12 ms·

Kids who spot bullshit, and the adults who get upset about it

330 points by baha_man 15y ago

markkat 15y ago
There are many non-religious people who quietly carry a burden. For me, it happened when I was young, and in light of 'adult guidance', the guilt I felt for my alternate vision of the world was intense.
- crikli 15y ago
  > the guilt I felt for my alternate vision of the world was intense Man, I feel you on that. I grew up in a religious household but started going, "seriously, over an apple?" when I was quite young. The responses always distilled down to my not having enough "faith."
- cpeterso 15y ago
  It's time for atheists and agnostics need to "come out of the closet". Something like 10-20% of Americans are non-religious, but they don't realize how many others are out there. They are expected to keep their beliefs to themselves, yet believers in any random religion are allowed to express their diverse beliefs. Polls show that Americans would prefer to elect a homosexual president over an atheist president.
thinkcomp 15y ago
I was one of these once! Too bad the pay isn't very good... http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/index.html?page=66 http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/index.html?page=66 Seriously, getting the truth makes for occasional good press, but not a good career, and this is a problem. It's typically much more financially rewarding to be the guy selling industrial bleach to patients with Crohn's, which is why our world looks the way it does, with Groupon legally stealing and Sequoia investing in grilled cheese.
- kragen 15y ago
  "Groupon legally stealing"?
- pnathan 15y ago
  I presume the link is actually yours? At any rate, that makes for depressing reading, and very thankful I was homeschooled with parents who encouraged thinking.
matwood 15y ago
Luckily for me my parents supported my constant questioning of nearly everything. Neither were very religious, but my mom did go to church and made me go to Sunday school and church. Eventually I was thrown out of Sunday school for asking too many questions [1], and at that point laid out a pretty good argument why it was a waste of time for me to continue to go to church. That was the last time I was a part of any organized religion. [1] "The bible says so" is simply not a good enough answer - ever. To me a much better answer is simply that a person wants something beyond themselves to believe in even though they know they will not ever prove it to be true. I may disagree with that, but I can respect a person who is honest with themselves.
- zdw 15y ago
  The funny thing is that "I don't know" is a valid answer to many questions, in both the scientific and religious contexts. Some things are obviously unknowable - exact impartial details of historical events that were not recorded, for example.
  - ceejayoz 15y ago
    It's not "I don't know" that's an invalid answer, it's "I don't know, so let's assume <absurd fairy tale> is true."
    - billswift 15y ago
      Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance", is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to satisfactorily prove the proposition to be either true or false. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
  - shaggyfrog 15y ago
    While judging a science fair last year, I was talking to a student who had come to a definite conclusion about his hypothesis based on exactly three data points. I asked him if there was any other possible outcome from an experiment besides "I have proved my hypothesis" and "I have disproved my hypothesis", and he said those were the only two options. When I told him that "I can't conclude anything because I don't have enough information" is sometimes a perfectly valid conclusion, he didn't understand how or why. Not sure if that's a personal misunderstanding about the philosophy of science or he was never taught it, but I sure hope that concept is not missing from school curriculum.
lemma 15y ago
I read the article and skimmed the front page of the site, but had to click away- this kind of stuff is infuriating and depressing at the same time.
lvh 15y ago
I couldn't watch the video on Youtube because I'm in Belgium, apparently. Are there any alternative sources?
aquarin 15y ago
"...this video is blocked in your country..."
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  It's just a Whitney Houston music video, not directly relevant to the article content.
itg 15y ago
This is also infuriating when it comes to medical knowledge and dealing with doctors. I personally know someone who had a uncommon disease and he did extensive research looking at articles published in journals and science/medical books. However, almost every doctor he went to dismissed him and laughed at the idea that he could possibly know what he was talking about. Most of them don't deal with the uncommon diseases and refuse to believe it when it is in front of their eyes. It wasn't until he got into touch with a scientist who did research into the same disease he had that they were finally able to convince doctors to take a closer look and start receiving treatment. Turns out he was right but had to suffer for a few years because of the arrogance of a few "professionals".
- dr_ 15y ago
  That's true but hopefully not too common. In medical school, when it comes to diagnosing conditions, we are taught "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras". Fortunately there is a wealth of information available to patients online which can help them when working with their physicians in dealing with uncommon medical conditions. There needs to be a much better way to sort through it all however.
  - maeon3 15y ago
