Quick Roundup 95
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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I have deleted Rational Animal from my blogroll at the blogger's request after learning that he has put blogging on hold indefinitely and has deleted his blog as well as its predecessor, A New Intellectual.
If nothing else, the man had a flair for naming blogs!
Also, I have added a relatively new blog, Objectively Speaking. In perusing it, I was reminded of a site I haven't visited in quite a while, Quent Cordair Fine Art. It seems they have a mailing list, too.
There are a few other links which have changed or are otherwise defunct. These I plan to address when I make my next template edit some time in the next week or so. Blogger makes such edits unnecessarily painful, so I try to avoid doing them too often.
Pluto: "Reeducating" the Young
The recent clarification of what constitutes a planet, most famous for "demoting" Pluto, has been a near-disaster in many ways, and this is not childhood nostalgia speaking.
For one thing, some astronomers take issue with the "clearing the neighborhood criterion", which seemed a bit vague to this layman -- not that I think Pluto is a planet. (The asteroid Ceres was considered a planet for a comparable length of time until numerous other asteroids were discovered, if I remember correctly.)
For another, the unavoidable confusion caused by elementary school curriculum changes is causing some teachers to discuss, prematurely and, I strongly suspect, ineffectively, the way science is done. For example, one third grade teacher wants to use her now-obsolete solar system model to teach "how models are reconstructed and change."
But this blatant anthropomorphization of Pluto coupled with political indoctrination takes the cake:
Last month's news that Pluto was being demoted to a lower-class dwarf planet in the solar system spurred the young ones at that private elementary school on Houston's west side to take matters into their own hands and start a schoolwide petition to save it.Great. Let's teach children in science class that truth is a matter of majority vote and that feelings should guide each voter. And that's far worse than the obvious left-wing political lesson they're being taught, which they could later correct if their minds weren't being undercut now.
"All of a sudden, these scientists have kicked out the little guy," said Jana Shockley, whose pupils initiated the petition. "And these are first-graders; they're the little guys.
"They asked 'What can we do to help Pluto out?' " Shockley said. "Just because it's small doesn't mean it's not important."
For What It's Worth
Rick Perry is expected to be reelected governor of Texas unless he dips below the 35% approval level. Naturally, this number is just low enough to keep all three cranks -- four if you count Libertarian James Werner, whose support is negligible even in these circumstances -- in the race until the bitter end.
-- CAV
15 comments:
Thanks for the link to http:/objectivelyspeaking.thinkertothinker.com/ on your blogroll! I'm excited! I think it's my first! I'm sure you noted the reciprical link @ ObjectivelySpeaking.
I don't think I've done it yet, but I'll check to be sure I've also notched you into my feeds @ Bloglines Feed Reader http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs.
I see your work linked to quite often and read you whenever I find one.
I'll try and be as interesting as I am interested and add one more, needed, rational voice to the fray and live up to the link. I consider it an honor.
Keep the good stuff flowing.
-Dan
Dan,
You're quite welcome. I hope you come to enjoy blogging as much as I do.
Gus
Today, I learnt that our son's class is writing to NASA, asking them to keep Pluto as a planet! Sigh!!
I haven't decided whether it warrants a note to his teacher, but it was a chance to discuss the concept of "fairness". I explained how fairness does not mean equality. Here's a summary:
If one kid does his homework and another does not, should they both be scolded equally? Would that be fair? No; because when we speakm of fairness, we talking about giving people what they deserve.
Now, if two kids don't do their homework, and the teacher only scolds one, that might be unfair if they both deserve it. So, to see whether something is fair, we have to figure out whether the people deserve what they're getting. Pluto isn't a person, it can't deserve or not deserve something.
etc. etc.
The two approaches taken by the two different teachers mentioned in your post -- "not fair, stick to the convention" vs. "everything changes" -- seem to reflect the intrisic and subjective approaches to knowledge.
I guess a place like the Van Damme Academy could have used this as a way to teach about the objectivity of knowledge, even if not is so many words.
SN,
Excellent points.
Even if an elementary school teacher felt ill-equipped to explain exactly why it was acceptable to change the definition of "planet", he could still say something like, "This is science and it is important when studying something -- like a planet -- that everyone agrees on what it is." The example of Ceres could then be brought in to show how what was once thought to be a planet was actually the first (or one of the first) of a whole new class of objects -- still a discovery, but one of an entirely different and exciting kind.
