College Education: "us" versus "them"

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
Judas Maccabeus
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

cmbl wrote:
Josh wrote:
cmbl wrote: This depends heavily on the field of study. In my experience, engineering education is nearly or completely devoid of
If you check the course catalogue for the university I posted, the courses required apply to all majors, including their schools of engineering, C.S., and nursing. Chasing STEM type of majors at a typical college or university is no longer a respite from this sort of thing.
According to pages 302 and 303, the mechanical engineering major is 147 semester units. Thirty of those, or 20.4%, are in the "core curriculum." Importantly, another 33 credits, the "Mathematics and Basic Science requirements," are used in place of what would be in the "core curriculum" for liberal arts majors. These math requirements are Calc I, II, and III, an applied math course, and a probability and statistics course.

The liberal arts majors would be in the 40-50% range. The mechanical engineers are at 20%.
Similar numbers have I seen in Allied health. If you go there thinking you will be anything other than a missionary, you are in for trouble.

J.M.
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Bootstrap
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Bootstrap »

Robert wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:And I don't find this approach very helpful for science.
This ain't science! :shock:

It's a little internet forum! :blah: :blah: :blah:
I think this illustrates a kind of reverse snobbery that I'm really uncomfortable with.

Of course we should respect the intelligence and value of people at various educational levels, and that includes farmers and car mechanics and machinists and plumbers - but that includes scientists and doctors and astrophysicists too.

Before mocking your car mechanic, you really should get to the point that you can fix cars better than he can. At that point, you could be a car mechanic too. The mocking arrogance of educated people is a terrible thing. If someone like me talks about fixing the carburetor in a Nissan Versa, someone who knows about cars should step in and correct the facts.

Before mocking scientists and proudly claiming to know so much more than they do, you really should thoroughly understand what they are saying and why, and get to the point that you are better informed than they are. At that point, you can publish papers. The mocking arrogance of less educated people can be just as bad.

Mocking arrogance is a problem at any educational level. Pretending to be an expert without real expertise is a problem at any educational level. People have the same virtues and faults across the educational spectrum, we just point our faults in different directions.
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Josh
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Josh »

I freely mock scientists who claim that a man can become a woman.

Unfortunately, that's where we are sitting now. And this epistemological position is not pretty. I am no fan of Christians abandoning scientific reasoning, the emperical process, and choosing fringe belief systems over established consensus.

But "scientific consensus" is rapidly changing for political ends. We have seen it already happen with sexual orientation, it is happening now with gender, and I see no reason to believe climate science is not also affected. How much is anyone who doesn't support the current consensus going to get published, get tenured? The only research grants will be from biased sources like the right wing ones you mentioned.
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ken_sylvania
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by ken_sylvania »

Bootstrap wrote:
Robert wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:And I don't find this approach very helpful for science.
This ain't science! :shock:

It's a little internet forum! :blah: :blah: :blah:
I think this illustrates a kind of reverse snobbery that I'm really uncomfortable with.

Of course we should respect the intelligence and value of people at various educational levels, and that includes farmers and car mechanics and machinists and plumbers - but that includes scientists and doctors and astrophysicists too.

Before mocking your car mechanic, you really should get to the point that you can fix cars better than he can. At that point, you could be a car mechanic too. The mocking arrogance of educated people is a terrible thing. If someone like me talks about fixing the carburetor in a Nissan Versa, someone who knows about cars should step in and correct the facts.

Before mocking scientists and proudly claiming to know so much more than they do, you really should thoroughly understand what they are saying and why, and get to the point that you are better informed than they are. At that point, you can publish papers. The mocking arrogance of less educated people can be just as bad.

