Paradigms and normal science

[Darth Wong]

The problem is that while a really good philosopher needs to know a lot of things about practical applications such as science or history, it is quite possible to get a degree in philosophy with no skills other than the ability to spout bullshit. It's not the better philosophers who are the problem, it's the low-end tools.

[brianeyci]

Which is why only the best of the best should go into humanities in my opinion, the ones with the most motivation and talent. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to weed them out with marks. They could make humanities like trivia contests, memorizing a whole bunch of useless facts with difficult to discern multiple choice questions, but I don't think that's the way to go. Those who have the best memory would get in, not the most motivated with the most insight.

I think the best idea is some kind of student profile, along with an interview and a resume. The interview could be tailored to the specific program. For example, with history, they could ask opinions about certain well-known historical events they should have mastered in high school. I am betting this would weed out 99% of fakers. People could start studying to the interview, but as long as the interviews were non-standardized and administered by faculty with loose guidelines they could be an adequate filter. Grades of course would come first, but to get into humanities they would need to articulate history and discuss it, not just memorize facts.

In other words, turn humanities into elite programs.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

It doesn't seem like a bad idea to have a history analysis and discussion as a criterion for entrance, but I think we need also simultaneously fix the way history is taught in highschool to make it more effective.

History, to me, seems to be taught very poorly as a loose connection of facts briefly touched upon. In highschool, we barely had any time to go into any depth or discussion in any of the topics. We didn't really even do that in AP. Now, perhaps we could facilitate critical thinking and actually "delving" into the material learned if we tried to teach it that way in the first place.

All I had were multiple-yawn-choice tests and teachers who buzzed through shit clicking through the powerpoint like mad.

That's one of my motivations behind the desire to become a teacher. I don't want kids to experience the way WE learned history. Hell, I hardly was introduced to primary documents until AP history and then college. It's rather sad imo.

[Darth Wong]

In other words, turn humanities into elite programs.

Unfortunately, rabid worship of "democracy" and "populism" means that any kind of elitism, even (or perhaps especially) academic elitism, is considered immoral.

[metavac]

In other words, turn humanities into elite programs.

Unfortunately, rabid worship of "democracy" and "populism" means that any kind of elitism, even (or perhaps especially) academic elitism, is considered immoral.

On the other hand, at least Americans seem to be just fine with spending a huge chunk of change on education and then letting the labor market settle the matter of their worth.

[brianeyci]

That is no solace metavac. Teenagers in high school, children (how financially responsible were you at 17) are tricked into thinking that a university education, no matter the major, will be useful? And then four years and 50k later they find out that their degree is useless or the market is too saturated? If anything teenagers need to be protected more than adults from universities which act like corporations filling a bottom line nowadays.

An old teacher at my high school said it used to be a rarity to go to university. It was a handful of guys from every year and the rest entering the workforce. I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Mobiboros]

And while I've now completely lost track of coberst's ramblings, I am surprised no one's called him on his MA in Philosophy claim.

I did, back on page 2. I wanted him to back up his claim that he had an MA in Philosophy. I know people with Philosophy degrees and they would never get caught up in this kind of pseudo-post-modernist crap.

Granted most of the people I know with philosophy degrees specialized in logic systems and theory and those with grad degrees went into advanced logic and AI research. But none of them wander around just spouting off pop-philosophy because they know that most people won't care/don't want to care/think it sounds like intellectual masturbation when you bring it up with no context.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

One potential problem is that people associate the degree with a comfy job and the non-degreed life with some sort of backbreaking manual labour, and few want to do the latter.

Perhaps the desire to avoid manual labour was one factor in having more people desiring to go to college so to attain office or professional jobs that didn't involve manual work.

Carpentry, Plumbing, Mechanics are tiring, difficult, dirty jobs. They are respectworthy, I think, just for that, but not a lot of people like those trades for those reasons. People probably are going to be mentally opposed to being forced away from the opportunity to get higher education and what they see as a way out of that, while a few "elite" people get the chance.

