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In addressing our current fiscal and economic woes, too often we neglect a key ingredient of our nation's economic future—the human capital produced by our K-12 school system. An improved education system would lead to a dramatically different future for the U.S., because educational outcomes strongly affect economic growth and the distribution of income.
Over the past half century, countries with higher math and science skills have grown faster than those with lower-skilled populations.
"Nietzsche’s “high esteem for the Greeks is a commonplace,” Kaufmann says—yet many have decided to ignore his “great debt to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics” by supposing that he “wanted to return to the pre-Socratics.” Nietzsche’s affinity for the Socrarics is revealed in an epigram which appears at the end of Part I of Zarathustra and also in the Preface to Ecce Homo: “‘The man who seeks knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.’ “This remark should remind us of Aristotle’s principle (in the Nicomachean Ethics 1096a) that for the sake of maintaining the truth, we have a duty ‘even to destroy what touches us closely’ since ‘piety requires us to honor truth above our friends’ (ibid.). Indeed,
Nietzsche goes beyond Aristotle by urging his own readers: ‘One repays a teacher badly if one always remains a pupil only’ (Z 122). Like Socrates, Nietzsche would rather arouse a zest for knowledge than commit anyone to his own views. And when he writes, in the chapter ‘On the Friend,’ ‘one who is unable to loosen his own chains may yet be a redeemer for his friend’, he seems to recall Socrates claim that he was but a barren midwife. (402—03)
These citations, Kaufmann thinks, render intelligible Nietzsche’s “emphatic scorn” for all who would discard their own beliefs so as to follow a master, and his “vision of a disciple who might follow his master’s conceptions beyond the master’s boldest dreams.” Hence, any references to being a follower of Nietzsche would be a contradiction of terms; for to be a Nietzschean, “whether ‘gentle’ or ‘tough,’ “one must not be a Nietzschcan” (403)."
Kuhn wanted to free us from the illusion that knowledge is independent of history and of the sociality that marks us as humans, but he did not think that all beliefs that our history and sociality put before us are equally worthy. Indeed, he quickly moved away from the "shift happens" conception of paradigms as bundles of beliefs, emphasizing instead that they're examples of good scientific practice that researchers apply in their daily work.
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Ever since Newton, we in the West have thought movement changes an object's position in neutral space but does not change the object itself. For Aristotle, a change in position was a change in a quality of the object, and qualitative change tended toward an asymmetric actualization of potential: an acorn becomes an oak, but an oak never becomes an acorn. Motion likewise expressed a tendency for things to actualize their essence by moving to their proper place
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From this, Kuhn learned several important lessons that surfaced in SSR 15 years later. First, scientific ideas occur within a context that enables them to make sense. Second, context is accepted for different sorts of reasons than are the hypotheses that emerge within it. Third, the idea of a new scientific context occurs roughly the way his own illumination of Aristotle's ideas did: all at once, an entire whole snapping into view the way a duck-rabbit illustration switches instantly from one view to another.
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Being religious doesn’t mean that you stop thinking. In fact if you are serious about it, like everything else in life, it demands a high level of self awareness and an open mind. You can not check your brain at the door if you are going to be effective at living out your faith, not if you intend your life to be a visible and compelling argument for the value of your religion.
In the twin realms of politics and government, secrets are a tradable commodity.
In this market, knowledge really is power – or a function and a facet of power. To use an economic framework: secrecy, knowledge and power are all 'coin of the realm', the legal currency of a political system.
The word 'market' is used with intent, because applying an economic model shows the reality of what politicians, minders and senior bureaucrats actually do with secrecy and secrets. Secrecy can confer monopoly power on a pollie. And the market model also leads quickly to that key economic question – who profits? Various participants in this market will price secrets in different ways. Demand, supply and sales get complicated when you stir in government ministers, journalists and the military.
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The military believe secrets have an absolute value, while politicians view secrets as having relative value, according to the needs of the market and the size of the secret. Public servants are supposed to view secrets in the same way as the military (an imperative imposed by their customs, training and the law) but constant contact with pollies means senior bureaucrats can come to understand the benefits of trade, even if it is seen as black market activity.
