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Experimental psychology

Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, including (among others) sensation, perception, memory, cognition, learning, motivation, emotion; developmental processes, social psychology, and the neural substrates of all of these.

Wilhelm Wundt
Experimental psychology emerged as a modern academic discipline in the 19th century when Wilhelm Wundt introduced a mathematical and experimental approach to the field. Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Other experimental psychologists, including Hermann Ebbinghaus and Edward Titchener, included introspection in their experimental methods.

Charles Bell
Charles Bell was a British physiologist whose main contribution to the medical and scientific community was his research on the nervous system. He wrote a pamphlet summarizing his research on rabbits. His research concluded that sensory nerves enter at the posterior (dorsal) roots of the spinal cord, and motor nerves emerge from the anterior (ventral) roots of the spinal cord. Eleven years later, a French physiologist, Francois Magendie, published the same findings without being aware of Bell's research. As a result of Bell not publishing his research, this discovery was called the Bell–Magendie law to honor both individuals. Bell's discovery disproved the belief that nerves transmitted either vibrations or spirits.

Ernst Heinrich Weber
Ernst Heinrich Weber, a German physician, is credited as one of experimental psychology's founders. Weber's main interests were the sense of touch and kinesthesis. His most memorable contribution to the field of experimental psychology is the suggestion that judgments of sensory differences are relative and not absolute. This relativity is expressed in "Weber's Law," which suggests that the just-noticeable difference or jnd is a constant proportion of the ongoing stimulus level. Weber's Law is stated as an equation:
 * $$\frac {\Delta I} {I} = k,$$

where $$I\!$$ is the original intensity of stimulation, $$\Delta I\!$$ is the addition to it required for the difference to be perceived (the jnd), and k is a constant. Thus, for k to remain constant, $$\Delta I\!$$ must rise as I increases. Weber's law is considered to be the first quantitative law in the history of psychology.

Gustav Fechner
Fechner published in 1860 what is considered to be the first work of experimental psychology, "Elemente der Psychophysik." Some historians date the beginning of experimental psychology to the publication of "Elemente." Ernst Heinrich Weber was not a psychologist, but it was Fechner who realized the importance of Weber's research to psychology. Weber's law and Fechner's law was published in Fechner's work, "Elemente der Psychophysik," and Fechner, a student of Weber named his first law in honor of his mentor. Fechner was profoundly interested in establishing a scientific study of the mind-body relationship, which became known as psychophysics. Much of Fechner's research focused on the measurement of psychophysical thresholds and just-noticeable differences. He invented the psychophysical method of limits, the method of constant stimuli, and the method of adjustment, which are still in use.

Oswald Külpe
Oswald Külpe is the main founder of the Würzburg School in Germany. He was a pupil of Wilhelm Wundt for about twelve years. Unlike Wundt, Külpe believed experiments were possible to test higher mental processes. In 1883 he wrote Grundriss der Psychologie, which had strictly scientific facts and no mention of thought. The lack of thought in his book is odd because the Würzburg School put a lot of emphasis on mental set and imageless thought.

Würzburg School
The work of the Würzburg School was a milestone in the development of experimental psychology. The School was founded by a group of psychologists led by Oswald Külpe, and it provided an alternative to the structuralism of Edward Titchener and Wilhelm Wundt. Those in the School focused mainly on mental operations such as mental set (Einstellung) and imageless thought. Mental set affects perception and problem solving without the awareness of the individual; it can be triggered by instructions or by experience. Similarly, according to Külpe, imageless thought consists of pure mental acts that do not involve mental images. William Bryan, an American student, working in Külpe's laboratory, provided an example of mental set. Bryan presented subjects with cards that had nonsense syllables written on them in various colors. The subjects were told to attend to the syllables, and in consequence, they did not remember the colors of the nonsense syllables. Such results made people question the validity of introspection as a research tool, leading to a decline in voluntarism and structuralism. The work of the Würzburg School later influenced many Gestalt psychologists, including Max Wertheimer.

George Trumbull Ladd
George Trumbull Ladd introduced experimental psychology into the United States and founded Yale University's psychological laboratory during his time there (from 1881 to 1905). In 1887, Ladd published Elements of Physiological Psychology, the first American textbook that extensively discussed experimental psychology. Between Ladd's founding of the Yale Laboratory and his textbook, the center of experimental psychology in the US shifted to Johns Hopkins University, where George Hall and Charles Sanders Peirce were extending and qualifying Wundt's work.

Charles Sanders Peirce
With his student Joseph Jastrow, Charles S. Peirce randomly assigned volunteers to a blinded, repeated-measures design to evaluate their ability to discriminate weights. Peirce's experiment inspired other researchers in psychology and education, which developed a research tradition of randomized experiments in laboratories and specialized textbooks in the 1800s. The Peirce-Jastrow experiments were conducted as part of Peirce's pragmatic program to understand human perception; other studies considered perception of light, etc. While Peirce was making advances in experimental psychology and psychophysics, he was also developing a theory of statistical inference, which was published in "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" (1877–78) and "A Theory of Probable Inference" (1883); both publications that emphasized the importance of randomization-based inference in statistics. To Peirce and to experimental psychology belongs the honor of having invented randomized experiments decades before the innovations of Jerzy Neyman and Ronald Fisher in agriculture.

Peirce's pragmaticist philosophy also included an extensive theory of mental representations and cognition, which he studied under the name of semiotics. Peirce's student Joseph Jastrow continued to conduct randomized experiments throughout his distinguished career in experimental psychology, much of which would later be recognized as cognitive psychology. There has been a resurgence of interest in Peirce's work in cognitive psychology. Another student of Peirce, John Dewey, conducted experiments on human cognition, particularly in schools, as part of his "experimental logic" and "public philosophy."

20th century
In the middle of the 20th century, behaviorism became a dominant paradigm within psychology, especially in the United States. This led to some neglect of mental phenomena within experimental psychology. In Europe, this was less the case, as European psychology was influenced by psychologists such as Sir Frederic Bartlett, Kenneth Craik, W.E. Hick, and Donald Broadbent, who focused on topics such as thinking, memory, and attention. This laid the foundations for the subsequent development of cognitive psychology.

In the latter half of the 20th century, the phrase "experimental psychology" had shifted in meaning due to the expansion of psychology as a discipline and the growth in its sub-disciplines. Experimental psychologists use a range of methods and do not confine themselves to a strictly experimental approach, partly because developments in the philosophy of science have affected the exclusive prestige of experimentation. In contrast, experimental methods are now widely used in fields such as developmental and social psychology, which were not previously part of experimental psychology. The phrase continues in use in the titles of a number of well-established, high prestige learned societies and scientific journals, as well as some university courses of study in psychology.

Institutional review board (IRB)
In 1974, the National Research Act established the existence of the institutional review board in the United States following several controversial experiments. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) play an important role in monitoring the conduct of psychological experiments. Their presence is required by law at institutions such as universities where psychological research occurs. Their purpose is to make sure that experiments do not violate ethical codes or legal requirements; thus they protect human subjects from physical or psychological harm and assure the humane treatment of animal subjects. An IRB must review the procedure to be used in each experiment before that experiment may begin. The IRB also assures that human participants give informed consent in advance; that is, the participants are told the general nature of the experiment and what will be required of them. There are three types of review that may be undertaken by an IRB - exempt, expedited, and full review. More information is available on the main IRB page.