But still, acting like Pluto is a person (and a persecuted "little" person at that?) is absurd, on top of teaching kids that the way to get things done is by mob whine -- er, vote.
Stuff like this makes me a little nervous about the prosect of raising kids.
Guslbm
Finally, only three kids in the class wrote the letter. Nothing to do with the philosophy of science (lol), but they were the three who're generally enthusiatic about stuff. Embarrassingly (?) our little blighter is one of the three! He even considered sending them a lock of his hair ... don't ask me why... ....a pal of his thought it would be fun! Now, he's hoping NASA replies with a brochure containing photos of rockets!!
SN,
Better it to be a scam than anything else! That's more "normal" territory.
Also, that makes me a little less apprehensive about my wife's familial aspirations!
Gus
I am constistantly shocked at the uneducated rants of the educated. I teach 1st grade, I teach complex concepts on a level that is both appropiate and understandable to my audience, so when I happened upon your blog I was surprised. I will try to educate you on our Pluto campaign. The children were give a lesson on democracy and not science. The IAU which is comprised of over 2000 scientific members who met in Europe last August. Less than a majority attended and voted to demote the ninth planet. We decided to vote as well, a vote of popular opinion. Our tiny class of 14 stated their case for Pluto and we secured a majority agreement from fellow classmates. A great lesson on democracy and appropriate avenues for debate. I hope you now understand that this campaign was about processes and not just planets. We also teach five oceans in our class, and last year the class voted to include UB313 in our planetary line-up. Teaching children that it is acceptable to question and debate is a good thing.
Dear Ms. Shockley:
The anthropomorphism in what the paper quoted you saying (Pluto is an inanimate object, not a "little guy" to whom school children really can or really should relate.) and your immediate ratcheting up to emotionalism ("uneducated rants") upon encountering my comment indicates to me that perhaps I was even more on the mark than I suspected.
The appropriate time to teach about government -- and thank God, so to speak, we do not live in a "democracy" -- is civics class. Likewise, the time to teach science is in science class. A scientific congress is not a government and the government has no business attempting to dictate scientific consensus. You have not only confounded two disciplines (science and civics), but you have failed to teach a good lesson in either.
Science -- and I mean the process of finding evidence and logically evaluating it -- is supposed to teach us about the universe; the consistency of the concepts (e.g., "planet") we form with reality is a fact not subject to majority vote. Government is the only social institution that can legally wield force. Studying this institution should make people aware that it is a blunt instrument suited and properly used ONLY to protect citizens from having their individual rights violated.
The scientific congress that "demoted" Pluto was not, furthermore, composed of elementary school students or even their teachers, but of scientists. Just to vote on this matter (and any review of scientific history would show that scientific debate really isn't settled by a quick vote anyway) required something you should educate your students about or better yet, help them become better able to earn: qualifications.
Thank you for commenting here.
Regards,
Gus Van Horn
You might want to take a look at this
http://mrkimm.blogspot.com/2007/07/response-to-pluto-democracy-and-science.html
Regards,
Kim Lindgren
Regarding the essence of Kim Lingren's reply to my post: All he did was quote Jana Shockley's reply to me like it's the final word, ignore my reply to it, and dismiss what I said as "conservative propaganda".
In addition, he ignored what Mr. Provenzo noted about me: that I am a scientist. Perhaps, then, I am even better aware than an elementary school teacher that scientists sometimes hold congresses and vote on matters of definition.
As I also already said, Ms. Shockley taught both science and politics poorly. Teach kids the basics of science first. Teach them civics. Later on, introduce them to controversy when they have the foundation to deal with it. Ceres was also "demoted" once. That scientists change their minds from time to time is really all that needed to be said to these children.
This reply is really for the sake of anyone with an active mind who might happen to encounter this post through Kim's blog. My blog posting and Mr. Provenzo's are well worth reading, contrary to Kim's misrepresentation and snide appraisal. See (and think about) them for yourselves.
Read Lindgren's post if you wish. but know that he emailed me to make sure I knew about it and stated in opening that, "[I]t wouldn't do much good if the person I'm directing this to could not read it."
He then selectively ignores parts of both articles and insults me at the end, by patronizing me, "I hope you now understand that this campaign was about processes and not just planets," stereotyping me as narrow-minded and conservative, and insinuating that I am a liar by calling what I said "propaganda".
