Engineering With Rubber: How to Design Rubber Components

Book Description

Information on design and application of rubber components is an essential part of a general engineering education, along with the study of other materials, so that the new engineer can make intelligent design choices. Without this knowledge, the engineer will be dependent on the rubber manufacturer or supplier for product design and technical information. This book is intended to meet the need for such information.

This second edition of Engineering with Rubber contains updated and revised textual material and many new problems that deal with specific issues and allow the reader to test their understanding of the materials. Questions are appended to nearly every chapter-this feature is especially useful for students and those new to the field.

This book deals with some basic principles on which successful use of rubber depends:
1. How is an elastomer chosen and a formulation developed?
2. Why is rubber highly elastic and relatively strong?
3. How can one estimate the stiffness, strength, and durability of rubber products?

These questions face any engineer who wishes to understand the principles of designing rubber components. This book is intended to teach beginning engineers the principles of rubber science and technology.

Book Description

Using evidence from psychology, anthropology, sociology and other scientific disciplines, this book shows that there are at least three biological races (subspecies) of man Orientals (i.e., Mongoloids or Asians), Blacks (i.e., Negroids or Africans), and Whites (i.e., Caucasoids or Europeans). There are recognizable profiles for the three major racial groups on brain size, intelligence, personality and temperament, sexual behavior, and rates of fertility, maturation and longevity. The profiles reveal that, ON AVERAGE, Orientals and their descendants around the world fall at one end of the continuum, Blacks and their descendants around the world fall at the other end of the continuum, Europeans regularly fall in between. This worldwide pattern implies evolutionary and genetic, rather than purely social, political, economic, or cultural causes.

Customer Reviews:

Created unequal?.......2007-08-21

What if we've been misled and humans really are unequal from birth, in ways that may not be solved by social policies? In this interesting, but flawed book, Rushton finds, from extensive research, that this is precisely the case. He concludes that there are certain attributes (starting with intelligence, but including sexual activities, extraversion and self-control) that are largely inheritable, and that the three main races in the world (negroid, caucasoid and mongoloid) are not equally blessed: negroids are less intelligent, more impulsive and therefore more promiscuous and criminal than caucasoids, who in turn are also less intelligent and more impulsive than mongoloids. This is not very suprising, we've all seen this sort of data before and it is consistent with stereotypes and everyday experiences. What is interesting is that the author attempts to show that these differences are genetic in origin, and that they correspond with various reproductive strategies which in turn were dictated by various environmental stimuli as mediated by genes. All reproductive strategies may be placed within the r-K continuum. "r"-selected species go for big numbers when they attempt to reproduce. They don't provide much support for their spawn, but this is compensated by the number of these. "K"-selected species go for low numbers of children, but they invest significant effort to make sure these will survive. "r"-selected species compared to the "K"-selected sort will normally achieve reproductive capability at an earlier age, will be more promiscuous, more competitive and less cooperative. They will also die earlier.

Rushton postulates that although humans originated in Africa (thus supporting the "Out-of-Africa" thesis), the divergent strands (those remaining in Africa v. those that move into Eurasia) are really subspecies of humanity that evolved in different ways concerning reproductive strategies. Those that stayed in Africa continued to be more "r" selected, whereas those that moved into Eurasia were subject to "K" selection to a greater degree. This would have been due to divergent climatic situations: in Africa the weather is predictable (there are mostly no seasons), there is much plant food, but there abound all sorts of viruses and parasites and droughts often annihilate large portions of the population. In Eurasia (where until 10.000 years ago there was still the Ice Age) the weather is predictable (there are seasons), there are not so many diseases but it is difficult to survive the winter months, and hunting of large prey is required. Hence, humans became more "K" selected. They developed larger brains (which are essential for higher intelligence) and they opted for stronger coupling and higher investment in a lower number of descendants (less number of sexual partners, but better selection thereof). These factors were even stronger in Asia than in Europe, because most mongoloids developed in the northern part of the continent, where it was even colder. Rushton shows much data that supports his analysis, and some evidence in favor of his r-K reproductive differentiation strategies as the source of the various outcomes.

The contentiousness of this analysis may not be overstated. Rushton believes that the average IQ in Africa is about 2 standard deviations below that in the US, which would mean that more than 3/4 of Africans are less intelligent than the average American, and about half the population of the black continent is feeble-minded. He believes that American blacks are smarter than African ones because they have mixed themselves with Europeans and Asians. If this were true, then many of the greatest issues of our time become suddendly clearer (but not more manageable). The main reason why sub-Saharan Africa is now poorer than it was under European rule would not be racism, or negative terms of trade, or the poisoned inheritance of colonialism but rather a population that is dumber, less self-controled and more risk-taking than others. As access to education and health becomes generalized and the labor markets more transparent, a greater part of social differentiation (at least in developed countries) will be due to differential individual abilities (mostly related to IQ) rather than unfair social systems. If the differential abilities are really not invidual, but racial, then divergence between races will not narrow, but widen, the fairer the system is: only through restrictions on invidual actions will equality be viable. So liberty and fairness really turn out to be incompatible.