Methodology
Sound methodology is essential to the study of complex behavioral and mental processes, and this implies, especially, the careful definition and control of experimental variables. The research methodologies employed in experimental psychology utilize techniques in research to seek to uncover new knowledge or validate existing claims. Typically, this entails a number of stages, including selecting a sample, gathering data from this sample, and evaluating this data. From assumptions made by researchers when undertaking a project, to the scales used, the research design, and data analysis, proper methodology in experimental psychology is made up of several critical stages.

Empiricism
Perhaps the most basic assumption of science is that factual statements about the world must ultimately be based on observations of the world. This notion of empiricism requires that hypotheses and theories be tested against observations of the natural world rather than on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.

Testability
Closely related to empiricism is the idea that, to be useful, a scientific law or theory must be testable with available research methods. If a theory cannot be tested in any conceivable way then many scientists consider the theory to be meaningless. Testability implies falsifiability, which is the idea that some set of observations could prove the theory to be incorrect. Testability has been emphasized in psychology because influential or well-known theories like those of Freud have been difficult to test.

Determinism
Experimental psychologists, like most scientists, accept the notion of determinism. This is the assumption that any state of an object or event is determined by prior states. In other words, behavioral or mental phenomena are typically stated in terms of cause and effect. If a phenomenon is sufficiently general and widely confirmed, it may be called a "law"; psychological theories serve to organize and integrate laws.

Parsimony
Another guiding idea of science is parsimony, the search for simplicity. For example, most scientists agree that if two theories handle a set of empirical observations equally well, we should prefer the simpler or more parsimonious of the two. A notable early argument for parsimony was stated by the medieval English philosopher William of Occam, and for this reason, the principle of parsimony is often referred to as Occam's razor.

Operational definition
Some well-known behaviorists such as Edward C. Tolman and Clark Hull popularized the idea of operationism, or operational definition. Operational definition implies that a concept be defined in terms of concrete, observable procedures. Experimental psychologists attempt to define currently unobservable phenomena, such as mental events, by connecting them to observations by chains of reasoning.

Reliability
Reliability measures the consistency or repeatability of an observation. For example, one way to assess reliability is the "test-retest" method, done by measuring a group of participants at one time and then testing them a second time to see if the results are consistent. Because the first test itself may alter the results of a second test, other methods are often used. For example, in the "split-half" measure, a group of participants is divided at random into two comparable sub-groups, and reliability is measured by comparing the test results from these groups, It is important to note that a reliable measure need not yield a valid conclusion.

Validity
Validity measures the relative accuracy or correctness of conclusions drawn from a study. To determine the validity of a measurement quantitatively, it must be compared with a criterion. For example, to determine the validity of a test of academic ability, that test might be given to a group of students and the results correlated with the grade-point averages of the individuals in that group. As this example suggests, there is often controversy in the selection of appropriate criteria for a given measure. In addition, a conclusion can only be valid to the extent that the observations upon which it is based are reliable.

Several types of validity have been distinguished, as follows:

Internal validity
Internal validity refers to the extent to which a set of research findings provides compelling information about causality. High internal validity implies that the experimental design of a study excludes extraneous influences, such that one can confidently conclude that variations in the independent variable caused any observed changes in the dependent variable.

External validity
External Validity refers to the extent to which the outcome of an experiment can be generalized to apply to other situations than those of the experiment - for example, to other people, other physical or social environments, or even other cultures.

Construct validity
Construct validity refers to the extent to which the independent and dependent variables in a study represent the abstract hypothetical variables of interest. In other words, it has to do with whether the manipulated and/or measured variables in a study accurately reflect the variables the researcher hoped to manipulate. Construct validity also reflects the quality of one's operational definitions. If a researcher has done a good job of converting the abstract to the observable, construct validity is high.

Conceptual validity
Conceptual validity refers to how well specific research maps onto the broader theory that it was designed to test. Conceptual and construct validity have a lot in common, but conceptual validity relates a study to broad theoretical issues whereas construct validity has more to do with specific manipulations and measures.

Scales of measurement
Measurement can be defined as "the assignment of numerals to objects or events according to rules." Almost all psychological experiments involve some sort of measurement, if only to determine the reliability and validity of results, and of course measurement is essential if results are to be relevant to quantitative theories.

The rule for assigning numbers to a property of an object or event is called a "scale". Following are the basic scales used in psychological measurement.

Nominal measurement
In a nominal scale, numbers are used simply as labels – a letter or name would do as well. Examples are the numbers on the shirts of football or baseball players. The labels are more useful if the same label can be given to more than one thing, meaning that the things are equal in some way, and can be classified together.

Ordinal measurement
An ordinal scale arises from the ordering or ranking objects, so that A is greater than B, B is greater than C, and so on. Many psychological experiments yield numbers of this sort; for example, a participant might be able to rank odors such that A is more pleasant than B, and B is more pleasant than C, but these rankings ("1, 2, 3 ...") would not tell by how much each odor differed from another. Some statistics can be computed from ordinal measures – for example, median, percentile, and order correlation – but others, such as standard deviation, cannot properly be used.

Interval measurement
An interval scale is constructed by determining the equality of differences between the things measured. That is, numbers form an interval scale when the differences between the numbers correspond to differences between the properties measured. For instance, one can say that the difference between 5 and 10 degrees on a Fahrenheit thermometer equals the difference between 25 and 30, but it is meaningless to say that something with a temperature of 20 degrees Fahrenheit is "twice as hot" as something with a temperature of 10 degrees. (Such ratios are meaningful on an absolute temperature scale such as the Kelvin scale. See next section.) "Standard scores" on an achievement test are said to be measurements on an interval scale, but this is difficult to prove.

Ratio measurement
A ratio scale is constructed by determining the equality of ratios. For example, if, on a balance instrument, object A balances two identical objects B, then one can say that A is twice as heavy as B and can give them appropriate numbers, for example "A weighs 2 grams" and "B weighs 1 gram". A key idea is that such ratios remain the same regardless of the scale units used; for example, the ratio of A to B remains the same whether grams or ounces are used. Length, resistance, and Kelvin temperature are other things that can be measured on ratio scales. Some psychological properties such as the loudness of a sound can be measured on a ratio scale.

One-way designs
The simplest experimental design is a one-way design, in which there is only one independent variable. The simplest kind of one-way design involves just two-groups, each of which receives one value of the independent variable. A two-group design typically consists of an experimental group (a group that receives treatment) and a control group (a group that does not receive treatment).

The one-way design may be expanded to a one-way, multiple groups design. Here a single independent variable takes on three or more levels. This type of design is particularly useful because it can help to outline a functional relationship between the independent and dependent variables.

Factorial designs
One-way designs are limited in that they allow researchers to look at only one independent variable at a time, whereas many phenomena of interest are dependent on multiple variables. Because of this, R.A Fisher popularized the use of factorial designs. Factorial designs contain two or more independent variables that are completely "crossed," which means that every level each independent variable appears in combination with every level of all other independent variables. Factorial designs carry labels that specify the number of independent variables and the number of levels of each independent variable there are in the design. For example, a 2x3 factorial design has two independent variables (because there are two numbers in the description), the first variable having two levels and the second having three.

Main effects and interactions
The effects of independent variables in factorial studies, taken singly, are referred to as main effects. This refers to the overall effect of an independent variable, averaging across all levels of the other independent variables. A main effect is the only effect detectable in a one-way design. Often more important than main effects are "interactions", which occur when the effect of one independent variable on a dependent variable depends on the level of a second independent variable. For example, the ability to catch a ball (dependent variable) might depend on the interaction of visual acuity (independent variable #1) and the size of the ball being caught (independent variable #2). A person with good eyesight might catch a small ball most easily, and person with very poor eyesight might do better with a large ball, so the two variables can be said to interact.

