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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Offers an introduction in Applied Statistics focusing on some of the statistics of today's society--world wide population growth, economic developments, international trade and energy consumption, global maldistribution of income and absorption of resources, depletion of species and resources, environmental changes, and human problems.
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Seitenzahl: 291
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Symbols and Formulae
How to Use this Book
Introduction
1 The Global Situation
1.1 The Agricultural Revolution
1.2 The Urban Revolution
1.3 The Cartesian Revolution
1.4 Megalopolis
1.5 Limits to Growth?
1.6 Overshoot and Collapse?
1.7 Towards Sustainability
1.8 Further Reading
2 Primary and Secondary Magnitudes
2.1 The Hard Facts
2.2 The Statistical Sources
2.3 An Introduction to Statistical Methodology
2.4 Primary Magnitudes
2.5 Secondary Magnitudes
2.6 The Darker Side of Economic Growth
2.7 Food for Thought
2.8 Further Reading
3 Ratios
3.1 The Hard Facts
3.2 The Statistical Sources
3.3 The Methodology
3.4 The Questions
3.5 While the Rich Get Richer …
3.6 … The Poor Get Poorer
3.7 The Causes of Poverty
3.8 Food for Thought
3.9 Further Reading
4 Percentages
4.1 The Hard Facts
4.2 The Statistical Sources
4.3 The Statistical Concept and Some First Questions
4.4 Economic Trends from Agriculture to Services
4.5 Three Types of Growth
4.6 GDP Growth for All G7 Countries
4.7 The Price to Pay for Growth
4.8 Food for Thought
4.9 Further Reading
5 The Arithmetic Mean
5.1 The Hard Facts
5.2 The Statistical Sources
5.3 The Questions
5.4 Longer Lives in Richer Nations
5.5 How to Compute Life Expectancy at Birth
5.6 The Case of the United Kingdom
5.7 Shorter Lives in Botswana
5.8 Rich versus Poor
5.9 Food for Thought
5.10 Further Reading
6 Time Series
6.1 The Hard Facts
6.2 The Statistical Sources
6.3 The Concept of Time Series
6.4 What Type of Trend?
6.5 The Linear Trend of Semi-Averages
6.6 The Linear Trend According to the Method of Least Squares
6.7 Less Rain in Sub-Saharan West Africa
6.8 The Curvilinear Trend of Moving Averages: Global Warming since 1858
6.9 The Geometric Trend: Global CO2 Emissions since 1860
6.10 Atmospheric Concentrations of CO2
6.11 Food for Thought
6.12 Further Reading
7 The Distribution of World Product
7.1 The Hard Facts
7.2 The Statistical Source: the World Development Report
7.3 The Questions
7.4 The Figures
7.5 Counting and Ranking
7.6 Summations and the Arithmetic Mean
7.7 The Median
7.8 Absolute and Relative Frequencies
7.9 Percentiles
7.10 The Bar Chart for Decile Distribution
7.11 The Lorenz Curve
7.12 The Lorenz Concentration Coefficient
7.13 The Ogive Curve
7.14 The Histogram
7.15 Food for Thought
7.16 Further Reading
8 Indices
8.1 The Hard Facts
8.2 The Statistical Sources
8.3 The Concept of Indices
8.4 The Volume Index
8.5 The Index of Global Industrial Production
8.6 The Price Index
8.7 The Terms of Trade Index
8.8 The Human Development Index
8.9 The World Reserves Life Index
8.10 The Index of Tropical Deforestation
8.11 Food for Thought
8.12 Further Reading
9 The Population Explosion
9.1 The Hard Facts
9.2 The Statistical Sources
9.3 The Questions
9.4 The Concept of Population Growth
9.5 The Historical Perspective
9.6 The Figures
9.7 Projections and Doubling Time
9.8 Overshoot or Demographic Transition?
9.9 Regional Contributions to Planetary Population Growth
9.10 Calculating Annual Average Growth Rates
9.11 Food for Thought
9.12 Further Reading
10 Regression and Correlation
10.1 The Hard Facts
10.2 The Statistical Sources
10.3 The Questions
10.4 Regression Case Study 1: The Effect of Per Capita GDP on Fertility
10.5 Regression Case Study 2: The Effect of Parental Use of Contraception on Fertility
10.6 Regression — Case Study 3: The Effect of Female Literacy on Life Expectancy
10.7 Positive and Negative Correlation
10.8 The Degree of Correlation
10.9 Total Correlation
10.10 The Rationale for Our Calculations
10.11 Low or Zero Correlation
10.12 Case Studies in Correlation
10.13 Food for Thought
10.14 Further Reading
11 Frequency Distributions
11.1 The Hard Facts
11.2 The Statistical Sources
11.3 The Questions
