위스마트학원 (WE ARE SMART)

23수특-1606
In ancient and medieval times considerable respect was accorded to language by those working in the scientific field. According to the ancient metaphysical Weltanschauung, it was believed that the structure of reality and of thought were so closely allied that they were interchangeable. A logical statement ― not only a matter of thinking but also of linguistics ― was automatically a true statement of reality. Since such a statement happened to be true, it did not need to be subjected to experimental testing. However, in modern times it was realized for the first time that trust in the accord between reality and thinking was based on a grossly exaggerated notion of the scope of human reason. In order to discover whether a logical statement (ie the logical language) was really true (ie agreed with reality), the statement should be tested against empirical reality in an experiment. The emphasis on the physical experiment is characteristic of modern science. Later again it was realized that even this approach overrated the importance of thinking: from the outset research should be directed by experiments, although that experimental action ― like any action ― required the support of logical thought.

23수특-1701
There are several theories about why older people experience "long-term" time compression so much more acutely than young people. It has been observed, for example, that for a twenty-year-old, ten years is half a lifetime, but for a fifty-year-old, the same span represents just 20 percent of one's life. As we age, a decade becomes an ever-smaller proportion of our life experience. Others have emphasized the fact that, in a ten-year span, younger people encounter more "turning points" than older people. In just ten years, a younger person is likely to graduate from college, woo and win a mate, start a family, and buy a house. Older people, in contrast, can easily pass a decade doing the same job and living in the same house with the same spouse. The absence of frequent life-changing events may partly explain why older people feel that the later decades seem to pass so quickly.

23수특-1702
Social mobility is upward or downward movement in social position over time in a society. That movement can be specific to individuals who change social positions or to categories of people, such as racial or ethnic groups. Social mobility between generations is referred to as intergenerational mobility. The self-made myth suggests that social position in the United States is largely up to the individual, implying that mobility is quite common and easy to achieve for those who apply themselves. However, what people believe and what is fact are often not the same. A recent experimental study found that Americans substantially and consistently overestimate the amount of income mobility and educational access in society. The higher one's social class, the more likely they are to overestimate social mobility. In other words, wealthy Americans tend to subscribe to the belief that pulling oneself out of poverty is easier than it actually is and that one's wealth is a result of hard work and initiative, rather than luck or birth.

23수특-1703
In Ancient Greece, many private individuals believed in the powers of magic, such as farmers who were always dependent on the weather. Even though the use of magic was widespread in Ancient Greece, there remained an official caution over its use. We know that the Greek authorities believed that magic was an activity capable of results, but they grew concerned about those who practiced harmful magic. So it was established that those who practiced harmful magic could be punished by civic action. This may be the reason why magic in the classical world was held in low esteem and condemned by speakers and writers. Likewise, we find certain intellectuals realizing that the power of magic could be abused. For example, Plato believed that those who sold spells and curse tablets should be punished. Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also believed that magic should be eliminated. This mistrust of magic, along with religion and a separation of humans from the divine world, created a need to develop new methods of understanding the world. It is thus understandable that the Ancient Greeks created the foundations for philosophy.

23수특-1704
The development psychologist Jerome Kagan measured changes in children's temperament between the ages of 4 months and 7 years. He classified several healthy 4-month-old infants as high reactors (easily excited or fearful) or low reactors (relaxed and unafraid), depending upon their responses to an unfamiliar stimulus. Kagan waved colorful mobiles in front of a baby, played a tape saying, "Hello baby, how are you doing today" and popped a balloon behind the baby's head. High reactors moved around violently and cried, while low reactors rested or even laughed during the tests. By the time these infants were 4 years old, some of the high reactors were quite shy, subdued, and quiet, while others had moved toward the center of Kagan's "shy-bold" continuum. By the age of 7, only 15 percent of the initially low reactors were enthusiastic, fearless, and highly sociable kids, and the rest had moved closer to the center. None of the high reactors became fearless, and none of the low reactors became fearful; in other words, environment only moderately affected the final outcome.