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The military must believe that secrecy is an absolute value; if secrets leak, operations can fail and people can die.
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For some scientists, the unfortunate distortion and misappropriation of scientific ideas that often accompanies their integration into popular culture is an unacceptable price to pay. I share their irritation, but my strongly held view is that science is too important not to be part of popular culture. Our civilization was built on the foundations of reason and rational thinking embodied in the scientific method, and our future depends on the widespread acceptance of science as THE ONLY WAY WE HAVE to meet many, if not all, of the great challenges we face. Is the climate warming and, if so, what is the cause? Is it safe to vaccinate children against disease? These are scientific questions, in that they can be answered by the analysis of data, and therefore the answers are independent of the opinion, faith or political persuasion of the individual. If you would like to see the scale of the problem faced by those who wish to champion science and reason above rhetoric and knee-jerk prejudice, have a glance at the comments that are no doubt proliferating below this article because I mentioned climate change and vaccination.
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The key words in the above paragraph are “widespread acceptance”. In democratic societies, progress is made through persuasion, and science has a most persuasive story to tell. Quantum theory tells us that the universe we experience emerges from a bewildering,
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Recognizing the innate human desire to be dazzled is the key to understanding why some people are drawn to pseudo-scientific drivel; it delivers wonder, albeit chimeric. But herein lies a clue as to where the cure for irrationality lies, because reality is strange and beautiful enough to satisfy the most veracious imagination. In order to build a more scientific society, therefore, I argue that scientists must not be afraid to speak of their discoveries in language that fires the imagination and satiates the innate human need for wonder, because wonder is a doorway to a deeper appreciation and understanding of science. This is the language of popular culture, which is by definition the dominant source of information for the majority in society. If we can persuade enough people that science is as wonderful as it is useful, then we will be far better equipped as a civilization to face the great challenges of the 21st century.
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Don’t fall into the trap of feeling guilty, especially if you have the luck of studying in such a rich place. All this bullshit like, “Somalian children are starving....” No! Somalian children are not starving because you have a good time here. There are others who are much more guilty. Rather, use the opportunity. Society will need more and more intellectual work. It’s this topic of intellectuals being privileged—this is typical petty-bourgeois manipulation to make you feel guilty. You know who told me the best story? The British Marxist, Terry Eagleton. He told me that 20 or 30 years ago he saw a big British Marxist figure, Eric Hobsbawm, the historian, giving a talk to ordinary workers in a factory. Hobsbawm wanted to appear popular, not elitist, so he started by saying to the workers, “Listen, I’m not here to teach you. I am here to exchange experiences. I will probably learn more from you than you will from me.” Then he got the answer of a lifetime. One ordinary worker interrupted him and said, “Fuck off! You are privileged to study, to know. You are here to teach us! Yes, we should learn from you! Don’t give us this bullshit, ‘We all know the same.’ You are elite in the sense that you were privileged to learn and to know a lot. So of course we should learn from you. Don’t play this false egalitarianism.”
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it’s no longer a question of knowledge. Today many, even sociologists, have this wonderful idea of how, although we live in a society of knowledge—even scientific knowledge—[it] is becoming more and more contingent, non-binding. I think it was the German theorist Ulrich Beck who drew attention to the simple fact: today we speak about expert opinions. Are we aware how paradoxical this term is? The idea is that we ordinary people have opinions. They tell you the truth. Now experts all of a sudden are telling us different opinions and we have to decide how, who knows, if even they don’t know. This is the tragedy of our predicament of freedom of choice. The problem is...we are often forced to choose without having serious cognitive coordinates of how or what to choose.... The price is that science is no longer a homogenous science but it’s turning into kind of a pluralistic field of opinions.
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A purely technocratic model of policy formation is not appropriate in that knowledge is not, and cannot be, the sole determinant of how policy is developed.
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increasingly the nature of science itself is changing and it has to address issues of growing complexity and uncertainty in an environment where there is a plurality of legitimate social perspectives. In such situations, the interface between science and policy formation becomes more complex. Further, many decisions must be made in the absence of quality information, and research findings on matters of complexity can still leave large areas of uncertainty. In spite of this uncertainty, governments still must act. Many policy decisions can have uncertain downstream effects and on-going evaluation is needed to gauge whether such policies and initiatives should be sustained or revised. But, irrespective of these limitations, policy formed without consideration of the most relevant knowledge available is far less likely to serve the nation well.
