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Considerable Scepticism (considerable + scepticism)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Estimating the monetary value of health care: lessons from environmental economics

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2003
Nick Hanley
In the recent past, considerable effort in health economics has been made on applying stated preference methods such as contingent valuation and choice experiments. Despite this increased use, there is still considerable scepticism concerning the value of these approaches. The application of contingent valuation in environmental economics has a long history and has been widely accepted. Whilst choice experiments were introduced to the environmental and health economics literature at a similar time, the wider acceptance of monetary measures of benefit in environmental economics has meant that they have also been more widely applied. The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the key issues and debates that have taken place in the environmental economics literature, summarise the state of the art with respect to these issues, and consider how health economists have addressed these issues. Important areas for future research in health economics are identified. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

,Testimony (to some extent fictitious)': proofs of age in the first half of the fifteenth century*

HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 218 2009
Matthew Holford
This article offers an assessment of the reliability and value of proofs of age produced c.1400,50. It argues that the testimonies recorded in these proofs must be treated with considerable scepticism. From around 1420 onwards, proofs with demonstrably fictitious or conventional testimonies were produced in increasingly large numbers. The documents had become something of a formality, and it was not expected that they would be closely scrutinized. But despite these caveats, proofs of age cannot simply be dismissed. Many are not obviously conventional in their contents; and even in certain apparently fictitious documents, care was taken to provide some accurate information. [source]

ON THE ,FITTINGNESS' OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH

THE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 2 2008
OLIVER D. CRISP
In modern theology the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ, including the doctrine of his Virginal Conception, has been the subject of considerable scepticism. One line of criticism has been that the traditional doctrine of the Virgin Birth seems unnecessary to the Incarnation. In this essay I lay out one construal of the traditional argument for the doctrine and show that, although one can offer an account of the Incarnation without the Virgin Birth which, in other respects, is perfectly in accord with catholic Christianity, such a doctrine is still contrary to the plain teaching of Scripture and the Creeds on the question of the mode of the Incarnation. It might still be thought that the Incarnation was an ,unfitting' means of Incarnation. In a final section I draw upon Anselm's arguments in defence of the Incarnation to show that this objection can also be overcome. [source]

What Makes an Aboriginal Council Successful?

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 4 2009
Case Studies of Aboriginal Community Government Performance in Far North Queensland
Indigenous community governments are at the frontline of current efforts to ,close the gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous living standards. Yet there is little empirical evidence about successful performance by these organisations and considerable scepticism about whether introduced Western governance models can ever be viable in Indigenous communities. To identify the governance attributes that contribute to successful performance, case studies were conducted at three Aboriginal councils in far north Queensland. The untested assumptions in current notions of ,good governance' were examined. Currently accepted good governance principles and practices were investigated to ascertain their actual causal relationship with council performance. The research further identified key contextual, historical and cultural factors that are important in shaping successful or unsuccessful governance. Practical strategies are suggested for policy-makers and Indigenous leaders to build the performance of Indigenous community governments. [source]