4 ms·
The idea that you can reduce an entire institution to a single number that is at all meaningful is pretty silly. I would hate to think that anyone uses these ra
by neilc 14y ago
The idea that you can reduce an entire institution to a single number that is at all meaningful is pretty silly. I would hate to think that anyone uses these rankings for anything more important than idle bragging.
- gosub 14y agoIt may be silly, but if you wanna really know something, you have to measure it. Maybe the methodology is wrong, or maybe a true ranking should be multidimensional, but you have to start somewhere. Every endeavour in this direction must not be shut down, but encouraged, analyzed and constructively criticized.
- weego 14y agoThat just sounds like a karma farming middle-of-the-road comment that no one actually believes because it's so obviously flawed. What if you want to measure something obviously incapable of being boiled down to a single figure yet you do it anyway, in which case it's OK to create a valueless arbitrary scale and call it fact even though it's clearly balanced in favour of reflecting what you hoped it would? That isn't a valuable endeavour and to analyze and encourage it is just validating absurdity.
- MikeAmelung 14y agoNo kidding. What was Socrates, Galileo or Kant's IQ? The hilarious part is that you can find IQ scores attributed to these people, despite the fact that they were smart long before the idea of a supposed measure of intelligence. Ranking universities is stupid.