re Collective intelligence re Texas Board of Education

[Dave Farber <dfarber () me com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: hal () halstucker com
> Date: May 18, 2010 11:11:51 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] Collective intelligence  re  Texas Board of Education

> Dear Prof. Farber:
>
> In addition to the Feynman piece, Charles Pierce wrote an article for Esquire some years back that seems quite 
> prescient now. Though the Texas School Board controversy is worrisome in and of itself, in a larger sense it seems 
> more indicative of a peculiarly American brand of populist anti-intellectualism that occasionally sweeps Our Great 
> Nation under the rug and is once again rearing its ugly, empty head. I mean, how else can one explain the popularity 
> of Sarah Palin, to cite but one tired example?
>
> Entitled "Greetings from Idiot America" Pierce's article states:
>
> The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of 
> intellectual elites that Richard Hofstadter deftly teased out of the national DNA forty years ago. Both of those 
> things are part of it. However, the rise of Idiot America today represents -- for profit mainly, but also, and more 
> cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power -- the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of 
> knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we should trust the least 
> are the people who best know what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a 
> preacher, or a scientist, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in 
> a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.
>
> The full, and very funny, piece can be found here:
>
> http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0207GREETINGS
>
> All the best,
> Hal Stucker
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Farber [mailto:dfarber () me com]
> Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 04:16 PM
> To: 'ip'
> Subject: [IP] Collective intelligence re Texas Board of Education
>
>
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
> > Date: May 17, 2010 4:14:58 PM EDT
> > To: dave () farber net
> > Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> > Subject: Re: [IP] re  Texas Board of Education
>
> > Dave - I had read the Feynman story a few years ago.  But in reading it again, I found this "gem" that I had totally 
> > forgotten.
> >
> > "This question of trying to figure out whether a book is good or bad by looking at it carefully or by taking the 
> > reports of a lot of people who looked at it carelessly is like this famous old problem: Nobody was permitted to see 
> > the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the length of the Emperor of China's nose? To find out, you go 
> > all over the country asking people what they think the length of the Emperor of China's nose is, and you average it. 
> > And that would be very "accurate" because you averaged so many people. But it's no way to find anything out; when 
> > you have a very wide range of people who contribute without looking carefully at it, you don't improve your 
> > knowledge of the situation by averaging."
> >
> > Besides being apt with respect to choosing textbooks, this quote ought to be required commentary on the new 
> > pseudo-science fad being peddled by best-selling science writers, etc. called "Collective Intelligence".   Malcolm 
> > Gladwell, and many others who are currently "hot" in the literature make the same claim: if you ask a lot of people 
> > and take some statistic like the Mean or the Mode or the Median, you will get the *correct answer* to *any problem*. 
> >  [I should point out that at my home institution, MIT, there are those who are riding this meme, though I *hope* 
> > that they are a bit more intellectually honest. If not, shame on them.]
> >
> > But there is a meta-point.  You don't decide scientific or engineering truth by voting or averaging.  You decide it 
> > by testing your hypothesis, using methods well-known.  Not by "peer review" - I cannot see how anyone who has any 
> > sense thinks that "peer review" generates truth; when I was a kid, J.B.Rhine's work *proving* ESP was "peer 
> > reviewed".  Astrologers peer-review themselves.
> >
> > Yet the sloppy thinking promoted by the textbook publishers and the education committees probably got us to the 
> > point where Collective Intelligence seems like it MUST be true.  Because it's "hot" and it's the "latest thing", I 
> > guess.
> >
> >
> > On 05/17/2010 03:45 PM, Dave Farber wrote:
> > > The Feynman story is worth reading djf
> > >
> > >
> > > Begin forwarded message:
> > >
> > > > From: Fearghas McKay <fm () st-kilda org>
> > > > Date: May 17, 2010 3:05:05 PM EDT
> > > > To: dave () farber net, Michael Collins <mcollins () aleae com>
> > > > Cc: Fearghas McKay <fm () st-kilda org>
> > > > Subject: Re: [IP] re  Texas Board of Education
> > >
> > > > Michael Collins <mcollins () aleae com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >  I'd think a basic requirement for working on a public education policy would be an interest in the public and 
> > > > > use of an education.
> > > >
> > > > I refer my honourable friend to Richard Feynman's writings on being on the State Curriculum Commission for 
> > > > California, ie the School Book Board.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
> > > >
> > > >  f
> > > Archives    
> Archives       



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