I am willing to argue public education has ruined this country...

[jgraham]

If you're interested in an alternate perspective of public education from the eyes of a 30-year veteran of public school teaching and having won 3 Teacher of the Year Awards, I direct you to this:

http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Taylor/dp/B000A4IX46

Rather than spend money on something like that.  It can be read for free here: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

The first chapter is so-far tedious and where it isn't it's vacuous.  A handful of anecdotes seemingly to build up an argument from ontology. i.e. X came from Y, X has characteristic (or limitation) Z therefore Y is intrinsically bound to Z (or by Z).  Medicine, evolved from some terrible practices (like blood letting) however today despite that medicine has significantly less terrible practices and well on it's way to being evidence-based.

Atlas I ask you...does this pass as research where you come from?

[1714856100]

1714856100

[1714856100]

1714856100

[Anonymous]

He doesn't provide a sufficient amount of citations; however, people have verified his claims.

[Rassah]

Although I'm a fan of objectivism and free markets, my main concern about public vs private education is the fact that children are not financially free, nor are they capable of making financial decisions. If public education was given to adults, who know what they wished to learn, and have the money to pay for their education, I would be totally against it being "public." But kids are at the mercy of whatever their parents make them do, and they don't make enough money to pay for their own education. Thus, without public education, a child living in a poor, ignorant family will end up being poor and ignorant through no fault of choice of their own.
Granted I'm somewhat biased, too, since I came from USSR and studied a bit in Italy, both places where the public education system ABSOLUTELY DOMINATES the one in USA (think cellular biology and polynomial algebra in 3rd and 4th grade)

Also, please please please PLEASE don't push for home-schooling with parents providing the education. It takes quite a lot of education just to learn how to be an educator. Making kids reads books without the parents themselves understanding anything beyond maybe a 5th grade education themselves (even those who went to college forget things) is just asking for trouble. Likewise, most parents don't have time to work AND learn how to educate AND learn and understand the material AND teach their kids. It's a full-time job by itself.

[jgraham]

He doesn't provide a sufficient amount of citations; however, people have verified his claims.

  Now you stepped in it Atlas-of-Whine!  Verified which claims and where?  Please provide that "evidence" thing that is like an anathema to you.  

Remember that the title of the thread is about PUBLIC education RUINING the country.  So you are going to have to have evidence which spans many public school systems - and provides a rather huge area-wide negative consequence in each case.   So you can't say, point to some small n study which compares say homeschooling and publicly educated children.  Since well...I'll leave that for later so I can point out something else you didn't get taught.  

Let's recap...

First you claim that you have an argument...which you won't disclose.
This is accompanied by a single quote which is by your own admission garbage.
Then you provide a set of premises which don't force your conclusion.  You think it's complete.
Next you feign ignorance.
After that you supply a link to a book written by the author of the above quote.   Which upon reading and seeing how laughable some of the arguments are....
Now the evidence against public schools has suddenly moved to some previously unmentioned place.

Well as a product of your public school system we can attest to one thing they failed at....they never taught you how to argue.

[jgraham]

You have no idea what I'm building.

Actually, you can just as easily argue that you have no idea about what I know about you.

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will eventually be met after many people die. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder but only after a sufficient amount of murder has been done for each product.

Fixed.  

[Reikoku]

As a somewhat objectivist, I can vouch for the fact that Atlas isn't one.

Objectivists believe that property stems from intellectual property, i.e. something belongs to you because it is the product of your own mind.

Atlas doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's more a Rothbardian than a Randist.

[jgraham]

As a somewhat objectivist, I can vouch for the fact that Atlas isn't one.

Objectivists believe that property stems from intellectual property, i.e. something belongs to you because it is the product of your own mind.

Atlas doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's more a Rothbardian than a Randist.

He's already stated that he doesn't self-identify with that.   It was just a misunderstanding.  Given the variance in Objectivists I've met.  I don't really have much confidence in formal definitions of the term even though Rand considered IP to be the foundation of all property rights.

[the joint]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

When I wrote this, I didn't want to take the time to formulate a deductive or tautological argument.  I didn't want to take the time to explain my premises in detail.  A good philosophical argument can take pages to write because every word can be scrutinized and questioned.  But, for a little clarification on my thoughts...