Mocking arrogance is a problem at any educational level. Pretending to be an expert without real expertise is a problem at any educational level. People have the same virtues and faults across the educational spectrum, we just point our faults in different directions.
I don't like the term mocking, as I do think every person deserves respect, being in the image of God. Distrusting the opinions of others doesn't necessarily equate to mocking.
Aside from that, while I agree with what you say to a point, I think your insistence that we accept the scientific consensus unless and until we can prove it wrong is misguided.
Take your example of a car mechanic above, for instance. Suppose I am on an extended trip, and I stop in at an auto mechanic shop to get the oil changed in my car. If the mechanic pulls my car into his shop and changes the oil, then comes back out and tries to tell me that I need brakes all the way around and that the transmission is almost shot, and wants to do an $8,500 repair job, I'm not going to believe him. I don't care how many professional associations he's a part of, I couldn't care less about his ASE certification and badge, and I don't care whether he knows how to rebuild an engine better than I do. All I have is a hunch that there's something wrong, and that's enough for me to make what is probably the best decision I can, which is to pay the bill for the oil change, get my car back, check the oil level, and get back on the road.
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ken_sylvania
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by ken_sylvania »

A more real-life example of what I mean is the following incident that happened about ten years ago:
The company I worked for had a project where an historic house was getting lifted about 30 feet, then rolled about 75' forward on steel beams supported by wooden cribbing piles. There were nine cribbing piles under the house itself, then something like fourteen more supporting the steel beams along their length. This being a government project (yes, the amount of money wasted on this project was ridiculous), one of these highfalutin structural engineers was hired to review the cribbing design and bracing to ensure that everything was sufficient. Well, the engineer measures the building, he figures out the weight of the various building materials that it's built of, and he comes up with an estimated weight of the house. Then he runs his calculations on all the wooden cribbing and steel beams, calculates deflection, and whatever else an engineer does. He calculates the weight distribution of the house on the nine crib piles that it's originally getting lifted on, something around maybe 350 tons altogether. Now as we mentioned, this house needs to get rolled forward. So, the engineer re-calculates the weight distribution with the house moved ten feet forward from its original location. "Ah," says he, "we're going to be getting a lot of weight bearing on these crib piles. You need to install concrete bases for stability." We take a look at his weight distribution and sure enough, there is a lot of weight on those piles. Then we add the total of the weights on all the crib piles after the house moves ten feet, and it's nearly 400 tons. "Wait a minute," we say. "There was only 350 tons of house when we started, where did all the extra weight come from?" The engineer tells us it's because of the cantilever effect, that it's really complicated, but that his calculations are definitely right.
Now, do I need to be a structural engineer to be able to tell him positively that he is wrong? Do I have to be able to run all the calculations and write an engineer's report before I judge his work? Do I even have to even know for sure what the new weight distributions exactly are before I decide that his calculations are wrong? No, of course not. His problem was, that he was so focused on the details that he was missing the big picture. And that, my friend, is the type of experiences that have encouraged my skepticism of the "experts."
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Bootstrap »

ken_sylvania wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:Of course we should respect the intelligence and value of people at various educational levels, and that includes farmers and car mechanics and machinists and plumbers - but that includes scientists and doctors and astrophysicists too.

Before mocking your car mechanic, you really should get to the point that you can fix cars better than he can. At that point, you could be a car mechanic too. The mocking arrogance of educated people is a terrible thing. If someone like me talks about fixing the carburetor in a Nissan Versa, someone who knows about cars should step in and correct the facts.

Before mocking scientists and proudly claiming to know so much more than they do, you really should thoroughly understand what they are saying and why, and get to the point that you are better informed than they are. At that point, you can publish papers. The mocking arrogance of less educated people can be just as bad.

Mocking arrogance is a problem at any educational level. Pretending to be an expert without real expertise is a problem at any educational level. People have the same virtues and faults across the educational spectrum, we just point our faults in different directions.
I don't like the term mocking, as I do think every person deserves respect, being in the image of God. Distrusting the opinions of others doesn't necessarily equate to mocking.
Aside from that, while I agree with what you say to a point, I think your insistence that we accept the scientific consensus unless and until we can prove it wrong is misguided.
I don't insist that we accept the scientific consensus. I can disagree with my doctor, even though I do not have his training. I can go to another doctor, compare opinions, and choose the advice that makes the most sense to me. In fact, we live in a world where none of us can be experts on everything. I can decide which pilot I trust even if I don't know how to fly an airplane.

But I think we are wise to acknowledge that most doctors believe smoking is bad for you, exercise is good for you, and you are more likely to lose weight eating carrots than chocolate. If you disagree with those things, fine. If you campaign against the consensus of medical opinion, at least start by acknowledging the consensus, and explain your reasoning. And please don't be too hard on us poor fools who continue to avoid smoking because we think the doctors might be right.

