Picture a beautiful May afternoon here in Ireland, when the sun shines, all the hedgerows are in bloom, and the blackbirds and the thrushes fill the air with song. Then allow a cold scientific mind to dissect this scene, and the warmth and the glow of the evening quickly disappears. He will explain the sunshine as electromagnetic radiation, the varied tints of the flowers as due to the partial absorption of the light’s rays, the flowers themselves as collections of atoms (...) and molecules, and the singing of the birds as vibration of the air-molecules. It is a repelling, denuded description of the scene, and we instinctively shrink from it. (shrink)

Research in a scientific subject is an art as well as a science, for success depends on many things which can never be learned by rule, such as intuitions, openness of the mind to new and original ideas, the intellectual observation which is quick to recognize unsuspected relationships between apparently unconnected phenomena. While all this is certainly true, still there is a discipline of mind and method which no research worker can afford to neglect during his studies. This discipline is (...) for the most part used, without their adverting to it, by successful researchers, and the aim of this book is to formulate these rules and guiding principles. (shrink)

In elite sport, the advantages demonstrated by expert performers over novices are sometimes due in part to their superior physical fitness or to their greater technical precision in executing specialist motor skills. However at the very highest levels, all competitors typically share extraordinary physical capacities and have supremely well-honed techniques. Among the extra factors which can differentiate between the best performers, psychological skills are paramount. These range from the capacities to cope under pressure and to bounce back from setbacks, to (...) the knowledge of themselves, opponents, and the domain, which experts access and apply in performance. In the companion chapter on breadth and depth of knowledge in expert sport (see Chapter 11), we discussed the forms or kinds of knowledge deployed by elite athletes, and described some lines of research which seek to tap and study such expert knowledge (McPherson & MacMahon, 2008; McRobert, Ward, Eccles & Williams, 2011). In this chapter we focus more directly on questions about methods for measuring or more accurately assessing expert knowledge, in particular addressing a wider range of methods to help us understand what experts know. Suggesting that sport researchers can productively adopt and adapt existing qualitative methodologies for integration with more standard quantitative methods, we introduce and survey a number of areas of qualitative research in psychology. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

The prophets of the Old Testament did make predictions, and biblical scholars are paying more attention to that fact. Now, serious theological reflection on what came of the predictions of the prophets is needed.

Isaiah's recurring emphasis on God's plan gave impetus to the conception of an overarching divine plan for history, a conception the New Testament found useful for interpreting the meaning of Jesus Christ.