    With the explosion of information and data collected about diseases, it is quite possible for a patient to walk in with a rare disease to be FAR more informed about his condition than any doctor. If you have a rare disease, then it behooves you to put on your Science hat and get creative about how to motivate smart people to investigate your condition rather than going to a doctor to have him tell you that it is hopeless and the best he can do is give you a battery of drugs which might work, and that you have 1 year to live.
    - thaumaturgy 15y ago
      You're right, but don't forget about all the many hypochondriacs out there; unfortunately, given the current Western model of medical care, a doctor may not know their patient well enough to know if the patient has rationally, logically, and objectively diagnosed themselves, or if the patient has a psychological disorder instead that's manifesting as a rare physical disease.
pasbesoin 15y ago
I hope we do indeed achieve and maintain reduced friction / inhibition of access to information. So that, for example, bright kids do not wait years to get into an environment that simply lets them proceed at their own pace, not to mention receive encouragement. And find some interesting, challenging communities in which to participate.
kylemaxwell 15y ago
So it strikes me that part of the issue is that most (certainly not all) education professionals have a different and non-scientific perspective. This presents large problems because the larger society needs kids to grow up with an appropriate understanding of critical thinking. The vast majority of school administrators don't actually care that much about helping kids become thoughtful, independent people. Their incentives push them to produce kids with core "skills" and achieve various financial objectives. Evidence-based evaluation of commercial pedagogical methods can run counter to the administrators' interests. Which just means that these kids are working in the finest traditions of scientists throughout history.
rkalla 15y ago
<aside> If you read reddit, Digg or any other social news site, the format for stories like these seems to always be: 1. Some "obviously" stupid decision. 2. Some bureaucrat that made it. 3. A critical article talking about how obviously stupid this all is and how stupid the bureaucrat(s) are. 4. The implication that the writer (and the reader) would never make that "mistake". Some of the articles are justified, I'm sure. I have no idea if this one is... I don't have all the facts. I wasn't sitting in the room was the decision was made, I don't know what the reasoning was. All I know is that the frequency of these stories is absurd. If we were all so smart all the time and everyone else that wasn't us was so dumb all the time and in desperate need of correction, I don't think the world would function. Generally speaking (again, not specific to this story) I think we all need to cut each other some slack. What good are these expose articles really doing? Is the world getting any less dumb and more in-line with my expectations of humanity? No Is the embarrassment of articles like this helping to decrease the occurrence of stupidity? No Are articles like this improving the discourse between groups? No The negative carpet-bomb article style, something I'm certainly guilty of, is something that I hope dissolves as we move forward. It's done nothing for actual coverage and in certain areas, like political debate, it has made the topic almost unreadable to me.
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "The negative carpet-bomb article style, something I'm certainly guilty of, is something that I hope dissolves as we move forward." I think the larger problem is that it's generally impossible to know if anything you read in the newspaper is true or not, it's just that these sorts of articles tend to make that more salient. As for this particular style of article, there seems to be some sort of freudian conflict within each of us between how internal or external our locus of control should be. The stuff that becomes the most popular on social news sites tends to be highly masturbatory, and creating a mythology around the 'correct' locus is the all time #1 way of masturbatorifying content. That's why every popular movie ever starts out with the main character waking up and discovering that they're 'different' and they have some sort of destiny. And it's why HN articles alternate between portraying life like an XYZ quest versus articles like these.[1] [1] Go to X, kill Y, take Z. Possibly attributable to Ralph Koster.
dkarl 15y ago
Heh, I love it that kids have so much faith in people. Eventually they'll figure out that some people are not overly concerned with reality and do not allow it to interfere with the pleasure of believing exciting or gratifying things. Many people live their whole lives in suspension of disbelief, like you or I live when reading a novel or watching a movie. No one who could be reached by evidence or argument believes in things such as Therapeutic Touch or "Mineral Miracle Solution" anyway, so there is no point in gathering evidence or presenting an argument. It's okay; humanity will survive despite them. The concrete problem here is that we do not respect education as a profession, so we have allowed it to be infested with dingbats and morons. Pay teachers a salary that reflects their importance to our society, scale pay according to rank and performance instead of seniority, and attract some worldly, intelligent people into the profession to displace the dingbats. As for the silly and vapid parts of the internet, let the dingbats have them.
- ericd 15y ago
  Don't forget being able to fire the terrible teachers. The practice of giving lifetime tenure after two years needs to end.