I just want to make something clear here, the only thing that that cought my eye and
compeled me to write a reply to it, was the word "fact", which I thought I explained by writing
"It is not a fact, it is the result of standardization, in exactly the same way as that between 1930 and 2006 the "fact" was that Pluto was a planet."
It is entierly possible that Ms. Shockley gave these children this lesson to early, whithout first giving her students some
solid ground to stand on and that she gave it in a bad way, but the idea in itself was not bad (but premature).
"He then selectively ignores parts of both articles"
Well yes, copying the entire article into my blog would have used up a bit to much space and I was not concerned with the whole thing. Thus I quoted
the areas that where of any importance to my post and that I belived gave a fairly good sumary.
The part about "conservative propaganda" was a direct responce to this quote: "And that's far worse than the obvious left-wing political lesson they're being taught"
Reading this last comment makes me feel like I better understand what you REALLY ment by your first post and it makes us not so different. But when I first read it, my impression was
that what scientist say is fact.
What a moron. Apparently Lindgren draws no material distinction between the vote of a scholarly body of experts meeting to determine rational categories for their field and the vote of a bunch of first graders "sticking up" for the so-called rights of an anthropomorphized minor planet.
And I love that Lindgren considers us to be "conservative propagandists" for sticking up for rational categories. Of course he's wrong, but in more ways than one. If we were really conservative propagandists, we would have to argue that the basis for determining Pluto's status should be drawn from tradition and the pages of the Holy Bible.
Lindgren:
"It is not a fact, it is the result of standardization, in exactly the same way as that between 1930 and 2006 the 'fact' was that Pluto was a planet."
Myself:
"Science -- and I mean the process of finding evidence and logically evaluating it -- is supposed to teach us about the universe; the consistency of the concepts (e.g., 'planet') we form with reality is a fact not subject to majority vote."
I am not sure what you are trying to address here, if indeed you aren't merely wasting your time by trying to elicit an emotional reaction from me. I will simply address the only two other possibilities that make any sense to me.
First, if your placing into quotes the term "fact" indicates that you do not feel there is such a thing as facts, we have nothing further to discuss.
Second, if you think that I am saying that it was a "fact" that Pluto was a planet simply because a bunch of scientists said it was, and now it isn't, you are completely wrong, as the above quote should indicate.
There is a subtle and important question going on here. What class of existents does the concept "planet" describe? As our knowledge of reality increases, we sometimes learn that our attempts to describe reality through concepts were incorrect because we had not properly identified what aspects of a phenomenon we are describing are the essential ones. If we are not willing to admit (and correct) mistakes like this when they occur, our "concepts" will cease being valid and not actually describe collections of things that really are similar. They will amount to haphazard laundry lists instead. If we allow that to occur, we will cease learning about reality because our concepts will become more and more worthless over time.
That is all the scientists were doing.
Regarding my attack on this "lesson" as leftist, the language used by the teacher to describe Pluto is very much like that used by populist, left-wing American politicians when they are trying to stir up anger among their supporters instead of convincing them through rational argument -- usually because there isn't one -- to support their cause.
Dear Gus,
My mom does a fabulouse job teaching her first graders and i will have you know that she only read them a newspaper clip and they came up with the petiton on thier own. So you can take those rude comments right back! You can store them in the back of your brain. Oh, wait that might be hard seeing as you don't have one!! Stop blogging about my mom!!!
From,
her appalled daughter
Dear Appalled Daughter,
Stop blogging about your mom? This was two posts, both months ago. And the only reason I posted the second or even think about it now is because certain people keep pestering me about it.
As for a bunch of six-year-olds cooking up a petition "on their own", that is patently absurd. Children go to school precisely because they don't know about such things and -- clearly -- haven't learned how to apply such knowledge anyway.
As for your mother doing such a "fabulouse" job, your spelling and capitalization put that claim to the lie. That and your demand that I stop being "rude" just before you insult me and then attempt to give me marching orders shows that -- if you really are who you say you are -- the acorn hasn't fallen far from the tree. (For that matter, it brings to mind that wise old adage that "Children should be seen and not heard.")
Here's some advice for you. Your mother and I disagree with each other. One or both of us is wrong. You should learn all you can, and how to think effectively for yourself because some adults will deliberately try to mislead you. Your own mind is your best defense against such things. Make it strong.
I really don't care what you think of me now. Remember that last paragraph and thank me later, if your mind survives intact for that long.
Good luck, and may you not need it.
Gus Van Horn
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