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This is an interesting post, but as a non-American it's hard to understand what's it's alluding to in some parts. The one criticism of NGSS I found from a quic

This is an interesting post, but as a non-American it's hard to understand what's it's alluding to in some parts. The one criticism of NGSS I found from a quick skim of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Science_Standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Science_Standa... is that it teaches evolution. What does "estimation" mean in the US?!

mncharity 10d ago
> What does "estimation" mean in the US?! "Estimation" as a skill in US education, primary school on, is pervasively about point estimates - single numbers. Bounding, a range of safe/reasonable/likely/possible numbers, is very rare. In Fermi questions/problems also. Even in such goodness as Sanjoy Mahajan's Art of Insight and Street-Fighting[1]... the only only "bound" mentioned is "Printed and bound in [USA]", and there is no "round".[2] In contrast, IIUC, China is pervasively about "Da Gu" and "Xiao Gu", "round up" and "round down". Point estimates are secondary. Lower and upper bounds are apparently even a cultural concept: an individual's degree vs capability/fate; policy equity vs excellence; economic targets. In education, my understanding is point estimates have much poorer conversational/collaborative dynamics than range estimates. Bounding lends itself to incremental collaboration. "Can anyone suggest another low or high bound?". Discussions around point estimates seem usually merely about the collection of individual estimates. > NGSS Ah, NGSS isn't bad particularly. I meant that discussion/mention of NGSS appears so very much in English training data, that AI chat on topics related to NGSS seem to draw regurgitations of NGSS. AI "slop" in the sense that "ignore NGSS, just reason from a superset of its underlying concepts"... isn't an LLM strength. > hard to understand Sorry - Thanks for asking! [1] open access: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5345/The-Art-of-Insight-in-Science-and https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5345/The-Art-of-In... https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5339/Street-FightingMathematicsThe-Art-of-Educated https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5339/Street-Fighti... [2] search "bound": https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Art_of_Insight_in_Science_and_Engine/xRgeBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%20bound https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Art_of_Insight_in_S... https://www.google.com/books/edition/Street_Fighting_Mathematics/VrkZN0T0GaUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=bound https://www.google.com/books/edition/Street_Fighting_Mathema...
- mncharity 9d ago
  ERRATA: Those google book links now do have hits for "bound" and "round". Also "range" and "interval". The searches really didn't before, thus the reference links. Perhaps the absence should have failed sanity check, but given that one hit... partial failure of Google Books search wasn't something I recall noting previously. Oops.
pixl97 10d ago
>is that it teaches evolution. Yes, and that brings in a shit load of slop to the problem space from the creationists. Like how the word life will have a strong correlation with death, the word animate, while it also means alive will have a much less strong correlation with death.

mncharity 10d ago

> What does "estimation" mean in the US?! "Estimation" as a skill in US education, primary school on, is pervasively about point estimates - single numbers. Bounding, a range of safe/reasonable/likely/possible numbers, is very rare. In Fermi questions/problems also. Even in such goodness as Sanjoy Mahajan's Art of Insight and Street-Fighting[1]... the only only "bound" mentioned is "Printed and bound in [USA]", and there is no "round".[2] In contrast, IIUC, China is pervasively about "Da Gu" and "Xiao Gu", "round up" and "round down". Point estimates are secondary. Lower and upper bounds are apparently even a cultural concept: an individual's degree vs capability/fate; policy equity vs excellence; economic targets. In education, my understanding is point estimates have much poorer conversational/collaborative dynamics than range estimates. Bounding lends itself to incremental collaboration. "Can anyone suggest another low or high bound?". Discussions around point estimates seem usually merely about the collection of individual estimates. > NGSS Ah, NGSS isn't bad particularly. I meant that discussion/mention of NGSS appears so very much in English training data, that AI chat on topics related to NGSS seem to draw regurgitations of NGSS. AI "slop" in the sense that "ignore NGSS, just reason from a superset of its underlying concepts"... isn't an LLM strength. > hard to understand Sorry - Thanks for asking! [1] open access: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5345/The-Art-of-Insight-in-Science-and https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5345/The-Art-of-In... https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5339/Street-FightingMathematicsThe-Art-of-Educated https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5339/Street-Fighti... [2] search "bound": https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Art_of_Insight_in_Science_and_Engine/xRgeBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%20bound https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Art_of_Insight_in_S... https://www.google.com/books/edition/Street_Fighting_Mathematics/VrkZN0T0GaUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=bound https://www.google.com/books/edition/Street_Fighting_Mathema...

mncharity 9d ago
ERRATA: Those google book links now do have hits for "bound" and "round". Also "range" and "interval". The searches really didn't before, thus the reference links. Perhaps the absence should have failed sanity check, but given that one hit... partial failure of Google Books search wasn't something I recall noting previously. Oops.

pixl97 10d ago

>is that it teaches evolution. Yes, and that brings in a shit load of slop to the problem space from the creationists. Like how the word life will have a strong correlation with death, the word animate, while it also means alive will have a much less strong correlation with death.