Re: Sarah Palin- creationist VP candidate?

On Sep 27, 11:45 pm, David Wilson <see_sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Attempt to repost.  First attempt appears to have disappeared.

In article <255d977c-503b-40a9-8938-30ab98d61...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in talk.origins on September 22nd <tgdenn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:

On Sep 21, 12:24=A0pm, David Wilson <see_sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

.c> In article <63cc83b5-54d2-49ed-b22a-862f39077...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> > in talk.origins on September 20th <tgdenn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 19, 8:30=3DA0pm, Tim Norfolk <timsn...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

         .... [snip] ...

Get me the 'formulae' to solve the problems described. See if you can
do so within 30 minutes, using your internet connection.

Tim, you've started snipping and dodging already. If you want to snip
a long string of previous posts, that's fine, but you should leave the
post to which you are responding intact. (Refers to other reply,)

As to the question in this post:

http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/clin2.html

What makes you think that this satisfies Tim's request?

No response to this?

And it may have taken all of 2 minutes to find since I've slept in and
am only on the second cup of coffee.

Not even a formula, ...

Well then it doesn't quite satisfy the request, does it. But even if
we dismiss the distinction between "formulae" and "a bit of code" as
unreasonably pedantic, the fact remains that the test proposed by Tim
comprises _three_ problems, and he quite clearly asked you to give him
"'formulae' [plural] to solve the problems [plural] described."    Can
you please explain how the code at the URL you cited can be used to
solve the third of Tim's problems (i.e. problen (c))?

Or this?



Tim, but your worst nightmare---a bit of code that
does what you claim you can't teach your students. ...

No, not quite---not even for Tim's problems (a) and (b).  A bit of code
like that, _by itself_, can't do anything. To get it to solve any
problem at all, someone has to plug the proper numbers into the proper
slots, and then properly interpret the output. You appear to imagine
that the mere availability of some piece of software constitutes proof
that anyone trained by your proposed method will automatically be able
to use it properly.  Like Tim, I'm afraid I do not share your confidence.

Your proposals seem to me to be based on a serious overconfidence in
your potential students' ability (and perhaps in your own) to learn how
to use mathematical software properly with the sort of training you have
described.  You seem to think, for instance, that the software at the
URL you cited will make the solution of the three problems posed by Tim
Norfolk a real doddle.

Also, in article
<http://groups.google.com.au/group/talk.origins/msg/476a487b4bcfa052>
you proposed the following rather vaguely worded "problem":

"... tell me the best way to determine the nature of the period if we
 hold horizontal displacement constant while varying length (thus
 varying theta of course)."

and the following approach to "solving" it

 "... My approach is to take the series approximation and plug it into Excel,
  much less Maple."

In a subsequent article:
<http://groups.google.com.au/group/talk.origins/msg/9ece8932e1b60761>
you then provided a more clearly worded specific version of the problem:

 "Restating, the pendulum problem which I proposed some years ago in
  a similar discussion to support my position is as follows: Holding
  horizontal displacement of the release point constant, increase the
  length of the string from its shortest point at the horizontal to
  achieve some arbitrary small angle. At what length is the period a
  minimum?"

which you later referred to as a "softball question".

I therefore have a couple of challenges for you.

The first is to solve an instance of Tim Norfolk's three problems. Suppose
the incidence (Tim's i%) of a disease in a population of individuals not yet
exhibiting any of symptoms is 0.1% (i.e. on average, 1 person in every 1000
who display no symptoms will nevertheless have the disease). Suppose a test
for the disease has a false positive rate (Tim's p%) of 0.5% (i.e. the test
will return a positive result for an average of 1 out of every 200 people
tested who do not have the disease) and a false negative rate (Tim's n%) of
0.2% (i.e. the test will return a negative result for an average of 1 out of
every 500 people tested who do have the disease). Here then is a restatement
of Tim's three problems (with Tim's c% = 50% in the third):

 a) Given a positive test, what is the probability that a person has
    the disease?
 b) Given a negative test, what is the probability that a person has
    the disease?
 c) What is the smallest size of a sample required for there to be a
    probability of at least 0.5 that at least one person in the sample
    has the disease, but nevertheless tests negative?