23수특-1601
When we are in groups, we tend to feel that we, personally, aren't as responsible as we would be if we were acting on our own. So the decisions that the group makes can easily become extreme. Occasionally, groups reach riskier decisions ― they decide to take actions which are more challenging or unsafe than they should be. Sometimes, though, they make choices that are too cautious. It's known as group polarization: a tendency towards extremes. A lot depends on how the discussions in the group develop. If one person is advocating a risky strategy early on, others may begin to think of even more challenging examples, and that leads the discussion towards reaching a riskier decision. But if someone advocates more cautious approaches at an early stage, this too can influence the direction of the discussion, resulting in a more cautious decision than the group members might have made individually.

23수특-1602
Advertising in the United States is a relatively large and stable marketplace with a dollar volume of activity closely tied to the overall health of the economy. The same is true of other mature industrialized nations, especially those of Western Europe. One significant difference, however, is the way commercial media evolved. In the United States, radio and television systems began as commercial ventures; in many other countries media were largely or completely government supported for years. Different models of commercial support are still evolving and the precise configurations vary by country. This evolution does not mean, however, that governments are uninvolved in steering the development of media. As Joseph Straubhaar observes, television systems are often "stubbornly national," which means advertisers must tailor "global" media plans to the regulatory policies and cultural expectations of individual countries.

23수특-1603
Some people think that facts are the same as events, which they regard as the "objective," "hard core" elements of this universe. The main reason for thinking this is that events seem the best candidates to offer us a rock-solid foundation for our facts. True, events do happen or do not happen; you can neglect them but not deny them. So by replacing facts with events, we might think we have found the strong objective foundation that we strive for. However, facts and events are concepts very different from each other. Unlike facts, events are dated, tied to space and time, whereas facts are detached from space and time. It is even considered a fact that certain events did not occur; it is a fact, for instance, that Darwin did not have a copy of Mendel's 1866 article in his collection. Apparently, a fact is not the same as an event; the best we can say is that a fact is a description of an event, but not the event itself.

23수특-1604
The extent to which decision making is shared with subordinates or concentrated at the top of the hierarchy differs across organizations. Thus, organizations can vary from strongly centralized decision-making practices to highly participatory decision-making practices. In participatory decision making, subordinates have much more input into how decisions are made. Research shows that greater participation in decision making improves employees' satisfaction with the decisions, but does not necessarily translate into better group performance. Therefore, research has investigated when participatory decision making is most useful, and when it is less important. When the workers are highly educated, intelligent, and have considerable expertise in their areas, participatory decision making is more effective. Additionally, when the task at hand is highly complex and knowledge about local conditions is important to the decision, participatory decision making is important. Finally, in times of crisis, when the decisions have very strong impact, participatory, decision making is useful.

23수특-1605
Insects attract collectors' attention because they are extremely diverse and often bear spectacular colors. To biologists, however, bright coloration has been a constantly renewed puzzle because it makes an insect a highly visible prey to prospective predators. Charles Darwin understood that bright colors or exaggerated forms could evolve via sexual selection, the process by which individuals compete for access to mates and fertilization opportunities. However, he felt sexual selection could not account for the striking color pattern of nonreproductive larvae in, for example, Pseudosphinx hawk moth caterpillars. In a reply to Darwin about this puzzle, Alfred R. Wallace proposed that bright colors could advertise the distastefulness of the caterpillars to experienced predators. Indeed, prey that are not edible to predators are predicted to gain by exhibiting very recognizable colors; experienced predators can then correctly identify and subsequently avoid attacking such prey. E. B. Poulton later developed this idea, expanded it to other warning signals (ie, sounds or smells), and coined the term aposematism to describe this phenomenon (from the Greek "away" and "sign").

