms; $45.00 per technical manual.

The WRAT-Expanded group assessment (Form G) is used for grades 2-12 to score group areas of reading (basic reading & reading comprehension), mathematics, nonverbal reasoning.  The Form G assessment administration requires 125-135 minutes and costs $195.00 per WRAT-Expanded Group assessment (Form G) comprehensive package including 10 booklets and scoring for each level (2001, 71-75 pages each), and technical supplement (2001 80 pages); $95.00 per 25 booklets, 25 scoring forms, and manual (for the specified level); $45.00 per technical supplement. 

Both forms of the Wide Range Achievement test-Expanded edition are achievement test batteries designed to assess the core curricular domains of reading, mathematics, oral and written language, and nonverbal reasoning.  The WRAT-Expanded, Form G for Group assessments is designed to measure reading (basic reading, reading comprehension), mathematics, and nonverbal reasoning for students in Grades 2-12.  And form I is an individual assessment designed to measure reading, mathematics, listening comprehension, oral expression, and written language for examinees from ages 5-24.  The WRAT-Expanded is organized in terms of five levels:

1.      Level 1 (Grade 2, 120 Items)

2.      Level 2 (Grades 3-4, 121 Items)

3.      Level 3 (Grades 5-6, 120 Items)

4.      Level 4 (Grades 7-9, 119 Items)

5.      Level 5 (Grades 10-12, 120 Items)

The individualized component of the WRAT-Expanded (Form I) consists of 70 items in reading and 75 items in mathematics.  The WRAT-Expanded was designed to provide users with a group administered achievement test closely linked to an individually administered test with similar content and interpretative systems.  This integrated system is intended to provide an initial screen based on a group assessment (Form G) with an in-depth individual assessment (Form I) available for targeted students.  According to the author, the WRAT-Expanded (Form G, group assessment) has six intended uses: preliminary screening to identify students for individual assessments, placement of new or transfer students, identification of special students, developing of individual instructional goals and plans, periodic assessment of special groups of students, and research uses.  Intended uses of Form I are to compliment the WRAT3 assessment, follow-up assessments of students across a wide range of achievement, placement of students, assessment of ability-achiever discrepancies and research use (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006). 

The WRAT-Expanded consists of reading, mathematics, and nonverbal reasoning tests.  The content selected for the reading test is based on the assumption that the ability to read and understand printed material is necessary for success in school.  Specifications for the reading test were developed by the author of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (Dr. Bjorn Karlsen).  Synthetic reading passages are used rather than authentic text.  The mathematics test is designed to measure the ability to understand concepts and apply them to the solution of various types of mathematical problems.  According to the author, the emphasis of the mathematics test is consistent with current National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards.  The nonverbal reasoning test consists of nonverbal classification items that are used in other ability tests, such as the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test and the Cognitive Abilities Test (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006). 

The author of the WRAT-Expanded provides a variety of manuals describing the psychometric characteristics of the instrument.  General information about the instrument is provided in several administration manuals organized by levels (1 to 5), whereas more detailed psychometric information is provided in a separate technical supplement (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006). 

The group and individual forms of the WRAT-Expanded were normalized concurrently in grades 2-12 with common groups of students completing both Form G and Form I.  The norms for Form G are based on 8,136 students from a variety of settings.  It should be noted that private schools were excluded from the normalizing procedure; and that only parochial schools were sampled for non public schools.  The authors have been very careful to construct a normative sample that is demographically representative of the school-age population in the United States based on census data.  Out-of-level norms are also available.  The normative data for the individually administered test (Form I) is based on fewer students (N=635).  Detailed information provided in the technical supplement allows potential users to see the close match of the normative sample to the school-age population.  Because the WRAT-Expanded covers a wide age range, the potential user needs to be reminded and cautioned about how few examinees actually were assessed within each grade or age group.  A detailed description of the norms is provided in the technical supplement to the WRAT-Expanded and the manual for the individual assessment, but not in the administrative manuals for the group assessments (Form G).  Because users may not have access to the technical supplement, and because the description of the norms is essential for proper interpretation of the standardized scores, future versions of the group administration manuals should include a description of the norms.  The author chose to report the scores based on the normative sample as follows:

1.      Grade based standard scores

2.      Age based standard scores

3.      Percentile ranks

4.      Stanine groups

5.      Normal curve equivalents

6.      Grade equivalents

7.      Ability scale scores

In the technical supplement, evidence regarding the precision of form G is based on internal consistency reliability (KR20) and test-retest reliability.  Across grades the KR-20 coefficients for the standardization sample (range across grades in parentheses) as follows:

1.      Reading (.86-.90)

2.      Mathematics (.80-.88)

3.      Non-verbal reasoning (.80-.89)

The test re-test reliability coefficients for the standardization sample are as follows:

1.      Reading (.75-.90)

2.      Mathematics (.76-.90)

3.      Non-verbal reasoning (.75-.79)

The WRAT-Expanded exhibits reliability coefficients that are comparable to those obtained with similar instruments.  The author provides standard errors of measurement with a clear description of potential users on how to interpret SEM’s.  Information regarding the precision of content skill areas is not provided.  No scorer reliability information is provided for the individually administered Form I test (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006).  The statement, “these reliability coefficients indicate that the WRAT-Expanded tests are measuring their designated constructs with sufficient consistency. Or homogeneity, to yield dependable results” (Technical Supplement pg. 29) cannot be supported by those relatively high reliability coefficients due to semantic relativism.  Whether any test is measuring those skills is a construct validity issue within the realm of semantic relativism as opposed to a reliability concern. 