The 'degree' to which the media influences education is, well, a 'high' degree.  Any public school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Poor performance and unorthodox teaching styles catch the eyes of parents and school personnel, the community, and the media.  And, the link between education and politics is quite clear.  In the U.S., history books are extremely biased and ethnocentric, and politics is regarded as the highest of all disciplines, ala Aristotle.  Science and Math are falling behind when compared with other countries, and proper English is hardly ever spoken even by the teachers, let alone by the students.  I'd bet money that the media (t.v. and mainstream music media especially) is responsible at least in part for that.  On the other hand, compulsory schooling adds to the problem by setting the status quo on knowledge.  I can argue against evolution any day of the week depending on the perspective one takes, but radical perspectives are typically cast aside in society, even if these perspectives are valid, plausible, or even sound.  After all, the 'radical' in 'radical perspectives' implies that they aren't commonly shared with society at large -- especially not respected authority figures like school teachers. 

Math is a branch of philosophy.   Philosophy is more broad and incorporates several disciplines.  Logic's syntax distributes to any discipline so that it can be understood.  In that way, logic is mathematical because, as it distributes to various systems, these systems are linked by ratio.  So, no, logic didn't 'create' math, but being mathematical is a characteristic of logic.  Math -- like any other language -- is the abstract representation of ratio (root word of 'rationale'), and, indeed, it is only through ratio that 'truth' can be intellectualized. 

When you say "...umbrella term for various processes employed..."  that means methods.  Regardless, the 'processes' are inductive (except for the pseudo-deductive process of forming experiments), and because of this, you'll never have an absolute, finished product/result. 

 

[jgraham]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

When I wrote this, I didn't want to take the time to formulate a deductive or tautological argument.  I didn't want to take the time to explain my premises in detail.  A good philosophical argument can take pages to write because every word can be scrutinized and questioned.  But, for a little clarification on my thoughts...

Also in addition to providing a series of deductive elements you also will probably need to provide some evidence to support your premises.

The 'degree' to which the media influences education is, well, a 'high' degree.  Any public school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Poor performance and unorthodox teaching styles catch the eyes of parents and school personnel, the community, and the media.

Firstly: Media attention and media influence are not synonymous.  Secondly your assumption that any school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Is a) not synonymous with "media influence" (although it might be related but that further weakens the argument) and seems - on the face of it anyway - either untrue  (Since it would mean there are no schools that persist with a negative image) or irrelevant (where 'persist' refers to an arbitrary amount of time).

Still none of these premises actually force the negative conclusion that you appear to be aiming for.

And, the link between education and politics is quite clear.  In the U.S., history books are extremely biased and ethnocentric,

Relevance to removing critical thought from schools?  A biased and ethnocentric history book can easily be used as a talking point for teaching critical thought.  My history teachers worked that angle as well as referring to history books used in other countries.

and politics is regarded as the highest of all disciplines, ala Aristotle.

Support?

Science and Math are falling behind when compared with other countries,

Please support.

and proper English is hardly ever spoken even by the teachers, let alone by the students.

Define and support.  (Is "proper English" some prescriptivist construction or do you mean "generally mutually understood English"?)

On the other hand, compulsory schooling adds to the problem by setting the status quo on knowledge.  I can argue against evolution any day of the week depending on the perspective one takes, but radical perspectives are typically cast aside in society, even if these perspectives are valid, plausible, or even sound.

Also disregards the radically wrong.  Please support how this makes what at least appears to be your point that this has a significant negative effect.

Math is a branch of philosophy.

In what sense? Developmentally? Uh not really.  Please support.

When you say "...umbrella term for various processes employed..."  that means methods.  Regardless, the 'processes' are inductive (except for the pseudo-deductive process of forming experiments), and because of this, you'll never have an absolute, finished product/result.  

Well...

a) no, you can actually have what would qualify as a finished product.  You can have a product which is suitable for a particular use.  i.e. meets the standard error requirements for your use.  Furthermore it's reasonable to believe that there are physical limits to the amount various kinds of observational error can be reduces.  Ergo you could end up with a product for which no better product can ever be obtained.

b) Your words were 'emphasis on process' even if you don't have something that qualifies as a 'finished product' you can still say you are focused on the product.

[em3rgentOrdr]

As a somewhat objectivist, I can vouch for the fact that Atlas isn't one.

Objectivists believe that property stems from intellectual property, i.e. something belongs to you because it is the product of your own mind.

Atlas doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's more a Rothbardian than a Randist.

He's already stated that he doesn't self-identify with that.   It was just a misunderstanding.  Given the variance in Objectivists I've met.  I don't really have much confidence in formal definitions of the term even though Rand considered IP to be the foundation of all property rights.

