Michael Paton
Michael Paton is the Teaching Quality Fellow/Senior Learning Adviser in the Office for Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney, Australia. He completed his Bachelor of Science (Education) degree majoring in environmental geology at the University of New South Wales and his Bachelor of Arts (honours) and PhD in Chinese studies at the University of Sydney.
Michael’s work and research interests in communication skills deal with their relationship to culture, critical thinking and knowledge production. His other major research interests include the history and philosophy of science in China especially focusing on dili (the principles of the earth), fengshui (wind and water) and their relationship to the environment and culture.
He is Vice President (Asia) of the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science and a principal sponsor of the Sustainable Management of Organisations Group (SMOG).
Present research projects related to SMOG:
- The environmental history of China in comparison with that of Australia
- The ethics of chance
- The logic of short term advantage (Elvin 2004) in relation to the environment