Showing posts with label myths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label myths. Show all posts
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Myths on Exercise and Weight Loss
Myths on Exercise and Weight Loss
Exercise is a critical component in any effective weight-control regimen. Unfortunately, some people have misconceptions about weight and exercise. Here are some them:
Myth:Exercise increases your appetite.
Fact: Exercise is actually more manageable after exercise.
Myth: In order for exercise to be worthwhile, you must work out everyday.
Fact: Three times a week for around 20 minutes each time will burn off a significant number of calories.
Myth: Exercise must be extremely vigorous to achieve weight loss.
Fact: Moderate exercise like walking, if done on a regular basis, can be effective. Daily 30-minute walks can burn up to 15 pounds a year.
Myth: The more you sweat, the faster you lose weight.
Fact: There is no benefit to exercise sweating. It can even be dangerous. So don’t overdress for exercise, and don’t wear “sauna suits.”
Myth: Aerobic exercise is no better than any other form of exercise for weight loss.
Fact: Aerobic exercise (like cycling, walking or swimming) speeds up your metabolism for 4 to 8 hours after you stop exercising. Therefore, additional calories will be bunred off long after you finish working out.
Used with permission from A Year of Health Hints by Don R Powell, PHD and the American Institute for Preventive Medicine, copyright 2010. www.healthylife.com
Available link for download
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance
Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance
- Girls under-perform boys in math.
- Boys are born with larger innate intellectual potential and this explains why boys are and have always been out-performing girls in math.
- Even if boys and girls math performance may be similar on average, there are many more boys with extremely high math capabilities than girls.
- Women’s nature include a tendency to prefer the more nurturing fields, such as nursing and teaching young children, to the more quantitative ones, such as mathematics, physics, and engineering. Therefore it may be a waste of time and money to expend resources directed toward trying to increase participation of women in these mathematics-intensive fields.
- Separate education of girls and boys in the single-gender schools improves math performance of girls.
As you may have guessed neither of the above statements is true. And if you doubt it, take a look at the recently published scientific article by Jonathan M. Kane and Janet E. Mertz "Debunking Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance"
My short summary of the articles highlights:
The study above compared performance of boys and girls from 65 countries in a variety of tests and found no statistically significant difference overall in boys-vs-girls performance. In some countries, like Bahrain, girls slightly outperformed boys in math, while in others, like Tunisia, boys slightly outperformed girls. Interestingly, it has not always been this way. In the US a significant gap existed between the performance of boys and girls in the 1970th. The percentage of Ph.D.’s in the mathematical sciences awarded to U.S. citizens who are women has increased from 6 percent in the 1960s to 30 percent in the past decade. Ratio of boys-to-girls among those scoring above 700 in the SAT has changed from 13-1 to 3-1 between 60th and 90th. This suggests that sociocultural, legal, and educational change that happened in our society between 60th and nowadays is responsible for the advancement of girls in math.
OK, girls on average are performing as well as boys in math. What about the fact that there are many more boys at the top level of math elite? Is this nature or nurture? The authors compared number of girls who excel in mathematics performance at an extremely high level among many different countries and concluded that that it very much depends on the equality between men and women with respect to economic participation, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health.
How about the single-gender schools? The study analyzed test results of 8th graders in the 17 countries. Indeed, math advancement of girls in some countries may be explained by the single gender schools. However, the study concludes that this is not a rule and most likely caused by under-performance of boys in these countries or different educational experiences and patterns of school attendance.
In general authors write that mathematics performance of students largely reflects the academic standards and expectations of the community in which they are raised. Specifically, home environment is a primary determinant for success of children in school.
Top image by Demi-Brooke, distributed under CCL.
Available link for download
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Myths of the World Healer v1 0 Apk Data Full Unlocked
Myths of the World Healer v1 0 Apk Data Full Unlocked
• Find clues to investigate the sickness of the Emperors Son and uncover the devious plot that puts your own life in peril!