I think Richard Dawkins mentions this issue in his book "A Devils Chaplain." He seems to argue just the opposite: that people shouldn't be barred from higher education if they so want it. They should have the opportunity to educate themselves further. I think he even goes to the extent of criticizing the A-Levels exams as soul-crushing future destroyers and that it shouldn't be so to attain a university admittance. I will try to get the exact passage later today and post it to see what you think of his perspective on higher education, but he seems argue against the idea of an elite cadre being the only ones allowed to get a higher education.

However, it is a good point about market saturation. I don't think highschools, or even colleges, are entirely honest. They didn't give a lot of information about job prospects or recommendations, and the colleges tend to distribute a lot of literature pumping up their degrees (to the extent that they list all the wonderful occupations you can have with their degree). They assume that, even though the degree itself cannot translate directly into a "job" that you have the "skills" from that degree that can apply to multiple job types. They plaster this stuff all over their brochures.

[metavac]

One potential problem is that people associate the degree with a comfy job and the non-degreed life with some sort of backbreaking manual labour, and few want to do the latter.

I'd hesitate to go that far. This tangent's gotten me interested in the prevalence of vocational education in America, perceptions of it, and its studied impact on wages, job security, and social mobility. I'm still piling through the literature, but I don't think community college attendance rates in the non-transfer category necessarily bear out the notion that people view trades as less 'desirable' than professions that require at least a four year college degree. I have to review the literature in depth and craft a good argument, so I'll get back to you on this point soon.

[Coyote]

I wonder what his next soliloquy will be?

Perhaps...

"Oh, fruddled gruntbugglies, thy micturations are to me as plurdled gobbleblotches upon a lurgid bee, don't you agree?"

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I'd hesitate to go that far. This tangent's gotten me interested in the prevalence of vocational education in America, perceptions of it, and its studied impact on wages, job security, and social mobility. I'm still piling through the literature, but I don't think community college attendance rates in the non-transfer category necessarily bear out the notion that people view trades as less 'desirable' than professions that require at least a four year college degree. I have to review the literature in depth and craft a good argument, so I'll get back to you on this point soon.

I think I made a grammatical error. Is should have been replaced with could be, since I was thinking of a potential, not actual problem. I also wasn't thinking of desirable in terms of job security and wages, but rather the actual work itself. Trades are certainly intelligent investments becaus they tend to pay well and have practical use.

I'd rather sit at a desk or be a museum worker than engage in a lot of the trades. I couldn't do, say, construction. It would be interesting to know what they actually think about the nature of specific trade degrees (I would assume different trades have different styles of work, though).

I was basing the potentiality on the assumption that a lot of people are lazy and would rather not do physical labour. I know I don't want to do sweaty, diry, manual labour, but I don't speak for everyone. My brother went into the electrician business, but he soon got tired of crawling around in people's crawlspaces, so he became a teacher haha.

I would appreciate the data =D

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The problem is that while a really good philosopher needs to know a lot of things about practical applications such as science or history, it is quite possible to get a degree in philosophy with no skills other than the ability to spout bullshit. It's not the better philosophers who are the problem, it's the low-end tools.

I think the most relevant form of philosophy today is the Philosophy of Mathematics, as it's very important to discerning some of the underlying relationships between what is ultimately a logic system (math) and the physical universe, which seems uniquely suited to be described in terms of mathematics, raising all sorts of interesting questions about what precisely mathematics is and how it fits into explaining the structure of the cosmos.

A proper philosophy degree should, IMO, require the student to learn both formal logic and mathematics (since mathematics is also a logic system) to the highest degree possible. Any method of studying philosophy which doesn't rigorously incorporate both of those is probably bullshit.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Forgot to add something, Sorry for the double post.

What would happen if significantly more people didn't go to university, but instead to trade schools? Would we have a similar market saturation problem with certain trade degrees as well?

[General Zod]

Forgot to add something, Sorry for the double post.

What would happen if significantly more people didn't go to university, but instead to trade schools? Would we have a similar market saturation problem with certain trade degrees as well?

Many trades are always looking for skilled workers. Automechanics, for example. From what I understand in my city alone there's always a shortage of good automechanics, and during the busy seasons (winter esp.) you're hard pressed to find a garage that isn't completely full for at least a month.

[brianeyci]

All I will say is that wanting it is not enough. You should be smart enough so it can be justified that society hand-hold you for a further four years.