Within- and between-subjects designs
Two basic approaches to research design are within-subjects design and between-subjects design. In within-subjects or repeated measures designs, each participant serves in more than one or perhaps all of the conditions of a study. In between-subjects designs each participant serves in only one condition of an experiment. Within-subjects designs have significant advantages over between-subjects designs, especially when it comes to complex factorial designs that have many conditions. In particular, within-subjects designs eliminate person confounds, that is, they get rid of effects caused by differences among subjects that are irrelevant to the phenomenon under study. However, the within-subject design has the serious disadvantage of possible sequence effects. Because each participant serves in more than one condition, the passage of time or the performance of an earlier task may affect the performance of a later task. For example, a participant might learn something from the first task that affects the second.

Experiments
The use of experimental methods was perhaps the main characteristic by which psychology became distinguishable from philosophy in the late 19th century. Ever since then experiments have been an integral part of most psychological research. Following is a sample of some major areas that use experimental methods. In experiments, human participants often respond to visual, auditory or other stimuli, following instructions given by an experimenter; animals may be similarly "instructed" by rewarding appropriate responses. Since the 1990s, computers have commonly been used to automate stimulus presentation and behavioral measurement in the laboratory. Behavioral experiments with both humans and animals typically measure reaction time, choices among two or more alternatives, and/or response rate or strength; they may also record movements, facial expressions, or other behaviors. Experiments with humans may also obtain written responses before, during, and after experimental procedures. Psychophysiological experiments, on the other hand, measure brain or (mostly in animals) single-cell activation during the presentation of a stimulus using methods such as fMRI, EEG, PET or similar.

Control of extraneous variables, minimizing the potential for experimenter bias, counterbalancing the order of experimental tasks, adequate sample size, the use of operational definitions, emphasis on both the reliability and validity of results, and proper statistical analysis are central to experimental methods in psychology. Because an understanding of these matters is important to the interpretation of data in almost all fields of psychology, undergraduate programs in psychology usually include mandatory courses in research methods and statistics.

A crucial experiment is an experiment that is intended to test several hypotheses at the same time. Ideally, one hypothesis may be confirmed and all the others rejected. However, the data may also be consistent with several hypotheses, a result that calls for further research to narrow down the possibilities.

A pilot study may be run before a major experiment, in order to try out different procedures, determine optimal values of the experimental variables, or uncover weaknesses in experimental design. The pilot study may not be an experiment as usually defined; it might, for example, consist simply of self-reports.

In a field experiment, participants are observed in a naturalistic setting outside the laboratory. Field experiments differ from field studies in that some part of the environment (field) is manipulated in a controlled way (for example, researchers give different kinds of toys to two different groups of children in a nursery school). Control is typically more lax than it would be in a laboratory setting.

Other methods of research such as case studies, interviews, opinion polls and naturalistic observation, are often used by psychologists. These are not experimental methods, as they lack such aspects as well-defined, controlled variables, randomization, and isolation from unwanted variables.

Cognitive psychology
Some of the major topics studied by cognitive psychologists are memory, learning, problem solving, and attention. Most cognitive experiments are done in a lab instead of a social setting; this is done mainly to provide maximum control of experimental variables and minimal interference from irrelevant events and other aspects of the situation. A great many experimental methods are used; frequently used methods are described on the main pages of the topics just listed. In addition to studying behavior, experimenters may use EEG or fMRI to help understand how the brain carries out cognitive processes, sometimes in conjunction with computational modelling. They may also study patients with focal brain damage or neurologic disease (see cognitive neuropsychology) or use brain stimulation techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation to help confirm the causal role and specific functional contribution of neural regions or modules.

Animal cognition
Animal cognition refers to the mental capacities of non-human animals, and research in this field often focuses on matters similar to those of interest to cognitive psychologists using human participants. Cognitive studies using animals can often control conditions more closely and use methods not open to research with humans. In addition, processes such as conditioning my appear in simpler form in animals, certain animals display unique capacities (such as echo location in bats) that clarify important cognitive functions, and animal studies often have important implications for the survival and evolution of species.

Sensation and perception
Experiments on sensation and perception have a very long history in experimental psychology (see History above). Experimenters typically manipulate stimuli affecting vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste and proprioception. Sensory measurement plays a large role in the field, covering many aspects of sensory performance - for example, minimum discriminable differences in brightness or the detection of odors; such measurement involves the use of instruments such as the oscillator, attenuator, stroboscope, and many others listed earlier in this article. Experiments also probe subtle phenomena such as visual illusions, or the emotions aroused by stimuli of different sorts.

Behavioral psychology
The behavioristic approach to psychology reached its peak of popularity in the mid-twentieth century but still underlies much experimental research and clinical application. Its founders include such figures as Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and B.F. Skinner. Pavlov's experimental study of the digestive system in dogs led to extensive experiments through which he established the basic principles of classical conditioning. Watson popularized the behaviorist approach to human behavior; his experiments with Little Albert are particularly well known. Skinner distinguished operant conditioning from classical conditioning and established the experimental analysis of behavior as a major component in the subsequent development of experimental psychology.

Social psychology
Social psychologists use both empirical research and experimental methods to study the effects of social interactions on individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Social psychologists use experimental methods, both within and outside the laboratory, and there have been several key experiments done in the past few centuries. The Triplett experiment, one of the first social psychology experiments conducted in 1898 by Norman Triplett, noticed that the presence of others had an effect on children's performance times. Other widely cited experiments in social psychology are projects like the Stanford prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971 and the Milgram obedience experiment by Stanley Milgram. In both experiments ordinary individuals were induced to engage in remarkably cruel behavior, suggesting that such behavior could be influenced by social pressure. Zimbardo's experiment noted the effect of conformity to specific roles in society and the social world. Milgram's study looked at the role of authority in shaping behavior, even when it had adverse effects on another person. Because of possible negative effects on the participants, neither of these experiments could be legally performed in the United States today. These two experiments also took place during the era prior to the existence of IRBs, and most likely played a role in the establishment of such boards

Experimental instruments
Instruments used in experimental psychology evolved along with technical advances and with the shifting demands of experiments. The earliest instruments, such as the Hipp Chronoscope and the kymograph, were originally used for other purposes. The list below exemplifies some of the different instruments used over the years. These are only a few core instruments used in current research.

Hipp chronoscope / chronograph
This instrument, invented by Matthäus Hipp around 1850, uses a vibrating reed to tick off time in 1000ths of a second. Originally designed for experiments in physics, it was later adapted to study the speed of bullets. After then being introduced to physiology, it was finally used in psychology to measure reaction time and the duration of mental processes.

Stereoscope
The first stereoscope was invented by Wheatstone in 1838. It presents two slightly different images, one to each eye, at the same time. Typically the images are photographs of the same object taken from camera positions that mimic the position and separation of the eyes in the head. When one looks through the stereoscope the photos fuse into a single image that conveys a powerful sense of depth and solidity.

Kymograph
Developed by Carl Ludwig in the 19th century, the kymograph is a revolving drum on which a moving stylus tracks the size of some measurement as a function of time. The kymograph is similar to the polygraph, which has a strip of paper moving under one or more pens. The kymograph was originally used to measure blood pressure and it later was used to measure muscle contractions and speech sounds. In psychology, it was often used to record response times.

