This paper's objective is to use SKAT, the author's Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory of risk, to shed fresh light on the treatment and prevention of mental disorders. SKAT employs a broad definition of risk that allows for nice not merely nasty possibilities. SKAT is here shown to solve eight...

Pro-life advocates focus on a single entity, the foetus. Pro-choice advocates focus on another single entity, the pregnant mother. There should also be a third focus, on all people already born on how a new entrant on average damages (or enhances) the whole community. Communal accounts are...

This paper introduces a new theoretic entity, a nominalist heuristic, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios. Abstractions used in the evaluation stage of decision making typically involve nominalist heuristics that are incompatible with expected utility theory which excludes...

The prior paper in this sequel, Pope (2009) introduced the concept of a nominalist heuristic, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios. In this paper the concept is used to show three things in how scientists and practitioners analyse and evaluate to decide (conclude). First,...

In rich countries, the population percentage under drug therapy for depressions is rising rapidly decade by decade for children, adolescent and young adults with no evidence of any long term success for this chronic ailment. There is also in rich countries relative to most poor ones, for each...

The paper re-expresses and complements arguments against the normative validity of expected utility theory in Robin Pope (1983, 1991a, 1991b, 1985, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007). The objections concern the neglect of the evolving stages of knowledge ahead (stages of what the future will...

This paper's field evidence is: (1) many official sectors rapidly forget the damage of the 1982-85 exchange rate liquidity crisis and reverted to what caused that crisis, namely a closed economy clean floats perspective; and (2) the 2006-2008/9 exchange rate liquidity shock would have been more...