11.4 The Figures
11.5 The Normal Distribution
11.6 Empirical Frequency Distribution versus the Theoretical Normal Distribution
11.7 Testing the Significance of a Sample Mean
11.8 The Northern Ireland Scenario
11.9 Food for Thought
11.10 Further Reading
12 Bringing it All Together
12.1 The Hard Facts
12.2 Population Growth
12.3 Production Growth
12.4 The Growth of Per Capita Production
12.5 The Distribution of World Income
12.6 The Structure of Employment for Rich and Poor
12.7 Consequences of Industrialization
12.8 The Price of Affluence
12.9 Depletion Trends
12.10 The Price of Global Division
12.11 Pollution and Climate Change
12.12 Quo Vadis Gaia?
12.13 Food for Thought
Bibliography
Index
Copyright © 1997 Heiner Thiessen
Published 1997 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
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Libvary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thiessen, Heiner.
Measuring the real world : a textbook of applied statistical methods / Heiner Thiessen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-94988-4 (cloth). — ISBN 0-471-96874-9 (pbk.)
1. Mathematical statistics. I. Title.
QA276.T486 1996
300′.72—dc20
96-21458
CIP
British Libvavy Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-471-94988-4 (cloth)ISBN 0-471-96874-9 (paper)
Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.
attributed to Chief Seattle of the Duwarmish Indians, 1854
in reply to the US President, Franklin Pearce, whose Government
had requested to buy their tribal land.
Acknowledgments
When I finished reading Beyond the Limits I felt the need to investigate the authors’ claims more closely and if their claims were indeed correct, I had to support their cause as best I could. Beyond the Limits profoundly challenges our mode of thinking and I would like to thank Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers for their inspiration.
While inspiration is one thing, implementation and perseverance are a completely different matter. This project would never have been completed without the wholehearted support of some of my colleagues at the University of Portsmouth. Special thanks therefore should go to:
My thanks also go to a number of individuals and institutions who very kindly agreed to let us to use their findings and explained the secrets of their methodologies. Particular thanks go to:
List of Abbreviations
AAGR%
average annual growth rate
AFL
adult female literacy
AM
arithmetic mean
CBR
crude birth rate
CDIAC
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
CDR
crude death rate
CFCs
chlorofluorocarbons
DT
doubling time
EC
European Community
EU
European Union
G7
seven richest countries in the world (determined by GNP)
GDP
gross domestic product
GNP
gross national product
HDI
human development index
LCC
Lorenz concentration coefficient
LDC
least developed countries
MVMA
Motor Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association
OECD
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
PPP
purchasing power parity
TOT
terms of trade
UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
UNEP
United Nations Environmental Programme
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
WRLI
world reserves life index
Symbols and Formulae
Chapter 2 Primary and Secondary Magnitudes
x
i
individual (
i
) statistical characteristic
∑
summation
∑
x
i
summation of all individual statistical characteristics
t
o
first year of time series
t
n
last year of time series
t
i
the year
i
x
i
,
t
i
the statistical characteristic
x
for country
i
and year
t
i
Chapter 4 Percentages
Page 39 Percentages
Page 47 Average annual growth rate
where AAGR%
average annual growth rate in per cent
x
i
,
t
0
value of statistical characteristic in first year under consideration
x
i
,
t
n
value of statistical characteristic in final year under consideration
n
number of growth years under consideration.
Page 49 Growth factor
Chapter 5 The Arithmetic Mean
Page 55 Simple arithmetic mean
where ∑
summation of all
x
i
values
x
i
individual (
i
) values for the statistical characteristic
x
n
the number of values in the sample.
Page 57 Weighted arithmetic mean
where
f
i
the absolute frequency of the individual characteristic
x
i
, which is the ‘weighting’ factor for the individual
x
i
values.
