OK, I have read the Scientific American article in the interim. I find the
observations of interest, but as with my comment about the conflation of
Information and Knowledge, the degradation of the educational mission is
equally troublesome to me......for example, in the run-up to the 2016
Presidential election Bernie Sanders was advocating for free higher
education. The discussion of that issue revolved around equating education
with earnings, without any mention of the quality of life for those with
advanced educations. Like so many aspects of society, we are undermining
the educational mission in the name of profit as yet another bottom line
enterprise. Given that, why would society put value in the generation of
scientific evidence, given that the process is misunderstood, if it is
understood at all? Teaching to the test for the sake of expediency doesn't
give the student an appreciation of the process so he/she can fully
understand the significance of the content, or lack thereof. We are not
teaching our students to think and problem solve, we are teaching them to
pass exams. When social 'values' are only measured in $ and cents, this is
the result.
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 8:42 AM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Joe and ToKers, your email and the SA article are great talking
> points for us to consider. However I think that there's an overriding
> problem due to the tendency to equate Information and Knowledge. This has
> resulted from both the "Question Authority" movement and the 'Arab Spring'
> of technology leveling institutions of society, including
> science.....discusss?
>
> On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 8:16 AM, Joseph Michalski <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Dear Colleagues:
>>
>>
>> Please see the attached article from my newly arrived July 2018 issue of *Scientific
>> American*. The three main hurdles to clear scientific thinking they've
>> identified are: 1) shortcuts to deal with cognitive overload; 2) the
>> well-know issue of confirmation bias; and 3) social goals (or what we refer
>> to as influence as part of Gregg's J-I-I argument). I share the article for
>> a few reasons.
>>
>>
>> First, it's great to see a broad swath of the academic community (at
>> least the psychologists and the research cited) largely reaching similar
>> conclusions about cognitive biases - and how the work aligns with much of
>> Gregg's framing and what I've been reading of others on our list-serv.
>> Gregg and I have attempted to joke, with some irony, that we hope we're not
>> just creating our own "echo chambers" and exercising our own "confirmation
>> biases" by agreeing too much. Every group needs the outliers to help keep
>> us honest!
>>
>>
>> Second, I've mentioned before (using my own siblings in part as
>> exemplars) the problem of discussing issues and struggling to be
>> fair-minded, 'objective,' and receptive to alternative viewpoints, new
>> info, etc. And yet the academy itself has been increasingly under attack in
>> recent years as "liberal re-education camps" and "close-minded" by not
>> embracing alternative viewpoints or shutting down speakers, especially on
>> the right-wing end of the political spectrum, who challenge "liberal
>> orthodoxy" or may be skeptical of any claims-making from university
>> professors -- scientific or otherwise. Nancy commented in part on this
>> issue a couple of weeks ago in a quite insightful way. I'm thinking that
>> the issue is actually much broader in the sense that these issues affect
>> all of us, both inside and outside of academia. It's not simply a matter of
>> any of us being "experts" in our fields or far more knowledgeable about the
>> "facts" and "scientific evidence" in regard to our specialties. All
>> knowledge has a relational component too, i.e., depends upon the social
>> location of the actors relative to each other in combination with the
>> cultural sources of justification systems invoked. This explains in large
>> measure, in my view, the rise of the "alternative facts" and "fake news"
>> critiques that have gained such popularity.
>>
>>
>> Finally, note too the fact that our researches across the many fields
>> within the academy -- but especially in the social sciences and humanities
>> -- gradually have chipped away or at least provided insights about the
>> standard forms of knowledge and justification systems that have helped
>> certain groups to maintain their power and privilege for many generations
>> (and across cultures). If I show you the lead article from the
>> well-respected journal *Criminology* last month (which confirms
>> something I've hypothesized about for years) showing the adverse effects of
>> early childhood exposure to lead for healthy brain development and some
>> adverse behavioral outcomes, then how does one "receive" and "interpret"
>> that information? What are the implications for even something as basic as
>> "equality of opportunity" for youngsters who grow up with high lead
>> exposure in their environments, to say nothing of the many other factors
>> that affect their "life chances" simply because they grow up in a certain
>> neighborhood or attended woefully under-resourced schools or a thousand
>> other factors beyond their control? Back to the article and the various
>> mechanisms that we use to simplify the whole darn thing. I'm thinking a la
>> Colonel Jessup's famous quote in *A Few Good Men*: "You can't handle the
>> truth!" Can any of us? 😎 Best regards, -Joe
>>
>>
>> Dr. Joseph H. Michalski
>>
>> Associate Academic Dean
>>
>> King’s University College at Western University
>>
>> 266 Epworth Avenue
>>
>> London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3
>>
>> Tel: (519) 433-3491, ext. 4439
>>
>> Fax: (519) 433-0353
>>
>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> ______________________
>>
>> *ei*Ï€ + 1 = 0
>>
>>
>> ############################
>>
>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bi
>> n/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>
>
>
############################
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
|
