I can't think of any type of surgery that isn't "ugly and gruesome." I can't imagine that's a good reason to think one way or the other about abortion. It's a shame that's the tactic so many anti-choicers have taken.
That said, I don't see abortion becoming illegal ever in this country, even if restrictions on it become more and more intrusive (as the recent law passed in Texas, say. Reproductive freedom is economic freedom for women, and ultimately, that will trump religious misogyny.
Bob, like I said, give me some data, by which I mean any evidence of any kind. Since you can't, I'm just going to keep pointing out that you are the one flinging poo. But fling on, brother. I know it helps you feel better.
Bob, neither. Where I live, for example, is fairly representative of much of the country, and here you’ll find that conservatives dominate school boards and to an only slightly lesser extent, school administrations, while schools of education at universities are largely dominated by a moderately liberal/progressive world-view. In some ways, this has led to a freeze out of education experts, as well as subject matter experts, in certain politically-charged curriculum decisions, but for the most part it means that the education system here doesn’t really reflect either side of the political divide very clearly, even if both sides see their opposite’s influence (this is not uncommon – having a world view makes certain violations of it much more easy to discern, even when they’re only apparent).
Then, of course, there are the teachers unions, which have a largely conservative membership, but collectively tend to promote more liberal, at least in the sense of labor-friendly, policies. But their “liberal” goals tend to be very different from the progressive goals of schools of education.
Oh, those are certainly problems, and the institutional issues are certainly very important, but when the goal is to educate the entire population, there are inherent problems that come well before any institution, conceptually. The distribution of ability and potential are wide, and the relationship between the two is nonlinear. There’s also a nonlinear relationship between those two things and method. These aren’t issues that fit well within the liberal-conservative dichotomy, because they’re largely empirical issues that are compounded by the fact that there’s another level they have to go through – education education – which has its own problems, and tends to lag behind empirical research as it is. It doesn’t help that the earning potential of teachers is a shit, while the education requirements for teachers are fairly high (post-graduate degrees are generally required after a certain number of years), even though the quality of that education is pretty crappy. And it’s even further compounded by the institutional stuff, and the institutional tendency towards standardization and standardized testing as a method of evaluation of both education and teachers (and schools). And again, little if anything of this is related to any partisan political divide.
By the way, schools essentially are experiments, and they’re experiments on many levels – experiments in different teaching methods, experiments in curriculum, experiments in outreach methods (e.g., programs to get parents involved), experiments in teacher education and evaluation, experiments in funding, experiments in diversity methods, etc., etc., etc. For one, schools are where education research is conducted, but they’re also where largely untested programs are implemented and evaluated for the first time. Children are guinea pigs, because in a way we’re still feeling our way around this whole universal education thing, which in itself is a sort of experiment.
I agree that it offers an opportunity to lay into people with lifestyles some people don't like, but it's hardly "just" that. Commuting really is a big problem for the environment, particularly single-passenger commuters. The fact that it's become an issue in the culture war, or has the potential to do so, doesn't change that.
He was probably talking of the Pirahã. It was once thought that they had word for one, two, and many (not zero). Now it's thought that their quantity terms aren't even that sophisticated. They essentially have terms for small or smaller quantity, large or larger quantity, and many.
They also don't distinguish singular and plural grammatically.
Well, there's a fair amount of data showing that people have trouble with percentages, ratios, and probabilities. This goes both for thinking about them from a mathematical standpoint and from an evaluative one (that's the heuristics and biases stuff).
It's not really a matter of "I think that..."
From my own personal experience teaching statistics to undergrads, I can say that it is proportions and probabilities that give them the most trouble.
On signalling, as I said before, it's not that signalling isn't an issue in the use of numbers, but it's much more than that, since these numberse are likely to "signal" how people actually represent the information.