Page 59 Remaining life expectancy
Average number of ‘person-years lived’
where
L
0
average number of ‘person-years lived’ from completed age 0 to under 1
L
x
average number of ‘person-years lived’ in age interval
x
l
0
survivors at completed age 0
l
1
survivors at completed age 1
l
x
survivors at completed age
x.
Remaining life expectancy at birth
where
e
0
life expectancy at completed age 0 (i.e. at birth)
T
0
inverse summation of person-years lived
l
0
survivors at completed age 0.
Remaining life expectancy at completed age x
where
e
x
life expectancy at completed age
x
T
x
inverse summation of person-years lived
l
x
survivors at completed age
x.
Page 61 Total life expectancy at birth
where
e
0
total life expectancy at birth
∑
d
0
x
0
inverse summation of ‘person-years lived’ by all, including age intervals (
x
) 3, 2, 1 and 0
l
0
survivors at completed age 0.
Page 63 Total life expectancy at completed age x
where
e
x
total life expectancy at completed age
x
∑
d
x
x
i
inverse summation of ‘person-years lived’ by those who died before next birthday
l
x
survivors at completed age
x.
Chapter 6 Time Series
Page 70 Influences on a time series
where
x
i
statistical magnitude
f
function
S
seasonal influence
C
cyclical influence
T
trend influence
R
residual influence.
Page 71 Linear trend
Page 73 Exponential trend
Page 77 Normal equations for trend values
(1)
(2)
(1)
(2)
where in both of the above equations
n
number of report years in tabulation
t
i
individual year of time series
x
i
individual statistical characteristics
Page 91 Geometric trend equation
Normal equations for geometric trend
(1)
(2)
(1)
(2)
Chapter 7 Distribution of World Product
Page 109 World product
where WP
world product
x
i
GNP per capita in country
i
f
i
population in country
i
x
i
f
i
GNP in country
i
.
Page 112 Position of median
Page 122 Lorenz concentration coefficient
where
f
i
% decile share of world population
x
i
% shares of world product
cumulative
x
i
cumulative % shares of world product for decile groupings.
Chapter 8 Indices
Page 131 GDP in country A in year t0
where
t
0
the base year for which the figures have been presented
q
i, t
0
quantity produced (volume of value added) of individual product
i
in base year
t
0
p
i, t
0
price of individual product
i
in units of national currency in base year
t
0
∑
summation (here of individual quantities at individual prices in units of national currency in base year
t
0
).
Page 131 Volume index
where
t
0
the base year
t
1
reference year one
t
n
the last reference year.
Page 133 Real volume growth
Page 134 Price index
where
t
0
the base year
t
1
reference year one
t
n
the last reference year
∑(
q
i
,
t
0
)
in the case of a consumer price index, this expression can also be referred to as the cost of purchasing the ‘market basket’ in year
t
0
.
Page 136 Annual consumer price inflation
Page 139 Terms of trade
Page 142 Human development indices
Page 143 Adjusting or discounting of per capita incomes
where
W
(
y
)
well-being derived from income (
y
)
1–∈
elasticity of marginal utility of income with respect to income
y
actual GDP per capita in PPP$.
Page 147 Human development index
Page 150 World reserves life indices
where
World reserves
those minerals which can be extracted ‘profitably’ at time of assessment
World reserves base
all minerals deposits currently known.
Page 151 Remaining reserves — depletion curve
where 100%
proved reserves in year of assessment
C
consumption
t
0
R
reserves in
t
0
1.02
growth factor for annual increase of consumption of 2%
t
i
year for which remaining reserves are estimated (number of years involved).
Chapter 9 Population
Page 166 Population growth for country A
where Δ
difference from year to year
P
A
population in country A
B
A
births in country A
I
A
immigration into country A
D
A
deaths in country A
E
A
emigration from country A.
Page 166 Annual growth of global population
where
CBR
crude birth rate, i.e. number of births per 1000 of population
CDR
crude death rate, i.e. number of deaths per 1000 of population.
Page 166 Annual population growth rate
Page 171 Projections of population size
where
P
t
n
population in target period
P
t
0
population in base period
t
number of years between
P
t
n
and
P
t
0
AAGR%
average annual growth rate.
