选秀奇葩:一夜成名的背后

除了那些提不起精神和毫无耐心的人,对我们所有人而言,苏珊·波伊尔和保罗·帕兹的故事都是令人无限神往的。似乎是经过电视选秀节目《英国达人》的发掘,人们猛然发现,这两位工人阶级出身、地位低微、长相平平的人竟能唱出美妙的歌曲,令人刮目相看。人们的反应就如同在一辆因抛锚而被丢弃在路上的现代牌汽车上发现了大批宝藏。     

John Franklin Genung and the nineteenth century definition of rhetoric

This article describes Genung's definition of rhetoric in relations to major writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.     

Scepticism and gullibility: the superstitious and pseudo-scientific beliefs of secondary school students

A survey of the superstitious and pseudo-scientific beliefs of secondary school students (N=2159) was undertaken, with some follow-up interviews. Gender differences were found at all ages with females generally less sceptical than males. An exception was a belief that aliens from another planet had visited the Earth, about which males were consistently less sceptical than females. The average level of scepticism increased steadily on going from Key Stage 3 students (11-13 years), through Key Stage 4 (14-16 years), to the sixth-form science students (17-18 years), with a further increase in scepticism in a sample of pre-service science teachers. Nevertheless many school students were very gullible and this should be of concern to science educators.