Actually Rothbard believes one form of IP is legitimate: copyright.  Rothbard argues that copyright clauses found in the beginning of a publication or book or music album for instance can be considered a contract binding the purchaser of the work from duplicating it.  However Rothbard argues that patents are illegitimate, because they bind 3rd parties who never consented.

"Patents and Copyright" by Murrary Rothbard

Which of the two (patents and copyrights), if either, is consonant with the purely free market, and which is a
grant of monopoly privilege by the state? In this part, we have been analysing the economics of the purely
free market, where the individual person and property are not subject to molestation. It is therefore
important to decide whether patents or copyrights will obtain in the purely free, noninvasive society, or
whether they are a function of government interference.

Almost all writers have bracketed patents and copyrights together. Most have considered both as grants of
exclusive monopoly privilege by the state; a few have considered both a part and parcel of property right on
the free market. But almost of everyone has considered patents and copyrights as equivalent: the one as
conferring an exclusive property right in the field of mechanical inventions, the other as conferring an
exclusive right in the field of literary creations.93 Yet this bracketing of patents and copyrights is wholly
fallacious; the two are completely different in relation to the free market.

It is true that a patent and a copyright are both exclusive property rights and it is also true that they are both
property rights in innovations. But there is crucial difference in their legal enforcement. If an author or a
composer believes his copyright is being infringed, and he takes legal action, he must "prove that the
defendant had 'access' to the work allegedly infringed. If the defendant produces something identical with the
plaintiff's work by mere chance, there is no infringement." Copyrights, in other words, have their basis in the prosecution of implicit theft. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant stole the former's creation by
reproducing it and selling it himself in violation of his or someone else's contract with the original seller. But if the defendant independently arrives at the same creation, the plaintiff has no copyright privilege that could
prevent the defendant from using and selling his product.

Patents on the other hand, are completely different. Thus:

You have patented your invention and you read in the newspaper one day that John Doe, who lives in a city 2,000 miles from your town, has invented an identical or similar device, that he has licensed the EZ company to manufacture it.....Neither Doe nor the EZ company...ever heard of your invention. All believe Doe to be the inventor of a new and original device. They may all be guilty of infringing your patent...the fact that their infringement was in ignorance of the true facts and unintentional will not constitute a defense.

Patent, then, has nothing to do with implicit theft. It confers an exclusive privilege on the first inventor, and if
anyone else should, quite independently, invent the same or similar machine or product, the latter would be
debarred by violence from using it in production.

Now where Rothbard goes wrong is failing to recognize that many times when you purchase or some other way come into contact or obtain a copyrighted work, you may not actually be presented with an explicit copyright contract.  Additionally, copyright contracts can not be enforced upon 3rd parties who came into contact with the copyrighted work voluntarily through the purchaser of a copyrighted work who breached the supposed copyright contract.  Basically that 3rd person can't be held legally liable for duplicating that work since he came about it voluntarily.  Only the person who entered into an explicit copyright contract may be held legally liable.

[Bind]

It's all part of the plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTIYd5UFRY

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=charlotte+iserbyt&aq=f

[jgraham]

It's all part of the plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTIYd5UFRY

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=charlotte+iserbyt&aq=f

Ugh...video...probably one of the slowest ways to disseminate this kind of information yet.

First Atlas wants me to buy a book by someone who sucks at math who he later says didn't make a good argument anyway (i.e. not well supported) .  Now there's some big list of videos I have to watch....

Don't people know how to sum up their arguments in a reasonably cogent way anymore?

[the joint]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

When I wrote this, I didn't want to take the time to formulate a deductive or tautological argument.  I didn't want to take the time to explain my premises in detail.  A good philosophical argument can take pages to write because every word can be scrutinized and questioned.  But, for a little clarification on my thoughts...

Also in addition to providing a series of deductive elements you also will probably need to provide some evidence to support your premises.

The 'degree' to which the media influences education is, well, a 'high' degree.  Any public school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Poor performance and unorthodox teaching styles catch the eyes of parents and school personnel, the community, and the media.

Firstly: Media attention and media influence are not synonymous.  Secondly your assumption that any school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Is a) not synonymous with "media influence" (although it might be related but that further weakens the argument) and seems - on the face of it anyway - either untrue  (Since it would mean there are no schools that persist with a negative image) or irrelevant (where 'persist' refers to an arbitrary amount of time).