  - jasonlotito 15y ago
    How do you define terrible? Test scores? Parental opinion? Student vote? Passing grades? Ability to babysit kids?
    - dkarl 15y ago
      There's no fair and objective way to measure the performance of programmers, managers, doctors, lawyers, chefs, marketers, or actuaries, yet we have no problem with giving them performance reviews and performance-based raises and promotions. In government, we have soldiers, FBI agents, CDC researchers, traffic engineers, and prosecutors, all front-line workers who are paid and promoted according to their performance. Soldiers don't become SEALs through seniority. In all of those fields we find it adequate to rely on the judgment of peers and superiors, augmented with whatever metrics are deemed useful. It would expose teachers to injustice and favoritism, sure. So what? Those are professional hazards we all face. It is teachers themselves who inform us that grades are always imperfect measurements of performance yet must be accepted because they play a constructive role in our system of education. It is in school that we learn how favoritism and personal animosity affect the official story of our performance. Those are important lessons because they prepare us to work in a world where judgment is necessary but perfect justice is never achieved. Don't you find it ironic that teachers refuse to submit to any unscientific and less-than-perfectly-just evaluation of their performance when they themselves teach children to accept such evaluations as an inevitable fact of modern life?
chriserin 15y ago
Kids can spot bullshit, but how often do adults spot bullshit and have less power to do something than the kids cited in the article did. This article is cool because it gives specific examples of children wading through the muck to deliver the truth when that's something that all of us wish we could do in our different contexts.
FilterJoe 15y ago
rkalla's comment about the "negative carpet-bomb style" that this article follows got me thinking: The story focuses on something that seems ridiculous when taken out of context - and no doubt reminded many HN readers of various childhood memories (including me). But it brings up the following question: What is the best way to go about teaching children of greatly varying abilities/talents/developmental speeds? If you put 2 or 3 really smart and talkative "bullshit-detecting" kids in a class of 25 other regular kids, will all their BS detecting help or harm education of the other 25 kids? If teachers end up allocating a large portion of class time to the 2 or 3 smart kids, wouldn't this detract from teaching the other 25? (And I have to say, I'm at the moment thinking back with embarrassment at the number of times I pointed out exceptions that rendered a teacher's assertion incorrect - was this a good use of classroom time taken as a whole?). In reality, public schools teach to the middle. It could be that most kids aren't ready to learn independent thinking skills before age 15 or so, and that trying to encourage this is just a waste of time. Or perhaps it could be taught to all at an early age. I don't know, but it's an interesting question. In my mind, there's an obvious solution which is to some extent already done. Segregate the bright, BS-detecting kids into classes more appropriate for them. Encourage them to continue along their path of independent thinking and accelerated learning without disrupting the education of those in the middle.
- westicle 15y ago
  I will join your gentle threadjack, because it runs along an interesting tangent. I think a lot of schools give lip-service to segregating "advanced" students but miss the point of the exercise. I was placed in an accelerated maths class at school. The school determined which students were ready to learn more advanced mathematical concepts by test grades. Long story short, the class was generally filled with unquestioning swots who could complete hundreds of worked examples according to the textbook but had no critical analasis skills whatsoever. When the "advanced" class is seen as a bonus option available for successful students, unfortunately teachers aren't inclined reward the BS-detecting students, who have questioned their authoritah too many times.
  - FilterJoe 15y ago
cromulent 15y ago
The point of the article - that kids have a bullshit detector - reminds me of a great article in The Age that I read years ago. The writer was given a hard time for bullshitting his young nephew and his response was that "It's important to bullshit kids, so that they don't grow up trusting adults". He maintained that you had to tell kids stuff they would find out later was fake, so that they developed scepticism. Otherwise, they would swallow adult dogma as fact. He was honest with kids once they pushed past the first barrier (Uncle Joe, you say you landed on the moon, but I checked and you are aren't on the list) and he said that was his duty to teach them to not accept things at face value, no matter what the authoritative source.
- alanh 15y ago
  Could these lessons be taught without the negatives here? For example, could Uncle Joe tell the kids about his uncle who said he landed on the moon?
  - cromulent 15y ago
    I think so. I try to tell my kids the truth, including when I am not sure of my answers and why. However, the point resonated with me, mainly due to my memories of what I believed simply because an adult told me so. I'm a little ahead of my kids in understanding the world, but not so far, and probably in the wrong direction. I try to remember that I need to make my position as clear as my answer.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    What's the negative? He's teaching them that not only do you need to call people out when they're wrong, but especially when they have something on the line, or because they might be offended.