Photokymographs
This device is a photographic recorder. It used mirrors and light to record the photos. Inside a small box with a slit for light there are two drive rollers with film connecting the two. The light enters through the slit to record on the film. Some photokymographs have a lens so an appropriate speed for the film can be reached.

Galvanometer
The galvanometer is an early instrument used to measure the strength of an electric current. Hermann von Helmholtz used it to detect the electrical signals generated by nerve impulses, and thus to measure the time taken by impulses to travel between two points on a nerve.

Audiometer
This apparatus was designed to produce several fixed frequencies at different levels of intensity. It could either deliver the tone to a subject's ear or transmit sound oscillations to the skull. An experimenter would generally use an audiometer to find the auditory threshold of a subject. The data received from an audiometer is called an audiogram.

Colorimeters
These determine the color composition by measuring its tricolor characteristics or matching of a color sample. This type of device would be used in visual experiments.

Algesiometers and algometers
Both of these are mechanical stimulations of pain. They have a sharp needle-like stimulus point so it does not give the sensation of pressure. Experimenters use these when doing an experiment on analgesia.

Olfactometer
An olfactometer is any device that is used to measure the sense of smell. The most basic type in early studies was placing a subject in a room containing a specific measured amount of an odorous substance. More intricate devices involve some form of sniffing device, such as the neck of a bottle. The most common olfactometer found in psychology laboratories at one point was the Zwaardemker olfactometer. It had two glass nasal tubes projecting through a screen. One end would be inserted into a stimulus chamber, the other end is inserted directly into the nostrils.

Mazes
Probably one of the oldest instruments for studying memory would be the maze. The common goal is to get from point A to point B, however the mazes can vary in size and complexity. Two types of mazes commonly used with rats are the radial arm maze and the Morris water maze. The radial arm maze consists of multiple arms radiating from a central point. Each arm has a small piece of food at the end. The Morris water maze is meant to test spatial learning. It uses a large round pool of water that is made opaque. The rat must swim around until it finds the escape platform that is hidden from view just below the surface of the water.

Electroencephalograph (EEG)
The EEG is an instrument that can reflect the summed electrical activity of neural cell assemblies in the brain. It was originally used as an attempt to improve medical diagnoses. Later it became a key instrument to psychologists in examining brain activity and it remains a key instrument used in the field today.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
The fMRI is an instrument that can detect changes in blood oxygen levels over time. The increase in blood oxygen levels shows where brain activity occurs. These are rather bulky and expensive instruments which are generally found in hospitals. They are most commonly used for cognitive experiments.

Positron emission tomography (PET)
PET is also used to look at brain activity. It can detect drugs binding neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. A down side to PET is that it requires radioisotopes to be injected into the body so the brain activity can be mapped out. The radioisotopes decay quickly so they do not accumulate in the body.

Eye tracking
Eye trackers are used to measure where someone is looking or how their eyes are moving relative to the head. Eye trackers are used in the study of visual perception and—because people typically direct their attention to the place they are looking—also to provide directly observable measures of attention.

Frankfurt school
One school opposed to experimental psychology has been associated with the Frankfurt School, which calls its ideas "Critical Theory." Critical psychologists claim that experimental psychology approaches humans as entities independent of the cultural, economic, and historical context in which they exist. These contexts of human mental processes and behavior are neglected, according to critical psychologists, like Herbert Marcuse. In so doing, experimental psychologists paint an inaccurate portrait of human nature while lending tacit support to the prevailing social order, according to critical theorists like Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas (in their essays in The Positivist Debate in German Sociology).

title: Experimental psychology


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Liebig's law of the minimum

Liebig's law of the minimum, often simply called Liebig's law or the law of the minimum, is a principle developed in agricultural science by Carl Sprengel (1840) and later popularized by Justus von Liebig. It states that growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). The law has also been applied to biological populations and ecosystem models for factors such as sunlight or mineral nutrients.

Applications
This was originally applied to plant or crop growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not increase plant growth. Only by increasing the amount of the limiting nutrient (the one most scarce in relation to "need") was the growth of a plant or crop improved. This principle can be summed up in the aphorism, "The availability of the most abundant nutrient in the soil is only as good as the availability of the least abundant nutrient in the soil." Or the rough analog, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Though diagnosis of limiting factors to crop yields is a common study, the approach has been criticized.

Scientific applications
Liebig's law has been extended to biological populations (and is commonly used in ecosystem modelling). For example, the growth of an organism such as a plant may be dependent on a number of different factors, such as sunlight or mineral nutrients (e.g., nitrate or phosphate). The availability of these may vary, such that at any given time one is more limiting than the others. Liebig's law states that growth only occurs at the rate permitted by the most limiting factor.

For instance, in the equation below, the growth of population $$O$$ is a function of the minimum of three Michaelis-Menten terms representing limitation by factors $$I$$, $$N$$ and $$P$$.

 * $$ \frac{dO}{dt} = O\left(\min \left( \frac{\mu_I I}{k_{I} + I}, \frac{\mu_N N}{k_{N} + N}, \frac{\mu_P P}{k_{P} + P} \right) -m\right) $$

Where O is the biomass concentration or population density. μI,μN,μP are the specific growth rates in response to the concentrations of three different limiting nutrients, represented by I,N,P respectively. kI,kN,kP are the half-saturation constants for the three nutrients I,N,P respectively. These constants represent the concentration of the nutrient at which the growth rate is half of its maximum. I,N,P are the concentrations of the three nutrients /factors. m is the mortality rate or decay constant.

The use of the equation is limited to a situation where there are steady state ceteris paribus conditions, and factor interactions are tightly controlled.

Protein nutrition
In human nutrition, the law of the minimum was used by William Cumming Rose to determine the essential amino acids. In 1931 he published his study "Feeding experiments with mixtures of highly refined amino acids". Knowledge of the essential amino acids has enabled vegetarians to enhance their protein nutrition by protein combining from various vegetable sources. One practitioner was Nevin S. Scrimshaw fighting protein deficiency in India and Guatemala. Frances Moore Lappé published Diet for a Small Planet in 1971 which popularized protein combining using grains, legumes, and dairy products.

The law of the minimum was tested at University of Southern California in 1947. "The formation of protein molecules is a coordinated tissue function and can be accomplished only when all amino acids which take part in the formation are present at the same time." It was further concluded, that "'incomplete' amino acid mixtures are not stored in the body, but are irreversibly further metabolized." Robert Bruce Merrifield was a laboratory assistant for the experiments. When he wrote his autobiography he recounted in 1993 the finding:
 * We showed that no net growth occurred when one essential amino acid was omitted from the diet, nor did it occur if that amino  acid was fed several hours after the main feeding with the deficient diet.

Other applications
More recently Liebig's law is starting to find an application in natural resource management where it surmises that growth in markets dependent upon natural resource inputs is restricted by the most limited input. As the natural capital upon which growth depends is limited in supply due to the finite nature of the planet, Liebig's law encourages scientists and natural resource managers to calculate the scarcity of essential resources in order to allow for a multi-generational approach to resource consumption.

Neoclassical economic theory has sought to refute the issue of resource scarcity by application of the law of substitutability and technological innovation. The substitutability "law" states that as one resource is exhausted—and prices rise due to a lack of surplus—new markets based on alternative resources appear at certain prices in order to satisfy demand. Technological innovation implies that humans are able to use technology to fill the gaps in situations where resources are imperfectly substitutable.