Still none of these premises actually force the negative conclusion that you appear to be aiming for.

And, the link between education and politics is quite clear.  In the U.S., history books are extremely biased and ethnocentric,

Relevance to removing critical thought from schools?  A biased and ethnocentric history book can easily be used as a talking point for teaching critical thought.  My history teachers worked that angle as well as referring to history books used in other countries.

and politics is regarded as the highest of all disciplines, ala Aristotle.

Support?

Science and Math are falling behind when compared with other countries,

Please support.

and proper English is hardly ever spoken even by the teachers, let alone by the students.

Define and support.  (Is "proper English" some prescriptivist construction or do you mean "generally mutually understood English"?)

On the other hand, compulsory schooling adds to the problem by setting the status quo on knowledge.  I can argue against evolution any day of the week depending on the perspective one takes, but radical perspectives are typically cast aside in society, even if these perspectives are valid, plausible, or even sound.

Also disregards the radically wrong.  Please support how this makes what at least appears to be your point that this has a significant negative effect.

Math is a branch of philosophy.

In what sense? Developmentally? Uh not really.  Please support.

When you say "...umbrella term for various processes employed..."  that means methods.  Regardless, the 'processes' are inductive (except for the pseudo-deductive process of forming experiments), and because of this, you'll never have an absolute, finished product/result.  

Well...

a) no, you can actually have what would qualify as a finished product.  You can have a product which is suitable for a particular use.  i.e. meets the standard error requirements for your use.  Furthermore it's reasonable to believe that there are physical limits to the amount various kinds of observational error can be reduces.  Ergo you could end up with a product for which no better product can ever be obtained.

b) Your words were 'emphasis on process' even if you don't have something that qualifies as a 'finished product' you can still say you are focused on the product.

Haha you see the depth this kind of argument requires?  Not that you're wrong to ask for greater clarity or support, but I'm not writing a research paper

Because I don't wish to source-scan at this time, I'll address the latter issues.

I agree.  The 'radically wrong' are hard to separate from the 'radical-but-correct,' but this would not necessarily be the case were it not for a status quo on 'correct' knowledge (hence, the grading system.  There IS a correct answer -- or, in terms of essays, more correct answers than others -- in the classroom).  A direct consequence of this is that a person with a higher academic degree automatically receives greater credibility than another person who does not have such a degree, although this 2nd person may have infinitely greater knowledge than the academic.  As a result, (generally) only academics receive grants for publication and research, and most of the time, their ideas are then subjected to the peer-review process.  Why is the peer-review process a problem?  Well, obviously it has it's merits, but one major pitfall is that the peer-review process allows only for tentative advances in knowledge.  Nobody's really allowed to do anything 'radical' for risk of humiliation from academic peers.  For example, how many scientists have been canned simply because they are Christian?  Quite a few.  I was even denied the opportunity to conduct an original experiment in my undergraduate class.  Why?  Because it had never been done before!!  The APA denied my experiment proposal because there had been no prior research conducted on the subject.  Moreover, about 75% of all research is product research.  The vast amount of funding available goes toward making sure the lights in the heels of your sneakers function properly rather than tackling society's biggest problems.  Then, you add in a 'publish-or-perish' approach which places pressure on college professors.  The professor's focus is redirected away from teaching and onto their research (after all, he can still teach if he sucks as a teacher, as long as he's bringing in that grant money).  I suppose this is why one of my college professors hasn't been fired yet, despite having over a half-dozen pending lawsuits against her spanning several years for denying students their disability accommodations in the classroom.  Academia is a noble institution indeed...

Math is a branch of philosophy in the sense that philosophy is more broad and math is more specific.  Math deals purely with abstract representations of objects.  In contrast, science (another branch of philosophy) deals purely with that which is observed.  Philosophy deals with both.  To have an understanding of math or science, one must have an understanding of philosophy. Without philosophy, you can't know why your statistical analysis correlates to whatever it is you observed.

The "scientific method" -- or process, whatever -- is a method.  There is nothing in the scientific method about product.  A conclusion is not a method.  Conclusions are reached from pseudo-deductive experiments.  The process, however, is inductive, and that is why you cannot have a finished product (even if you are approximating closer and closer to truth, you can never know that you are for sure since you must already have some idea of what the truth looks like before you can say you're approximating closer to it).  You can never have a finished product to the process because the process, in it's nature, cannot not be a process. It is ever-continuing.