    - alanh 15y ago
      I’m not an expert on affect or children, but it does seem kind of mean. That would be the negative: the youth’s possible feeling of betrayal or a negative effect on the relationship with the kid.
alanh 15y ago
The free, short ebook “On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion” has some insights on the issues of respect, control, authority, and conservatism, especially as it relates to minors. Highly recommended read: http://www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks/OnTruthTheTyrannyofIllusion.aspx http://www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks/OnTruthTheTyrannyof... The authority/truth mismatch is something that (especially) the first chapters of #HPMoR deal with, as well as rational thought and scientific inquiry (which the end of the linked article gets into): > "You think you have what it takes to be a scientist in your own right, with or without my help? Then let's see how you investigate a confusing phenomenon." > "I..." Hermione's mind went blank for a moment. She loved being tested but she'd never had a test like this before. Read it: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M... This article also reminds me of some hurtful moments from my youth. Once, in high school, I was almost kicked out of the house merely for attempting to have a reasonable, rational, calm discussion about a parental rule, despite being told the “conversation” was over. (Perhaps “monologue” fits better.) Then a few short years later, I was told I could no longer come home for Christmas as I no longer shared my mother’s faith. (A lot like this, except for my age: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mcOIyf9TOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mcOIyf9TOQ) Sure, lots of teens had it worse than I did, but this kind of thing is extremely hurtful, and really put a damper on my relationship with my family. Kids who spot bullshit, and the adults who get upset about it, indeed.
Luc 15y ago
Does anyone have any good recommendations for teaching the 'methods of rationality' to a 12 year old?
- Daniel_Newby 15y ago
  Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...
  - Luc 15y ago
    Thanks. I really enjoyed reading that fanfic, but I don't think it will appeal as much as a teaching aid. My current plan is to go through the 'How To Actually Change Your Mind' sequence on Less Wrong ( http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_Mind http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_M... ), and distil that for my daughter. I want something that's systematic, a canonical list, if there is such a thing.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Groxx 15y ago
Well, that was worthless. So it's an opinion piece, that kids have a "bullshit detector" of some kind. Fine, have that opinion. But look at the counter-arguments: Santa Claus. Easter Bunny. Generally-unquestioning adherence to parents' religion. Etc. Sure, once they start thinking for themselves more, they start to find inconsistencies. Adults, of course, do nothing of the sort. They're not the cynical, doubting types, no siree. So, cherry pick a couple high-profile success stories and project to the population as a whole. This is high quality content, apparently, as it has over 200 votes. Maybe people are just voting on the concept, as everybody has encountered someone getting upset over being told the truth?
stretchwithme 15y ago
Reminds of when Mrs Mevec told us in 8th grade that sound traveled through space. I objected, because sound is just vibration of molecules and space is fairly empty. I was wrong, she told me. And then many of the students mocked me as well. Just because someone is an adult and you're not doesn't prove a thing. Neither does having every other person disagree. The evidence may still be on your side.
pella 15y ago
placebo paradoxon ... if you read this research http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17893311 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17893311 which decision is more rationale? A: choose conventional therapy because acupuncture is no more than a placebo ( verum or sham was almost similar effectiveness) B: choose acupuncture because effectiveness of acupuncture, either verum or sham, was almost twice that of conventional therapy Which do you prefer? Science Based Medicine vs. Effectiveness ?
- duncanj 15y ago
  Another question is whether these studies show that any doctor can provide acupuncture services without training in TCM. All your doctor needs to do is insert the needles randomly. In fact, pressing with a toothpick may be enough to cause the placebo effect associated with sham acupuncture. Finally, how much would you pay for the "service", knowing what you do from the literature?
  - pella 15y ago
    >All your doctor needs to do is insert the needles randomly. be careful with random acupuncture points ... "If a woman in China is pregnant with a second child, or in numerous cases, if the couple knows the first pregnancy is a girl, the couple will go to the medical clinic for an abortion. One common method of abortion is simply to use strong acupuncture point stimulation of San Yin Chiao (SP6) in conjunction with He Gu (LI4). The abortion is generally realized within 24 hours." http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=31656 http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=...
ballard 15y ago
What is not science is either art, philosophy or marketing.
stretchwithme 15y ago
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." - Galileo

