4 ms·

i hate when people quote random celebrities as authoritative on any topic, let alone as a counterpoint to actual authorities (google the authors of this study).

i hate when people quote random celebrities as authoritative on any topic, let alone as a counterpoint to actual authorities (google the authors of this study). Edit: hn is just as anti-intellectual as any other place these days but y'all style yourselves as intelligentsia because your celebrities are special. I'll repeat: check out the qualifications of the authors of this study and compare them to Feynman's on this subject. Any reasonable person would conclude that comparing them is exactly like comparing Kim Kardashian and Feynman's on QED.

gjstein 2y ago
Feynman is no random celebrity. In addition to be a renowned physicist, his famous "Feynman Lectures" and his thoughts on pedagogy are similarly legendary.
- BeetleB 2y ago
  The Feynman Lectures are great at giving you an intuitive understanding, but is no substitute for the regular curriculum. You don't find many people who read only the Feynman Lectures who can then go on to solve physics problems well. You do find many who read the regular textbooks and who can.
  - codelieb 2y ago
    You have to bear in mind that the lectures in The Feynman Lectures on Physics were only one third of an introductory physics course, the other parts being recitation sections (in which homework problems, quizzes and tests were given and discussed), and labs. Lecture attendance was optional - many people prefer reading to listening - but the recitation sections and labs were mandatory, because they were considered much more important. Nobody learns physics from just reading lectures.
wizzwizz4 2y ago
In this case, Richard Feynman is just writing about his personal experiences of a well-known phenomenon. https://profkeithdevlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/lockhartslament.pdf https://profkeithdevlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/lockh... ("Lockhart's Lament") would perhaps be a better reference, but nearly anyone who's been through the education system would be able to tell you this.
- almostgotcaught 2y ago
  > Richard Feynman is just writing about his personal experiences Let's see 1. The personal experiences of a guy with no formal training in pedagogy or education 2. A research paper in nature written by expert education economists Hmmmmmmmm
  - erikerikson 2y ago
    I wanted to upvote your other comment because it caught a detail of "how much" that may have slipped past the other commenter's or other reader's minds but... 0. The Kardashians The distance between 0 and 1 is vast compared to the distance between 1 and 2. Feynman was a professor and also beloved for his ability to bridge across the academic to pragmatic divide that is the subject of this paper.
    - almostgotcaught 2y ago
      What is the relevance of this point? No one has linked a Kardashian's take on anything? So who cares if the distance between 0 and 1 is larger than the distance between 1 and 2 - we are only discussing the distance between 1 and 2.
      - erikerikson 2y ago
        The original comment you responded to made no comparative claims. It simply offered another person's attempt to describe. Feynman is fairly famous but nonetheless an authoritative source relative to most of the population (probably more so than both of us, though I don't know you do have little basis beyond priors [sorry if you have greater credibility than Feynman, I didn't know]). Feynman is less authoritative on the subject than the authors of the article but still... Being well known doesn't remove the authority level that Feynman does have on the topic. I should, perhaps, have used: 0. Average person
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Richard Feynman is famous for being an educator, and he's clearly quite good at it. Who cares if he has no formal training? I reckon he deserves at least a 1.2 on this scale.
deadbabe 2y ago
You delievered this comment as if he had just quoted kim kardashian.
- throwway120385 2y ago
  More to the point, if Kim Kardashian delivered an essay with similar arguments I don't think we should care that it was written by a Kardashian.
PaulRobinson 2y ago
Did you just call Richard Feynman a "random celebrity", who isn't authoritative on the subject of science? Hint: I might need to google the authors of the study, I don't need to google Richard Feynman...
- almostgotcaught 2y ago
  > don't need to google Richard Feynman... My friend that is the textbook definition of celebrity status.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    "Celebrity" in colloquial use implies someone "famous for being famous", like Kim Kardashian. To use such word with regard to one of the most talented and innovative physicists of the 20th century debases the entire conversation.
    - almostgotcaught 2y ago
      > debases the entire conversation. If my eyes rolled back any further in my head I could look into the past. But you've proven your own point: you know him because he's known but because you're actually familiar with his work. So again: textbook celebrity worship masquerading as intellectualism.
      - inglor_cz 2y ago
        "you know him because he's known but because you're actually familiar with his work" I cannot parse your statement, either there are some missing words, or some problem with your English. Anyway, from my previous comment, you couldn't have any idea about how I got to know Feynman and his work. I haven't mentioned it at all. FYI, I got acquainted with his work in 1996 when I enrolled into the university. I was studying maths, my dormitory roommate was studying theoretical physics, and he had several Feynman's books that were very interesting to me, though I must admit that sometimes the underlying apparatus was really complicated for an 18 y.o. greenhorn. But the principles were clear enough.
dambi0 2y ago
Regardless of the people involved, being asked to consider someone’s opinion on a matter is a world apart from claiming they are an authority on the topic.
timerol 2y ago
My parent comment is especially jarring because Feynman's findings agree with, and propose a mechanism for, the findings of the study. The comment seems to imply that there's some great tension between "arithmetic skills do not transfer between applied and academic mathematics" and "the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant". Or between "These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal maths" and the less academically worded "There, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven’t told anything about nature." Nobody's quoting Feynman "as a counterpoint to actual authorities". Feynman's excerpt provides first-hand testimony from a teacher on the front lines that fully validates what the study found.
yesfitz 2y ago
It's not a counterpoint. The Feynman excerpt and the paper support each other. The paper's abstract ends, "These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal maths." The Feynman excerpt is about the issues caused by a lack of practica in education and how they should be resolved. The paper's authors wrote, "These findings call for a maths pedagogy that explicitly addresses these translational challenges through curricula that connect abstract maths symbols and concepts to intuitively meaningful contexts and problems." And provide 2 examples of Randomized Control Trials of math courses in Brazil and India respectively that address the challenges successfully. Even if you remove Feynman's name, it's still interesting that a Theoretical Physics professor and educator wrote clearly about a very similar issue they encountered over 60 years before the paper in question was published.

gjstein 2y ago

Feynman is no random celebrity. In addition to be a renowned physicist, his famous "Feynman Lectures" and his thoughts on pedagogy are similarly legendary.

