Thursday, October 24, 2013
James Flynn argues that thinking in terms of the hypothetical has profound implications on education, employment, and ethics (including some very real contemporary issues such as racism).
"and it's a world where we've had to develop new mental habits, new habits of mind. And these include things like clothing that concrete world with classification, introducing abstractions that we try to make logically consistent, and also taking the hypothetical seriously, that is, wondering about what might have been rather than what is."
"Now, this dramatic change was drawn to my attention through massive I.Q. gains over time,and these have been truly massive. That is, we don't just get a few more questions right on I.Q. tests. We get far more questions right on I.Q. tests than each succeeding generationback to the time that they were invented. Indeed, if you score the people a century agoagainst modern norms, they would have an average I.Q. of 70. If you score us against their norms, we would have an average I.Q. of 130. Now this has raised all sorts of questions.Were our immediate ancestors on the verge of mental retardation? Because 70 is normally the score for mental retardation. Or are we on the verge of all being gifted? Because 130 is the cutting line for giftedness.
.....Now I'm going to try and argue for a third alternative that's much more illuminating than either of those"
"[Luria] found that [people before the scientific age] were resistant to deducing the hypothetical, to speculating about what might be, and he found finally that they didn't deal well with abstractions or using logic on those abstractions."
"So the tenor of education has changed. We are educating people to take the hypothetical seriously, to use abstractions, and to link them logically."
"In other words, they were fixed in the concrete mores and attitudes they had inherited. They would not take the hypothetical seriously, and without the hypothetical, it's very difficult to get moral argument off the ground."
"you can get moral argument off the ground, then, because you're not treating moral principles as concrete entities. You're treating them as universals, to be rendered consistent by logic."
"Now, I should say one thing that's very disheartening. We haven't made progress on all fronts. One of the ways in which we would like to deal with the sophistication of the modern world is through politics, and sadly you can have humane moral principles, you can classify, you can use logic on abstractions, and if you're ignorant of history and of other countries,you can't do politics. We've noticed, in a trend among young Americans, that they read less history and less literature and less material about foreign lands, and they're essentially ahistorical. They live in the bubble of the present. They don't know the Korean War from the war in Vietnam. They don't know who was an ally of America in World War II. Think how different America would be if every American knew that this is the fifth time Western armies have gone to Afghanistan to put its house in order, and if they had some idea of exactly what had happened on those four previous occasions. (Laughter) And that is, they had barely left, and there wasn't a trace in the sand. Or imagine how different things would be if most Americans knew that we had been lied into four of our last six wars. You know, the Spanish didn't sink the battleship Maine, the Lusitania was not an innocent vessel but was loaded with munitions, the North Vietnamese did not attack the Seventh Fleet, and, of course, Saddam Hussein hated al Qaeda and had nothing to do with it, and yet the administration convinced 45 percent of the people that they were brothers in arms, when he would hang one from the nearest lamppost."
"and it's a world where we've had to develop new mental habits, new habits of mind. And these include things like clothing that concrete world with classification, introducing abstractions that we try to make logically consistent, and also taking the hypothetical seriously, that is, wondering about what might have been rather than what is."
"Now, this dramatic change was drawn to my attention through massive I.Q. gains over time,and these have been truly massive. That is, we don't just get a few more questions right on I.Q. tests. We get far more questions right on I.Q. tests than each succeeding generationback to the time that they were invented. Indeed, if you score the people a century agoagainst modern norms, they would have an average I.Q. of 70. If you score us against their norms, we would have an average I.Q. of 130. Now this has raised all sorts of questions.Were our immediate ancestors on the verge of mental retardation? Because 70 is normally the score for mental retardation. Or are we on the verge of all being gifted? Because 130 is the cutting line for giftedness.
.....Now I'm going to try and argue for a third alternative that's much more illuminating than either of those"
"[Luria] found that [people before the scientific age] were resistant to deducing the hypothetical, to speculating about what might be, and he found finally that they didn't deal well with abstractions or using logic on those abstractions."
"So the tenor of education has changed. We are educating people to take the hypothetical seriously, to use abstractions, and to link them logically."
"In other words, they were fixed in the concrete mores and attitudes they had inherited. They would not take the hypothetical seriously, and without the hypothetical, it's very difficult to get moral argument off the ground."
"you can get moral argument off the ground, then, because you're not treating moral principles as concrete entities. You're treating them as universals, to be rendered consistent by logic."
"Now, I should say one thing that's very disheartening. We haven't made progress on all fronts. One of the ways in which we would like to deal with the sophistication of the modern world is through politics, and sadly you can have humane moral principles, you can classify, you can use logic on abstractions, and if you're ignorant of history and of other countries,you can't do politics. We've noticed, in a trend among young Americans, that they read less history and less literature and less material about foreign lands, and they're essentially ahistorical. They live in the bubble of the present. They don't know the Korean War from the war in Vietnam. They don't know who was an ally of America in World War II. Think how different America would be if every American knew that this is the fifth time Western armies have gone to Afghanistan to put its house in order, and if they had some idea of exactly what had happened on those four previous occasions. (Laughter) And that is, they had barely left, and there wasn't a trace in the sand. Or imagine how different things would be if most Americans knew that we had been lied into four of our last six wars. You know, the Spanish didn't sink the battleship Maine, the Lusitania was not an innocent vessel but was loaded with munitions, the North Vietnamese did not attack the Seventh Fleet, and, of course, Saddam Hussein hated al Qaeda and had nothing to do with it, and yet the administration convinced 45 percent of the people that they were brothers in arms, when he would hang one from the nearest lamppost."
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World
40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World
40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
A landmark report says scientists are 95% certain that humans are the "dominant cause" of global warming since the 1950s.
Read the BBC article HERE
Read the Full report: Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers
Read the BBC article HERE
Read the Full report: Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers
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