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Are you attempting to attack her credibility or can you address her point? Steve Jobs never graduated college. I would still take his opinion on education. Thi

Are you attempting to attack her credibility or can you address her point? Steve Jobs never graduated college. I would still take his opinion on education. This is an argument that can be logically debated without having to go to credentials. Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory. -- Leonardo da Vinci

gruseom 16y ago
Considering that da Vinci very likely never said that, your invocation of his authority is ironic. http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argument+authority+inauthor:%22leonardo+da+vinci%22&num=100 http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argumen... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci Edit: I retract that last bit. Quoting someone isn't necessarily arguing from their authority. But it almost certainly isn't Leonardo.
- entangld 16y ago
  I could care less who said what. I have thousands of quotes. The quotes help me learn whose books I should read. I copied and pasted that quote because I had it. The words are more important than where they came from. I don't have much respect for authority in the first place. I would just rather spend more time debating actual arguments than arguing about credentials. RE: Leonardo - Well until we find out who said it, I'm attributing it to him. I don't throw away theories until they're disproven.
  - billybob 16y ago
    "I don't have much respect for authority in the first place." Really? Let me ask you a few questions, then. When was the American Revolution? What are the electrically charged parts of an atom? How does central banking work? How do red blood cells bind to oxygen? If you will only accept as fact information that you have personally verified, you will know a very small collection of facts. The sensible thing to do in many cases is to appeal to authority: the collective opinion of experts in a field. Heck, even in one's own area of specialty, one can't know everything. I can't personally evaluate every possible programming language or database in the world before choosing something; I take a clue from common opinion and narrow my search from there. Really, this is one of the things that makes civilization possible.
    - entangld 16y ago
      You read too much into that statement.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    "Couldn't care less", not "Could care less". Sheesh!
hugh3 16y ago
Well shit, all I can say on the subject is exactly what an originality-challenged dean would say to his class of incoming freshmen (if deans actually addressed classes of incoming freshmen): what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. Want to take advantage of being able to spend four years learning from some of the best minds in every field of human endeavour? Four years set free on hundreds of possible courses, millions of available books, and hundreds of professors willing to answer (well-posed) questions about their work? It's easy to go into a Bachelor's and come out knowing a lot of great stuff. On the other hand, if you want to put the minimum of energy into getting your Bachelor's degree by picking the easiest subjects and doing the minimum of work to get through them then, yeah, you can come out of the university without knowing much at all. That's partly the university's fault (they really don't flunk nearly enough students nowadays) but mostly your own. "But", you say, "couldn't I just spend four years in the library and learn all that stuff anyway for slightly less (once opportunity costs are taken into account) money?" And the answer is: probably not. Books + lectures + professors will teach you much better than books alone. The big enemy when learning from books is not the stuff that you don't know, it's the stuff you think you know that's wrong, because you misunderstood something the first time (it happens to all of us, sometimes books are unclear) and never got corrected on it. (This is why you'll find that the internet is full of self-taught physicists who are disproving relativity or thermodynamics because they've misunderstood some aspect of it). It's telling that many of the folks who are pushing the "we don't need no education" meme are programmers by trade, since programming is one of the very few skills that you can learn effectively on your own by reading books. Why? Because it's easy to know when you're wrong: it'll result in your code not having the desired effect.
- entangld 16y ago
  what you get out of it depends on what you put into it If the average quality varies that much, we should be paying a lot less for it. High prices (in general) imply a level of quality. They don't necessarily indicate quality, but you're not paying a lot for no reason. If the quality from a BMW was highly variable the price would need to decrease to account for that level of risk. In education the student takes all of the risk and pays a high price for it.
Goladus 16y ago
The only points she makes are based on unfounded assumptions. She has no argument to attack. There is nothing to debate logically. She would be making the appeal to authority, except she doesn't even bother to do that. She just appeals to common sense ("you don't have to be an economist to... etc"). Edit: perhaps I should say any of her good points are overshadowed by (and mostly unrelated to) the blatant exaggerations and generalisations.
- omnivore 16y ago
  I think it's just a tactic of that sort of blog with a following to throw a bunch of claims without making a real point, ask a question and then wait for fawning commenters to respond. Which is pretty much what happened.
random42 16y ago
> Steve Jobs never graduated college. I would still take his opinion on education. Yes, Steve Jobs is a real-world success. He obviously did not feel the need to finish the college, and took a deliberate decision to do so. His opinion on education certainly would have a different angle and substance that would be worth hearing. But that is because of the reasons stated earlier he is qualified to opine on the subject matter, the same cannot be said for everyone. PS - I did not read the article so cannot judge, how qualified the author is to make a opinion of this matter. But the comment is generally applicable, anyhow.
- entangld 16y ago
  What makes him qualified to opine on education? The fact that he's a real world success? What's with all of the deference to authority on HN? I may defer to experts on radiation in Fukushima, but education is a philosophical argument. Even the experts aren't really experts on it. Can we describe the difference between good and bad teachers yet? Not really. Degrees do not protect anyone or any institution from criticism. Jobs said he wanted to finish college, but couldn't afford it. He's definitely pro-learning. The author was too. Our society is getting very defensive about an educational system that is failing its citizens.
  - random42 16y ago
    No, no. Trust me, I am with you. I will not listen to Tiger Woods on Education. and I too, am pro-learning (by traditional means). I do not imply to say, "Everyone should drop out of schools, because steve jobs did, and see.. he is successful". My thoughts were more along the lines of, "Even though we have our belief's, lets hear this guy out, because he is successful and _smart_ and _took a decision_ on the subject matter, and we might learn something interesting from his observations on the subject matter."