[Bind]

Ugh...video...probably one of the slowest ways to disseminate this kind of information yet.

First Atlas wants me to buy a book by someone who sucks at math who he later says didn't make a good argument anyway (i.e. not well supported) .  Now there's some big list of videos I have to watch....

Don't people know how to sum up their arguments in a reasonably cogent way anymore?

Most of the information you need to learn, understand, then believe, has been intentionally hidden from you.

Plus the depth and complexity of it requires a bit of attention.

If you want the cliff notes, here they are ...

The ruling elite of the world want a two class world system. Them and everyone else. Rulers and their subjects to serve them. Everything they do is towards that end.

But wait... that might not be enough information for you to grasp the history. The who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Ergo, the homework (reading, listening and watching those who HAVE done their homework)...

But why have an attention span for the most important issues of our time when you can cursorily dismiss it all with a quick glance and wave of the hand.

stay asleep.

no sense in waking up now.

[jgraham]

Haha you see the depth this kind of argument requires?  Not that you're wrong to ask for greater clarity or support, but I'm not writing a research paper

Fair enough and don't think I don't I appreciate not being told to read some arbitrary book, watch some arbitrary movie.  If you make a point and cite a source I will, of course read it - and I warn in advance I'm awfully tough on methodology (a P-value is not enough!  ).  I don't expect to be spoon fed but I do expect something more than "It's somewhere in this book somewhere".

I agree.  The 'radically wrong' are hard to separate from the 'radical-but-correct,' but this would not necessarily be the case were it not for a status quo on 'correct' knowledge

I don't really get what you're trying to demonstrate here - again unless you're using 'status quo' in some other sense.  Sure there is a status quo - a popular, accepted or dogmatic way people validate knowledge.  I don't really see how one can get around having such a thing.  Not to mention it doesn't seem to force the point of being destructive to the school system.   Since you would have to establish that the status quo does more harm than good....and....that it is somehow intrinsic to public education.  

If we are somehow still talking about mandatory public education - i.e. up to high-school then as someone who has a modest amount of visibility into the school system.  I have never observed the 'degree hierachy' that you are describing.   I've certainly seen examples of the opposite - a tendency to follow people who are self-appointed experts who couldn't do a well-controlled experiment if their life depended on it.  Not to mention that even if true, there doesn't appear to be anything intrinsic to public funding that makes this status quo nor does there seem to be any guarantee that removing it replaces it with a better status quo.

 Why is the peer-review process a problem?  Well, obviously it has it's merits, but one major pitfall is that the peer-review process allows only for tentative advances in knowledge.  Nobody's really allowed to do anything 'radical' for risk of humiliation from academic peers.  For example, how many scientists have been canned simply because they are Christian?  Quite a few.  I was even denied the opportunity to conduct an original experiment in my undergraduate class.  Why?  Because it had never been done before!!  The APA denied my experiment proposal because there had been no prior research conducted on the subject.

I'd say that it varies a lot from field to field.   I've never seen an example of what you are talking about and dozens of examples of thesis proposals turned down because the topic wasn't novel and worse papers that I could have written just from the title.  I interviewed someone once and they had their name on a paper about "updating a pointer remotely" - in which they did the obvious.  Put a time stamp on a packet with a set of co-ordinates.  What any 1st year would have figured out if they have been given the problem as homework.  The only thing this person with their masters in Computer Science figured out how to do...was get IEEE to publish it.

Math is a branch of philosophy in the sense that philosophy is more broad and math is more specific.

See to me, this means you could construct/prove all of math from first-order logic.  Allow mathematics to be self-consistent.

The "scientific method" -- or process, whatever -- is a method.  There is nothing in the scientific method about product.  A conclusion is not a method.  Conclusions are reached from pseudo-deductive experiments.  The process, however, is inductive, and that is why you cannot have a finished product (even if you are approximating closer and closer to truth, you can never know that you are for sure since you must already have some idea of what the truth looks like before you can say you're approximating closer to it).  You can never have a finished product to the process because the process, in it's nature, cannot not be a process. It is ever-continuing.

I think you're just asserting your conclusion there.   Like I said, you can have a end since there are limitations on what can be observed.

[jgraham]

Ugh...video...probably one of the slowest ways to disseminate this kind of information yet.

First Atlas wants me to buy a book by someone who sucks at math who he later says didn't make a good argument anyway (i.e. not well supported) .  Now there's some big list of videos I have to watch....

Don't people know how to sum up their arguments in a reasonably cogent way anymore?

