Everett S. Lee and Xue-lan Rong, in The Elementary School Journal (May 1988), Univ. of Chicago Press, PO.Box 37005, Chicago, Dl. 60637.
The achievements of Asian-Americans, in school and at work, are well publicized. The National Center for Education Statistics, for example, re- ports that Asian-American students tend to earn more A's and B's and fewer D's and F's than any other ethnic group.
But Asians have been crossing the Pacific for a long time. The Chinese began arriving during the 1850s;...
age 32, while only 14 percent of Asian- American women had been divorced age 55. Asian-American house- holds tend to be small; in 1980, 1,358 children, on average, were born to every 1,000 white women aged 15-44, compared to 1,164 for the Asians.
These small, close-knit families produce motivated students: In 1980, only 17 percent of all white American men had graduated from college, compared to 32 percent of Asian-American men. Thus, Asian-Americans are conspicuous in "upper-status occupations,"...
mid-1987.
In 1984, the FCC began to restrict local government control of cable prices and programming. Municipalities were discouraged from impeding cable's new rivals, such as satellite dishes or private systems in apartment complexes. Recently, several California courts have held that cable TV is not a utility, but an "electronic publisher," whose competitors are pro- tected the First Amendment. With great implications for the nation's 5,000-6,000 municipal cable-TV franchises, the...
Ste-phen Toulrnin, in The American Scholar (Sum-mer 1988), 1811 Q St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.
One recurring idea in the West is that philosophy is no longer a valid intellectual pursuit. Since echoed others, Albert Einstein once wrote of philosophy's "nakedness and poverty," and suggested that the Mother of Science was not just old, but barren too.
Toulmin, a professor of humanities at Northwestern University, be-
WQ WINTER 1988
28
PERIODICALS
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
lieves t...
abandoning the "the-
ory-centered" approach ascendant for 300 years.
In Europe, the 17th century was an era of moral and spiritual disorder. Old political and religious allegiances were eroding, and science was cast- ing "radical doubts" on man's central role in the cosmos. "Tis all in peeces, all cohaerance gone," England's John Donne wrote in "An Anat- omy of the World" (1611). "Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgotpor every man alone...
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PERIODICALS
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
According to Gallup, 33 percent of Americans consider themselves "born again." While most such evangelical Christians tend to be Southern or black, 23 percent of all Americans aged 30 to 49 see themselves as "born again," as do 22 percent of college graduates and 23 percent of those in households with incomes of $40,000 or more. According to con- sultant George Barna, 32 percent of born-again Christians are Baptists (mostly Sou...
encouraging individual self-understanding, is "fundamental to any moral character."
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
"Voice in the Wilderness" Philip Liebennan,
The of 'wech in The SC~TZC~S
(July-Aug. 19881, New York Academy of Sciences, 2 East 63rd St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
How did humans learn to talk? Some researchers, most notably MIT's Noam Chomsky, believe that linguistic dexterity emerged spontaneously in humans, as an innate mastery of "deep structures," the rul...
Spencer
Weart, in Physics Today (June 19881, 335 East
45th St., New York, N.Y. 10017.
The "mad scientist," a sinister figure who lives to manipulate, create, or destroy life, is a surprisingly persistent archetype, still appearing in every- thing from children's TV cartoon programs to debates over genetic engi- neering. But where did this archetype originate? Weart, a historian at the American Institute of Physics, traces the origin of the mad scientist phe- nomenon to the 18th century.
Austria's...
IODICALS
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Genetic Safepards "The High Fidelity of DNA Duplication" by
Miroslav Radrnan and Robert Wagner, in Scien-tific American (Aug. 1988), 415 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.
Diseases resulting from genetic mutations are of rising concern. A small mistake can have major consequences; a single error in the three billion bits of information that constitute the human genetic material can result in sickle-cell anemia or certain types of cancer.
Recently d...
E. coli bacteria. Such errors, if not caught DNA polymerase or exonuclease, are "beyond recall"; they thus become permanent genetic mistakes that could result in crippling disease.
RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT
ocontrols "A New Crop of Pest Controls" by Omar Sat-taw, in New Scientist (July 14, 1988), 1-19 New Oxford St., London WC1A ING, United Kingdom.
The Caiiete Valley is Peru's chief cotton-producing area. After World War II, the valley's fanners began spraying with ins...