I don’t disagree with your point about the general… suboptimality of using percentages. Our brains just aren’t very good at dealing with percentages in pretty much any context, at least not on a conscious level (our neurons are doing calculations of proportions all the time, and quite well – we could learn a thing or two from them). It’s not by accident that much of the early heuristics and biases research by Tversky and Kahneman involved ratios and percentages (though mostly as probabilities): our interpretations of proportions is largely determined by our evaluations, instead of the other way around.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what the alternative is. Absolute numbers? That’s even worse! While .01% of the federal budget sounds really small, that’s still in the millions of dollars, and millions of dollars sounds like a lot to most people regardless of the context. The problem is that in order to think rationally about almost every political issue, numbers are important, and in the vast majority of cases, absolute numbers just won’t tell you enough to make any sort of informed decision. Whether it’s money or time or demographics, everything is relative.
Also, like someone else (I’m too lazy to look back and find out who), I’m not sure this is really a case of signaling. That’s not to say that percentages are never used for signaling, but I think the way we think about percentages in politics, or elsewhere, really reflects our representation of the information. It’s just that are representations don’t map onto reality very well.
Sure, except that the reforms they're promoting are precisely the ones you mention them opposing.
The larger point is that it depends on which union you're talking about. There are two big ones, and one has consistently opposed just about any form of merit pay, while the other has promoted certain kinds. And this isn't just in the last year, but over the last several years.
Bill Ayers would probably be a good spokesperson, given that he's not a 60s radical anymore, but a fairly mainstream, well-respected scholar of education. And I wonder what you think is
far left" about Van Jones (who did a lot of TV after his resignation). I think you show your colors a little too readily sometimes, Tom.
By the way, if you get to determine who is conservative, do liberals get to determine who is liberal? If so, you're not going to be able to claim the media is liberal for very long.
I for one wouldn't mind some ZMag type "leftists" on mainstream TV and radio more often, though it’s not going to happen. And it has little if anything to do with hiding the “far left,” since that “far left” has absolutely no influence on mainstream liberal politics in this country anyway. What that it did. On the other hand, it can’t be said that Robertson, Dodson, the Bob Jones’s, etc., haven’t had an influence on mainstream conservative politics in this country.
The picture is always nuanced. Republicans and Democrats give money to law enforcment, when in office, because appearing soft on crime is a good way to not get elected. The police state that we currently live in is a product of both parties actions, not just Democrats, and certainly not mostly Democrats.
Koz has built a huge wall around him so that the world he sees fits his views of the "Teams." At this point, I think we can just dismiss him as obviously blind.
Tom, I can't find voting information specifically, but the endorsements and donation information I can find are all mostly Republican (again, by a 60-70% margin).
Tom (and Koz), Trumwill is unfortunately wrong on Wisconsin. My point was that Walker excluded the police unions, but if you look, you'll find that both the Fraternal Order of Police and the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association endorsed Walker. In 2008, the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Republicans far more often, including McCain. The donations follow (you can find info on Police Benevolent Association too). If you look at the money specifically, it's going to be around 60-70% Republican.
Anyway, this might affect Tom, but Koz is so deeply and blindly partisan that I suspect he'll rationalize police voting and giving to Republicans by saying that it's because they're social conservatives, or something to that effect (because really, police associations would rather give money to people who will screw them but also screw gays and women than).
I was being sarcastic, Koz. Cops vote Republican, overwhelmingly. So yeah, it isn't much more complicated than what I wrote, but it is the opposite of what I wrote.
To see how this works, for law enforcement, one only has to look to Wisconsin.
On “Somalia and Binary Thinking”
I can't think of any type of surgery that isn't "ugly and gruesome." I can't imagine that's a good reason to think one way or the other about abortion. It's a shame that's the tactic so many anti-choicers have taken.
That said, I don't see abortion becoming illegal ever in this country, even if restrictions on it become more and more intrusive (as the recent law passed in Texas, say. Reproductive freedom is economic freedom for women, and ultimately, that will trump religious misogyny.
On “The Limits of Knowledge in the Education Debate”
Bob, like I said, give me some data, by which I mean any evidence of any kind. Since you can't, I'm just going to keep pointing out that you are the one flinging poo. But fling on, brother. I know it helps you feel better.