A market-based theory depends on proper pricing. Where resources such as clean air and water are not accounted for, there will be a "market failure". These failures may be addressed with Pigovian taxes and subsidies, such as a carbon tax. While the theory of the law of substitutability is a useful rule of thumb, some resources may be so fundamental that there exist no substitutes. For example, Isaac Asimov noted, "We may be able to substitute nuclear power for coal power, and plastics for wood ... but for phosphorus there is neither substitute nor replacement."

Where no substitutes exist, such as phosphorus, recycling will be necessary. This may require careful long-term planning and governmental intervention, in part to create Pigovian taxes to allow efficient market allocation of resources, in part to address other market failures such as excessive time discounting.

Liebig's barrel
Dobenecks used the image of a barrel — often called "Liebig's barrel" — to explain Liebig's law. Just as the maximum practical capacity of a barrel with staves of unequal length is limited by the length of the shortest stave. Similarly, a plant's growth is limited by the nutrient in shortest supply.

If a system satisfies the law of the minimum then adaptation will equalize the load of different factors because the adaptation resource will be allocated for compensation of limitation. Adaptation systems act as the cooper of Liebig's barrel and lengthens the shortest stave to improve barrel capacity. Indeed, in well-adapted systems the limiting factor should be compensated as far as possible. This observation follows the concept of resource competition and fitness maximization.

Due to the law of the minimum paradoxes, if we observe the Law of the Minimum in artificial systems, then under natural conditions adaptation will equalize the load of different factors and we can expect a violation of the law of the minimum. Inversely, if artificial systems demonstrate significant violation of the law of the minimum, then we can expect that under natural conditions adaptation will compensate this violation. In a limited system life will adjust as an evolution of what came before.

Biotechnology
One example of technological innovation is in plant genetics whereby the biological characteristics of species can be changed by employing genetic modification to alter biological dependence on the most limiting resource. Biotechnological innovations are thus able to extend the limits for growth in species by an increment until a new limiting factor is established, which can then be challenged through technological innovation.

Theoretically there is no limit to the number of possible increments towards an unknown productivity limit. This would be either the point where the increment to be advanced is so small it cannot be justified economically or where technology meets an invulnerable natural barrier. It may be worth adding that biotechnology itself is totally dependent on external sources of natural capital.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Liebig's law of the minimum


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Charles Gordon

Charles Gordon may refer to:

Politics and armed forces

 * Charles Gordon, 1st Earl of Aboyne (1638–1681)
 * Charles Gordon, 2nd Earl of Aboyne (1670–1702)
 * Charles Gordon, 4th Earl of Aboyne (1726–1794)
 * Charles Gordon (Royal Navy officer) (c. 1780–1860)
 * Charles Gordon, 10th Marquess of Huntly (1792–1863), Scottish peer and politician
 * Charles George Gordon (1833–1885), British army officer and colonial governor, killed at Khartoum
 * Charles Gordon, 11th Marquess of Huntly (1847–1937), Scottish Liberal politician
 * Charlie Gordon (born 1951), Scottish Labour Party politician
 * Charles William Gordon (MP) (1817–1863), British Conservative politician
 * Charles Gordon (parliamentary clerk) (1918–2009), English parliamentary clerk

Sports

 * Charles Gordon (cricketer, born 1849) (1849–1930), English cricketer
 * Charles Gordon (cricketer, born 1814) (1814–1899), English cricketer and gin distiller
 * Charles Gordon (Canadian football) (born 1968), Canadian football player
 * Charles Gordon (American football) (born 1984), American cornerback

Other

 * Ralph Connor (1860–1937), pen name of Rev. Charles William Gordon, Canadian novelist
 * Charles Blair Gordon (1867–1939), Canadian banker
 * Charles Gordon (trade unionist) (died 1929), British trade union leader
 * Charles Gordon (lawyer) (1905–1999), American immigration attorney
 * Charles Gordon (artist) (1909–1978), watercolor artist
 * Charles Gordon (journalist) (born 1940), Canadian writer and journalist
 * Charles Jason Gordon (born 1959), bishop of Barbados
 * Charles Gordon (producer) (1947–2020), film producer of October Sky
 * Charles Grant Gordon (1927–2013), Scottish whisky distiller

Characters

 * Charlie Gordon, the main character in Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and in the film adaptation Charly

title: Charles Gordon


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Photometric-standard star

Photometric-standard stars are a series of stars that have had their light output in various passbands of photometric system measured very carefully. Other objects can be observed using CCD cameras or photoelectric photometers connected to a telescope, and the flux, or amount of light received, can be compared to a photometric-standard star to determine the exact brightness, or stellar magnitude, of the object.

A current set of photometric-standard stars for UBVRI photometry was published by Arlo U. Landolt in 1992 in The Astronomical Journal.

title: Photometric-standard star


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Air Nippon

Air Nippon Co., Ltd. (エアーニッポン株式会社) was a regional airline based in the Shiodome City Center complex in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

It was a wholly owned subsidiary of All Nippon Airways (ANA). Its main base was Tokyo International Airport.

Code data
In April 2004, Air Nippon adopted ANA flight codes and numbers for all domestic services.

History

The company was founded by ANA, Japan Airlines and TOA Domestic as Nippon Kinkyori Airways (日本近距離航空) in March 1974 and started operations on 10 October 1974. The name Air Nippon was adopted in 1987, and the abbreviation ANK comes from the full, somewhat redundant name Air Nippon Kabushiki kaisha (lit. Air Nippon joint stock corporation.).

It had 12 Boeing 737-200 aircraft. ANA and Air Nippon used different liveries and IATA codes on domestic flights until April 2004, when Air Nippon adopted ANA livery and ANA flight numbers. As an ANA subsidiary, it is considered a full Star Alliance member. However, on Republic of China flights before April 2008, Air Nippon's IATA code EL was still used due to political reasons and these flights are not considered being Star Alliance flights.

In 1998 the airline was headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

In 2002 Air Nippon was headquartered on the 5th floor of the Utility Center Building (ユーティリティセンタービル) by Tokyo International Airport in Ōta. Shiodome City Center, which became headquarters of Air Nippon and parent company ANA, opened in 2003.

The airline employed 1,686 staff (at March 2007). On 1 October 2010, Air Nippon Network was merged into ANA Wings.

On 1 April 2012, Air Nippon was merged to All Nippon Airways.

Fleet
The Air Nippon fleet consisted of the following aircraft throughout operations:

title: Air Nippon


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ANK

ANK is an acronym for:
 * Air Nippon, ICAO airport code
 * Etimesgut Air Base, IATA airport code
 * Armée Nationale Khmère (Khmer National Army)
 * ANK '64, an Estonian artist collective

Ank as a word:
 * Karuka is known as ank in Angal language

 * See also
 * Ankh, an Egyptian hieroglyphic

title: ANK


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Learned society

A learned society (also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honour conferred by election.

Most learned societies are non-profit organizations, and many are professional associations. Their activities typically include holding regular conferences for the presentation and discussion of new research results, and publishing or sponsoring academic journals in their discipline. Some also act as professional bodies, regulating the activities of their members in the public interest or the collective interest of the membership.

History
Some of the oldest learned societies are the Académie des Jeux floraux (founded 1323), Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana (founded 1488), Accademia della Crusca (founded 1583), Accademia dei Lincei (founded 1603), Académie Française (founded 1635), German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (founded 1652), Royal Society (founded 1660) and French Academy of Sciences (founded 1666).