330 points by baha_man 15y ago

There are many non-religious people who quietly carry a burden. For me, it happened when I was young, and in light of 'adult guidance', the guilt I felt for my alternate vision of the world was intense.

crikli 15y ago
> the guilt I felt for my alternate vision of the world was intense Man, I feel you on that. I grew up in a religious household but started going, "seriously, over an apple?" when I was quite young. The responses always distilled down to my not having enough "faith."
cpeterso 15y ago
It's time for atheists and agnostics need to "come out of the closet". Something like 10-20% of Americans are non-religious, but they don't realize how many others are out there. They are expected to keep their beliefs to themselves, yet believers in any random religion are allowed to express their diverse beliefs. Polls show that Americans would prefer to elect a homosexual president over an atheist president.

thinkcomp 15y ago

I was one of these once! Too bad the pay isn't very good... http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/index.html?page=66 http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/index.html?page=66 Seriously, getting the truth makes for occasional good press, but not a good career, and this is a problem. It's typically much more financially rewarding to be the guy selling industrial bleach to patients with Crohn's, which is why our world looks the way it does, with Groupon legally stealing and Sequoia investing in grilled cheese.

kragen 15y ago
"Groupon legally stealing"?
pnathan 15y ago
I presume the link is actually yours? At any rate, that makes for depressing reading, and very thankful I was homeschooled with parents who encouraged thinking.

matwood 15y ago

Luckily for me my parents supported my constant questioning of nearly everything. Neither were very religious, but my mom did go to church and made me go to Sunday school and church. Eventually I was thrown out of Sunday school for asking too many questions [1], and at that point laid out a pretty good argument why it was a waste of time for me to continue to go to church. That was the last time I was a part of any organized religion. [1] "The bible says so" is simply not a good enough answer - ever. To me a much better answer is simply that a person wants something beyond themselves to believe in even though they know they will not ever prove it to be true. I may disagree with that, but I can respect a person who is honest with themselves.

zdw 15y ago
The funny thing is that "I don't know" is a valid answer to many questions, in both the scientific and religious contexts. Some things are obviously unknowable - exact impartial details of historical events that were not recorded, for example.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  It's not "I don't know" that's an invalid answer, it's "I don't know, so let's assume <absurd fairy tale> is true."
  - billswift 15y ago
    Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance", is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to satisfactorily prove the proposition to be either true or false. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
- shaggyfrog 15y ago
  While judging a science fair last year, I was talking to a student who had come to a definite conclusion about his hypothesis based on exactly three data points. I asked him if there was any other possible outcome from an experiment besides "I have proved my hypothesis" and "I have disproved my hypothesis", and he said those were the only two options. When I told him that "I can't conclude anything because I don't have enough information" is sometimes a perfectly valid conclusion, he didn't understand how or why. Not sure if that's a personal misunderstanding about the philosophy of science or he was never taught it, but I sure hope that concept is not missing from school curriculum.

lemma 15y ago

I read the article and skimmed the front page of the site, but had to click away- this kind of stuff is infuriating and depressing at the same time.

lvh 15y ago

I couldn't watch the video on Youtube because I'm in Belgium, apparently. Are there any alternative sources?

aquarin 15y ago

"...this video is blocked in your country..."

thaumaturgy 15y ago
It's just a Whitney Houston music video, not directly relevant to the article content.

itg 15y ago

This is also infuriating when it comes to medical knowledge and dealing with doctors. I personally know someone who had a uncommon disease and he did extensive research looking at articles published in journals and science/medical books. However, almost every doctor he went to dismissed him and laughed at the idea that he could possibly know what he was talking about. Most of them don't deal with the uncommon diseases and refuse to believe it when it is in front of their eyes. It wasn't until he got into touch with a scientist who did research into the same disease he had that they were finally able to convince doctors to take a closer look and start receiving treatment. Turns out he was right but had to suffer for a few years because of the arrogance of a few "professionals".