The implications of this worldview are extreme, and would affect many fields of legislation, including policies toward less developed countries in matters from free trade to Aids, as well as criminal laws, educational curricula and immigration laws. It is not an exageration to state that if Rushton is right, many changes in policies, such as the elimination of the "separate but equal doctrine" in US education in the famous Brown v. Board of Education ruling, decolonization and even Apartheid would have to be rethought.

This makes it easy to see why proponents of equality of races would disagree with Rushton: if he is right, then there would be no reason for respecting self-determination in countries where the majority of the population are borderline morons, nor would there be any reason for lavishing significant funds for education of a local minority that is really incapable of much improvement. Since social deviance is easy to predict from IQ tests, it probably would make sense to subject those of low intelligence (and large portions of these would come from the negroid race) to repressive police action even in absence of actual crimes. And it wouldn't be desirable to allow continued immigration by peoples who will surely drag down a country's average IQ, commit more crimes than others and generally make a nuisance of themselves by becoming dependent on the state. Rushton doesn't enunciate these conclusions, of course, but they may be easily inferred from his analysis. People have been expelled from universities just for wearing t-shirts that hint that they might hold this type of view.

I agree with the author that one shouldn't fear the truth, and that poorly constructed bromides are no substitutes for real understanding. We need less "feel-good" opinions and more realistic explanations of reality. So I would have expected Rushton to construct his arguments in a more thoughtful fashion than he has. Very clearly there is a genetic element in intelligence measured as IQ (the so-called "Spearman's g"), and it is surely true that IQ is an excellent predictor of success for both workers and executives, and of sexual behavior or law-abidingness for everyone. While it is nonsensical to assume these factors away and just attribute all differential results to environmental circumstances (as many do), it is also incoherent to state, as Rushton does, that in these factors there are both genetic and environmental influences, while at the same time saying virtually nothing about their respective weights, and empahisizing the former much more than the latter. Rushton clearly believes that most of the differential performance of various groups is genetic in origin. One guesses this not just from this book but from many of the reviews he has published on Amazon. This does not seem to be, for him, a scientific argument of theoretic interest, but a personal conviction with some emotional involvement. Normally, that doesn't make for good science. For example, even though he goes as far enough as to estimate that negroids are dumber because they have less brain tissue than caucasoids or mongoloids, he doesn't really give any reason why such comparatively small differences in brain weight generate such enormous variations in intelligence as he finds. The assumption that beyond a certain minimal weight required to run the body's processes, a small percentage of brain tissue has a disproportionate impact on total IQ may be correct, but it demands some factual support. If it doesn't exist, Rushton should have called this a working hypothesis and left it at that.

There are other, interesting, questions that he doesn't answer. While I agree with him that Jared Diamond's explanation of Eurasian success and African and Native American and Australian failure by way of geography is not satisfactory (because it doesn't even consider the possibility that genetics might be involved), I can see that Rushton doesn't attempt to explain the enviromental impact on inferior performances by the various races, or even quantify it. He then leaves himself open to accusations that he is just tidying up, in the language of sociobiology, very traditional racist beliefs. While he concedes that there are some anomalies implicit in his worldview (i.e., as the most "K"-selected race, mongoloids should be bigger than Causasians, who in turn should be bigger than Africans, whereas the reverse is the case), there are many he doesn't even consider, and obvious ones at that. If a harsh but predictable enviroment is a condition for "K"-selection, then Eskimos (or Inuit) should be most "K"-selected and therefore the most intelligent. Is this the case? And surely Mongolians are even more "K"-selected than Han Chinese (because they live further north). Then, why didn't the Chinese empire center in Mongolia, or Manchuria, rather than further south, as was the case? Also, wouldn't it make sense to suppose that North American Natives would be more "K"-selected than Central and South American ones? Yet the great pre-Columbian civilizations where in Central America (Aztecs and Mayas) and South America (Incas) rather than in North America, where the natives never evolved beyond the hunter-gatherer phase. This is not to refer to the obvious point, that the earliest developments of civilization did not take place in Northern European woods, but in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin (not to mention China). By the time the Greeks were arguing about the nature of things and creating epic poetry, theater, classical sculpture and architecture, and the Olympics, German tribesmen were still adoring trees, and even in the Carolingian era the Saxons were gross barbarians that didn't even have proper cities. And let's not even mention the Russians, who in some ways haven't even reached the XX century. So either evolution happened quite recently to propel Northern Europe into the foreground or there were powerful environment elements that haven't been properly considered. I think it must be latter.