Significance
Scholars in the sociology of science argue that learned societies are of key importance and their formation assists in the emergence and development of new disciplines or professions. In the form of professional associations, they can assist in the creation of pathways to leadership.

Structure
Societies can be very general in nature, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, specific to a given discipline, such as the Modern Language Association, or specific to a given area of study, such as the Royal Entomological Society.

Most are either specific to a particular country (e.g. the Entomological Society of Israel), though they generally include some members from other countries as well, often with local branches, or are international, such as the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions or the Regional Studies Association, in which case they often have national branches. But many are local, such as the Massachusetts Medical Society, the publishers of the internationally known The New England Journal of Medicine.

Some learned societies (such as the Royal Society Te Apārangi) have been rechartered by legislation to form quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations.

Membership and fellowship
Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election.

Some societies offer membership to those who have an interest in a particular subject or discipline, provided they pay their membership fees. Older and more academic/professional societies may offer associateships and/or fellowships to fellows who are appropriately qualified by honoris causa, or by submission of a portfolio of work or an original thesis. A benefit of membership may be discounts on the subscription rates for the publications of the society. Many of these societies award post-nominal letters to their memberships.

Online academic communities
Following the globalization and the development of information technology, certain scholarly societies—such as the Modern Language Association—have created virtual communities for their members. In addition to established academic associations, academic virtual communities have been so organized that, in some cases, they have become more important platforms for interaction and scientific collaborations among researchers and faculty than have traditional scholarly societies. Members of these online academic communities, grouped by areas of interests, use for their communication shared and dedicated listservs (for example JISCMail), social networking services (like Facebook or LinkedIn) and academic oriented social networks (like Humanities Commons, ResearchGate, Mendeley or Academia.edu).

title: Learned society


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Jesus in Christianity

According to Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God as chronicled in the Bible's New Testament, and in most Christian denominations He is held to be God the Son, a prosopon (Person) of the Trinity of God.

Christians believe him to be the messiah, or a saviour (giving him the title Christ), who was prophesied in the Bible's Old Testament. Through Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection, Christians believe that God offers humans salvation and eternal life, with Jesus's death atoning for all sin, thus making humanity right with God. The commonly held belief among Christians is the phrase, "Jesus died for your sins," and thus they accept that salvation is only possible through him.

These teachings emphasize that as the Lamb of God, Jesus chose to suffer nailed to the cross at Calvary as a sign of his obedience to the will of God, as an "agent and servant of God". Jesus's choice positions him as a man of obedience, in contrast to Adam's disobedience. According to the New Testament, after God raised him from the dead, Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father, with his followers awaiting his return to Earth and God's subsequent Last Judgment.

According to the gospel accounts, Jesus was born of a virgin, instructed other Jews how to follow God (sometimes using parables), performed miracles and gathered disciples. Christians generally believe that this narrative is historically true.

While there has been theological debate over the nature of Jesus, Trinitarian Christians believe that Jesus is the Logos, God incarnate (God in human form), God the Son, and "true God and true man"—fully divine and fully human. Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, yet he did not sin.

Core teachings
Although Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to summarize the key elements of the beliefs shared by major Christian denominations by analyzing their catechetical or confessional texts. Christian views of Jesus are derived from various biblical sources, particularly from the canonical gospels and New Testament letters such as the Pauline epistles. Christians predominantly hold that these works are historically true.

Those Christian groups or denominations which are committed to what are considered biblically orthodox Christianity nearly all agree that Jesus: Some groups considered to be Christian hold beliefs that are considered to be heterodox. For example, believers in monophysitism reject the idea that Christ has two natures, one human and one divine.
 * was born of a virgin
 * is a human being who is also fully God
 * had never sinned during his existence
 * was crucified and buried in a tomb
 * rose from the dead on the third day
 * ascended back to God the Father 40 days after his resurrection
 * will return to Earth

The five major milestones in the gospel narrative of the life of Jesus are his baptism, transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension. These are usually bracketed by two other episodes: his nativity at the beginning and the sending of the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) at the end. The gospel accounts of the teachings of Jesus are often presented in terms of specific categories involving his "works and words", e.g., his ministry, parables and miracles.

Christians not only attach theological significance to the works of Jesus, but also to his name. Devotions to the name of Jesus go back to the earliest days of Christianity. These exist today both in Eastern and Western Christianity—both Catholic and Protestant.

Christians predominantly profess that through Jesus' life, death, and Resurrection, he restored humanity's communion with God with the blood of the New Covenant. His death on a cross is understood as a redemptive sacrifice: the source of humanity's salvation and the atonement for sin which had entered human history through the sin of Adam.

Christ, Logos and Son of God
"But who do you say that I am? Only Simon Peter answered him: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God — Matthew 16:15-16" "Jesus is mediator, but […] the title means more than someone between God and man. He is not just a third party between God and humanity. [...] As true God he brings God to mankind. As true man he brings mankind to God."

Most Christians generally consider Jesus to be the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, as well as the one and only Son of God. The opening words in the Gospel of Mark (1:1), "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God", provide Jesus with the two distinct attributions as Christ and as the Son of God. His divinity is again re-affirmed in Mark 1:11. Matthew 1:1 which begins by calling Jesus the Christ and in verse 16 explains it again with the affirmation: "Jesus, who is called Christ".

In the Pauline epistles, the word Christ is so closely associated with Jesus that apparently for the early Christians there was no need to claim that Jesus was Christ, for that was considered widely accepted among them. Hence Paul could use the term Christos with no confusion about who it referred to, and as in 1 Corinthians 4:15 and Romans 12:5 he could use expressions such as "in Christ" to refer to the followers of Jesus.

In the New Testament, the title "Son of God" is applied to Jesus on many occasions, from the Annunciation up to the Crucifixion. The declaration that Jesus is the Son of God is made by many individuals in the New Testament, and on two occasions by God the Father as a voice from Heaven, and is asserted by Jesus himself.

In Christology, the concept that Christ is the Logos (i.e., "The Word") has been important in establishing the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and his position as God the Son in the Trinity as set forth in the Chalcedonian Creed. This derives from the opening of the Gospel of John, commonly translated into English as: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." λόγος in the original Koine Greek is translated as Word and in theological discourse, this is often left in its English transliterated form, Logos. The easiest way to understand this is the teaching that Jesus (The Word of God) came from the bosom of God the Father and became a living being who then translated into a foetus in the womb of (Virgin Mary) through a supernatural means, as professed by believers in Christ.

The pre-existence of Christ refers to the existence of Christ before his incarnation as Jesus. One of the relevant New Testament passages is John 1:1-18 where, in the Trinitarian view, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos or Word. This doctrine is reiterated in John 17:5 when Jesus refers to the glory which he had with the Father "before the world was" during the Farewell Discourse. also refers to the Father loving Jesus "before the foundation of the world". Nontrinitarian views about the pre-existence of Christ vary, with some rejecting it and others accepting it.

Following the Apostolic Age, from the 2nd century forward, several controversies developed about how the human and divine are related within the person of Jesus. Eventually in 451, the concept of a hypostatic union was stated at the Council of Chalcedon, namely that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. However, differences among Christian denominations continued thereafter, with some rejecting the hypostatic union in favor of monophysitism.

Incarnation, Nativity and Second Adam
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. — Colossians 1:15-16"

The above verse from Colossians regards the birth of Jesus as the model for all creation.