Unless you're capable of answering these questions correctly yourself, I
can't see why you would expect anyone trained by your proposed method to
be able to do so.

Please see my reply to chris thompson.

I had already read it before posting my previous article.  I haven't the
foggiest idea which of your various claims you think are supported by
his remarks, or why you think your response explains your expectations
that students trained by your proposed method would be able to solve
these problems when you yourself seem to have no appreciation of the
sorts of difficulties that might arise when they try to do so.

I have included below a copy of my own answers to the three questions,
encrypted with gpg.  After you have posted yours, or if you fail to do
so within a reasonable time (2 weeks say), I shall provide the decrypt
and the key for the decryption.

OK I give up.  ....

Well, that _does_ surprise me a little.  If anything could be called a
"softball question", it is the first two of the above three problems,
particularly when you have identified a flash piece of software which
you appear to have thought would provide the answers automatically.

The main point of my challenge was this.  When I decided to try out the
calculator at the URL you gave, I became aware at once that there
was insufficient information provided on the page for me to know
how to use it properly.  It is precisely situations like this which I
(as, I presume, would Tim Norfolk) believe would flummox students
trained by the methods you have described (at least as I understand them)..
The immediate difficulties I faced in knowing how to use the calculator
_are_ easy enough to overcome _if you are sufficiently familiar with
the concepts needed to derive the appropriate formulae for yourself_.
_If_ you can do that then it is very easy to work out how to use the
calculator properly, merely by playing around with it until you're sure
you're interpreting its input and output correctly.  But the ability
to _derive_ the appropriate formulae is _precisely_ one of those
things which, in my opinion, students trained by your proposed method
would end up with very little of.  It is not sufficient to reply that
they can look up the formulae in a book, or (worse) find them with a web
search, because even when they _can_ do that (which I suspect will be
much less frequently than you appear to believe) they will still face
the same sorts of difficulties of interpretation that I did when I
tried to use the Vassar calculator.  And unless they're sufficiently
familiar with the concepts embodied in the formulae I see no reason to
believe that they will be capable of surmounting those difficulties
quickly and reliably.

When Tim Norfolk recently voiced a similar objection, your response was
to accuse him of setting up a straw man, and claim that "your" students
would of course "know the formula" or "know how to look it up" and would
know "that formulas can be combined and modified for particular
applications".  But combining and modifying formulas for particular
application requires what you have elsewhere deprecated as "manipulation
of symbolic forms", which you apparently believe your students will not
need to know because they will be able to get a piece of software to do
it for them.  What you have not done, as far as I can tell, is to provide
any evidence that they would in fact know how to produce the right
formula to use, even _with_ the assistance of a symbolic algebra package
like Maple, or how to plug the right numbers into the right places in it
to obtain the right answer.  I was therefore curious to see whether you
would be able to do so yourself for a very simple example.  Apparently
not, judging from your response.


OK, since you put in the effort to solve the pendulum question I will
continue the discussion. However, I really don't feel like getting
into another silly game with moving goalposts and endless digressions,
and yes, strawmen, which is what I've gotten from Tim and some other
contributors. I will attempt yet again to explain my take on this
issue, and perhaps you can give a focused counterargument.

First, let me point out that I am aiming the discussion at an audience
which I assume has some basic skill in the type of manipulations that
we call high school and college algebra, along with some trig and
geometry. My goal is to promote some honest introspection about just
what having that skill means, and what it might mean to the 4 groups I
defined earlier. Apologies to anyone else.

Also, I assume that readers are willing to make a little effort if
something isn't immediately clear. So, in my reply to Tim's question,
I mentioned Bayes' Theorem, assuming that either the reader was
familiar, or if not, they would go to Wikipedia and find Example 1. In
the case of the pendulum, for the ambitious student who didn't sleep
through freshman physics, again go to Wikipedia and find the simple
approximation I mentioned. (For a discussion of other approximations,
see http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/phys199hm/fall08/Examples/Lima.pdf.)