While perhaps these questions are well beyond what the author wanted to cover, he surely could have alluded to them and left them for future researchers to answer.

Also, he is sometimes inconsistent. While in parts of his book he implies that Native Americans (as descendants of mongoloids who migrated through the Bering strait) are in some ways smarter than caucasians, in others he concludes that in fact the two populations (mongoloids who remained in Asia and native Americans) diverged far in the past so that they in fact became two different races, one smarter than the other. So what is his real opinion about this?

I think that when a researcher is working in such a politically contentious field as this he should be extra careful in order not to weaken his case by facile arguments that might be misused by interested parties. I don't think Rushton has kept this rule. He (apparently approvingly) quotes Gobineau's dictum that great civilizations decay through mixture with "ethnic taxa that have never initiated a civilization", so that "Degeneration sets it". This is just reckless: quoting Gobineau associates Rushton's arguments with eugenicist perspectives from seventy years algo and thus tarnishes them in a needless way. From here to rassenschande (the Nazi term that criminalized miscegenation) there is not a very long way to go.

While many of Rushton's opponents are tiresomely politically correct (some don't even to appear to think that reality exists, but that it's all about opinions, good or bad ones), Rushton seems to go out of his way to offend. This weakens some pretty powerful arguments in the book and needlessly associates the author with unsavory elements. That's a pity because he is a mostly readable writer, on very important topics.

INFORMATIVE.......2007-05-17

I rated this book a 4 since I am not a scientist. It was written very well, with all facts shown from scientific research, but not the easiest of reads for lay-persons. Some people would consider the book to be racist, but I would classify those persons as ignorant. Unlike an ostrich sticking it's head in the sand, we cannot escape the truth around us.

Morphological confirmation of racial disparity in intelligence.......2007-02-13

The racial disparity in intelligence was well established and documented by Murray and Hernstein in "The Bell Curve" and by Arthur Jensen in "The g Factor. In "Race, Evolution and Behavior" Rushton reinforces this disparity through the use of the comparative morphology and comparative capacity of the human brain between the three races of man. He shows that there is a direct correlation between the average brain size of the three races of man and the average intelligence of those races. To account for these differences the author relies on the out of Africa theory of human evolution in which man's primogenitor originated in Africa and then moved to the northern climates populating Europe and then Asia. In so doing man had to overcome a harsher environment than existed in Eden (Sub - Sahara Africa) and the human brain evolved in the Caucasian Race and then subsequently in the Mongoloid Race to better cope with the harsher environment. Rushton goes on to provide support for the inheritability of intelligence and to attribute racial differences in cultural attainment, susceptibility to certain sexually transmitted diseases, poverty rates, criminal tendencies, and other behavioral traits to the difference in the average intelligence between the three Races. His use of the r-K model, which heretofore has been used to categorize interspecies characteristics and which he uses to characterize and tabulate the differences between the human races was particularly enlightening and serves to further delineate the differences between the human races. In a sense the successful use of the r-K model makes the argument that the human races border on each being different a species with the Negroid furthest from the Caucasian and Mongoloid races and therefore the least like the other two. The author also successfully responds to the challenges that others have mounted to his work, devoting an entire chapter to this.

The only criticism that I have of the work is that it failed to explain why the Caucasian Race, in particular the white male, dominates the world in intellectual terms when in fact the Mongoloid Race is on the average more intelligent. A closer look at the distribution of intelligence within the races and between the sexes may provide the answer to this question. While the average intelligence for the Mongoloid is higher the distribution or standard deviation is smaller, therefore the Mongoloid Race tends to produce fewer geniuses and fewer retarded, similarly the average intelligence of the Negroid Race also has a smaller standard deviation and so the number of Negroid that have high IQs is few and far between. The average intelligence of the Caucasian Race on the other hand has a relatively large standard deviation and that race tends to produce a large number of geniuses as well as a large number of retarded. One can say that Nature has a way of balancing itself out. The work also failed to address the problem of the mixing of the races. This problem has been given scant attention but needs to be addressed. While the mixing of the Races, in particular the mixing of the Negroid and Caucasian Races tends to increase the average intelligence of the Negroid at the expense of the Caucasian, the problem is that there is a significant reduction of the standard deviation in the intelligence of the mixed race. This means that any culture comprised of mixed race people will have a much reduced capacity for generating geniuses and therefore a much reduced chance for survival.

Addressing the issue of racial admixture and the distribution of intelligence within a race and between sexes would have made a very worthwhile book even more valuable, and one that I nevertheless highly recommend to any serious reader on this subject.