"
Bob, in otherwords, you have nothing to back your assertion. That's pretty much the definition of flinging poo.
"
Bob, can you provide some data? Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I'm not the one flinging poo in this case.
But then again, you have absolutely no idea what a socialist or communist is, so flinging poo is par for the course.
"
Bob, neither. Where I live, for example, is fairly representative of much of the country, and here you’ll find that conservatives dominate school boards and to an only slightly lesser extent, school administrations, while schools of education at universities are largely dominated by a moderately liberal/progressive world-view. In some ways, this has led to a freeze out of education experts, as well as subject matter experts, in certain politically-charged curriculum decisions, but for the most part it means that the education system here doesn’t really reflect either side of the political divide very clearly, even if both sides see their opposite’s influence (this is not uncommon – having a world view makes certain violations of it much more easy to discern, even when they’re only apparent).
Then, of course, there are the teachers unions, which have a largely conservative membership, but collectively tend to promote more liberal, at least in the sense of labor-friendly, policies. But their “liberal” goals tend to be very different from the progressive goals of schools of education.
"
Oh, those are certainly problems, and the institutional issues are certainly very important, but when the goal is to educate the entire population, there are inherent problems that come well before any institution, conceptually. The distribution of ability and potential are wide, and the relationship between the two is nonlinear. There’s also a nonlinear relationship between those two things and method. These aren’t issues that fit well within the liberal-conservative dichotomy, because they’re largely empirical issues that are compounded by the fact that there’s another level they have to go through – education education – which has its own problems, and tends to lag behind empirical research as it is. It doesn’t help that the earning potential of teachers is a shit, while the education requirements for teachers are fairly high (post-graduate degrees are generally required after a certain number of years), even though the quality of that education is pretty crappy. And it’s even further compounded by the institutional stuff, and the institutional tendency towards standardization and standardized testing as a method of evaluation of both education and teachers (and schools). And again, little if anything of this is related to any partisan political divide.
By the way, schools essentially are experiments, and they’re experiments on many levels – experiments in different teaching methods, experiments in curriculum, experiments in outreach methods (e.g., programs to get parents involved), experiments in teacher education and evaluation, experiments in funding, experiments in diversity methods, etc., etc., etc. For one, schools are where education research is conducted, but they’re also where largely untested programs are implemented and evaluated for the first time. Children are guinea pigs, because in a way we’re still feeling our way around this whole universal education thing, which in itself is a sort of experiment.
"
Both?
On “The Car & The City”
I agree that it offers an opportunity to lay into people with lifestyles some people don't like, but it's hardly "just" that. Commuting really is a big problem for the environment, particularly single-passenger commuters. The fact that it's become an issue in the culture war, or has the potential to do so, doesn't change that.
On “Somalia and Binary Thinking”
Someone get Bob a copy of Kapital, stat!
On “We, as a society”
I.e. the way things are now.
On “The Percentage Sign as a Signaling Device”
I love BlaiseP's Dos Equis commercials. ;)
"
He was probably talking of the Pirahã. It was once thought that they had word for one, two, and many (not zero). Now it's thought that their quantity terms aren't even that sophisticated. They essentially have terms for small or smaller quantity, large or larger quantity, and many.
They also don't distinguish singular and plural grammatically.
"
Well, there's a fair amount of data showing that people have trouble with percentages, ratios, and probabilities. This goes both for thinking about them from a mathematical standpoint and from an evaluative one (that's the heuristics and biases stuff).
It's not really a matter of "I think that..."
From my own personal experience teaching statistics to undergrads, I can say that it is proportions and probabilities that give them the most trouble.
On signalling, as I said before, it's not that signalling isn't an issue in the use of numbers, but it's much more than that, since these numberse are likely to "signal" how people actually represent the information.