Page 172 Doubling time
Page 173 ‘Rule of thumb’ approach to work out doubling time (DT)
Page 178 World AAGR%
where
P
i, t
0
population of world region
i
in base year
t
0
P
i, t
n
population of world region
i
in target year
t
n
t
n
−t
0
time span covered in years.
Chapter 10 Regression and Correlation
Page 194 Regression equation
Page 195 Two normal equations to identify unknown regression coefficients a and b
(1)
(2)
Page 203 Linear correlation coefficient r
or
or
where
x
i
individual values of the independent variable
arithmetic mean of all x
i
values
y
i
individual values of the dependent variable
arithmetic mean of all
y
i
values.
Chapter 11 Frequency Distributions
Page 224 Variance of normal distribution
Page 225 Standard deviation
Page 225 The coefficient of variation
where σ
standard deviation
AM
arithmetic mean.
Page 226 The confidence interval
AM ± 1σ
contains
68.26% of the survey population
AM ± 1.96σ
contains
95.00% of the survey population
AM ± 2σ
contains
95.44% of the survey population
AM ± 2.576σ
contains
99.00% of the survey population
AM ± 3σ
contains
99.74% of the survey population
Page 229 The standard error
How To Use This Book
Welcome to this book which has been designed to enable you to explore the material in front of you in a flexible way. Each chapter presents a specific technique of statistical method which is then applied to describe and analyse a particular aspect of global reality.
To determine which aspect of global reality is used to illustrate a particular statistical method the following table will help you to find what you are looking for.
Chapter
Statistical method
Aspect of global reality
1
General introduction to global issues
2
Primary magnitudesSecondary magnitudes
Stock magnitudesFlow magnitudesStatistical characteristics
World population growthGrowth of registered motorvehicles worldwideGrowth of global motor vehicleproductionRoad traffic accidents in the EC: — per 1 million of population — per 1 million of registered motor vehiclesMotor vehicle densityMotor vehicle manufacturing countriesGlobal and per capita CO
2
emissions
3
Ratios
Per
capita GNPPercentage growth rates Adult female literacyCrude birth rateFertility per average woman
OECD: economic development 1960/90LDCs: economic development 1960/90GDP growth rates in selected OECD and LDCsPopulation growth ratesPer capita GDP growth ratesCorrelation between adult female literacy and crude birth rate (16 countries)Correlation between per capita GDP and fertility (16 countries)
4
Percentages
Component chartsPie chartsArithmetic growthGeometric growthOrganic growthAverage annual growth rate
Structural change of economic activity by workforce in Germany 1882–1992Development from traditional agricultural society to post-industrial society Economic growth in G7 countries 1900–92Growth of global CO
2
emissions 1860–1990
5
Arithmetic mean
Simple arithmetic meanWeighted arithmetic meanRemaining life expectancyTotal life expectancyLife expectancy at birthLife expectancy at age
x
Life tablesAge-specific mortality patternsSurvival curves
Life expectancy in high- and low-income countriesAverage life expectancy for all G7 countries Life expectancy for United Kingdom 1989–91Life expectancy Botswana 1988 Life tables for UK and BotswanaAge-specific mortality in the UK and BotswanaSurvival curves UK and Botswana
6
Time series
Components of time seriesLinear trends: trend of semi-averages trend according to method of least squares normal equationsCurvilinear trends: trend of moving averages: geometric trend normal equations
Growth of world product 1970-92 Growth of world product 1970–92Patterns of sub-Saharan rainfall 1941–90 Global air temperature variations 1858–1995Global CO
2
emissions 1860–1990Atmospheric concentrations of CO
2
1860–2000World population growth 1950–90
7
Distribution of world product
Percentiles, deciles, quintiles,quartilesArithmetic meanMedianAbsolute/relative frequenciesLorenz curveLorenz concentration coefficientOgive curve, ascending, histogram
Distribution of world product by country 1991Decile shares of world product 1991Arithmetic mean of global incomeMedian of global incomeLorenz curve of world income distribution 1991Lorenz concentration coefficient of world income distribution 1991Ascending ogive curve for distribution of world income 1991Histogram of average per capita GNP per 5%grouping of world population
8
Indices
Volume indexPrice indexTerms of trade index (ToT)Human development index (HDI)World reserves life index (WRLI)
Index of world industrial production 1929–90Consumer price indices for low-, medium- and high-inflation countries 1980–92ToT for four worst affected countries 1977–92HDI in selected countries and regions 1960–92WRLI for copper, oil, natural gas 1992/93
9
Population explosion
Crude birth rate (CBR)Crude death rate (CDR)Demographic transitionPopulation projectionsDoubling timesAverage annual growth rates