Proponents of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are forcing us to answer a question no one has explicitly asked – should there be a scientific basis to medicine? Proponents are generally very coy about this topic, and in most venues want to pretend that they are being scientific, while really promoting “other” forms of evidence and “other” ways of knowing. They promote health care freedom laws designed to weaken the scientific standards of medicine, while simultaneously infiltrating academia with assurances that they are science-based.
science has always been, and very likely always will be, entangled with ideology. This is because science, as Helen Longino put it in her Science as Social Knowledge, science is an irreducibly social activity, and as such it reflects the many, not always positive, ways in which people interact. Science of course is also a pursuit of knowledge, and knowledge is power, according to Francis Bacon, and therefore not too far removed from politics and ideology. Actually, that famous Baconian phrase happens to fit very well with this discussion, as the original sentence, in Latin, was “scientia potestas est” (found in the Meditations, 1597). Problem is, Bacon wrote that within the context of a discussion of heresies denying the power of God, so that some commentators actually think that it should be translated as “knowledge is His power.” Science and religion, deeply entangled right in the writings of the man who is credited for having laid out the basis of the modern scientific method by rejecting the Aristotelian approach.
science has always been, and very likely always will be, entangled with ideology. This is because science, as Helen Longino put it in her Science as Social Knowledge, science is an irreducibly social activity, and as such it reflects the many, not always positive, ways in which people interact. Science of course is also a pursuit of knowledge, and knowledge is power, according to Francis Bacon, and therefore not too far removed from politics and ideology. Actually, that famous Baconian phrase happens to fit very well with this discussion, as the original sentence, in Latin, was “scientia potestas est” (found in the Meditations, 1597). Problem is, Bacon wrote that within the context of a discussion of heresies denying the power of God, so that some commentators actually think that it should be translated as “knowledge is His power.” Science and religion, deeply entangled right in the writings of the man who is credited for having laid out the basis of the modern scientific method by rejecting the Aristotelian approach.
"The human brain remains 'plastic', even in adult life, allowing it to adapt when we learn new tasks.
The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
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And the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware
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participants who felt most affected by the economic recession avoided information challenging the government's ability to manage the economy. However, they did not avoid positive information
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Everyone claims to agree that people should be encouraged to understand science and other academic research. Without current knowledge, we cannot make coherent democratic decisions. But the publishers have slapped a padlock and a "keep out" sign on the gates.
You might resent Murdoch's paywall policy, in which he charges £1 for 24 hours of access to the Times and Sunday Times. But at least in that period you can read and download as many articles as you like. Reading a single article published by one of Elsevier's journals will cost you $31.50. Springer charges €34.95, Wiley-Blackwell, $42. Read 10 and you pay 10 times. And the journals retain perpetual copyright. You want to read a letter printed in 1981? That'll be $31.50.
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universities are locked into buying their products. Academic papers are published in only one place, and they have to be read by researchers trying to keep up with their subject. Demand is inelastic and competition non-existent, because different journals can't publish the same material. In many cases the publishers oblige the libraries to buy a large package of journals, whether or not they want them all. Perhaps it's not surprising that one of the biggest crooks ever to have preyed upon the people of this country – Robert Maxwell – made much of his money through academic publishing.
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The publishers claim that they have to charge these fees as a result of the costs of production and distribution, and that they add value (in Springer's words) because they "develop journal brands and maintain and improve the digital infrastructure which has revolutionised scientific communication in the past 15 years". But an analysis by Deutsche Bank reaches different conclusions. "We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process … if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn't be available." Far from assisting the dissemination of research, the big publishers impede it, as their long turnaround times can delay the release of findings by a year or more.
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THERE are two kinds of ignorance: the kind removable by education, and the other kind, which is defined by the limits of current knowledge. It seems to me that in extolling the virtues of higher education we have overemphasized the removable ignorance and encouraged the notion that more is knowable than is actually the case. This has mischievous consequences.
