4 ms·

I had forgotten about the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, great reminder, thank you. Humans are adaptive learners, shaped by both individual experience and cultu

by drcwpl 2y ago

I had forgotten about the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, great reminder, thank you. Humans are adaptive learners, shaped by both individual experience and cultural memory. The rise of anti-vax sentiments might be better explained by psychological and sociological factors. Like mistrust of institutions, the amplification of fringe views via social media, or the cognitive biases that prioritize visible risks over abstract ones.

stevenAthompson 2y ago
Those sociological factors aren't complex, and don't require an explanation of any real depth. The entire problem is this: Fifty four percent of Americans read below the 6th grade level, which means that the simple majority of Americans don't understand the world they live in and never will.
- drcwpl 2y ago
  That is a terrifying statistic "Fifty four percent of Americans read below the 6th grade level" ... just found the research.
- pksebben 2y ago
  I'd agree with this, but it's missing something; why is this the case? From what I know, it's a lot tougher to tease out the cause of this malfunction in our society. Do we have an undereducated populace because of poverty? Lack of school funding? (if so, why do we underfund schools? is it because we don't have the money? greed? is there a concerted effort to suppress an educated populace for political reasons?) Is there a cultural reticence built into us that resists scientific thought? My kneejerk analysis boils down to "it's the economy, stupid" and that a substantial portion of our population lives below the poverty line (which itself isn't defined particularly well and probably misses a bunch of folks who ought to qualify for 'living under distressed economic conditions'). It's tough to care about education when you struggle to keep a roof overhead.
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    It's the old dream of the information era. We were going to cure all of the worlds ills by fixing the problem of unequal access to information. Surely people would all perform equally, when given equal opportunity? Not only didn't it work, it made the world a far worse place. I think Occam's razor tells us why: Forty nine percent of people will always be of below average intelligence. Average intelligence currently seems to mean understanding the world at the 6th grade level. Maybe we can raise that to the 7th grade level with a concentrated effort, but that will also raise the performance of the top fifty percent. There will always be a bottom half and they will always struggle to understand the world the top half build.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > Forty nine percent of people will always be of below average intelligence.... > There will always be a bottom half and they will always struggle to understand the world the top half build. Before you spend too much time patting yourself on the back for being so superior, it's important to keep in mind that "intelligence" isn't all it's cracked up to be. "Intelligent" people do a lot of stupid shit, not listen, get deceived, and deceive themselves, etc. Hell, I've even heard "intelligence" describe as effectively a superior ability for post-hoc rationalization. When you find yourself trying to understand the world by dividing it into dumbasses and "smart people like me," you should stop and remember to count yourself with the idiots.
      - stevenAthompson 2y ago
        > Before you spend too much time patting yourself on the back for being so superior... dividing it into dumbasses and "smart people like me," I didn't say anything like that, or even adjacent to it. I didn't imply any judgement at all, other than to acknowledge that we're not all born the same. That said, tall people will always be better at basketball on average than short people. Raising the average height doesn't really change that, and trying to pretend that if everyone were provided with the same opportunities they would achieve the same outcomes in basketball, or in intellectual pursuits, is dishonest and actively harmful to those born at a disadvantage.
- HarryHirsch 2y ago
  That's one side. The other side looks like this: https://spelmanblueprint.com/810/opinions/professors-bitter-op-ed-shows-issue-in-hiring-white-faculty-at-hbcus/ https://spelmanblueprint.com/810/opinions/professors-bitter-... The background is a new faculty member actually teaching at university level. We know that proofs and reading are required. They do not.
  - tristor 2y ago
    > We know that proofs and reading are required. They do not. In the context of you saying this after sharing a link to an article around difficulties at HBCUs, I'm trying to find some charitable way to interpret your statements as something other than horrendously racist. Can you please expound on this, or am I taking this correctly?
    - HarryHirsch 2y ago
      You do notice that it is the HBCU student who drags race in ("white male professor teaching at an all women’s HBCU"). Math education in large tracts of the country is not good, more so in areas plagued by rural and urban poverty, but that's no excuse to continue in the same way at college. It's sadly common that incoming students have no clue what a proof is and that mathematics isn't plugging numbers into formulas, but there's no excuse continuing that at college level, especially when it's an elite college. But the kid who wrote the article disagrees, she demands spoonfeeding. Give me my economics degree, but it mustn't have math in it!

