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By that measure, "education" includes many of the worst offenders. The most intensely political of the departments on campus tend to be the ones who talk most a

by SiVal 11y ago

By that measure, "education" includes many of the worst offenders. The most intensely political of the departments on campus tend to be the ones who talk most about "critical thinking". The loudest proponents of "critical thinking" tend to be the most ideologically monocultural. They tend to be the most adamant supporters of "speech codes" designed to silence their critics. They tend to be ones who most closely scrutinize others for ever smaller deviations ("micro aggression! he used the wrong word!") from the enforced, orthodox dogma before going back to class to teach their students about "critical thinking". The Marxist "English" professor who tells you that what she wants most from your paper is "evidence of critical thinking" means she will judge your paper on how persuasively it argues in favor of her political agenda. Real-world evidence that casts doubt on Marxist theory will most likely be punished and labeled "lack of critical thinking". The social justice warriors in the ed school go on endlessly about their commitment to "critical thinking" and its supposed superiority to "mere facts", yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term, "mere facts". Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. When Larry Summers, president of Harvard, suggested that a natural, statistical phenomenon (fatter right tail due to greater variance, not higher mean) might be a major reason for more male than female math professors, he lost his job. In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"?

danharaj 11y ago
Do you honestly not understand why it is problematic for the president of Harvard to try to explain away a political issue he is in charge of and has no business trying to explain away? I am also amused how salty you are about leftist academics when the very same argument (which isn't very substantial and mostly tiresome) could be rephrased as an assault on economics, which gleefully assume ridiculous things about societies in order to prove liberal or right wing ideas that also happen to be allied to power. But no, economics is completey apolitical right? Larry Summers was being completely apolitical and acting appropriately in his role as president of Harvard in making that remark. The reason why he came under fire is clear to me, but it's not clear to you. I don't think I could explain it to you. Your post drips with contempt for a certain class of people you do not name but characterize in the same way other unsavory ideologues do. > yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term That's probably because electrical engineering is enormously easier to understand than more complicated disciplines. > Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. And yet the theoretical physicists who try to push the boundaries of what we understand to be possible quite often employ thinking that has a deep relationship with the processes that underlie more philosophical disciplines. Not all of life or even science is reading bits streaming in from the outer solar system. And before my ability to perform quantitative or critical reasoning is impugned, I majored in mathematics and ended up in a discipline that hasn't quite been hammered down the way, say EE has been. Somehow I survived such an education without becoming so mean-spirited towards people who study far more difficult ideas than spinors and circuit diagrams. > In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"? Maybe he's not so good at thinking his way out of putting his shoe in his mouth. Authority does not make you good at everything. Neither does prestige in one particular field.
- cousin_it 11y ago
  After hearing the kind of bullshit philosophers routinely say about relativity or quantum mechanics, I'm not sold on the idea that philosophy is important to science. Moreover, since we often see the same philosophers talking about hard sciences and about society (and drawing breathtakingly stupid parallels between the two), I expect their ideas about society to be rubbish as well. In fact, since their social ideas are harder to verify definitively, they are more likely to be rubbish. Though I grant you that philosophy is really complicated, in a pointless kind of way.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    I'm not even sure what you mean. How can one discipline be more correct than another when they ask different questions? I doubt that you think that philosophy is pointless. Something I can believe is that you think that the academic and professional institutions of philosophy are pointless. That sounds plausible. To reject philosophy itself? That is to reject the means by which you can even justify the sciences, down to the most quantitative and most successful theories. That is to reject the heritage of human thought that grapples with reality and the mind.
    - cousin_it 11y ago
      In what state of mind does a person decide that looking at a toaster isn't enough justification for the sciences, and you also need to read philosophers like Sandra "Newton's Principia was a rape manual" Harding?
      - danharaj 11y ago
        Science is not the only thing that goes into a toaster. You are ignoring the enormous social institutions that go into modern society and economy. Those social institutions, in fact, have been the subject of intense thought for millenia, and the institutions you have now are rooted in relatively recent philosophical investigations. And eventually they will be supplanted, and their successors will be rooted in philosophy that is perhaps being done today. Also, your statement is a terrible piece of rhetoric. Do I have to spell out why it's not a really compelling rhetorical question?
WalterBright 11y ago
I've always thought that STEM instilled critical thinking skills far better than a liberal arts major. The reason is you can't fool mother nature. If your airplane design doesn't fly, no amount of witty rhetoric, mental gymnastics or self-delusion is going to get it off the ground. You have to face reality.
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> The Marxist "English" professor who tells you that what she wants most from your paper is "evidence of critical thinking" means she will judge your paper on how persuasively it argues in favor of her political agenda. Or at least against capitalism, democracy, and/or traditional western civilization.