Now to the substance. In case you haven't followed this thread
closely, we are talking about a class that I call:

"Mathematical Methods For Citizens Who Are Not Destined To Receive
Doctorates In Mathematics Or Perhaps Even An Undergraduate Degree In
Engineering But Could End Up As President Or Maybe Be On The School
Board Voting On Evolution."

And here's what you say:

quote

The main point of my challenge was this. When I decided to try out
the
calculator at the URL you gave, I became aware at once that there
was insufficient information provided on the page for me to know
how to use it properly. It is precisely situations like this which I
(as, I presume, would Tim Norfolk) believe would flummox students
trained by the methods you have described (at least as I understand
them).
The immediate difficulties I faced in knowing how to use the
calculator
_are_ easy enough to overcome _if you are sufficiently familiar with
the concepts needed to derive the appropriate formulae for yourself_.
_If_ you can do that then it is very easy to work out how to use the
calculator properly, merely by playing around with it until you're
sure
you're interpreting its input and output correctly. But the ability
to _derive_ the appropriate formulae is _precisely_ one of those
things which, in my opinion, students trained by your proposed method
would end up with very little of. It is not sufficient to reply that
they can look up the formulae in a book, or (worse) find them with a
web
search, because even when they _can_ do that (which I suspect will be
much less frequently than you appear to believe) they will still face
the same sorts of difficulties of interpretation that I did when I
tried to use the Vassar calculator. And unless they're sufficiently
familiar with the concepts embodied in the formulae I see no reason
to
believe that they will be capable of surmounting those difficulties
quickly and reliably.
When Tim Norfolk recently voiced a similar objection, your response
was
to accuse him of setting up a straw man, and claim that "your"
students
would of course "know the formula" or "know how to look it up" and
would
know "that formulas can be combined and modified for particular
applications". But combining and modifying formulas for particular
application requires what you have elsewhere deprecated as
"manipulation
of symbolic forms", which you apparently believe your students will
not
need to know because they will be able to get a piece of software to
do
it for them. What you have not done, as far as I can tell, is to
provide
any evidence that they would in fact know how to produce the right
formula to use, even _with_ the assistance of a symbolic algebra
package
like Maple, or how to plug the right numbers into the right places in
it
to obtain the right answer. I was therefore curious to see whether
you
would be able to do so yourself for a very simple example.
Apparently
not, judging from your response.

end quote

Yes, strawman. I have never suggested that students should not learn
to manipulate equations, only that they not learn to manipulate
equations by traditional methods. Your claims here, like Tim's and
others', border on the absurd.

If I teach students how to determine the probability of false
positives in screening tests using the Vassar applet, and require that
they pass rigorous exams to pass my course, how can you say that they
will then *not* be able to determine the probability of false
positives in screening tests using the Vassar applet? *Why* would they
be any less able to decide which numbers to plug in where than
students taught in Tim's class who also passed rigorous exams?

If I teach students generally how to get from one form of an equation
to another by typing the equation into a piece of software, and have
them practice a lot, and require that they pass rigorous exams, and so
on, *why* would they be any less able to get from one form of an
equation to another than the students in Tim's class?

Unless you can answer those *whys?* with some causal narrative, you've
offered nothing more than faith-based assertions. I would be happy to
hear such an explanation in order to further refine my theory.

-tg




Go ahead and give your solution.

I'm in no hurry. I'll leave you a little more time to demonstrate how
you think "your" students would be able to overcome the (really very
minor) difficulties I am referring to.

-tg

ps Unlike you guys I don't have time to do opposition research and
quote mining of long old threads,  ...

I'm a little puzzled by this declaration.  The pendulum problem was
one which _you_ proposed as supporting _your_ position, and I reproduced
all the relevent information you need to tackle it in my previous article
anyway.  So I have no idea why you would need to do any "quote mining" to
provide a solution.  I aso have no idea what "opposition research" is, so
I don't really know whether it would be necessary for you to do any to
solve the problem or not.  I certainly had to do a small amount of what I
would call "research" to solve it.  But I got the impression from your
postings that you thought you had either already solved it, or at the
very least that you ...

read more »

.

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