by drcwpl 2y ago

stevenAthompson 2y ago

Those sociological factors aren't complex, and don't require an explanation of any real depth. The entire problem is this: Fifty four percent of Americans read below the 6th grade level, which means that the simple majority of Americans don't understand the world they live in and never will.

drcwpl 2y ago
That is a terrifying statistic "Fifty four percent of Americans read below the 6th grade level" ... just found the research.
pksebben 2y ago
I'd agree with this, but it's missing something; why is this the case? From what I know, it's a lot tougher to tease out the cause of this malfunction in our society. Do we have an undereducated populace because of poverty? Lack of school funding? (if so, why do we underfund schools? is it because we don't have the money? greed? is there a concerted effort to suppress an educated populace for political reasons?) Is there a cultural reticence built into us that resists scientific thought? My kneejerk analysis boils down to "it's the economy, stupid" and that a substantial portion of our population lives below the poverty line (which itself isn't defined particularly well and probably misses a bunch of folks who ought to qualify for 'living under distressed economic conditions'). It's tough to care about education when you struggle to keep a roof overhead.
- stevenAthompson 2y ago
  It's the old dream of the information era. We were going to cure all of the worlds ills by fixing the problem of unequal access to information. Surely people would all perform equally, when given equal opportunity? Not only didn't it work, it made the world a far worse place. I think Occam's razor tells us why: Forty nine percent of people will always be of below average intelligence. Average intelligence currently seems to mean understanding the world at the 6th grade level. Maybe we can raise that to the 7th grade level with a concentrated effort, but that will also raise the performance of the top fifty percent. There will always be a bottom half and they will always struggle to understand the world the top half build.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > Forty nine percent of people will always be of below average intelligence.... > There will always be a bottom half and they will always struggle to understand the world the top half build. Before you spend too much time patting yourself on the back for being so superior, it's important to keep in mind that "intelligence" isn't all it's cracked up to be. "Intelligent" people do a lot of stupid shit, not listen, get deceived, and deceive themselves, etc. Hell, I've even heard "intelligence" describe as effectively a superior ability for post-hoc rationalization. When you find yourself trying to understand the world by dividing it into dumbasses and "smart people like me," you should stop and remember to count yourself with the idiots.
    - stevenAthompson 2y ago
      > Before you spend too much time patting yourself on the back for being so superior... dividing it into dumbasses and "smart people like me," I didn't say anything like that, or even adjacent to it. I didn't imply any judgement at all, other than to acknowledge that we're not all born the same. That said, tall people will always be better at basketball on average than short people. Raising the average height doesn't really change that, and trying to pretend that if everyone were provided with the same opportunities they would achieve the same outcomes in basketball, or in intellectual pursuits, is dishonest and actively harmful to those born at a disadvantage.
HarryHirsch 2y ago
That's one side. The other side looks like this: https://spelmanblueprint.com/810/opinions/professors-bitter-op-ed-shows-issue-in-hiring-white-faculty-at-hbcus/ https://spelmanblueprint.com/810/opinions/professors-bitter-... The background is a new faculty member actually teaching at university level. We know that proofs and reading are required. They do not.
- tristor 2y ago
  > We know that proofs and reading are required. They do not. In the context of you saying this after sharing a link to an article around difficulties at HBCUs, I'm trying to find some charitable way to interpret your statements as something other than horrendously racist. Can you please expound on this, or am I taking this correctly?
  - HarryHirsch 2y ago
    You do notice that it is the HBCU student who drags race in ("white male professor teaching at an all women’s HBCU"). Math education in large tracts of the country is not good, more so in areas plagued by rural and urban poverty, but that's no excuse to continue in the same way at college. It's sadly common that incoming students have no clue what a proof is and that mathematics isn't plugging numbers into formulas, but there's no excuse continuing that at college level, especially when it's an elite college. But the kid who wrote the article disagrees, she demands spoonfeeding. Give me my economics degree, but it mustn't have math in it!