by SiVal 11y ago

danharaj 11y ago

Do you honestly not understand why it is problematic for the president of Harvard to try to explain away a political issue he is in charge of and has no business trying to explain away? I am also amused how salty you are about leftist academics when the very same argument (which isn't very substantial and mostly tiresome) could be rephrased as an assault on economics, which gleefully assume ridiculous things about societies in order to prove liberal or right wing ideas that also happen to be allied to power. But no, economics is completey apolitical right? Larry Summers was being completely apolitical and acting appropriately in his role as president of Harvard in making that remark. The reason why he came under fire is clear to me, but it's not clear to you. I don't think I could explain it to you. Your post drips with contempt for a certain class of people you do not name but characterize in the same way other unsavory ideologues do. > yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term That's probably because electrical engineering is enormously easier to understand than more complicated disciplines. > Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. And yet the theoretical physicists who try to push the boundaries of what we understand to be possible quite often employ thinking that has a deep relationship with the processes that underlie more philosophical disciplines. Not all of life or even science is reading bits streaming in from the outer solar system. And before my ability to perform quantitative or critical reasoning is impugned, I majored in mathematics and ended up in a discipline that hasn't quite been hammered down the way, say EE has been. Somehow I survived such an education without becoming so mean-spirited towards people who study far more difficult ideas than spinors and circuit diagrams. > In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"? Maybe he's not so good at thinking his way out of putting his shoe in his mouth. Authority does not make you good at everything. Neither does prestige in one particular field.

cousin_it 11y ago
After hearing the kind of bullshit philosophers routinely say about relativity or quantum mechanics, I'm not sold on the idea that philosophy is important to science. Moreover, since we often see the same philosophers talking about hard sciences and about society (and drawing breathtakingly stupid parallels between the two), I expect their ideas about society to be rubbish as well. In fact, since their social ideas are harder to verify definitively, they are more likely to be rubbish. Though I grant you that philosophy is really complicated, in a pointless kind of way.
- danharaj 11y ago
  I'm not even sure what you mean. How can one discipline be more correct than another when they ask different questions? I doubt that you think that philosophy is pointless. Something I can believe is that you think that the academic and professional institutions of philosophy are pointless. That sounds plausible. To reject philosophy itself? That is to reject the means by which you can even justify the sciences, down to the most quantitative and most successful theories. That is to reject the heritage of human thought that grapples with reality and the mind.
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    In what state of mind does a person decide that looking at a toaster isn't enough justification for the sciences, and you also need to read philosophers like Sandra "Newton's Principia was a rape manual" Harding?
    - danharaj 11y ago
      Science is not the only thing that goes into a toaster. You are ignoring the enormous social institutions that go into modern society and economy. Those social institutions, in fact, have been the subject of intense thought for millenia, and the institutions you have now are rooted in relatively recent philosophical investigations. And eventually they will be supplanted, and their successors will be rooted in philosophy that is perhaps being done today. Also, your statement is a terrible piece of rhetoric. Do I have to spell out why it's not a really compelling rhetorical question?

WalterBright 11y ago

I've always thought that STEM instilled critical thinking skills far better than a liberal arts major. The reason is you can't fool mother nature. If your airplane design doesn't fly, no amount of witty rhetoric, mental gymnastics or self-delusion is going to get it off the ground. You have to face reality.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

> The Marxist "English" professor who tells you that what she wants most from your paper is "evidence of critical thinking" means she will judge your paper on how persuasively it argues in favor of her political agenda. Or at least against capitalism, democracy, and/or traditional western civilization.