dr_ 15y ago
That's true but hopefully not too common. In medical school, when it comes to diagnosing conditions, we are taught "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras". Fortunately there is a wealth of information available to patients online which can help them when working with their physicians in dealing with uncommon medical conditions. There needs to be a much better way to sort through it all however.
- maeon3 15y ago
  With the explosion of information and data collected about diseases, it is quite possible for a patient to walk in with a rare disease to be FAR more informed about his condition than any doctor. If you have a rare disease, then it behooves you to put on your Science hat and get creative about how to motivate smart people to investigate your condition rather than going to a doctor to have him tell you that it is hopeless and the best he can do is give you a battery of drugs which might work, and that you have 1 year to live.
  - thaumaturgy 15y ago
    You're right, but don't forget about all the many hypochondriacs out there; unfortunately, given the current Western model of medical care, a doctor may not know their patient well enough to know if the patient has rationally, logically, and objectively diagnosed themselves, or if the patient has a psychological disorder instead that's manifesting as a rare physical disease.

pasbesoin 15y ago

I hope we do indeed achieve and maintain reduced friction / inhibition of access to information. So that, for example, bright kids do not wait years to get into an environment that simply lets them proceed at their own pace, not to mention receive encouragement. And find some interesting, challenging communities in which to participate.

kylemaxwell 15y ago

So it strikes me that part of the issue is that most (certainly not all) education professionals have a different and non-scientific perspective. This presents large problems because the larger society needs kids to grow up with an appropriate understanding of critical thinking. The vast majority of school administrators don't actually care that much about helping kids become thoughtful, independent people. Their incentives push them to produce kids with core "skills" and achieve various financial objectives. Evidence-based evaluation of commercial pedagogical methods can run counter to the administrators' interests. Which just means that these kids are working in the finest traditions of scientists throughout history.

rkalla 15y ago

<aside> If you read reddit, Digg or any other social news site, the format for stories like these seems to always be: 1. Some "obviously" stupid decision. 2. Some bureaucrat that made it. 3. A critical article talking about how obviously stupid this all is and how stupid the bureaucrat(s) are. 4. The implication that the writer (and the reader) would never make that "mistake". Some of the articles are justified, I'm sure. I have no idea if this one is... I don't have all the facts. I wasn't sitting in the room was the decision was made, I don't know what the reasoning was. All I know is that the frequency of these stories is absurd. If we were all so smart all the time and everyone else that wasn't us was so dumb all the time and in desperate need of correction, I don't think the world would function. Generally speaking (again, not specific to this story) I think we all need to cut each other some slack. What good are these expose articles really doing? Is the world getting any less dumb and more in-line with my expectations of humanity? No Is the embarrassment of articles like this helping to decrease the occurrence of stupidity? No Are articles like this improving the discourse between groups? No The negative carpet-bomb article style, something I'm certainly guilty of, is something that I hope dissolves as we move forward. It's done nothing for actual coverage and in certain areas, like political debate, it has made the topic almost unreadable to me.

Alex3917 15y ago
"The negative carpet-bomb article style, something I'm certainly guilty of, is something that I hope dissolves as we move forward." I think the larger problem is that it's generally impossible to know if anything you read in the newspaper is true or not, it's just that these sorts of articles tend to make that more salient. As for this particular style of article, there seems to be some sort of freudian conflict within each of us between how internal or external our locus of control should be. The stuff that becomes the most popular on social news sites tends to be highly masturbatory, and creating a mythology around the 'correct' locus is the all time #1 way of masturbatorifying content. That's why every popular movie ever starts out with the main character waking up and discovering that they're 'different' and they have some sort of destiny. And it's why HN articles alternate between portraying life like an XYZ quest versus articles like these.[1] [1] Go to X, kill Y, take Z. Possibly attributable to Ralph Koster.

dkarl 15y ago

Heh, I love it that kids have so much faith in people. Eventually they'll figure out that some people are not overly concerned with reality and do not allow it to interfere with the pleasure of believing exciting or gratifying things. Many people live their whole lives in suspension of disbelief, like you or I live when reading a novel or watching a movie. No one who could be reached by evidence or argument believes in things such as Therapeutic Touch or "Mineral Miracle Solution" anyway, so there is no point in gathering evidence or presenting an argument. It's okay; humanity will survive despite them. The concrete problem here is that we do not respect education as a profession, so we have allowed it to be infested with dingbats and morons. Pay teachers a salary that reflects their importance to our society, scale pay according to rank and performance instead of seniority, and attract some worldly, intelligent people into the profession to displace the dingbats. As for the silly and vapid parts of the internet, let the dingbats have them.