Paul the Apostle viewed the birth of Jesus as an event of cosmic significance which brought forth a "new man" who undid the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. Just as the Johannine view of Jesus as the incarnate Logos proclaims the universal relevance of his birth, the Pauline perspective emphasizes the birth of a new man and a new world in the birth of Jesus. Paul's eschatological view of Jesus counter-positions him as a new man of morality and obedience, in contrast to Adam. Unlike Adam, the new man born in Jesus obeys God and ushers in a world of morality and salvation.

In the Pauline view, Adam is positioned as the first man and Jesus as the second: Adam, having corrupted himself by his disobedience, also infected humanity and left it with a curse as its inheritance. The birth of Jesus counterbalanced the fall of Adam, bringing forth redemption and repairing the damage done by Adam.

In the 2nd century Church Father Irenaeus writes: "When He became incarnate and was made man, He commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam—namely to be according to the image and likeness of God- that we might recover in Christ Jesus."

In patristic theology, Paul's contrasting of Jesus as the new man versus Adam provided a framework for discussing the uniqueness of the birth of Jesus and the ensuing events of his life. The nativity of Jesus thus began to serve as the starting point for "cosmic Christology" in which the birth, life and Resurrection of Jesus have universal implications. The concept of Jesus as the "new man" repeats in the cycle of birth and rebirth of Jesus from his nativity to his Resurrection: following his birth, through his morality and obedience to the Father, Jesus began a "new harmony" in the relationship between God the Father and man. The nativity and Resurrection of Jesus thus created the author and exemplar of a new humanity. In this view, the birth, death and Resurrection of Jesus brought about salvation, undoing the damage of Adam.

As the biological son of David, Jesus would be of the Jewish race, ethnicity, nation, and culture. One argument against this would be a contradiction in Jesus' genealogies: Matthew saying he is the son of Solomon and Luke saying he is the son of Nathan—Solomon and Nathan being brothers. John of Damascus taught that there is no contradiction, for Nathan wed Solomon's wife after Solomon died in accordance with scripture, namely, yibbum (the mitzvah that a man must marry his brother's childless widow).

Jesus grew up in Galilee and much of his ministry took place there. The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the 1st century AD include Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, with Aramaic being predominant. There is substantial consensus that Jesus gave most of his teachings in Aramaic in the Galilean dialect.

The canonical gospels describe Jesus wearing tzitzit – the tassels on a tallit – in and. Besides this, the New Testament includes no descriptions of Jesus' appearance before his death and the gospel narratives are generally indifferent to people's racial appearance or features.

Ministry
"The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).—John 10:10 (Ampl)"

In the canonical gospels, the Ministry of Jesus begins with his baptism in the countryside of Judea, near the River Jordan and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper. The Gospel of Luke (3:23) states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry. The date of the start of his ministry has been estimated at around AD 27 to 29 and the end in the range AD 30 to 36.

Jesus' early Galilean ministry begins when after his baptism, he goes back to Galilee from his time in the Judean desert. In this early period he preaches around Galilee and recruits his first disciples who begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church. The major Galilean ministry which begins in Matthew 8 includes the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, and covers most of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. The final Galilean ministry begins after the death of John the Baptist as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem.

In the later Judean ministry Jesus starts his final journey to Jerusalem through Judea. As Jesus travels towards Jerusalem, in the later Perean ministry, about one third the way down from the Sea of Galilee along the River Jordan, he returns to the area where he was baptized.

The final ministry in Jerusalem is sometimes called the Passion Week and begins with the Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The gospels provide more details about the final ministry than the other periods, devoting about one third of their text to the last week of the life of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Teachings, parables and miracles
"The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father who dwells in me does his works. — John 14:10" In the New Testament the teachings of Jesus are presented in terms of his "words and works". The words of Jesus include several sermons, in addition to parables that appear throughout the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels (the gospel of John includes no parables). The works include the miracles and other acts performed during his ministry.

Although the Canonical Gospels are the major source of the teachings of Jesus, the Pauline epistles, which were likely written decades before the gospels, provide some of the earliest written accounts of the teachings of Jesus.

The New Testament does not present the teachings of Jesus as merely his own teachings, but equates the words of Jesus with divine revelation, with John the Baptist stating in John 3:34: "For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit." and Jesus stating in John 7:16: "My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me". In Matthew 11:27 Jesus claims divine knowledge, stating: "No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son", asserting the mutual knowledge he has with the Father.

One of the most important of Jesus' teachings is his second coming in Matthew 24 and Luke 21. There Jesus explained the signs of the last days, popularly known as the end-time. These are the days that precedes the second coming of Jesus Christ, there he spoke of the signs of the end of days and what will happen to the believers in Christ, the persecution and the troubles that will come upon the world. The second coming of Jesus is mainly divided into two, namely; the Rapture and the Second Coming. The rapture being the time Jesus comes in the air to take up his saints to Heaven for a period of seven years and the second coming, being a time he comes with the saints to rule the earth for a thousand years. It is also referred to as the millennial reign.

Discourses
The gospels include several discourses by Jesus on specific occasions, such as the Farewell Discourse delivered after the Last Supper, the night before his Crucifixion. Although some of the teachings of Jesus are reported as taking place within the formal atmosphere of a synagogue (e.g., in ) many of the discourses are more like conversations than formal lectures.

The Gospel of Matthew has a structured set of sermons, often grouped as the Five Discourses of Matthew which present many of the key teachings of Jesus. Each of the five discourses has some parallel passages in the Gospel of Mark or the Gospel of Luke. The five discourses in Matthew begin with the Sermon on the Mount, which encapsulates many of the moral teaching of Jesus and which is one of the best known and most quoted elements of the New Testament. The Sermon on the Mount includes the Beatitudes which describe the character of the people of the Kingdom of God, expressed as "blessings". The Beatitudes focus on love and humility rather than force and exaction and echo the key ideals of Jesus' teachings on spirituality and compassion. The other discourses in Matthew include the Missionary Discourse in Matthew 10 and the Discourse on the Church in Matthew 18, providing instructions to the disciples and laying the foundation of the codes of conduct for the anticipated community of followers.

Parables
The parables of Jesus represent a major component of his teachings in the gospels, the approximately thirty parables forming about one third of his recorded teachings. The parables may appear within longer sermons, as well as other places within the narrative. Jesus' parables are seemingly simple and memorable stories, often with imagery, and each conveys a teaching which usually relates the physical world to the spiritual world.

In the 19th century, Lisco and Fairbairn stated that in the parables of Jesus, "the image borrowed from the visible world is accompanied by a truth from the invisible (spiritual) world" and that the parables of Jesus are not "mere similitudes which serve the purpose of illustration, but are internal analogies where nature becomes a witness for the spiritual world". Similarly, in the 20th century, calling a parable "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning", William Barclay states that the parables of Jesus use familiar examples to lead others' minds towards heavenly concepts. He suggests that Jesus did not form his parables merely as analogies but based on an "inward affinity between the natural and the spiritual order."

One of the major reasons why Jesus spoke in parables to the Jews was explained to the disciples of Jesus by Jesus himself. It is found in Matthew 13:13-14; there Jesus explains why he used much of parables to the people of Israel. Jesus explained that it was so for the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah the prophet, and this is found in Isaiah 6:9-10. This was for the people of Israel not to understand and realize who Jesus is and accept him, he purposely did this to make provision for Gentiles to be part of the children of God.

Miracles of Jesus
"Believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. —John 10:38" In Christian teachings, the miracles of Jesus were as much a vehicle for his message as were his words. Many of the miracles emphasize the importance of faith, for instance in cleansing ten lepers, Jesus did not say: "My power has saved you" but says "Rise and go; your faith has saved you." Similarly, in the Walking on Water miracle, Apostle Peter learns an important lesson about faith in that as his faith wavers, he begins to sink.