            One shortcoming for the test-retest reliability study is the relatively small and non representative sample used.  All students came from one parochial school.  Sample sizes at five grade levels ranged from 19 to 124.  For example, at level 5 only 19 students were used to obtain the test-retest reliability estimate for the reading subtest for the Form G.  Worse yet, there was no test-retest coefficient reported for the mathematics and nonverbal reasoning subtests for that level.  For the individual form only 97 students from ages 5-17 were included in the test-retest reliability study.  Confidence bands of test scores are tabulated for convenient use.  The issue is that 85% and 90% confidence bands were provided for Form G while 90% and 95% confidence bands were provided for Form I; providing a potentiality for unnecessary discrepancies in test score interpretation. 

Validity information for Form G is presented in terms of internal evidence (content, inter-correlations between tests within the WRAT-Expanded speed of responding, and differential item functioning) and external evidence (correlations between Form G and a variety of group and individually administered achievement and ability tests).  Evidence regarding clinical validity is reported in terms of mean differences between two groups of students (learning disabled and gifted) as identified by their teachers, and matched comparison groups of students.  The author is very clear that the validity evidence represents, “only a start of the validation process for the WRAT-Expanded.” (Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006)

The WRAT-Expanded test seems to show a high level of content validity.  An informative description of the test development is provided for both the group and individual forms in the technical manuals.  Content experts were hired to assist in creating specific domains in order to ensure overall validity as well as construct validity.  The authors of the test controlled for readability and the difficulty level of the vocabulary to improve the content validity of the test.  Facial bias (facial validity) was screened by content experts for possible racial and religious offences as well as gender stereotyping. 

The WRAT-Expanded suffers from many of the problems encountered with wide-range achievement tests designed to measure educational performance over large age and grade ranges.  There are very few items within each content area, testing time is quite short, and relatively few students are included in the norms for each grade and age group.  Of course, some of these weaknesses can also be viewed as strengths by potential users who seek a quick and preliminary assessment of their students.  Given the intended purposes of the instrument the WRAT-Expanded has some nice features that potential users may find useful.  In particular, the simultaneous norming of forms G and I make comparisons between achievement and ability levels more meaningful (Wilkinson & Robertson, 1993). 

One of the intended uses of the WRAT-Expanded is the identification of relative strengths and weaknesses of students in reading, mathematics, and non-verbal reasoning.  The most straightforward interpretation is to view the comparisons of student performance in terms of normative data and the distribution of score difference obtained within the normative sample.  Rasch measurement theory was used to calibrate the WRAT-Expanded.  Unfortunately, the author does not provide the psychometric information necessary to evaluate model-data fit.  Traditional psychometric criteria are provided but the additional information available based on the use of Rasch measurement is not reported.  The author should include information regarding item fit, reliability of person separation and other Rasch-based psychometric criteria.  The WRAT-Expanded does not take full advantage of Rasch measurement and its useful features, such as variable maps and person fit displays, that can enhance the usefulness and interpretability of the scores.  Potential users should carefully consider the alignment between the content of the WRAT-Expanded, and the school curriculum when using the test as an achievement test.  No validity evidence is currently available to support the accuracy of decisions based on the use of the WRAT-Expanded as a screen to identify students for individual assessments or the identification of students with special needs (Englehard, MMY16).

As with all other instruments that include individual assessments, the utility of the WRAT-Expanded depends fundamentally on the proper interpretation and use of the test by clinicians.  Target users are ages 7-18 for the group form and ages 5-24 for the individual form.  No explanation is provided about the discrepancy in content coverage and age difference between these two forms.  Although the author did not specify situations in which one would choose to administer the group form rather than the individual form, or vice versa, it was recommended that the group form serve as a screening tool and the individual form as a more in-depth assessment of learning difficulty; primarily because the individual form classifies students into finer categories. 

The modifications made to the WRAT-Expanded resulted in a tool that appears to be much better at identifying possible learning deficiencies than the WRAT3; primarily because the WRAT-Expanded focuses on a narrower and younger age range than the WRAT3.  The modifications made to the WRAT3 by the expanded version results in a tool that is much better at identifying possible learning deficiencies as compared to its predecessors, if only for elementary and secondary school children.  While the tests were standardized concurrently, they are not classified into similar tranches (a division or portion of a pool or whole, in this case ordinal levels).  Therefore, the normative scores have the same meaning while the classifications do not.  Another advantage of the expanded version is that the aptitude-achievement discrepancy can be investigated as the WRIT (Wide Range Intelligence Test; 15:279).  The reading test may also lack validity due to a lack of authenticity, as the reading passages were written specifically for this test, they do not necessarily represent material that would be read in the “real” world.

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