ericd 15y ago
Don't forget being able to fire the terrible teachers. The practice of giving lifetime tenure after two years needs to end.
- jasonlotito 15y ago
  How do you define terrible? Test scores? Parental opinion? Student vote? Passing grades? Ability to babysit kids?
  - dkarl 15y ago
    There's no fair and objective way to measure the performance of programmers, managers, doctors, lawyers, chefs, marketers, or actuaries, yet we have no problem with giving them performance reviews and performance-based raises and promotions. In government, we have soldiers, FBI agents, CDC researchers, traffic engineers, and prosecutors, all front-line workers who are paid and promoted according to their performance. Soldiers don't become SEALs through seniority. In all of those fields we find it adequate to rely on the judgment of peers and superiors, augmented with whatever metrics are deemed useful. It would expose teachers to injustice and favoritism, sure. So what? Those are professional hazards we all face. It is teachers themselves who inform us that grades are always imperfect measurements of performance yet must be accepted because they play a constructive role in our system of education. It is in school that we learn how favoritism and personal animosity affect the official story of our performance. Those are important lessons because they prepare us to work in a world where judgment is necessary but perfect justice is never achieved. Don't you find it ironic that teachers refuse to submit to any unscientific and less-than-perfectly-just evaluation of their performance when they themselves teach children to accept such evaluations as an inevitable fact of modern life?

chriserin 15y ago

Kids can spot bullshit, but how often do adults spot bullshit and have less power to do something than the kids cited in the article did. This article is cool because it gives specific examples of children wading through the muck to deliver the truth when that's something that all of us wish we could do in our different contexts.

FilterJoe 15y ago

rkalla's comment about the "negative carpet-bomb style" that this article follows got me thinking: The story focuses on something that seems ridiculous when taken out of context - and no doubt reminded many HN readers of various childhood memories (including me). But it brings up the following question: What is the best way to go about teaching children of greatly varying abilities/talents/developmental speeds? If you put 2 or 3 really smart and talkative "bullshit-detecting" kids in a class of 25 other regular kids, will all their BS detecting help or harm education of the other 25 kids? If teachers end up allocating a large portion of class time to the 2 or 3 smart kids, wouldn't this detract from teaching the other 25? (And I have to say, I'm at the moment thinking back with embarrassment at the number of times I pointed out exceptions that rendered a teacher's assertion incorrect - was this a good use of classroom time taken as a whole?). In reality, public schools teach to the middle. It could be that most kids aren't ready to learn independent thinking skills before age 15 or so, and that trying to encourage this is just a waste of time. Or perhaps it could be taught to all at an early age. I don't know, but it's an interesting question. In my mind, there's an obvious solution which is to some extent already done. Segregate the bright, BS-detecting kids into classes more appropriate for them. Encourage them to continue along their path of independent thinking and accelerated learning without disrupting the education of those in the middle.

westicle 15y ago
I will join your gentle threadjack, because it runs along an interesting tangent. I think a lot of schools give lip-service to segregating "advanced" students but miss the point of the exercise. I was placed in an accelerated maths class at school. The school determined which students were ready to learn more advanced mathematical concepts by test grades. Long story short, the class was generally filled with unquestioning swots who could complete hundreds of worked examples according to the textbook but had no critical analasis skills whatsoever. When the "advanced" class is seen as a bonus option available for successful students, unfortunately teachers aren't inclined reward the BS-detecting students, who have questioned their authoritah too many times.
- FilterJoe 15y ago

cromulent 15y ago

The point of the article - that kids have a bullshit detector - reminds me of a great article in The Age that I read years ago. The writer was given a hard time for bullshitting his young nephew and his response was that "It's important to bullshit kids, so that they don't grow up trusting adults". He maintained that you had to tell kids stuff they would find out later was fake, so that they developed scepticism. Otherwise, they would swallow adult dogma as fact. He was honest with kids once they pushed past the first barrier (Uncle Joe, you say you landed on the moon, but I checked and you are aren't on the list) and he said that was his duty to teach them to not accept things at face value, no matter what the authoritative source.

alanh 15y ago
Could these lessons be taught without the negatives here? For example, could Uncle Joe tell the kids about his uncle who said he landed on the moon?
- cromulent 15y ago
  I think so. I try to tell my kids the truth, including when I am not sure of my answers and why. However, the point resonated with me, mainly due to my memories of what I believed simply because an adult told me so. I'm a little ahead of my kids in understanding the world, but not so far, and probably in the wrong direction. I try to remember that I need to make my position as clear as my answer.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  What's the negative? He's teaching them that not only do you need to call people out when they're wrong, but especially when they have something on the line, or because they might be offended.
  - alanh 15y ago
    I’m not an expert on affect or children, but it does seem kind of mean. That would be the negative: the youth’s possible feeling of betrayal or a negative effect on the relationship with the kid.

