Re: Great physicist rejected by anti-semitic M.I.T.

In article <1188879178.464168.170680@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
KarenElizabeth <karenelizabeth3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 3, 10:08 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:
In article <1188834230.911857.109...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

KarenElizabeth <karenelizabe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 31, 2:44 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:
In article <fb9kjn$f2...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Steve Goldfarb <s...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In <1188580603.206408.33...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> KarenElizabeth <karenelizabe...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

[To the moderators: this long reply is against a too
long attack. If you think it too off topic, please send
it to the author of the article to which I replied, and
let me know you did this.]

....................

If you assume that the only point of education is to sit people down
in a classroom, cram in as much information as possible at as young an
age as possible, keep them moving along so that they can get out of
the classroom as early as possible, and while you're at it, toss aside
those who don't learn as quickly, then there's no point.

Why in a traditional classroom? In fact, it is the
educationists who take this position, claiming that it is
socialization which is more important than what is learned.
They object strongly to home schooling or other means of
learning, no matter what it accomplishes.

Cite? You spew this nonsense over and over again in newsgroup after
newsgroup. Provide us with one -- just one -- article written by a
noted education scholar, stating that socialization is more important
that what is learned by students.

The "noted education scholars" are the ones approved by
the educationist community. However, I believe that after
the early 1960s, some did accept that sufficiently bright
children should be advanced. This came up in conversations
with school people about my son's education.

Now, I'll admit, that socialization is a factor used in the debate
regarding social promotion. AIUI, however, the question isn't whether
the social aspects trump the educational one but, rather, whether the
social issues relating to holding students back will *impede* future
educational opportunities.

Of course, holding them back delays their opportunities.
And we have had many dropouts because they cannot stand
the anti-educational system in the classroom. I recall
reading about it in one of the two newspapers I read over
the weekend; I believe it was _The New York Times_.

While you're at it, provide us with a single source using the term
*educationist* as you do.

I did not invent the term, and I have been using it for
a long time.

In any event, let's get back to the point that you're trying to
evade. Henry, have I or have I not accurately stated YOUR educational
theory (other than the classroom reference)?

You seem unable even to get my name right.

You do not understand my educational theory. You seem to
think that I advocate "cramming in information", when that
is not at all the case. If I did, I would not recommend
that teaching arithmetic facts and procedures without first
giving the underlying concepts about the number systems is
a great mistake, and even my insistence that having them
memorize the multiplication tables is at best a convenience.
Understanding multiplication IS of value; if they know when,
a computer can handle the how.

Also, one does not learn the concepts, which are important,
by sitting in a classroom and listening. Memorization and
rote learning, without the understanding that is rarely
even attempted, leads to what is easily forgotten, and
hence is of little value.

Last time I asked you for a cite on this one (in a different
newsgroup), you ignored me. But I'm persistent if nothing else. Want
to provide a cite? A study showing that students don't learn concepts
in the classroom? A study showing that understanding is *rarely even
attempted*?

Way back, it was recognized by mathematicians that
memorization and rote are not the goal; it was not that
readily recognized that they are not even an assist. But
the old high school geometry course taught what proofs are,
at least as much as it taught geometry, and in mathematics,
proofs are the way one understands results. The axioms
give one version of the concepts, but there are others as
well. One can often get "working understanding" without
precise concepts, and I have posted in the math.sci group
that I have that in places.

But the present high school courses are how to SOLVE
problems, while formulating is what non-mathematicians
need, especially with computers. But it was true before
computers; the alchemical statistical formulas gave no
understanding, and still do not in far too many service
courses.

These days, one of the problems with teaching mathematics is that *too
much* emphasis is put on understanding, and too little on rote
memorization. You wind up with the sorry situation of 8th graders who
understand what multiplication is, but cannot multiply 12 x 5. Read
up on the experience of NYC with *fuzzy math* for example.

Do they understand what multiplication is?

Do YOU understand what multiplication is? Can you give
two (or more) distinct concepts of the integers, and
show how they are related to the arithmetic operations,
and why they agree?

Students come out of the calculus courses carefully
memorizing the methods and formulas, and not knowing
what a derivative is except the rules for computing
them. They cannot understand that the "Fundamental
Theorem of Calculus" is a theorem that two apparently
unrelated operations give the same result.

That's not what I see as the point of education, particularly higher
education.

So higher education should be turning out socialized
ignoramuses? It largely is now, as are all other levels.

