Curtis NRA are a multi-disciplined, ecological and environmental consultancy, that combines the seemingly diverse disciplines of economics and science, to achieve practical outcomes in the real world. Some examples of recent outcomes appear below. Contact Dr Ian Curtis by phone at 0434 881 694, or email: ian@curtisnra.com.au
The NSW Coalition government was elected in 2011 with a Strategic Regional Land Use Policy that stated they “believe that agricultural land and other sensitive areas exist in NSW where mining and coal seam gas extraction should not occur”.
Check out the Nature Conservation Councils’ response to this bullshit, citing details and impacts on a number of high conservation value (HCV) woodlands including the Pillaga Scrub and Leard State Forest here
What is science?
“Science is a way to . . . distinguish truth from fraud” ~ Richard Feynman
“Much of what we take to be true is seriously wrong” ~ Gore Vidal
So in the quest for truth, science begins with observations. We might make these observations in a less than formal way, as we live our everyday lives. From these observations we might mentally construct a hypothesis, which we try to disprove. After a number of failed attempts to disprove the hypothesis, we may just start to begin thinking that it is true. This is an indication of how we can generate research questions from common sense. Then we might approach the problem in a formal way, by posing a research question, and using sampling techniques we have learnt, record our observations.
Our observations have to then be analysed using statistical methods, for information as to what tests to apply, and for what set of data, see
This complete ‘learning module’ on the scientific method and statistical analysis was developed by Ian Curtis, as a postgraduate student at James Cook University in 2002, while working in the academic support division.