alanh 15y ago

The free, short ebook “On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion” has some insights on the issues of respect, control, authority, and conservatism, especially as it relates to minors. Highly recommended read: http://www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks/OnTruthTheTyrannyofIllusion.aspx http://www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks/OnTruthTheTyrannyof... The authority/truth mismatch is something that (especially) the first chapters of #HPMoR deal with, as well as rational thought and scientific inquiry (which the end of the linked article gets into): > "You think you have what it takes to be a scientist in your own right, with or without my help? Then let's see how you investigate a confusing phenomenon." > "I..." Hermione's mind went blank for a moment. She loved being tested but she'd never had a test like this before. Read it: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M... This article also reminds me of some hurtful moments from my youth. Once, in high school, I was almost kicked out of the house merely for attempting to have a reasonable, rational, calm discussion about a parental rule, despite being told the “conversation” was over. (Perhaps “monologue” fits better.) Then a few short years later, I was told I could no longer come home for Christmas as I no longer shared my mother’s faith. (A lot like this, except for my age: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mcOIyf9TOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mcOIyf9TOQ) Sure, lots of teens had it worse than I did, but this kind of thing is extremely hurtful, and really put a damper on my relationship with my family. Kids who spot bullshit, and the adults who get upset about it, indeed.

Luc 15y ago

Does anyone have any good recommendations for teaching the 'methods of rationality' to a 12 year old?

Daniel_Newby 15y ago
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...
- Luc 15y ago
  Thanks. I really enjoyed reading that fanfic, but I don't think it will appeal as much as a teaching aid. My current plan is to go through the 'How To Actually Change Your Mind' sequence on Less Wrong ( http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_Mind http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_M... ), and distil that for my daughter. I want something that's systematic, a canonical list, if there is such a thing.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Groxx 15y ago

Well, that was worthless. So it's an opinion piece, that kids have a "bullshit detector" of some kind. Fine, have that opinion. But look at the counter-arguments: Santa Claus. Easter Bunny. Generally-unquestioning adherence to parents' religion. Etc. Sure, once they start thinking for themselves more, they start to find inconsistencies. Adults, of course, do nothing of the sort. They're not the cynical, doubting types, no siree. So, cherry pick a couple high-profile success stories and project to the population as a whole. This is high quality content, apparently, as it has over 200 votes. Maybe people are just voting on the concept, as everybody has encountered someone getting upset over being told the truth?

stretchwithme 15y ago

Reminds of when Mrs Mevec told us in 8th grade that sound traveled through space. I objected, because sound is just vibration of molecules and space is fairly empty. I was wrong, she told me. And then many of the students mocked me as well. Just because someone is an adult and you're not doesn't prove a thing. Neither does having every other person disagree. The evidence may still be on your side.

pella 15y ago

placebo paradoxon ... if you read this research http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17893311 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17893311 which decision is more rationale? A: choose conventional therapy because acupuncture is no more than a placebo ( verum or sham was almost similar effectiveness) B: choose acupuncture because effectiveness of acupuncture, either verum or sham, was almost twice that of conventional therapy Which do you prefer? Science Based Medicine vs. Effectiveness ?

duncanj 15y ago
Another question is whether these studies show that any doctor can provide acupuncture services without training in TCM. All your doctor needs to do is insert the needles randomly. In fact, pressing with a toothpick may be enough to cause the placebo effect associated with sham acupuncture. Finally, how much would you pay for the "service", knowing what you do from the literature?
- pella 15y ago
  >All your doctor needs to do is insert the needles randomly. be careful with random acupuncture points ... "If a woman in China is pregnant with a second child, or in numerous cases, if the couple knows the first pregnancy is a girl, the couple will go to the medical clinic for an abortion. One common method of abortion is simply to use strong acupuncture point stimulation of San Yin Chiao (SP6) in conjunction with He Gu (LI4). The abortion is generally realized within 24 hours." http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=31656 http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=...

ballard 15y ago

What is not science is either art, philosophy or marketing.

stretchwithme 15y ago

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." - Galileo