5 ms·

I think you are correct and I am struggling to understand why lots of intelligent people are missing the logical fallacy in their responses. I don't know the fo

I think you are correct and I am struggling to understand why lots of intelligent people are missing the logical fallacy in their responses. I don't know the formal description but the logic is: Shakespeare didn't have a teacher and became a genius, therefore nobody should have teachers and they will become geniuses. It doesn't follow. Sharespeare like random other people were gifted in some way. If what others are saying is true, everyone in the olden days before widespread shooling would be amazing too. They weren't. Why? Because education is related to a whole load of variables. The support/lack of parents and the community they operate in. E.g. middle-class vs working class. Their nutrition level and ability to concentrate; the other kids in their classes who might support or detract from learning; the quality of the teaching in the school; and many other things. Clearly the best way to learn is to hang around people who are passionate about their subjects but probably the next best thing is a school where you can get a balanced education that is hopefully partially related to the basic skills you need to get around in life.

bluesign 5y ago
This talk is using "feel good about yourself" playbook, that's why it is the most viewed one. - You cannot succeed unless you try. ( This is misinterpreted by average joe as "if I believe/try enough I will succeed, if not I didn't try enough ) - If you are a failure, it is not your fault. ( This one is the basic blame the system playbook ) Examples of exceptional people chosen specifically, Sharespeare, The Dancer, etc. Everybody thinks they have some undiscovered talent, nobody wants to be the average. There will be some exceptional people, and with current schooling some exceptional talent will be lost, but it is much better than having less than average educated majority.
bambax 5y ago
I think the genius story is not only false, it is elitist and dangerous. What the joke says, in essence, is that a teacher's job is to identify the Shakespeares, and then prevent anyone from getting in their way. And what do we do with the non-Shakespeares? I guess we just dump them and move to another part of the world... Just like little Sarah, the girlfriend of the speaker's son he mentions at 8'15. > He [James, the speaker's son, who was 16 at the time] said 'I'll never find another girl like Sarah.' And we were rather pleased about that frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. Audience laughs and laughs at this. I don't care for that joke either. Yet the interesting part here is that, in some cases, it's apparently ok to intervene in your children's life -- as opposed to letting them do their thing and pursue their creativity. Isn't it possible however, that James and Sarah would have had a child who would have become another Mozart, or Einstein? We'll never know.
- ImaCake 5y ago
  > Isn't it possible however, that James and Sarah would have had a child who would have become another Mozart, or Einstein? At least genetically this is unlikely. Several hundred genetic variants explain a good fraction of intelligence and a random mixing of Sarah and James’ variants will include ones that increase and decrease intelligence. Getting a really good random mix of several hundred variants is unlikely. That is, intelligence regresses towards the mean.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    That is a lot of pseudoscientific bullshit, if you don’t have the stats to prove it.
    - ImaCake 5y ago
      How is it bullshit? There is plenty of science to backup the claim that intelligence is heritable [0]. From there the rest of what I said is basic population genetics statistics. 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29335645/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29335645/
Sophistifunk 5y ago
I have literally no idea how you can think that's what they're trying to say. I believe you, I'm not saying it's BS, I just can't see the path to it. Somebody slightly-awkwardly making the point that (they believe) modern schooling is doing more harm than good to the development of children in no way implies the claim that children should not have teachers, or be taught, or that somehow shakespeare didn't need to learn lessons from people about english or life. These counterpoints to an idea that isn't present are the worst form of strawman.
cmiles74 5y ago
I think the whole point is erasure of the all the variables that might help make a person a success (education, parents, wealth, community, nutrition, etc.) The success a person has achieved is somehow an innate part of who the person is, these other variables merely distract or (in the case of Shakespeare's teachers) hold them back. If the world would get out of their way, these people would have been even more successful even earlier. How amazing would the world be if that was the case? An obvious corollary is that these successful people don't owe anyone anything: all of these variables don't really matter. I don't think that's mentioned in this talk, however.

bluesign 5y ago

This talk is using "feel good about yourself" playbook, that's why it is the most viewed one. - You cannot succeed unless you try. ( This is misinterpreted by average joe as "if I believe/try enough I will succeed, if not I didn't try enough ) - If you are a failure, it is not your fault. ( This one is the basic blame the system playbook ) Examples of exceptional people chosen specifically, Sharespeare, The Dancer, etc. Everybody thinks they have some undiscovered talent, nobody wants to be the average. There will be some exceptional people, and with current schooling some exceptional talent will be lost, but it is much better than having less than average educated majority.

bambax 5y ago

I think the genius story is not only false, it is elitist and dangerous. What the joke says, in essence, is that a teacher's job is to identify the Shakespeares, and then prevent anyone from getting in their way. And what do we do with the non-Shakespeares? I guess we just dump them and move to another part of the world... Just like little Sarah, the girlfriend of the speaker's son he mentions at 8'15. > He [James, the speaker's son, who was 16 at the time] said 'I'll never find another girl like Sarah.' And we were rather pleased about that frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. Audience laughs and laughs at this. I don't care for that joke either. Yet the interesting part here is that, in some cases, it's apparently ok to intervene in your children's life -- as opposed to letting them do their thing and pursue their creativity. Isn't it possible however, that James and Sarah would have had a child who would have become another Mozart, or Einstein? We'll never know.

ImaCake 5y ago
> Isn't it possible however, that James and Sarah would have had a child who would have become another Mozart, or Einstein? At least genetically this is unlikely. Several hundred genetic variants explain a good fraction of intelligence and a random mixing of Sarah and James’ variants will include ones that increase and decrease intelligence. Getting a really good random mix of several hundred variants is unlikely. That is, intelligence regresses towards the mean.
- kergonath 5y ago
  That is a lot of pseudoscientific bullshit, if you don’t have the stats to prove it.
  - ImaCake 5y ago
    How is it bullshit? There is plenty of science to backup the claim that intelligence is heritable [0]. From there the rest of what I said is basic population genetics statistics. 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29335645/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29335645/

Sophistifunk 5y ago

I have literally no idea how you can think that's what they're trying to say. I believe you, I'm not saying it's BS, I just can't see the path to it. Somebody slightly-awkwardly making the point that (they believe) modern schooling is doing more harm than good to the development of children in no way implies the claim that children should not have teachers, or be taught, or that somehow shakespeare didn't need to learn lessons from people about english or life. These counterpoints to an idea that isn't present are the worst form of strawman.

cmiles74 5y ago

I think the whole point is erasure of the all the variables that might help make a person a success (education, parents, wealth, community, nutrition, etc.) The success a person has achieved is somehow an innate part of who the person is, these other variables merely distract or (in the case of Shakespeare's teachers) hold them back. If the world would get out of their way, these people would have been even more successful even earlier. How amazing would the world be if that was the case? An obvious corollary is that these successful people don't owe anyone anything: all of these variables don't really matter. I don't think that's mentioned in this talk, however.