The shit about limiting higher education to an elite is patronage and cronyism. I believe the idea of a percentage of people going to university is a Victorian idea, which I find distasteful. I'm not sure what is worse -- easy degrees for every skill level, or all degrees difficult and no education beyond high school.

I do know that the perception doesn't match reality. A person coming out with a psychology degree or an English degree is quite possible to end up in a job with manual work. Better that the illusion be killed than to keep up the idea that a degree gives you a guaranteed desk job. And middle management blows. In an overconsuming society like ours middle management exists, but once the economy corrects itself and external factors like peak oil ravish through the first world, middle management dies off. I'm not sure that middle management is sustainable in any kind of healthy society at all.

As an aside, I would have loved to join the army. I actually tried in high school, and very nearly went to military college. But I washed out, because of various medical problems. I'm not entirely sure everybody wants a desk job or hates manual work. They just want something they can support themselves with that's rewarding.

[Darth Wong]

Most people are so fucking stupid that they don't even know how to drive safely. Honestly, the idea that higher education should be made available to everyone is just fantasy thinking, of the sort that takes place when you have not had sufficient exposure to rednecks and other assorted anti-intellectual types.

[Eris]

I think the most relevant form of philosophy today is the Philosophy of Mathematics, as it's very important to discerning some of the underlying relationships between what is ultimately a logic system (math) and the physical universe, which seems uniquely suited to be described in terms of mathematics, raising all sorts of interesting questions about what precisely mathematics is and how it fits into explaining the structure of the cosmos.

I actually just finished a course on Phil math. Bloody fascinating topic, doubly so since Benacerraf. I'd add that not only does it raise interesting questions about mathematics itself (strong applicability et al), but it also is a testing ground if you will for a lot of other related issues, since the problems come out so clearly in a mathematical context. The tension between the conventional ideas of truth and knowledge, for instance.

I would add phil language and ethics to the list, though. In the former case since understanding how we use language seems prior to any kind of sensible and rigorous debate to my mind, given that we think and converse in it, and the latter since the only other people who seem interested in giving an account of ethics besides the philosophers are the religious, and I'll be damned if I let them do it.

A proper philosophy degree should, IMO, require the student to learn both formal logic and mathematics (since mathematics is also a logic system) to the highest degree possible. Any method of studying philosophy which doesn't rigorously incorporate both of those is probably bullshit.

There's an expression that goes around my department, and maybe others as well. There are two kinds of people in philosophy: The logic and language people, and the hopes and dreams people.

There just isn't any point in doing philosophy if you're not in a solidly analytic tradition, in my view, and the tradition was founded with the formalisation of logic by Frege, Russell, and company. If it's not at the centre of what you're doing, then you're not really doing philosophy - you're doing literary criticism with a slightly different vocabulary and even less purpose.

It's sort of the root of the bullshitting problem, I think: philosophy programmes that either have strayed from the initial ideals of the tradition, or that have been Continental to begin with. I had the good fortune to end up in a ruthlessly analytic department, but a depressing amount of philosophy produced is just intellectual masturbation.

And normally I'd feel guilty about here and apologise for derailing the thread, but frankly I don't think there was a topic to stay on in the first place, so meh.

[sketerpot]

A reasonable way to give everybody the opportunity to pursue higer education without needing to coddle dumbasses is to simply raise the requirements to get a degree, and do it early on. For example, you could require everybody to take a heavy-duty probability and statistics class in their first semester -- even English majors. Statistics really isn't that hard, so it would err on the side of caution, but it should be sufficient to weed out the real hardcore mental defectives. If necessary, you can add other weeder courses as well.

The science and engineering majors already go through this sort of thing, and it works: people who will never cut it take the first semester or the first year and don't come back because the combination of physics and calculus kicked their ass and they know it doesn't get easier.

[Darth Wong]

A reasonable way to give everybody the opportunity to pursue higer education without needing to coddle dumbasses is to simply raise the requirements to get a degree, and do it early on. For example, you could require everybody to take a heavy-duty probability and statistics class in their first semester -- even English majors. Statistics really isn't that hard, so it would err on the side of caution, but it should be sufficient to weed out the real hardcore mental defectives. If necessary, you can add other weeder courses as well.

