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What do you propose? I read your comment as we shouldn't verify knowledge and just let doctors go yolo on their patients, which I assume isn't what you intended

What do you propose? I read your comment as we shouldn't verify knowledge and just let doctors go yolo on their patients, which I assume isn't what you intended.

carapace 4y ago
Not to be coy, my point is that education is one thing, and contests to see who gets the cherry positions in society are another, and when you combine them you get cheating. Which, of course, undermines the "verify knowledge" function of the tests in the first place, eh? In my domain (computer programming) I know enough and have enough experience that I can gauge the skill and knowledge of my peers (and they mine.) That is how I get jobs. I go in and talk to the other programmers, and I can demonstrate that I'm "the real deal". In re: "just [letting] doctors go yolo on their patients" I don't want to get into a long thing here, but I will mention that a strong argument could be made that the current system is not very good at getting positive outcomes. What I mean is, doctors and hospitals kill a lot of people. In other words, the existing systems to train and employ doctors are far from perfect. (Not to put too fine a point on it, the way to find good doctors is to ask other doctors whom they would let doctor them, ya feel me?) - - - - edit: I realized I didn't answer your question. What I propose is that we throw out the whole obviously-broken academic system. I propose that people go to colleges and schools to learn, at any age, at any time, and they don't get grades or degrees or anything. You get to be a doctor or architect or whatever by demonstrating to other people who know that you too know, rather than "earning" a proxy (degree or whatever) that can be faked. If human life were simple enough that it could be covered by a system of tests and grades we wouldn't have these huge brains on the ends of our spines, eh?
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  > You get to be a doctor or architect or whatever by demonstrating to other people who know that you too know That's just describing a test? A (verbal, written, practical) test is just a demonstration that you know X.
  - carapace 4y ago
    I didn't explain my meaning well enough, I apologize. I mean a scenario where the candidate for doctor (or whatever) talks to half a dozen or a dozen doctors who then say "yay" or "nay" and if all of them say "yay" they are a doctor but if any of them say "nay" then they are not (although this doesn't mean that they can never become doctors later, they just have to address the failings first that led to the reviewing doctors to decline to admit them to their ranks.) It's about humans communicating with other humans in a way that is extremely difficult to fake, as opposed to whatever testing system we're using now (that people cheat at) that produces (unreliable) proxies for actual domain knowledge. If you just want to learn tests are unnecessary. If you want to become a doctor the only distinction should be that other doctors must be willing to submit themselves to your care. (This might sound crazy, but the person who is the greatest healer I've ever met IRL is not a doctor and would be laughed at by most of them, yet he can effect miraculous cures of major diseases, among other things. His art is completely off the radar of modern medicine.)

What do you propose? I read your comment as we shouldn't verify knowledge and just let doctors go yolo on their patients, which I assume isn't what you intended.

carapace 4y ago

Not to be coy, my point is that education is one thing, and contests to see who gets the cherry positions in society are another, and when you combine them you get cheating. Which, of course, undermines the "verify knowledge" function of the tests in the first place, eh? In my domain (computer programming) I know enough and have enough experience that I can gauge the skill and knowledge of my peers (and they mine.) That is how I get jobs. I go in and talk to the other programmers, and I can demonstrate that I'm "the real deal". In re: "just [letting] doctors go yolo on their patients" I don't want to get into a long thing here, but I will mention that a strong argument could be made that the current system is not very good at getting positive outcomes. What I mean is, doctors and hospitals kill a lot of people. In other words, the existing systems to train and employ doctors are far from perfect. (Not to put too fine a point on it, the way to find good doctors is to ask other doctors whom they would let doctor them, ya feel me?) - - - - edit: I realized I didn't answer your question. What I propose is that we throw out the whole obviously-broken academic system. I propose that people go to colleges and schools to learn, at any age, at any time, and they don't get grades or degrees or anything. You get to be a doctor or architect or whatever by demonstrating to other people who know that you too know, rather than "earning" a proxy (degree or whatever) that can be faked. If human life were simple enough that it could be covered by a system of tests and grades we wouldn't have these huge brains on the ends of our spines, eh?

suddenclarity 4y ago
> You get to be a doctor or architect or whatever by demonstrating to other people who know that you too know That's just describing a test? A (verbal, written, practical) test is just a demonstration that you know X.
- carapace 4y ago
  I didn't explain my meaning well enough, I apologize. I mean a scenario where the candidate for doctor (or whatever) talks to half a dozen or a dozen doctors who then say "yay" or "nay" and if all of them say "yay" they are a doctor but if any of them say "nay" then they are not (although this doesn't mean that they can never become doctors later, they just have to address the failings first that led to the reviewing doctors to decline to admit them to their ranks.) It's about humans communicating with other humans in a way that is extremely difficult to fake, as opposed to whatever testing system we're using now (that people cheat at) that produces (unreliable) proxies for actual domain knowledge. If you just want to learn tests are unnecessary. If you want to become a doctor the only distinction should be that other doctors must be willing to submit themselves to your care. (This might sound crazy, but the person who is the greatest healer I've ever met IRL is not a doctor and would be laughed at by most of them, yet he can effect miraculous cures of major diseases, among other things. His art is completely off the radar of modern medicine.)