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Requires Android:2.3.3 and up
PLAY LINK:Myths of the World: Healer
Download Links:
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Myths of the World: Healer DATA files
OBOOM:
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TUSFILES:
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Instruction: Install apk and put data on Sdcard/android/obb/
Available link for download
Monday, February 13, 2017
Myths Desolation Full v1 0 APK
Myths Desolation Full v1 0 APK
Myths: Desolation (Full) v1.0 APK
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Screenshots :
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Available link for download
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Myths about College Degrees and the Job Economy
Myths about College Degrees and the Job Economy
John Cassidy’s New Yorker article “The College Calculus: What’s the real value of a collegeeducation” does a good job at revealing many of the popular myths currently circulating around the country concerning college degrees, jobs, and inequality. Drawing from Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz 2008 book The Race Between Education and Technology, he examines the logic behind the idea that we are failing to produce enough high-skilled workers with college degrees to keep up with technological progress. As Goldin and Katz have argued: “Not so long ago, the American economy grew rapidly and wages grew in tandem, with education playing a large, positive role in both. The challenge now is to revitalize education-based mobility.” The problem with this theory linking education to technology and social mobility is that it is false and misleading.
As Lawrence Mishel has stressed, since the mid-1970s, we have seen a constant separation between wages and productivity. The following graph shows that as workers using new technologies produce more goods and profits, their wages have remained relatively flat:
(click on image to enlarge)
Thus as education levels and technological advances have increased since 1970, the profits generated from these activities have not been shared with the average worker. The problem then is not a question of education or skills or even technology, the issue is how profits are distributed.
In an act of great ideological deception, business leaders and politicians have been able to turn our attention to higher education as the solution to wage stabnation because they do not want us to look at some of the real causes, like profit hording, de-unionization, financial speculation, executive pay, regressive taxation, and outsourcing. Cassidy points out that in place of dealing with these real economic issues, we are told that America has a fair meritocracy, and the key to economic advancement for individuals and the country as a whole is to produce more people with college degrees.
The myth of the meritocracy is an effective ideological tool because it tells us that if someone does not have a good job, it is their own fault. After all, we have a fair system of equal opportunity, which provides everyone the chance for social mobility. The reality of the situation is that our economic system is enhancing inequality and higher education is making things worse. Looking at the relation between family income and college attainment since 1970, we see that people in the top quartile income bracket who enter college have increased their degree attainment from 55% to 99%, while people from the bottom bracket have moved from 22% to 21% during the same forty-three-year period:
Therefore after trillions of dollars spent on financial aid and student loans, the people in the bottom 50% have seen virtually no gain in degree attainment, while the people at the top have experienced a massive growing advantage.
Therefore after trillions of dollars spent on financial aid and student loans, the people in the bottom 50% have seen virtually no gain in degree attainment, while the people at the top have experienced a massive growing advantage.
One reason why our meritocracy does not work in higher education is that many admissions decisions are based on SAT scores, and SAT scores are highly correlated with wealth. The following chart reveals this tight connection between parental income and SAT scores:
Since many college ranking systems like The US News & World Report rely heavily on SAT scores, universities and colleges who want to move up the ladder or maintain their high position have a huge incentive to only accept high scoring students, and this means for the most part, wealthy students. In fact, in order to both enhance their revenue and increase their status, these institutions, including selective public universities, have increasingly replaced need-based aid with merit aid, and once again merit is often defined by SAT scores:
Public universities are therefore competing with each other for wealthy students by replacing low-income students who need financial aid with wealthy students who do not need aid but get it anyway.
As higher education continues to reward wealthy students with admissions to selective institutions, low-income students are mostly attending low-funded community colleges with low graduation rates. This system turns the meritocracy back into an aristocracy as the wealthy are able to use higher education as a way of further enhancing their positions of social power. Meanwhile, lower- and middle class families are putting themselves into debt in order to compete in a rigged game. In fact, the following chart shows that lower-income students are holding most of the student debt:
According to this chart, 58% of all student debt is owned by people whose household net worth is in the bottom 25%, and we should remember that this is also the same group with the lowest graduation rates and the lowest prospects of gaining a high-paying job.
Promoters of higher education as the solution to our economic inequality argue that it is still worth it for everyone to go to college because on average, people with a college degree make so much more money than people without a degree. To examine this claim, we can look at the following graph:
Since 1980, the gap between people with bachelor degrees and people without these degrees has gone up, but 65% of the difference is due to the decreased in median wages for people without college degrees. The real reason for most of the college wage premium can thus be explained by outsourcing, globalization, automation, and de-unionization; in short, there are very few middle-class jobs available to someone without a college degree, but this has little to do with education; rather, in the global race to the bottom, employers have simply sought to increase profits by decreasing labor costs.