BeetleB 2y ago
The Feynman Lectures are great at giving you an intuitive understanding, but is no substitute for the regular curriculum. You don't find many people who read only the Feynman Lectures who can then go on to solve physics problems well. You do find many who read the regular textbooks and who can.
- codelieb 2y ago
  You have to bear in mind that the lectures in The Feynman Lectures on Physics were only one third of an introductory physics course, the other parts being recitation sections (in which homework problems, quizzes and tests were given and discussed), and labs. Lecture attendance was optional - many people prefer reading to listening - but the recitation sections and labs were mandatory, because they were considered much more important. Nobody learns physics from just reading lectures.

wizzwizz4 2y ago

In this case, Richard Feynman is just writing about his personal experiences of a well-known phenomenon. https://profkeithdevlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/lockhartslament.pdf https://profkeithdevlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/lockh... ("Lockhart's Lament") would perhaps be a better reference, but nearly anyone who's been through the education system would be able to tell you this.

almostgotcaught 2y ago
> Richard Feynman is just writing about his personal experiences Let's see 1. The personal experiences of a guy with no formal training in pedagogy or education 2. A research paper in nature written by expert education economists Hmmmmmmmm
- erikerikson 2y ago
  I wanted to upvote your other comment because it caught a detail of "how much" that may have slipped past the other commenter's or other reader's minds but... 0. The Kardashians The distance between 0 and 1 is vast compared to the distance between 1 and 2. Feynman was a professor and also beloved for his ability to bridge across the academic to pragmatic divide that is the subject of this paper.
  - almostgotcaught 2y ago
    What is the relevance of this point? No one has linked a Kardashian's take on anything? So who cares if the distance between 0 and 1 is larger than the distance between 1 and 2 - we are only discussing the distance between 1 and 2.
    - erikerikson 2y ago
      The original comment you responded to made no comparative claims. It simply offered another person's attempt to describe. Feynman is fairly famous but nonetheless an authoritative source relative to most of the population (probably more so than both of us, though I don't know you do have little basis beyond priors [sorry if you have greater credibility than Feynman, I didn't know]). Feynman is less authoritative on the subject than the authors of the article but still... Being well known doesn't remove the authority level that Feynman does have on the topic. I should, perhaps, have used: 0. Average person
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Richard Feynman is famous for being an educator, and he's clearly quite good at it. Who cares if he has no formal training? I reckon he deserves at least a 1.2 on this scale.

deadbabe 2y ago

You delievered this comment as if he had just quoted kim kardashian.

throwway120385 2y ago
More to the point, if Kim Kardashian delivered an essay with similar arguments I don't think we should care that it was written by a Kardashian.

PaulRobinson 2y ago

Did you just call Richard Feynman a "random celebrity", who isn't authoritative on the subject of science? Hint: I might need to google the authors of the study, I don't need to google Richard Feynman...

almostgotcaught 2y ago
> don't need to google Richard Feynman... My friend that is the textbook definition of celebrity status.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  "Celebrity" in colloquial use implies someone "famous for being famous", like Kim Kardashian. To use such word with regard to one of the most talented and innovative physicists of the 20th century debases the entire conversation.
  - almostgotcaught 2y ago
    > debases the entire conversation. If my eyes rolled back any further in my head I could look into the past. But you've proven your own point: you know him because he's known but because you're actually familiar with his work. So again: textbook celebrity worship masquerading as intellectualism.
    - inglor_cz 2y ago
      "you know him because he's known but because you're actually familiar with his work" I cannot parse your statement, either there are some missing words, or some problem with your English. Anyway, from my previous comment, you couldn't have any idea about how I got to know Feynman and his work. I haven't mentioned it at all. FYI, I got acquainted with his work in 1996 when I enrolled into the university. I was studying maths, my dormitory roommate was studying theoretical physics, and he had several Feynman's books that were very interesting to me, though I must admit that sometimes the underlying apparatus was really complicated for an 18 y.o. greenhorn. But the principles were clear enough.

dambi0 2y ago

Regardless of the people involved, being asked to consider someone’s opinion on a matter is a world apart from claiming they are an authority on the topic.

timerol 2y ago

My parent comment is especially jarring because Feynman's findings agree with, and propose a mechanism for, the findings of the study. The comment seems to imply that there's some great tension between "arithmetic skills do not transfer between applied and academic mathematics" and "the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant". Or between "These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal maths" and the less academically worded "There, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven’t told anything about nature." Nobody's quoting Feynman "as a counterpoint to actual authorities". Feynman's excerpt provides first-hand testimony from a teacher on the front lines that fully validates what the study found.

yesfitz 2y ago

It's not a counterpoint. The Feynman excerpt and the paper support each other. The paper's abstract ends, "These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal maths." The Feynman excerpt is about the issues caused by a lack of practica in education and how they should be resolved. The paper's authors wrote, "These findings call for a maths pedagogy that explicitly addresses these translational challenges through curricula that connect abstract maths symbols and concepts to intuitively meaningful contexts and problems." And provide 2 examples of Randomized Control Trials of math courses in Brazil and India respectively that address the challenges successfully. Even if you remove Feynman's name, it's still interesting that a Theoretical Physics professor and educator wrote clearly about a very similar issue they encountered over 60 years before the paper in question was published.