Setting the world to rights

[liv]

Firstly, let me point everybody to this post of leora's about the so-called archiving service that is floating about on the meme-waves right now. Just in case it isn't completely obvious to everyone how much of a Bad Fucking Idea this is, leora spells it out very clearly.

If you want to make a local backup of your own entries, which is more of a good idea, LJArchive is very good in lots of ways. Highly usable, open source and generally yummy. However, it's Windows based. If you use a sensible operating system I'm less able to help you, but if you use a sensible OS and understand Perl, you may find this stuff helpful. Or you may not, but I think that's where to start looking.

Addendum 4.3.05: Apparently, it is not in fact as obvious as I thought why this archiving service is evil. Let me spell this out in so many words: giving your password to a site you know nothing about is stupid. Even if you're prepared to take that risk for yourself, letting them use that password to read and make public copies of other people's Friends Only entries is not acceptable IMO. Even if you disagree with me, please do not "archive" my Friends Only entries offsite. I have no way of enforcing this, but I would be very, very pissed off I found someone was breaching my privacy like that.

Anyway, having got that out of the way. My last post was a bit of a rant about scientific illiteracy compounded by mystification of fairly basic science. In the comments, it kind of degenerated into a general bitchfest about the state of education. So to follow that up, my challenge for the day is this:

Can you name one thing that everybody should know but few people actually do? Because I'm feeling mean this morning, I'm restricting you to one thing. And it has to be described in 100 words or less, mainly because I'm trying to exclude cheating definitions of 'one thing' that are actually several distinct things.

Proposals for how ignorance of your chosen topic might be combatted are welcome, and can be as long as you like. Vague proposals such as 'make primary school education work properly' will be frowned upon, however. I may give prizes for the best suggestions.

Comments

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Fact: Money is intrinsically worthless, with its value being enforced by collective belief. (Even the "Gold Standard" or the like doesn't help much...)

Reasons: Firstly, if people realise that money is just a consentual myth, they will probably worry less about it and be less greedy. Secondly, it should get people to care more about social justice as there is little inherent reason for catastrophic injustices if the differences are ultimately consentual mythology. Thirdly, it is highly subversve to teach people this and should show them both the power of collective belief and get them to question what else fits into this category.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I think everyone should understand enough probability and statistics that they are not misled by spurious presentations of data. It would be nice too if we could avoid newspaper headlines such as "50% of students score below avesage in province wide tests - parents demand minister resign".

[rho]

Yes, you truly are mean for limitting us to only one thing.

Probably not the most important or valuable thing that I could think up, but I really, really wish that more people had a moderate grasp of how to do menta; arithmetic. I'm not talking division of 7 digits numbers to give an answer to seven significant figures or anything, here. I'm talking "how to add eight to ninety-five without reaching for a calculator". Really basic things, and how to do quick ballpark approximations for slightly more complicated stuff would be helpful.

I think that the best way to combat that problem is to stop people from using calculators so early. I know that I wasn't allowed a calculator at all until I was in second year of high school (age 12), whereas kids these days seem to be starting using them a whole lot earlier.

It would also be nifty if some time and effort was taken on teaching mental arithmetic to slightly older children. The assumption generally seems to be that you teach kids how to do basic arithmetic when they're young, and as soon as they can do that, you give them a calculator so they don't need to do it any more. Which isn't at all effective, partly because you need lots of practice -- preferably while in the process of working out something else -- to really get the hang of it, and partly because some of the tricks and techniques may be a little tricky for younger kids to properly get their heads around.

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced that mental arithmetic really is that useful. (Though my opinion may be influenced by the fact that, despite being mathematically literate, I've never been terribly good at it)

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

That all the other people are real, valid human beings too. I mean, it's something that everyone knows in a conceptual way, but it tends to get rounded down to 'people I know who aren't asylum seekers, don't have a criminal record, don't look threatening and are roughly in my income bracket' all too often.

[rho]

There are more useful skills, sure, but I definitely think mental arithmetic has its uses. For instance:

Making sure that the shop assistant gives you the right change.
Figuring out how much you're actually going to have to pay when you see "Sale! One third off marked price!"
Having a firm idea of the order of magnitude of any calculation you do with a computer or calculator, so you know straight away if you make a dumb error when entering the data.
Conversion between units
Scaling up a recipe
Estimating a time of arrival if you know distance and speed

And so on. I'm sure I could think of more if I wanted to.

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

Orders of magnitude are useful, I agree, but I think mental arithmetic is only part of that skill - being able to spot whether the inputs themselves look sensible is just as important. As is knowing what's sensible to combine & what isn't - e.g. silly figures like "Members of the local weightwatchers group lost over 150lbs between them this month!"

[robhu.livejournal.com]

• The skills to think critically
• An understanding of basic risk
• An understanding of sample sizes / realiability
• Importance of peer review

If people had those basic science skills then the MMR furore would never have happened for instance.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Sensible risk analysis, which is a subset of probability and statistics. People get incredibly worried about things that have very little likelihood of ever happening to them, and yet inexplicably ignore very probable dangers.