gruseom 16y ago

Considering that da Vinci very likely never said that, your invocation of his authority is ironic. http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argument+authority+inauthor:%22leonardo+da+vinci%22&num=100 http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argumen... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci Edit: I retract that last bit. Quoting someone isn't necessarily arguing from their authority. But it almost certainly isn't Leonardo.

entangld 16y ago
I could care less who said what. I have thousands of quotes. The quotes help me learn whose books I should read. I copied and pasted that quote because I had it. The words are more important than where they came from. I don't have much respect for authority in the first place. I would just rather spend more time debating actual arguments than arguing about credentials. RE: Leonardo - Well until we find out who said it, I'm attributing it to him. I don't throw away theories until they're disproven.
- billybob 16y ago
  "I don't have much respect for authority in the first place." Really? Let me ask you a few questions, then. When was the American Revolution? What are the electrically charged parts of an atom? How does central banking work? How do red blood cells bind to oxygen? If you will only accept as fact information that you have personally verified, you will know a very small collection of facts. The sensible thing to do in many cases is to appeal to authority: the collective opinion of experts in a field. Heck, even in one's own area of specialty, one can't know everything. I can't personally evaluate every possible programming language or database in the world before choosing something; I take a clue from common opinion and narrow my search from there. Really, this is one of the things that makes civilization possible.
  - entangld 16y ago
    You read too much into that statement.
- hugh3 16y ago
  "Couldn't care less", not "Could care less". Sheesh!

hugh3 16y ago

Well shit, all I can say on the subject is exactly what an originality-challenged dean would say to his class of incoming freshmen (if deans actually addressed classes of incoming freshmen): what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. Want to take advantage of being able to spend four years learning from some of the best minds in every field of human endeavour? Four years set free on hundreds of possible courses, millions of available books, and hundreds of professors willing to answer (well-posed) questions about their work? It's easy to go into a Bachelor's and come out knowing a lot of great stuff. On the other hand, if you want to put the minimum of energy into getting your Bachelor's degree by picking the easiest subjects and doing the minimum of work to get through them then, yeah, you can come out of the university without knowing much at all. That's partly the university's fault (they really don't flunk nearly enough students nowadays) but mostly your own. "But", you say, "couldn't I just spend four years in the library and learn all that stuff anyway for slightly less (once opportunity costs are taken into account) money?" And the answer is: probably not. Books + lectures + professors will teach you much better than books alone. The big enemy when learning from books is not the stuff that you don't know, it's the stuff you think you know that's wrong, because you misunderstood something the first time (it happens to all of us, sometimes books are unclear) and never got corrected on it. (This is why you'll find that the internet is full of self-taught physicists who are disproving relativity or thermodynamics because they've misunderstood some aspect of it). It's telling that many of the folks who are pushing the "we don't need no education" meme are programmers by trade, since programming is one of the very few skills that you can learn effectively on your own by reading books. Why? Because it's easy to know when you're wrong: it'll result in your code not having the desired effect.

entangld 16y ago
what you get out of it depends on what you put into it If the average quality varies that much, we should be paying a lot less for it. High prices (in general) imply a level of quality. They don't necessarily indicate quality, but you're not paying a lot for no reason. If the quality from a BMW was highly variable the price would need to decrease to account for that level of risk. In education the student takes all of the risk and pays a high price for it.

Goladus 16y ago

The only points she makes are based on unfounded assumptions. She has no argument to attack. There is nothing to debate logically. She would be making the appeal to authority, except she doesn't even bother to do that. She just appeals to common sense ("you don't have to be an economist to... etc"). Edit: perhaps I should say any of her good points are overshadowed by (and mostly unrelated to) the blatant exaggerations and generalisations.

omnivore 16y ago
I think it's just a tactic of that sort of blog with a following to throw a bunch of claims without making a real point, ask a question and then wait for fawning commenters to respond. Which is pretty much what happened.

random42 16y ago

> Steve Jobs never graduated college. I would still take his opinion on education. Yes, Steve Jobs is a real-world success. He obviously did not feel the need to finish the college, and took a deliberate decision to do so. His opinion on education certainly would have a different angle and substance that would be worth hearing. But that is because of the reasons stated earlier he is qualified to opine on the subject matter, the same cannot be said for everyone. PS - I did not read the article so cannot judge, how qualified the author is to make a opinion of this matter. But the comment is generally applicable, anyhow.

entangld 16y ago
What makes him qualified to opine on education? The fact that he's a real world success? What's with all of the deference to authority on HN? I may defer to experts on radiation in Fukushima, but education is a philosophical argument. Even the experts aren't really experts on it. Can we describe the difference between good and bad teachers yet? Not really. Degrees do not protect anyone or any institution from criticism. Jobs said he wanted to finish college, but couldn't afford it. He's definitely pro-learning. The author was too. Our society is getting very defensive about an educational system that is failing its citizens.
- random42 16y ago
  No, no. Trust me, I am with you. I will not listen to Tiger Woods on Education. and I too, am pro-learning (by traditional means). I do not imply to say, "Everyone should drop out of schools, because steve jobs did, and see.. he is successful". My thoughts were more along the lines of, "Even though we have our belief's, lets hear this guy out, because he is successful and _smart_ and _took a decision_ on the subject matter, and we might learn something interesting from his observations on the subject matter."