World population growth 1650–2000CBR by level of average incomeCDR by level of average incomePopulation growth rates by regionGlobal population projections 1990–2025 Regional distribution of planetary growth
10
Regression and correlation
Line of regressionRegression equationRegression coefficients Correlation positive/negative high/low
The effect of average income (per capita GNP) on fertility (data from 35 countries)The effect of parental use of contraception on fertility (data from 23 countries)The effect of adult female literacy on life expectancy (data from 35 countries)Correlation between parental use of contraception and fertility (23 countries)Correlation between adult female literacy and parental use of contraception (23 countries)
11
Frequency distributions
Normal distributionArithmetic meanVarianceStandard deviationCoefficient of variationConfidence intervalsStandard error of sample meansSignificance of sample means
Distribution of global per capita incomes 1991Per capita GNP distribution of predominantlyProtestant and predominantly Catholic OECDcountries 1991 Protestant and Catholic weekly householdincomes for Northern Ireland 1988–93
It is the purpose of this book to:
In order to facilitate easy access to such information a data disk is available from the Publisher using the perforated card at the end of the book, which will provide the reader with answers to the tasks in Chapters 2–11.
Additional spreadsheet information including data for 142 countries on natural resources, environmental, economic and demographic conditions plus some medium-term trends is available on Home Page:
http://www.hum.port.ac.uk/Users/heiner.thiessen/mtrw/chptl3.htm
The Home Page data will enable readers to undertake their own independent statistical data processing in order to work out:
and many other magnitudes which are covered in this text.
The disk will be updated every two years and if readers are interested in maintaining an up-to-the-minute learning package we will be pleased to send you new floppy disks in September 1998 (please contact the author for details). The updated disk will also enable you to compare your projections for existing time series in this book with the actual developments in the not too distant future.
Through this project we would like to encourage a lively dialogue with our readers so that additional time series on other relevant environmental developments can be incorporated in the update disk. If readers are aware of medium- and long-term time series focusing on aspects of demography, production, pollution, depletion, human health and climate change we would be pleased to hear from you and to consider these additional data for inclusion in our update disk.
INTRODUCTION
The idea that we are wrecking the Earth is wrong;but wrecking ourselves is another story.
Lynn Margulis
Our world has become an electronic village, time and space no longer act as barriers to the flow of information. Television images from the remotest spots of the planet are beamed into our living rooms, often at the very moment they are happening. As a result we are inundated with news of wars, rebellions and uprisings, political scandals and election results, accidents and murders. We have the world at our fingertips, remote control, of course.
It has become difficult to separate the relevant from the purely incidental, the truly important from the merely trivial. In order to comprehend what is truly significant and will continue to dominate our agenda for many years to come, we have to step back, half close our eyes and look at our planet from a distance. We have to learn to recognize relevant patterns of change without getting lost in accidental detail. This is, of course, not an easy task but there are critical observers today who claim that most of the news we receive is little more than an entertaining smoke-screen of irrelevance. At the same time, the really important news of global change, of population growth, the opening of holes in the ozone layer and possible climate change cannot be clearly perceived because they lack visibility.
Nevertheless, over the last 200 years or so, some long-term global trends have been discovered and new linguistic constructs like ‘population explosion’ or ‘environmental time bomb’ are not merely expressions of a new understanding, they are beginning to change our awareness and perhaps even our patterns of thought and behaviour.
This new project in applied statistics focuses on some of the most burning environmental issues the planet is facing at the end of the second millennium. It is designed to help readers to ‘see’ for themselves some of the developments which may continue to be relevant well into the next century. The problem-driven approach of this project is intentional as a greater awareness of some of the planet’s maladies is considered to be the first step towards solving any of its problems.