One characteristic shared among all miracles of Jesus in the Gospel accounts is that he delivered benefits freely and never requested or accepted any form of payment for his healing miracles, unlike some high priests of his time who charged those who were healed. In Matthew 10:8 he advised his disciples to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons without payment and stated: "Freely you have received; freely give".

Christians in general believe that Jesus' miracles were actual historical events and that his miraculous works were an important part of his life, attesting to his divinity and the Hypostatic union, i.e., the dual natures of Christ's humanity and divinity in one hypostasis. Christians believe that while Jesus' experiences of hunger, weariness, and death were evidences of his humanity, the miracles were evidences of his deity.

Christian authors also view the miracles of Jesus not merely as acts of power and omnipotence, but as works of love and mercy: they were performed to show compassion for sinful and suffering humanity. Authors Ken and Jim Stocker state that "every single miracle Jesus performed was an act of love". And each miracle involves specific teachings.

Since according to the Gospel of John it was impossible to narrate all the miracles performed by Jesus, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that the miracles presented in the Gospels were selected for a twofold reason: first for the manifestation of God's glory, and then for their evidential value. Jesus referred to his "works" as evidences of his mission and his divinity, and in he declared that his miracles have greater evidential value than the testimony of John the Baptist.

Crucifixion and atonement
The accounts of the Crucifixion and subsequent Resurrection of Jesus provide a rich background for Christological analysis, from the canonical gospels to the Pauline epistles.

Johannine "agency christology" combines the concept that Jesus is the Son of his Father with the idea that he has come into the world as his Father's agent, commissioned and sent by the Father to represent the Father and to accomplish his Father's work. Implied in each Synoptic portrayal of Jesus is the doctrine that the salvation Jesus gives is inseparable from Jesus himself and his divine identity. Sonship and agency come together in the Synoptic gospels only in the Parable of the Vineyard. The submission of Jesus to crucifixion is a sacrifice made as an agent of God or servant of God, for the sake of eventual victory. This builds upon the salvific theme of the Gospel of John which begins in John 1:36 with John the Baptist's proclamation: "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world". Further reinforcement of the concept is provided in Revelation 21:14, where the "lamb slain but standing" is the only one worthy of handling the scroll (i.e., the book) containing the names of those who are to be saved.

A central element in the Christology presented in the Acts of the Apostles is the affirmation of the belief that the death of Jesus by crucifixion happened "with the foreknowledge of God, according to a definite plan". In this view, as in Acts 2:23, the cross is not viewed as a scandal, for the Crucifixion of Jesus "at the hands of the lawless" is viewed as the fulfilment of the plan of God.

Paul's Christology has a specific focus on the death and Resurrection of Jesus. For Paul, the Crucifixion of Jesus is directly related to his Resurrection and the term "the cross of Christ" used in Galatians 6:12 may be viewed as his abbreviation of the message of the gospels. For Paul, the Crucifixion of Jesus was not an isolated event in history, but a cosmic event with significant eschatological consequences, as in 1 Corinthians 2:8. In the Pauline view, Jesus, obedient to the point of death (Philippians 2:8), died "at the right time" (Romans 4:25) based on the plan of God. For Paul, the "power of the cross" is inseparable from the Resurrection of Jesus.

John Calvin supported the "agent of God" Christology and argued that in his trial in Pilate's Court Jesus could have successfully argued for his innocence, but instead submitted to crucifixion in obedience to the Father. This Christological theme continued into the 20th century, both in the Eastern and Western Churches. In the Eastern Church Sergei Bulgakov argued that the Crucifixion of Jesus was "pre-eternally" determined by the Father before the creation of the world, to redeem humanity from the disgrace caused by the fall of Adam. In the Western Church, Karl Rahner elaborated on the analogy that the blood of the Lamb of God (and the water from the side of Jesus) shed at the Crucifixion had a cleansing nature, similar to baptismal water.

Mormons believe that the Crucifixion was the culmination of Christ's atonement, which began in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Resurrection, Ascension, and Second Coming
The New Testament teaches that the Resurrection of Jesus is a foundation of the Christian faith. Christians, through faith in the working of God are spiritually resurrected with Jesus, and are redeemed so that they may walk in a new way of life.

In the teachings of the apostolic Church, the Resurrection was seen as heralding a new era. Forming a theology of the Resurrection fell to Apostle Paul. It was not enough for Paul to simply repeat elementary teachings, but as states, "go beyond the initial teachings about Christ and advance to maturity". Fundamental to Pauline theology is the connection between Christ's Resurrection and redemption. Paul explained the importance of the Resurrection of Jesus as the cause and basis of the hope of Christians to share a similar experience in : But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

If the cross stands at the center of Paul's theology, so does the Resurrection: unless the one died the death of all, the all would have little to celebrate in the Resurrection of the one. Paul taught that, just as Christians share in Jesus' death in baptism, so they will share in his Resurrection for Jesus was designated the Son of God by his Resurrection. Paul's views went against the thoughts of the Greek philosophers to whom a bodily resurrection meant a new imprisonment in a corporeal body, which was what they wanted to avoid, given that for them the corporeal and the material fettered the spirit. At the same time, Paul believed that the newly resurrected body would be a spiritual body—immortal, glorified and powerful, in contrast to an earthly body which is mortal, dishonored and weak.

The Apostolic Fathers, discussed the death and Resurrection of Jesus, including Ignatius (50−115), Polycarp (69−155), and Justin Martyr (100−165). Following the conversion of Constantine and the liberating Edict of Milan in 313, the ecumenical councils of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, that focused on Christology helped shape the Christian understanding of the redemptive nature of Resurrection, and influenced both the development of its iconography, and its use within liturgy.

Nontrinitarian perspectives
The doctrine of the Trinity, including the belief that Jesus is a person of the Trinity, is not universally accepted among Christians. Nontrinitarian Christian groups include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses. Though modern nontrinitarian groups all reject the doctrine of the Trinity, their views still differ widely on the nature of Jesus. Some do not believe that Jesus is God, instead believing that he was a messenger from God, or prophet, or the perfect created human. This is the view espoused by ancient sects such as the Ebionites, and modern-day Unitarians.

title: Jesus in Christianity


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User talk:Madhaus

Hello "Madhaus" and welcome to Wikipedia. A few tips for you:

 * Peruse Welcome, newcomers and associated pages.
 * You can experiment in the Sandbox.
 * Sign talk page entries with ~, which is automatically converted to a name and date.
 * Ask questions on Village pump.

Thanks for your efforts on Laura Schlessinger; however the large number of external links within the article are not how Wikipedia articles are usually constructed. I noticed someone added it to Cleanup. You might wish to consider pairing down the number of links, moving the most important ones to an "External Links" section at the bottom.

Cheers, -- Infrogmation 06:49, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Madhaus


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Talk:Laura Schlessinger

Marriage and family life
'Speaking as one who went through and has personal experience with the social problems associated with such lifestyle choices, Schlessinger has vociferously proclaimed her disapproval of unwed couples "shacking up" and having children out of wedlock, helping others to not make the bad choices in the first place.'

Is this the contributor's view? Or is it a paraphrase of something the subject has said or written?

^^^^

the bad word
she said "niggers" on her show??!! 71.209.216.68 (talk) 02:41, 29 August 2019

title: Talk:Laura Schlessinger