(Actually, probability was my immediate response, but someone else got there first!)

[tammy.livejournal.com]

You've been archived, my dear. : /

http://www.frienditto.com/users/livredor/78674.html

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Gahh, only one thing ? At least when misia did this we got to pick five... I'm vacillating between reasonable understanding of evolutionary principles and how universally they apply, how to give a good backrub, and "Don't lie on my hair, damn it !"

[quizcustodet.livejournal.com]

Conservation of energy and momentum. Many and many of the junk science e-mails would be laughed out of existence if people just understood that you get nothing gratis.

How to fix it? I recommend lots of experiments with air tracks. And maybe for more advanced students, air hockey.

[draconid.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to suggest anything. I just thought this was a perfect opportunity to mention the conversation Rat had at his work earlier in the week. His boss was horrified when a colleague didn't know what Camelot was (thinking it was one of the knights of the round table). While I'm quite surprised someone might not know this I realise that different people are interested in different things. Rat's boss went on for days about this supposedly "general knowledge" piece of information.

Anyway, I guess in answer to your question, I can't actually think of anything...

Money is a consensual myth

[liv]

Mm, I like this one. When I was learning about the Depression I remember a bunch of us got together and petitioned the history teacher to explain money to us, because none of us could understand how it all worked. There are still things I don't completely grasp about money, and money has rather a lot of influence on my life. But just this basic fact seems to me both powerful and teachable. Thankyou.

Probability and statistics

[liv]

A grasp of fundamental concepts in statistics feels like part of basic literacy to me, and exactly for the reason you cite, that it's a survival skill.

Do you have any implementation suggestions? Myself, I think Darrell Huff might be a good start, but he probably needs a bit of updating.

Re: Probability and statistics

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I'm really no expert on pedagogical strategies; especially when it comes to mass education.

Mental arithmetic

[liv]

Not sure about this one. It's sort of a standard old codger rant, and it's easy to get annoyed with people who are completely clueless with it, but I'm not sure it matters that much. It's the same kind of annoyance as that caused by apostrophe abuse; it allows the ranter to show off their superior education, but it's more annoying than harmful.

I think your strategy is very plausible though. Introducing calculators later, and continuing to teach mental arithmetic to older children both sound like they could be effective without being ridiculously expensive.

[itsaslashything.livejournal.com]

Seeing this message to explain them being down seems like grounds enough to stay far far far away. Not only does it appear that livejournal has had issues with them, they can't even spell the most simple of words!

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Don't forget LJ Book. (http://www.ljbook.com/) It even archives comments.

And for my one thing, I'll take "correlation does not imply causality." Because I have to explain it to people over and over and over and over again. And then they still don't get it.

I propose implementing this with a large brick. Every time someone assumes that "A happens along with B" means "A causes B," I will hit them in the head with the brick. Then I'll point out "I could be hitting you with the brick because you keep committing a really stupid logical error. Or I could just be a bastard."

[leora.livejournal.com]

In times of emergency or when someone needs help, most people will freeze up and be unsure what to do, By the time they decide action needs to be taken, most will convince themselves someone else must have acted by now or since no one else is acting, it must be the right thing to do. Know this and be the one who acts and others will usually be eager to help you, if given some basic direction.

[liv]

Hmm, I think there are several different concepts getting confused here. What you're talking about, the ability to tell whether numbers look sensible, I don't know quite what one would call it but I don't think 'mental arithmetic' is quite the right term. The ability to estimate and handle orders of magnitude needs a little bit of mental arithmetic, but mostly it's a way of avoiding anything but the most trivial. It's almost numerical literacy (as opposed to numeracy, which is a slightly different thing). Interesting thought.

[liv]

I think I count the ability to make sensible estimates as slightly different from the ability to do mental arithmetic. To me, mental arithmetic implies getting the right answer. Though it is true that the two reinforce eachother.

And seeing this list, I can see that they are things that enhance your quality of life. Hmm, I'm really undecided about this suggestion! Thanks for making me think.

[liv]

That all the other people are real, valid human beings too.
I love this one. I really love this one, I think if I could magically change one thing about the world this would be it. However, short of magic, do you have any implementation suggestions?

[liv]

I see a list of four bullet points. I have trouble defining that as one thing!

"The skills to think critically" is a very broad concept; I am afraid I shall have to disqualify that suggestion unless you can give me a reasonable description in under 100 words. I think the sample sizes and reliability part may well be a subset of that, actually.

"An understanding of basic risk" seems more reasonable, but could still do with an implementation suggestion.

As for the peer review system, I'm unconvinced that that's really entirely necessary. I mean, drumming into people's heads that "peer-reviewed science" is probably more reliable than "what some bloke said on TV" might do something. But basically the peer review system is a very baroque setup which is designed for a specific purpose and I can't honestly see that it has much relevance to the everyday lives of anyone outside academia.

sensible risk analysis

[liv]

Yup, like that one a lot. Because assessing risk is something that all people have to do quite frequently in their lives, and that people are rather genetically programmed to get wrong. I think that those unhelpful instincts can be overridden if you're taught to think in the right way, though.

Implementation suggestions?