Oh, please. The point of higher education is to explore and learn.
It's not to cram the information in as soon as possible -- without
regard to the emotional maturity of the student -- and get the kids
out of school ASAP. *True* understanding comes with learning and
discussing with people of various backgrounds and viewpoints -- rather
like I imagine a Talmudic debate must have been or (to bring it closer
to this group), watching Jacko debate learned Ashkenazic Jews here.

Higher education now has to start with people who do
not know the basics of anything. One cannot explore
until one can understand, and few college students
understand. I have only taught a few prospective
high school teachers, and they certainly did not know
the mathematics prerequisites to the probability
courses I was teaching, and which they supposedly
had taken with reasonable grades. My late wife taught
more of them, and also prospective elementary teachers
ONCE; she made it clear that she would not do it again.

Maybe learning in philosophy is as you state it, but
this is not the case in language, mathematics, science,
or even to a great extent in history. The world is
as it is, and the philosophers need to accept this,
even if it disagrees with their philosophical points.

The point of diversity is to have a group of people from different
backgrounds and different world views, who can bring different
information and different opinions to the debate ... remembering that
education included philosophy and literature, not just statistics.
How dull college would have been otherwise! How dull my life would
be!

Philosophy and literature are overdone at ALL levels.
Literature is entertainment plus philosophy, and whose
philosophy is presented? The philosophy NOT presented
is that people have different abilities, and attempting
to treat them all as equal is at best stupid.

Just repeating, philosphy and literature are overdone. I find this
infinitely sad. But I will give you one point of agreement --
diversity is less important in mathematical education than in the
liberal arts.

Very little philosophy starts with the limitations which
the laws of nature impose. If you take the position
that we can do what is impossible, what you espouse will
be actions which do not accomplish the purpose. This
alas is what most political and religious leaders have
been doing through the ages.

Cite?

One very good one is the socialist belief that all
could be made "equally rich". Also, the belief by
some politicians, and I recall seeing this stated
by Ms. Clinton, that progress could be made more
rapidly by the government controlling the spending
of resources. This is sheer bunk, and always has
been. Individuals drove the industrial revolution,
and the present computer revolution.

What do you view as *impossible*? Educating children with
differences? Educating children who may not be quite as bright? A
generation ago, schools had what we openly called the *dumb class*
These were our throw-away kids, kids who knew, by time they were 10 or
11, then no one expected much of them, and no one was going to give
much to them. I presume that's what you'd like to see return.

Sorry, not me. Given the resources, given the dedication, every kid
*can* learn. Not everyone is going to be an Einstein, of course. But
we need to give everyone a chance.

How much can they learn? Some can, and some cannot.
I have always advocated giving everyone a chance to
achieve what they can, holding none back, and doing
the best for each individual. We lose too many
geniuses from the lower classes to the educationist
policy of keeping all of the same age together.

It is one thing to use affirmative to admit someone who
has the necessary abilities and is willing to make up
deficiencies in preparation, recognizing that they are
there. It is quite another to say that the proportion of
applicants in that category MUST be the same, or even
comparable.

Quotas are illegal in the US, AFIAK. (I'm not an education or
discrimination attorney.) If you have evidence of one or more schools
using quotas, I'd suggest that you present it to the DOJ or your
friendly neighborhood class action attorney (I'm not one).

It took a long time to get such a ruling that unequal
proportions are legal.

But we're there now. Let's live in the present, OK?

There are ways around quotas,
by giving points for belonging to certain races, etc.

No, there are ways to increase diversity without quotas or separate
admissions criteria.

Why does it matter? When the Jews were being discriminated
against by quotas which were much higher than one thinks,
they did not care that gentiles were the only teachers,
or even if most of the students views on religion were
totally abhorrent to them. Just go on and learn, and
ignore such matters.

Alas, the educationists
People who are specialists in the theory and methods of education.
You'd reject such specialists, presumably.

Very definitely.

Good. Now we're getting somewhere. You reject the theories of
experts in favor of your own, non-expert theories.

Are they experts? They are willing to pontificate about
how to learn mathematics, when they have no understanding
of the subject itself. One does not learn a structured
subject well by memorization, but by looking at the
structure first; this WAS done to some extent in mathematics
and language, but this has been largely killed. My best
language course did all of the grammar in the first term.