Worst book ever.......2007-01-27

I gave this book a reading not too long ago. Nothing about this book is "controversial". It's the same manipulation of information that neo-nazis and the kkk use to put shame to folks of other races. Books like these have always existed, and their purpose is to make money from readers who think the message is "ground-breaking" or revealing of some deep knowledge that has always been hidden from the public. If you plan on picking up this book, be sure to pick up a confederate flag and a few skrewdriver albums to go with it, this book is equally brainless.

You know he's right.......2007-01-14

How amusing we find the seventeenth-century minds which persecuted Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun. But we have living in our midst a man who is so brave he has stated a truth even more obvious than Galileo's. Of course the races aren't equal. Everyone knows it but we don't want to admit it.
Even most scientists are so scared that they would rather pretend that natural selection leaves intelligence unaffected. The official story is that it doesn't matter whether your race evolved in a jungle or a desert, the average brain will be totally unchanged by evolution. Everything else will change - height, colour, blood, hair, bones, teeth, eyes - but the brain must by some undiscovered law of nature stay the same.
Read this book for proof of what you, in your heart of hearts, already know.

Race, Evolution & Behavior : A Life History Perspective

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Race, Evolution & Behavior : A Life History Perspective
J. P. Rushton
Manufacturer: Charles Darwin Research Institute Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000HMQ2OE

Book Description

This insightful work examines the variety of ways comedy is employed in the Old Testament. Biblical comedy unveils "a comic vision that oscillates between attack and affirmation, corrective and celebration, ridicule and revel." Here Whedbee reveals the subtle uses of parody and satire to subversive effect in six biblical books. But "the Bible characteristically does not stop with subversion, for the texts usually drive on toward an affirmation of life and a celebration of the wonder and hopefulness of creation. . . . In sum, subversion and celebration typically belong together in a comprehensive view of biblical comedy: subversion often serving to undercut and clear away obstacles to the realization of fertility and forgiveness; and celebration finding expression in festivals of freedom and hope."

Customer Reviews:

Productive New Perspective.......2000-04-30

The benefit of Whedbee's book is that it offers a fresh, new perspective to the Old Testament. If you are conservative in your understanding of the Bible, you often miss some important information in your seriousness in dealing with the Scriptures. If you are more modern in your reading of the text, you might easily pass over much of the data as outdated remnants of a bygone culture. The comic reading of the Old Testament offers a correction to either extremes.

Customer Reviews:

The Truth Behind Huck.......1998-04-21

The Adventures of Huck Finn is an outstanding work of classic literature. It's a must read, especially since schools all over have been banning it from their literary lists. The story focuses on a young boy who learns lessons about life and himself while helping a run away slave. There is much contraversey over the relationship between Huck and the man he is trying to save. Why not read the book and form your own opinion as to what is really going on.

Circus of the Mind in Motion: Postmodernism and the Comic Vision (Humor in Life and Letters)

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Circus of the Mind in Motion: Postmodernism and the Comic Vision (Humor in Life and Letters)
Lance Olsen
Manufacturer: Wayne State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0814321321

Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists

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A Joy from cover to cover

Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists
Ralph C. Wood
Manufacturer: University of Notre Dame Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0268007675

Customer Reviews:

A Joy from cover to cover.......2007-09-07

One of the English speaking world's best essayists gives unique and insightful reflections on four of the greatest American novelists. In the process he shows that real comedy is a Christian virtue. Only Christians have the basis for celebrating the comedic nature of creation.

There are good reasons why this masterpiece has gone through multiple printings. It is as if Ralph Wood was channeling G K Chesterton, but with sharper theological powers.

A delight from beginning to end, and a devasting rebuke to those Christians, Left and Right, with humorless souls.

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The Comic Vision in Literature
Edward L. Galligan
Manufacturer: Univ of Georgia Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Satire, General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0820307130

Comic Visions, Female Voices: Contemporary Women Novelists and Southern Humor (Southern Literary Studies)

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Comic Visions, Female Voices: Contemporary Women Novelists and Southern Humor (Southern Literary Studies)
Barbara Bennett
Manufacturer: Louisiana State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Women Writers & Feminist Theory | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Women Writers | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0807122882

The Esoteric Comedies of Carlyle, Newman, and Yeats

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The Esoteric Comedies of Carlyle, Newman, and Yeats
Steven Helming
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Satire, General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Wales | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Iris Murdoch's Comic Vision
Angela Hague
Manufacturer: Susquehanna University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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William Blake's Comic Vision
Nick Rawlinson
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Criticism | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0312220642

Book Description

This study uncovers a vital thematic unity within Blake's early work: his far-reaching use of humor. Although often dismissed as a product of his eccentricity, the comic was an essential key to Blake's concept of Vision. With special reference to Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque, this book offers new readings of Blake's works, demonstrating how he was influenced by contemporary theatre, verbal and visual satirists and the Shakespearean clown.

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