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Hm. So would you be okay with admitting someone who had grown up with less money and scored less high on math tests because he hadn't had access to the best tea

Hm. So would you be okay with admitting someone who had grown up with less money and scored less high on math tests because he hadn't had access to the best teachers?

dudul 11y ago
The end result is that he is not as good as someone who had money and good teacher. The author can try to rationalize the fact that she is the female token all she wants. The fact is 'potential' is worthless, what matters is realization.
- diamondcutter 11y ago
  I doubt you really believe that. Eg, if I told you for sure that the kid with the good teacher was going to be less good than the kid with a bad teacher a year from now, surely you would choose the kid with the bad teacher. In the same way that you would choose the star athlete with an injured leg because he would be excellent once he had healed.
  - drelnisj 11y ago
    How would you judge that, though? And how much 'potential' is actually realised by the place you go to - faculty and facilities influence outcome (access to supercomputers, for example) and maybe the only thing distinguishing a good student from stanford and someone from maryland is the bias in faculty: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005. In that case, most potential candidates are virtually similar, and some sort of affirmative action is required to balance out the gender pool.
rewqfdsa 11y ago
Yes. You can't distinguish that case from a lack of innate ability, and history is full of examples of poor people doing well in academia and elevating themselves. Standardized testing, not affirmative action, is the great equalizer.
- diamondcutter 11y ago
  Standardized testing is hugely influenced by unfair factors. Like the fact that if I'm rich, I can pay for my kids to get better tutoring which boosts scores by hundreds of points. Or the fact that stereotype threat may keep minorities from doing well on tests. Or that tests can be culturally biased against people from certain backgrounds.
  - rewqfdsa 11y ago
    I don't care. Our goal should not be to equalize rewards to effort, but match talent to opportunity. It doesn't matter where that talent comes from. Trying to account for these "unfair factors" is itself hugely unfair, creates perverse outcomes, and in the end, reinforces our biases instead of eradicate them. Even if you begin these measures with the best intentions, they decay to favoritism and resentment. Fair testing has legitimacy. Your ad-hoc patches do not.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    So instead of giving these positions to the people most qualified and capable of making the most out of them based on the metrics we have chosen to measure success. We should give them to people because of their upbringing or gonads? Regardless if they are the most qualified person to fill that position? So the student (let's call them Sally) was afforded a better education, and using their superior knowledge are more qualified for a position. So Sally should be told "Sorry, this spot is being given to Sam because they are an ethnic minority."? Remind me how that is fair for Sally and not benevolent racism towards Sam?
- IvyMike 11y ago
  When I went to college, I knew some kids who had trained their whole life to be test-taking machines. These kids got great grades in school. They sat in the front row. "Is this going to be on the test?" was their favorite thing to say. They did exactly what was asked of them, and they did it well, although a lot of the time, that's all they did. On the other hand, there were other kids who worked on VR rigs in their spare time, designed solar cars, helped launch linux distros, created early ISPs, and invented NCSA Mosaic. On the whole, these kids probably didn't get as good of grades as the kids in the first group. A world of pure standardized testing would have selected more from the first group and less from the second. I think this would have been a shame.

Hm. So would you be okay with admitting someone who had grown up with less money and scored less high on math tests because he hadn't had access to the best teachers?

dudul 11y ago

The end result is that he is not as good as someone who had money and good teacher. The author can try to rationalize the fact that she is the female token all she wants. The fact is 'potential' is worthless, what matters is realization.

diamondcutter 11y ago
I doubt you really believe that. Eg, if I told you for sure that the kid with the good teacher was going to be less good than the kid with a bad teacher a year from now, surely you would choose the kid with the bad teacher. In the same way that you would choose the star athlete with an injured leg because he would be excellent once he had healed.
- drelnisj 11y ago
  How would you judge that, though? And how much 'potential' is actually realised by the place you go to - faculty and facilities influence outcome (access to supercomputers, for example) and maybe the only thing distinguishing a good student from stanford and someone from maryland is the bias in faculty: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005. In that case, most potential candidates are virtually similar, and some sort of affirmative action is required to balance out the gender pool.

rewqfdsa 11y ago

Yes. You can't distinguish that case from a lack of innate ability, and history is full of examples of poor people doing well in academia and elevating themselves. Standardized testing, not affirmative action, is the great equalizer.

diamondcutter 11y ago
Standardized testing is hugely influenced by unfair factors. Like the fact that if I'm rich, I can pay for my kids to get better tutoring which boosts scores by hundreds of points. Or the fact that stereotype threat may keep minorities from doing well on tests. Or that tests can be culturally biased against people from certain backgrounds.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  I don't care. Our goal should not be to equalize rewards to effort, but match talent to opportunity. It doesn't matter where that talent comes from. Trying to account for these "unfair factors" is itself hugely unfair, creates perverse outcomes, and in the end, reinforces our biases instead of eradicate them. Even if you begin these measures with the best intentions, they decay to favoritism and resentment. Fair testing has legitimacy. Your ad-hoc patches do not.
- Nadya 11y ago
  So instead of giving these positions to the people most qualified and capable of making the most out of them based on the metrics we have chosen to measure success. We should give them to people because of their upbringing or gonads? Regardless if they are the most qualified person to fill that position? So the student (let's call them Sally) was afforded a better education, and using their superior knowledge are more qualified for a position. So Sally should be told "Sorry, this spot is being given to Sam because they are an ethnic minority."? Remind me how that is fair for Sally and not benevolent racism towards Sam?
IvyMike 11y ago
When I went to college, I knew some kids who had trained their whole life to be test-taking machines. These kids got great grades in school. They sat in the front row. "Is this going to be on the test?" was their favorite thing to say. They did exactly what was asked of them, and they did it well, although a lot of the time, that's all they did. On the other hand, there were other kids who worked on VR rigs in their spare time, designed solar cars, helped launch linux distros, created early ISPs, and invented NCSA Mosaic. On the whole, these kids probably didn't get as good of grades as the kids in the first group. A world of pure standardized testing would have selected more from the first group and less from the second. I think this would have been a shame.