The "experts" put in the whole word method; it took decades
to get rid of this means of keeping people from reading well.
When the "new math" was put in, the teachers could not handle
it; the attempt to weaken it to where they could destroyed it.
What the mathematicians should have done was to say,

"Your children can learn this; their teachers
cannot. Should these teachers be allowed to
teach your children mathematics?"

The same holds for other subjects.

There have been a few places where
they have been overturned, such as getting rid of that
abomination, the whole word method, which made a large
proportion of the population much less literate than
they would otherwise be. This was only possible because
tools were made available so that uneducated parents
could teach their children to read with phonics.

Actually, there is still a huge debate as to the best method of
teaching children to read. The pendulem tends to swing back and
forth, largely because there is such a huge difference in how
different children DO learn to read. (And let's face it, all of us
read using the whole word method.) Some children who have learned to
read using a phonics-based method wind up with problems relating to
symbol imagery, for example. So while I'm personally impressed with
phonics-based reading programs, and wish more schools would adopt the
gold-standard LiPS or Wilson, I can't say that its the answer to all
of our problems.

The difference is not that huge, and would be less if
there was an attempt to teach earlier. And we do not
all read with the whole word method; that we take in
whole words, or more, at a glance does not mean that
the way the brain processes it is by whole words.
Reading mathematics, where a single symbol is a word,
and foreign languages, where more complications ensue,
shows this. Try reading whole words in German!

People have difficulty with symbol imagery regardless
of how they are taught.

OTOH, I don't know of anyone who is still a proponent of the *fuzzy
math* (that my poor son is still stuck with), which emphasizes
concepts at the cost of practice.

I have not argued against some practice, after understanding
what the process is and why the shortcuts are valuable.
The present "fuzzy math" is the educationists' attempt
to introduce the concepts which the "new math" tried.
I did not like the new math method back then; it used one
of the concepts of integers, not self-contained.

They claim to use statistical methods, but their methods
are rarely appropriate, and they do not understand them
anyhow. They have learned a few mantras, and plug data
into them, not having any idea of what is going on. It
is something like teaching people to solve differential
equations, and making everything into a differential
equation. I would rather not teach this at all, but
teach the non-mathematicians what is involved in setting
up differential equations.

LOL. It's the old adage. There are 3 types of lies -- lies, dam**d
lies, and statistics. Nonetheless, what you're really saying is that
the people with whom you disagree have statistical evidence supporting
the efficacy of their educational methods, but you still disagree with
them.

No, they do not. But not much of what they do is reasonable.
One major mistake is using the normal distribution, which
cannot be correct, and their argument shows ignorance itself.
Under certain conditions, a sum of independent random variables
is approximately normal, but it is never normal unless all of
them are, and is intelligence the sum of independent variables?

and leftists are not willing to
admit a major genetic effect, although this is obvious
to anyone who is willing to consider the data.
Racist drivel.

NOT racist. The races differ, and even subgroups which
are selected in some way differ. I do not know what
the differences are, and a genius from one race should
be treated like a genius from any other. It takes
very little in selection processes to make a huge
difference in the proportion of geniuses.

Sorry, but in my book, once you start in on *the races differ* you're
suggesting that one race is better, more intelligent, than another.
And THAT is racist. Period.

No, they are different. The distribution of the various
aspects of intelligence ARE different, as the genetic
variation in one generation would make them different
if you managed to start equal. This does not mean that
individuals should be judged by their race, but as
individuals. In fact, it is possible to have greater
variability and the same "average"; in that case, the
race with the greater variability will produce more
geniuses and more at the very low end.

There IS
an environmental effect as well, but when the policy is
to assume that those with comparable formal educational
credentials are comparably educated, only bad results
can occur. I have seen too much to be willing to assume
that it can be otherwise.

In other words, you assume that minorites are genetically defective
and simply not as bright. Be sure to keep your white sheets bleached
and pressed. You need them.

Some are, and some are not. If a group has those with
lower intelligence producing large numbers of progeny,
and otherwise mating randomly, in two generations the
proportion of bright children will be way down. This
is a fact of probability, and no philosophy can change
this. The laws of nature are NOT subject to your
philosophy, and never will be.

I stand by my statement about the sheets.

I have shared hotel rooms with people from other races,
and had them as colleagues and students. I have encouraged
the ones who showed ability of all races, and reluctantly
discouraged, and voted against retaining students, if they
did not show ability. I can treat people as people, and
recognize that it does not take much to have differences.
What is the average height of a male Tutsi?

Karen Elizabeth



--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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