The science and engineering majors already go through this sort of thing, and it works: people who will never cut it take the first semester or the first year and don't come back because the combination of physics and calculus kicked their ass and they know it doesn't get easier.

Raising the requirements would work, but it wouldn't satisfy the populists. They would decry it as elitism. Think about it: these fuckers think it's "elitism" to only let scientists decide what's on the science curriculum in school.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Statistics is already something that ought to be in a social science curriculum, since they need to use statistical methods. So that isn't necessarily a bad idea.

It has something to do with the content of the degree and the ultimate purpose of it in the job market.

[brianeyci]

You could push everything in university back to high school. That's free, and you could even spin it as populist, putting first semester university back into the hands of final year high school. Then make a different diploma for high school kids who finish their degree, and another diploma, for the people who wash out.

Another solution is de-emphasize university education. I don't see any problem with this since people already hate intellectuals. Might as well make it clear you don't have to have a fancy degree to make a lot of money. Then all the people purely in it for the money won't go for it. That's what's being done now with television commercials for trade schools. University should be learning first, money second (even if it's a close second.)

I wonder if you people are aware that humanities majors must already take a full science credit. At least any half-decent university has that requirement. And you can take philosophy of science or some other bullshit, but there's only so many of those courses to go around. Raising the standards won't solve the problem because humanities isn't the same as science. Unless you turn humanities into something where you can tell the difference between a 95 and a 98 -- and the only way I can think of doing this is making humanities into a memorization contest -- you'll be creating elitism of the worst kind, where a high school teacher has it in their hands to grant subjective marks. If you are going to raise the requirements for humanities you have to do something beyond marks like the interview and portfolio technique I was talking about. And raising the requirements won't solve the problem of too many people go already. What if a lot of people can do statistics and probability? Ever thought of that? Back to square one, too many humanities graduates, too few jobs for them.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Perhaps it depends on what level statistics difficulty, because many humanities and social science majors, at least here, must already have a statistics component they must go through and pass. Since so many are doing it, I assume many can do at least that level of it.

Now, we take basic science courses, but we don't take the more advanced ones as mandatory. At most, I have had biology, chemistry, geology, and statistics. Now, you maybe could give more advanced sciences, but to what level? If you did, you would probably need to go through the prerequisits to those advanced classes. How many might be an issue, as you wouldn't want to turn the unrelated degree into a science degree. You might as well go into the science programme at that piont, so I don't know what that would do for the quantity of credits in a degree.

[Darth Wong]

I wonder if you people are aware that humanities majors must already take a full science credit.

The problem is the kind of class that most universities will accept for this requirement. Many universities allow you to take psychology as a science credit, thus making the whole exercise meaningless.

Let's put it this way: when I was in school, I did not see arts majors taking calculus or physics or chemistry for their science electives.

[Mobiboros]

Let's put it this way: when I was in school, I did not see arts majors taking calculus or physics or chemistry for their science electives.

SUNY SB, at least for psych majors, required a number of science credits even for a BA. But Stonybrook is a sciences school mainly so even arts degrees often have science reqs.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

THey let you take psychology as a science requirement? Wow. They didn't allow that here. I think that's counted as an arts and humanities class here. Typically, for our science requirement, you cannot choose a social science or humanities class. It must be some sort of physical science w/lab components.

I think we could choose from bio, geology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, etc.

The lab components, though, are peculiar here. They often have little to do with the lecture and aren't parallel to them.




Edit: one problem I experienced in my highschool is that a lot of children aren't even allowed into the "normal" mathematics classes, which ends up disallowing them even entrance into the higher maths in highschool because of a lack of time. For instance, at Northern, they had "basic algebra" which was essentially algebra I, but extended over 2 years. This means you lost one year that could have been used had you only had normal ALgebra I. So someone would miss trig or something else like calc. In college, then he didn't even have the foundational foundation for Physics, so he's somewhat limited.

In reality, algebra I wasn't difficult at all or really worth the dichotomy between Basic and Normal. It was just a way to screw over the student through their bizarre tracking. I don't know if they do this in other schools, but it sucks here.

Wouldn't you need math prereqs for Physics I and II?