"
I don’t disagree with your point about the general… suboptimality of using percentages. Our brains just aren’t very good at dealing with percentages in pretty much any context, at least not on a conscious level (our neurons are doing calculations of proportions all the time, and quite well – we could learn a thing or two from them). It’s not by accident that much of the early heuristics and biases research by Tversky and Kahneman involved ratios and percentages (though mostly as probabilities): our interpretations of proportions is largely determined by our evaluations, instead of the other way around.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what the alternative is. Absolute numbers? That’s even worse! While .01% of the federal budget sounds really small, that’s still in the millions of dollars, and millions of dollars sounds like a lot to most people regardless of the context. The problem is that in order to think rationally about almost every political issue, numbers are important, and in the vast majority of cases, absolute numbers just won’t tell you enough to make any sort of informed decision. Whether it’s money or time or demographics, everything is relative.
Also, like someone else (I’m too lazy to look back and find out who), I’m not sure this is really a case of signaling. That’s not to say that percentages are never used for signaling, but I think the way we think about percentages in politics, or elsewhere, really reflects our representation of the information. It’s just that are representations don’t map onto reality very well.
On “Doubt and Ideology”
Tom, I'm not a liberal, but I imagine I'd agree with most liberals about who is and who isn't liberal.
On “Beyond Unions”
Sure, except that the reforms they're promoting are precisely the ones you mention them opposing.
The larger point is that it depends on which union you're talking about. There are two big ones, and one has consistently opposed just about any form of merit pay, while the other has promoted certain kinds. And this isn't just in the last year, but over the last several years.
"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-09-10-aft-plan_N.htm
"
It's not true. Unions have tried to influence reform, but they haven't simply tried to block it.
On “Doubt and Ideology”
How dare I quote so,eone accurately.
Mike, any comment which quotes what Tom said on Monday is a falsehood.
"
Bill Ayers would probably be a good spokesperson, given that he's not a 60s radical anymore, but a fairly mainstream, well-respected scholar of education. And I wonder what you think is
far left" about Van Jones (who did a lot of TV after his resignation). I think you show your colors a little too readily sometimes, Tom.
By the way, if you get to determine who is conservative, do liberals get to determine who is liberal? If so, you're not going to be able to claim the media is liberal for very long.
I for one wouldn't mind some ZMag type "leftists" on mainstream TV and radio more often, though it’s not going to happen. And it has little if anything to do with hiding the “far left,” since that “far left” has absolutely no influence on mainstream liberal politics in this country anyway. What that it did. On the other hand, it can’t be said that Robertson, Dodson, the Bob Jones’s, etc., haven’t had an influence on mainstream conservative politics in this country.
On “We, as a society”
Tom, precisely.
The picture is always nuanced. Republicans and Democrats give money to law enforcment, when in office, because appearing soft on crime is a good way to not get elected. The police state that we currently live in is a product of both parties actions, not just Democrats, and certainly not mostly Democrats.
Koz has built a huge wall around him so that the world he sees fits his views of the "Teams." At this point, I think we can just dismiss him as obviously blind.
"
Tom, I can't find voting information specifically, but the endorsements and donation information I can find are all mostly Republican (again, by a 60-70% margin).
"
Tom (and Koz), Trumwill is unfortunately wrong on Wisconsin. My point was that Walker excluded the police unions, but if you look, you'll find that both the Fraternal Order of Police and the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association endorsed Walker. In 2008, the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Republicans far more often, including McCain. The donations follow (you can find info on Police Benevolent Association too). If you look at the money specifically, it's going to be around 60-70% Republican.
Anyway, this might affect Tom, but Koz is so deeply and blindly partisan that I suspect he'll rationalize police voting and giving to Republicans by saying that it's because they're social conservatives, or something to that effect (because really, police associations would rather give money to people who will screw them but also screw gays and women than).
"
I was being sarcastic, Koz. Cops vote Republican, overwhelmingly. So yeah, it isn't much more complicated than what I wrote, but it is the opposite of what I wrote.
To see how this works, for law enforcement, one only has to look to Wisconsin.
"
It's well known that cops vote Democrat, because that's where they see their funding coming from.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.