But readers will not only learn about some key developments concerning the state of our planet; they will also begin to understand how the statistical methodology of data collection and data processing can be applied to describe and analyse some quantitative aspects of our reality. Each chapter focuses on a specific global issue which will be illustrated by using a number of appropriate statistical techniques.
Students using this text are invited to join in actively and to work out their own numerical results. This will not only help to develop greater technical competence but also some sense of ‘discovery’ about the world we inhabit. Readers who would like to use the statistical data supplied as raw material for their own tabulations and graphs are encouraged to access the data on the available floppy disk and Home Page, which will enable them to select and process data in a totally independent manner. This will help teachers and students alike to undertake their own statistical research into specific areas of interest, work out their own statistical magnitudes and construct tables and graphs according to teaching or research requirements. We would like to think that this combined text and software package will make the learning process far more interactive and exciting.
Comments and contributions of statistical data on long-term environmental trends are invited from readers of this text, to assist in the setting up and gradual expansion of an environmental data base. This will help to compile and constantly update future software packages for use in schools, colleges and universities.
1
THE GLOBAL SITUATION
The Earth is beautiful, especially from space; a blue planet, full of life and promise. And yet we seem to be in great difficulty today. Not so much because of our lack of scientific and economic success but precisely because of our very high levels of achievement in these fields. Our ability to increase production many times over, in this century alone, has coincided with serious problems of population explosion, raw material depletion, environmental pollution and global climatic change.
How did it all come about? For about 30 000 years the family of Homo sapiens eked out a simple, tough and frugal existence, struggling for physical survival and never improving their level of economic efficiency significantly beyond mere subsistence standards. Human ingenuity has changed all that.
1.1 THE AGRICULTURE REVOLUTION
The modest beginnings of growing grain and cultivating land some 10 000 years ago turned free-roaming hunter-gatherers into domesticated peasants with backbreaking tasks to perform. ‘Technological progress’ enabled them to increase the return on their efforts and perhaps for the first time in human history a higher standard of technical knowledge allowed higher levels of population density, as more children could now be fed, enabling them to survive from infancy into fertile adulthood. The unpredictable nomadic lifestyle could be abandoned in favour of the human settlement. The village was born.
1.2 THE URBAN REVOLUTION
Growing agricultural sophistication, particularly through various systems of land irrigation, allowed further increases in production. This revolutionary technological breakthrough led to some modest degree of insurance against periodic drought and as a result to further production growth and ever greater population density.
As far as we know, the first cities emerged in Mesopotamia, the Nile Delta and near the Dead Sea, locking out with their defences and fortifications not only the human enemy but also nature itself. This new urban environment represented a fantastic victory of man over wilderness. The entirely man-made ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, became a powerful symbol of man’s perceived superiority over nature. Here was man controlling nature; on the other side of the city wall nature remained untamed. Her secrets had to be teased out in order to make life more bearable.
‘Technological progress’ in the spheres of food production, construction and defence lent some degree of stability to the first civilizations of the world. The new city provided security for many fantastic cultural achievements as it enabled the human mind to focus on matters beyond immediate physical survival.
However, the growing application of land irrigation in the region of the Fertile Crescent, the area embracing modern Syria and Iraq, led to creeping salination and soil erosion in Mesopotamia so that today the once fertile land is practically barren and largely deserted. Over the millennia its soil has become infertile through human ‘ingenuity’ and economic success.
Nevertheless, the attraction of the ‘city’ has continued to act as a powerful magnet over many millennia so that in 1990 approximately 45% of the world population lived in urban areas, the remainder being defined as rural. Figures for some developed regions are even higher and have reached record levels in Europe (73.4%), the USA (75.0%) and South America (75.1%). Urbanization, however, requires high energy inputs and the environmental effect of high population density without self-reliance is one of the key problems resulting from modern global development.
1.3 THE CARTESIAN REVOLUTION
Modern scientific thinking has changed the way of life of Homo sapiens more dramatically than anything else in human history. The vital step from the Middle Ages to the New Scientific Age has often been epitomized by the image of Copernicus and Galileo looking through the telescope and observing the night sky with an open enquiring mind. As a result of their experimental research they proclaimed the heliocentric world view. Experimental observation had led them to deduce that it was not planet Earth but the Sun that was the centre of our part of the universe.