23수특-1502
We can presume that the components of love proposed by Sternberg can be found in all cultures. Intimacy, passion, and commitment are most likely cultural universals. Evidence of this comes from many sources, including cultural anthropology, psychological research, and love poetry from across the world. What does appear to vary across cultures, however, is the emphasis placed on the different components of love and on different types of relationships. In collectivist cultures like those found in Asia and Africa, relationships with family may take priority over relationships with lovers and friends. In individualistic cultures, like those of Northern Europe and North America, friendships and romantic relationships compete with family for priority (and often win). Likewise, the concept of duty (similar to Sternberg's concept of commitment) is absolutely central to Chinese Confucianism. In contrast, judging by the mountains of romance novels, love songs, and beauty products found in North America, it is the passionate side of love that is prized in this culture.

23수특-1503
It could be argued that the 'processual' nature of personhood means that one becomes a person as one 'goes along' in society. Indeed, the African philosopher Ifeanyi Menkiti takes this position. He maintains that children are not fully human. Following Kwame Gyekye, a Ghanaian philosopher, however, I would argue that the fact that personhood must be earned is not a denial of personhood to children. It is an affirmation of the view that personhood is an ongoing process attained through interactions with others and one's community. It requires one to affirm ideals and standards thought to be constitutive of the life of a community. These are standards such as generosity, benevolence and respect. A number of sayings in some African societies refer to people who have failed to meet standards expected of a fully human person. These are sayings such as ga e se motho (Tswana) or a ku si muntu (Nguni), literally meaning 'he or she is not a person'. Because one can fall short of these standards at any stage in the life cycle, personhood could be regarded as a becoming. It is an unpredictable, open-ended process during which personhood may be achieved, lost, and regained, depending on a person's circumstances.

23수특-1504
Some countries grow cash crops. These are crops that are in high demand and can be grown in large quantities in specific areas of the world. For example, sugar needs a hot, damp climate; coffee needs a hot climate, rainfall, and higher mountain elevations. Tea needs to grow on hillsides in rainy areas. Bananas grow well in tropical environments. Because there is a worldwide demand for specific items such as these, the farmers in tropical countries grow as much of these commodities as they can. These cash crops are sold all around the world and bring in a lot of money, but there are risks to specializing in just one commodity for trade. If these farmers grow too much of a particular cash crop, that creates more supply than demand, which drops the price of the commodity. If the climate is bad, and the cash crop does not grow well one year, that hurts the country selling it because that crop may be the only one the country provides in large enough quantities to make a living from.

23수특-1505
Some might have had the impression that early scientists like Newton and Galileo belonged to a small sect that conjured science out of the blue as a result of mystical investigation. This wasn't so. Their work did not take place in a cultural vacuum: it was the product of many ancient traditions. One of these was Greek philosophy, which encouraged the belief that the world could be explained by logic, reasoning, and mathematics. Another was agriculture, from which people learned about order and chaos by observing the cycles and rhythms of nature, interrupted periodically by sudden and unpredictable disasters. And then there were religions which encouraged belief in a created world order. The founding assumption of science is that the physical universe is neither random nor absurd; it is not just a meaningless jumble of objects and phenomena randomly placed side by side. Rather, there is a coherent scheme of things. This is often expressed by the simple saying that there is order in nature. But scientists have gone beyond this vague notion to formulate a system of well-defined laws.

23수특-1506
In English, many spelling errors could be avoided if we systematically transcribed each sound with a fixed letter. For instance, if we were to avoid writing the sound f with both the letter "f" and with "ph," life would be much simpler. There is little doubt that we could easily get rid of this and many other useless redundancies whose acquisition eats up many years of childhood. In fact, this is the timid direction that American spelling reform took when it simplified the irregular British spellings of "behaviour" or "analyse" into "behavior" and "analyze." Many more steps could have been taken along the same lines. As expert readers, we cease to be aware of the absurdity of our spelling. Even a letter as simple as "x" is unnecessary, as it stands for two phonemes ks that already have their own spelling. In Turkiye, one takes a "taksi." That country, which in the space of one year adopted the Roman alphabet, drastically simplified its spelling, and taught three million people how to read, sets a beautiful example of the feasibility of spelling reform.