The study reviews the book You say you want a revolution? Radical idealism and its tragic consequences by D. Chirot (Prince­ton, Princeton University Press, 2020) and, at the same time, ad­vances a viewpoint on social revolutions based on Thoreau’s im­perative of the separation from evil. Why most social revolutions have dangerous and painful consequences while their promoters claim that the revolution will alleviate human suffering and will bring happiness? The study identifies more sources of the tragic consequences of revolutions than (...) the radical idealism as suggest­ed by Chirot. In contrast with the ideological, structural and in­dividual violence of communist revolutions shaped by Marxist conception the study explores the value of Thoreauvian’s heuristic for the achievement of peaceful, non‑violent revolutionary changes. Self‑reliance i is assumed to be a vital engine of peaceful revolution­ary changes. (shrink)

This opinion paper puts forward arguments that reflect how science’s most elite prize, the Nobel Prize may be, despite its grand stature, somewhat out of touch with the functionality of grassroots science. There is a disconnect between limited fields of study to which the prize is awarded and the interdisciplinary nature of complex research. This is the first weakness. The second limitation is the focus on a single individual, occasionally on two or three when the prize is divided, even though (...) much research is frequently collaborative. This is particularly true in the biomedical and natural sciences, which tend to involve individuals with multiple skills, each or all of whom may be equally deserving of the Nobel Prize, given their collective participation. The Nobel Prize also tends to display poor cultural, linguistic and gender representation and/or bias. Finally, retractions of papers by select Nobel Prize laureates suggest that even these elite academics are not immune to the ills of science and academic publishing and that affect all scientists in a complex global web. (shrink)

Motivation regulation has a profound effect on the students’ learning and associated achievement. Yet, to date, there is a lack of a brief and valid approach for systematically assessing the regu­lation of learning motivation from the perspective of psychometrics, especially for the high middle school students. This study develops a general scale for quantitatively assessing the learning motiva­tion regulation of high middle students, based on the combination of literature analysis and open‑ended interviews in china General Learning Motivation Regulation Scale for (...) Chinese High Middle School Students (GLMR‑CHMSS). A total of 2,304 questionna­ires of high middle school students were included for item analysis and exploratory factor analysis, and another 2,304 questionnaires of high middle school students were subjected to confirmatory fac­tor analyses and a validation and reliability test. The scale con­sisted of 24‑items that can be divided into four factors: intrinsic motivation regulation, extrinsic motivation regulation, volitional behavioural regulation, and self‑efficacy regulation. As indica­ted by the confirmatory factor analysis with the control group, the four‑factor structure model of the GLMR‑CHMSS fitted well (χ2 /df=7.839, RMSEA=0.054, CFI=0.918, TLI=0.908). In ad­ dition, using academic achievement as the empirical validity crite­rion, the scores of each factor of GLMR‑CHMSS and the scale sco­re were significantly correlated with academic achievement were the reliability indicators. This study show cases a novel and va­lid tool for mesuring the degree of learning motivation regulation of high middle school students in China. (shrink)