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The humanities are valuable because they deal openly with the inevitability of ignorance and the consequences thereof. They show us how great men and women faced incomprehensible situations. They tune the instrument by which ultimately we all grapple with the question of how to act without sufficient knowledge. And they urge us to free that instrument, the educated human mind, from the restraints of ignorance, even ignorance of ignorance itself.
Experts have always posed a problem for democracies. Plato scorned democracy, rating it the worst form of government short of tyranny, largely because it gave power to the ignorant many rather than to knowledgeable experts (philosophers, as he saw it). But, if, as we insist, the people must ultimately decide, the question remains: How can we, non-experts, take account of expert opinion when it is relevant to decisions about public policy?
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we need to reflect on the logic of appeals to the authority of experts. First of all, such appeals require a decision about who the experts on a given topic are. Until there is agreement about this, expert opinion can have no persuasive role in our discussions.
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Another requirement is that there be a consensus among the experts about points relevant to our discussion. Precisely because we are not experts, we are in no position to adjudicate disputes among those who are.
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The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: Limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones. More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization: Respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive, and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased. We suggest that this evidence reflects a conflict between two levels of rationality: The individual level, which is characterized by citizens’ effective use of their knowledge and reasoning capacities to form risk perceptions that express their cultural commitments; and the collective level, which is characterized by citizens’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to promote their common welfare. Dispelling this, “tragedy of the risk-perception commons,” we argue, should be understood as the central aim of the science of science
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On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones. More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization: Respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive, and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased. We suggest that this evidence reflects a conflict between two levels of rationality: The individual level, which is characterized by citizens’ effective use of their knowledge and reasoning capacities to form risk perceptions that express their cultural commitments; and the collective level, which is characterized by citizens’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to promote their common welfare.
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Dispelling this, “tragedy of the risk-perception commons,” we argue, should be understood as the central aim of the science of science communication.
same goal of demographic diversity does not apply to the competitive teams or the glee club or orchestra for that matter because those groups have a much more narrowly defined task. It’s that difference in purpose, rather than the difference in which race gets helped, that underlies the responses in the video. Take those same liberal students who support admissions policies that bring more blacks to campus; ask then if they would also support race-based preferences to get more blacks into crew, the glee club, or the chess team. I’m sure they would say no. As in the actual video, they would probably be unable to explain why giving preference to African Americans is acceptable in admissions but not activities.
They’ll say that the two are different, even though they can’t immediately explain why. Does that make them hypocrites, natural or un-?
The next time someone shoves a microphone in your face and asks for a justification for some distinction you make, smile at the camera and say, “As Michael Polany wrote in The Tacit Dimension, ‘we know more than we can tell,’ an insight that Richard Nisbett later developed with much social science evidence in his book Knowing More than We Can Tell.”
There are many sources of potential artifact in the climate data. Where are the temperature stations located? Have cities built up near them over the years, leading to false warming? There are also artifacts in the time it takes for stations to report their data to central repositories, which then have to crunch the data. There are changing methods of temperature measurement of the years.
In addition to artifact in the gathering and reporting of the data, there are numerous trends in the data itself. There are multiple natural climate cycles, as well as short term anomalies (like volcanic eruptions) that need to be taken into account.
This is why sorting through all of this noise in the climate data is not for the amateur. Of course, now that climate change is a politically-charged issue, the internet if full of exactly that – amateur analysis of the data. This is definitely an area where substituting one’s own analysis for the consensus of scientific opinion is probably not a good idea.
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data may contain spurious patterns or results, depending on the methods used to gather that data.
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There are many kinds of false patterns in data other than sampling bias, and it often takes an expert to know how to interpret a complex data set. Meanwhile complex data can be presented to the public in a partial or deception way in order to create a false impression. The global warming controversy is now the poster child for this phenomenon. The notion that the planet is slowly warming and that human activity is playing a significant role is based upon large sets of data that has to be analyzed in very complex and subtle statistical ways. Both sides of the controversy point to biases or errors in the data that falsely make it look as if the Earth is or is not warming.
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