Returning to Cassidy’s New Yorker article, what is so striking is that he continues to argue that we really do not know why workers are not making more or why college is not leading to higher wages: “If higher education serves primarily as a sorting mechanism, that might help explain another disturbing development: the tendency of many college graduates to take jobs that don’t require college degrees. Practically everyone seems to know a well-educated young person who is working in a bar or a mundane clerical job, because he or she can’t find anything better. Doubtless, the Great Recession and its aftermath are partly to blame. But something deeper, and more lasting, also seems to be happening.” Although Cassidy makes it seem like it is a giant mystery why there are not enough well-paying jobs for college graduates, we know the answer concerns a set of governmental policies and employer practices that drive down wages and benefits for everyone but the people at the top.
Some economists argue that companies simply have to decrease wages and employment opportunities in order to survive in an increasingly competitive global market. However, we also know that US companies are currently sitting on trillions of dollars of reserves, and they are using hundreds of billions of dollars of profits each year to buy back their own stocks in order drive up their company valuations and increase executive bonuses:
This practice of hording profits and then using it to increase executive compensation has helped to drive the stock market up as most workers see little if any wage gains. Once again, having more people with a college degree will not change this situation.
As many of us now know, 10% of Americans hold over 50% of the wealth, but what most people do not know is that up to 80% of all wealth is either directly or indirectly due to inheritance. As Thomas Piketty has argued, one reason then for the lack of social mobility and the increase in inequality is the way we allow the wealthiest families to retain and enhance their advantages. To highlight this issue, we can look at the top tax rates since 1913 and compare it to income inequality during the same time period:
Clearly, we can associate high levels of taxation for top earners with increased inome equality, and so tax policy, and not higher education, plays a huge role in increasing social mobility and decreasing inequality.
Of course, the wealthy have used their financial advantages to not only game higher education but also the political system, which helps to enhance wealth through tax policies and anti-labor practices. Yet, even with all of the ample evidence that most of the wealth and wage inequality is being driven by corporate hording and governmental policies favoring the super-rich, Cassidy continues to argue that we really do not know what is going on: “Why is this happening? The short answer is that nobody knows for sure. One theory is that corporate cost-cutting, having thinned the ranks of workers on the factory floor and in routine office jobs, is now targeting supervisors, managers, and other highly educated people. Another theory is that technological progress, after favoring highly educated workers for a long time, is now turning on them.” Here we see how the focus on technology and education blinds us from seeing how human greed is driving the exploitation of labor, and without any counter-force, like strong unions, governmental regulations, and progressive tax policies, there is nothing to stop the concentration of wealth at the top.
Instead of hoping that higher education should be the solution to all of our economic problems, we should follow Cassidy’s advice and return to the notion that college is a public good and an end in itself: “Being more realistic about the role that college degrees play would help families and politicians make better choices. It could also help us appreciate the actual merits of a traditional broad-based education, often called a liberal-arts education, rather than trying to reduce everything to an economic cost-benefit analysis.” If we focus on making higher education more accessible and affordable as we enhance its quality, we can at least make sure that it does not enhance inequality and decrease social mobility. The first step is to stop believing that college degrees produce good jobs.
Available link for download
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Myths and Realities A Public Forum on Chicago School Reform
Myths and Realities A Public Forum on Chicago School Reform
MYTHS AND REALITIES:
A Public Forum on
Chicago School Reform
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
7:00-9:00 p.m.
UIC Forum (725 W. Roosevelt St., Chicago)
In the midst of the 2011 Chicago mayoral election season, we hear many proclamations and promises about what it means to improve public schools. But how do they compare to what we know so far from research about the real problems and solutions? Dozens of local education researchers have come together to release a fact sheet, "Chicago School Reform: Myths, Realities, and New Visions.” To discuss this fact sheet and examine ways that it converges with the work of community organizations, please join this Public Forum as we explore next steps in the movement to improve public education.
Speakers Include:
- Kevin Kumashiro, University of Illinois at Chicago (moderator)
- Leslie Rebecca Bloom, Roosevelt University
- Sumi Cho, DePaul University
- Gregory Michie, Concordia University Chicago
- Isabel Nunez, Concordia University Chicago
- Brian Schultz, Northeastern Illinois University
- Therese Quinn, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- William Watkins, University of Illinois at Chicago
With Responses By:
- Jitu Brown, KOCO (Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization)
- Jackson Potter, CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators), Chicago Teachers Union
- And More
Organized by CReATE (Chicagoland Researchers and Advocates for Transformative Education).
Sponsored by the UIC Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement.
This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
For more information: createchicago@gmail.com, and Facebook.
Available link for download
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