4 ms·

I never imagined how much focus and fascination society would place on computer science when I chose it as my major over a decade ago. There were under 5 CS maj

I never imagined how much focus and fascination society would place on computer science when I chose it as my major over a decade ago. There were under 5 CS majors in my graduating class of hundreds of students. This has me wondering about the future. What will be the next big thing with which we will see articles claiming "Soandso is the first president to do X"[0]? or "...X will be a fundamental skill—just like reading, writing, and arithmetic..."[1] Are there any so-called fundamental skills left for us to discover? [0]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/12/10/president-obama-first-president-write-line-code https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/12/10/president-obama-f... [1]: http://socialissues.cs.toronto.edu/index.html%3Fp=279.html http://socialissues.cs.toronto.edu/index.html%3Fp=279.html

Jtsummers 10y ago
It's probably time for us to rediscover logic as a fundamental skill. But that's a prerequisite or corequisite to computational thinking.
- zingermc 10y ago
  Yes! Propositional logic and conditional/indirect proof strategies should be taught before any kinds of "proofs" are taught to students (I'm looking at you, trigonometry).
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Right. It's briefly introduced in geometry (or used to be) in the typical US high school curriculum, but not thoroughly and not as a distinct concept from geometry. It deserves its own sequence of material, and it should be applied to multiple areas so students can see the value of it more easily. When the only application is geometry, and they hate geometry, they won't care about the "tool" being used.
    - ooqr 10y ago
      Aristotelian logic can and should be taught at the elementary school level. Bring back the Socratic method while we're at it! And Euclid's Elements! The Greeks contributed well to education.
- internaut 10y ago
  Used to be taught in the 19th century and early 20th century, along with rhetoric and the classics. I think we made a great mistake by getting rid of them.
- js8 10y ago
  No, the fundamental skill is the ability to convince other people that you have the fundamental skill.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    I didn't say the, I said a. What you refer to would be an aspect of rhetoric, another fundamental skill.
    - js8 10y ago
      Coming from a language that doesn't really have articles, I was wondering if I should use "the" or "a". I think I could use both, because it cannot be proven that there is only fundamental skill with that property, or that they cannot support each other. Anyway, my comment was a social commentary - it doesn't seem that pure logic is really what ultimately matters in human society, sadly. That is, if some other people are using logic wrong, you will also gain if you use it wrong in order to convince them. Although I would also say that empiricism is much more important to rationalism (logic). There are many ideas that seem very logical, yet they are very bad, because people intuitively misunderstand some aspect of reality in their model.
ekr 10y ago
I reckon rationality/rational thinking, decision theory, bayesianism, being aware of cognitive biases inherent in the human brain, in a word lesswrongiansm.

Jtsummers 10y ago

It's probably time for us to rediscover logic as a fundamental skill. But that's a prerequisite or corequisite to computational thinking.

zingermc 10y ago
Yes! Propositional logic and conditional/indirect proof strategies should be taught before any kinds of "proofs" are taught to students (I'm looking at you, trigonometry).
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Right. It's briefly introduced in geometry (or used to be) in the typical US high school curriculum, but not thoroughly and not as a distinct concept from geometry. It deserves its own sequence of material, and it should be applied to multiple areas so students can see the value of it more easily. When the only application is geometry, and they hate geometry, they won't care about the "tool" being used.
  - ooqr 10y ago
    Aristotelian logic can and should be taught at the elementary school level. Bring back the Socratic method while we're at it! And Euclid's Elements! The Greeks contributed well to education.
internaut 10y ago
Used to be taught in the 19th century and early 20th century, along with rhetoric and the classics. I think we made a great mistake by getting rid of them.
js8 10y ago
No, the fundamental skill is the ability to convince other people that you have the fundamental skill.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I didn't say the, I said a. What you refer to would be an aspect of rhetoric, another fundamental skill.
  - js8 10y ago
    Coming from a language that doesn't really have articles, I was wondering if I should use "the" or "a". I think I could use both, because it cannot be proven that there is only fundamental skill with that property, or that they cannot support each other. Anyway, my comment was a social commentary - it doesn't seem that pure logic is really what ultimately matters in human society, sadly. That is, if some other people are using logic wrong, you will also gain if you use it wrong in order to convince them. Although I would also say that empiricism is much more important to rationalism (logic). There are many ideas that seem very logical, yet they are very bad, because people intuitively misunderstand some aspect of reality in their model.

ekr 10y ago

I reckon rationality/rational thinking, decision theory, bayesianism, being aware of cognitive biases inherent in the human brain, in a word lesswrongiansm.