Most of the information you need to learn, understand, then believe, has been intentionally hidden from you.

Ok, but that's kind of the point of you flapping your gums there pal.  Elucidate!

Plus the depth and complexity of it requires a bit of attention.

I tend to think that Video - especially amateur/talking-head video is one of the worst ways to keep someones attention for something complicated.  It's a ridiculous artifice anyway.  Every video has a script any reasonably literate person can read 2-10x faster than a video can play.

The ruling elite of the world want a two class world system. Them and everyone else. Rulers and their subjects to serve them. Everything they do is towards that end.

Ok here's my competing theory:  Aliens from Planet Q have, unbeknown to you altered your consciousness in a way that makes you think that a ruling class exists, and wants people divided into two groups: "Rulers and Subjects".  

Now let me see if I understand your position here.  According to you I could now point you to a big list of YouTube videos about consciousness altering aliens and consider my above statement sufficient incentive for you to watch them all and furthermore any reluctance on your part is license for me to make veiled claims about your open-mindedness, attention span and inability to comprehend important issues...Is that correct?

Ergo, the homework (reading, listening and watching those who HAVE done their homework)...

Oh and I almost forgot...I could also take on an entirely unearned pedagogical role.

I'm glad we had this talk.

[LastBattle]

I followed this discussion for a while, broke off, then come back to find it has devolved into a confusing mess.

I have little interest in getting involved, but

PROTIP: The quality of the current public school system is impossible to quantify (qualify? whatever) compared to the hypothetical anarcho-capitalist school system. They are two entirely separate worlds, and one has yet to be tried. Stop trying so hard at something that is nigh impossible to prove. The only example that I have to provide is of a particular "private" school in urban Chicago. I forget the specifics (google is your friend), but a woman was annoyed at the failure of the public education system and founded one of her own. It ultimately outperformed every other public school in the area by extremely large margins, and the public school system attempted to shut her school down. Keep in mind, this was with a tiny budget and the students/their families were extremely poor, so the "they are rich and have advantages" that is usually used on private schools performing well isn't going to fly.

Also, stop calling Atlas an Objectivist. He is obviously a market anarchist (I am disliking the term "anarcho-capitalist" more and more because of the connotations that capitalism has taken over the years, especially regarding government control and corporatism), it is just that he is fond of fiery rhetoric. That happens to be common among Objectivists for some reason, whereas among ancaps it seems to be usually lacking (most come off as dry and academic, barring J. Tucker and Rothbard, though they are more witty than anything else). That doesn't make him an Objectivist. 

[niemivh]

I've read that book and Gatto really doesn't promote a true system to replace the old system that was adopted from the Prussian model of the 1880s, which was unfortunate.  The old way to schooling needs to go.  As someone who survived the public school system I can attest to its lack of worth in our modern age.  It was created for the express purpose of creating obedient worker bees that would work in soul-crushing repetitive labor positions.  Any immoral rationalized justification for this has long past in the realm of economic necessity.

End the obsession of standardized testing and make school about inspiring children to learn.  If you do that they'll do most of the rest of the work.  Treat them like little adults.  Allow teachers to discipline and remove disruptive students - it is an institution of learning, not a day care.  And spend MORE money on those identified as exceptional rather than on the mentally impaired, for they will be the leaders of the next generation.

[the joint]

I've read that book and Gatto really doesn't promote a true system to replace the old system that was adopted from the Prussian model of the 1880s, which was unfortunate.  The old way to schooling needs to go.  As someone who survived the public school system I can attest to its lack of worth in our modern age.  It was created for the express purpose of creating obedient worker bees that would work in soul-crushing repetitive labor positions.  Any immoral rationalized justification for this has long past in the realm of economic necessity.

End the obsession of standardized testing and make school about inspiring children to learn.  If you do that they'll do most of the rest of the work.  Treat them like little adults.  Allow teachers to discipline and remove disruptive students - it is an institution of learning, not a day care.  And spend MORE money on those identified as exceptional rather than on the mentally impaired, for they will be the leaders of the next generation.

I especially agree with this last part.  If people with <70 IQ (mentally retarded) are separated and given special accommodations, than those >130 IQ (mentally gifted) should also be separated and given special accommodations.

[em3rgentOrdr]

For those of you interested in another perspective, I'd suggest reading the book "Education: Free and Compulsory" by Murray Rothbard, available for free (ironically) here:


http://mises.org/daily/2226