And the mocking of experts in fields we don't understand really does bother me. After all, we are especially vulnerable to being mocked when we do that. If I make fun of a car mechanic because he thinks my Nissan Versa doesn't have a carburetor, someone out there is probably trying hard not to laugh at me. I see some people mocking others while demanding respect for themselves. That bothers me.

And the ignorant arrogance bothers me. It's pretty obvious that some people have no idea what the IPCC report says, they might think it claims that all human life will be exterminated, and they have no idea what scientific reasoning is given for their conclusions, how many independent lines of evidence are given, etc. Yet they claim that they know enough to refute it. I see the same thing in other lines of expertise, people who are experts in Greek but cannot read a sentence in Greek, or people who are experts in cybersecurity but don't even know the basics. Each of us claims to be the expert in every field of expertise, and people are offended if that is questioned.

Humility is important. Scientists and philosophers talk about "epistemological humility", being humble about what we claim to know with any certainty. I think that's an important kind of humility. Some people give the impression that anyone with less education is automatically more humble. I don't think that's true.
ken_sylvania wrote:Take your example of a car mechanic above, for instance. Suppose I am on an extended trip, and I stop in at an auto mechanic shop to get the oil changed in my car. If the mechanic pulls my car into his shop and changes the oil, then comes back out and tries to tell me that I need brakes all the way around and that the transmission is almost shot, and wants to do an $8,500 repair job, I'm not going to believe him. I don't care how many professional associations he's a part of, I couldn't care less about his ASE certification and badge, and I don't care whether he knows how to rebuild an engine better than I do. All I have is a hunch that there's something wrong, and that's enough for me to make what is probably the best decision I can, which is to pay the bill for the oil change, get my car back, check the oil level, and get back on the road.
Yes, that's a good analogy. And we live in a world where we each need to make decisions based on incomplete information, talking with experts who we may disagree with even if we know less than they do about many things. That's why we get second opinions or three quotes on a big project. We try to know enough to develop an intuition.

But to do that, you at least need to know what the mechanic recommended. If you don't even know what he said your car needs, and why (at least in layman's terms), you don't really know enough to make an informed choice.

For what it's worth, I tend to trust expertise more than credentials. In any field, the experts know who the other experts are. Often, some of these experts do not have all the formal credentials. Often, some people with all the credentials do not have the expertise you want. Before you get surgery, ask the lead nurse in the operating room which surgeons have good hands. Some don't. And the people who work with them know who they are.
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PeterG
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by PeterG »

What is the cantilever effect?
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Josh
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Josh »

The medical consensus for years was that we should eat more carbs and less fat, and that it's good to replace animal fats with artificially produced trans fats. We all know how well that turned out.
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by MaxPC »

PeterG wrote:What is the cantilever effect?
It's a term in physics that describes variations in force gradient numbers for a given material or condition. It's not a relevant term to this discussion. I wouldn't let it worry you :mrgreen:
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Bootstrap »

ken_sylvania wrote:"Wait a minute," we say. "There was only 350 tons of house when we started, where did all the extra weight come from?" The engineer tells us it's because of the cantilever effect, that it's really complicated, but that his calculations are definitely right.

Now, do I need to be a structural engineer to be able to tell him positively that he is wrong? Do I have to be able to run all the calculations and write an engineer's report before I judge his work? Do I even have to even know for sure what the new weight distributions exactly are before I decide that his calculations are wrong? No, of course not. His problem was, that he was so focused on the details that he was missing the big picture. And that, my friend, is the type of experiences that have encouraged my skepticism of the "experts."
I've had plenty of experiences like that too. But in this case, you had good information to work from in your grasp. A good engineer should always check results to see if they are reasonable, calculated against other known quantities.

In general, I find that conversations among different kinds of experts are much better information than the opinion of one expert. In this case, you had some expertise that he should not have ignored. Personally, I would have gotten a second opinion from an expert before trusting my own opinion, because I have no experience or relevant knowledge. You may well have that level of knowledge, with or without formal credentials. It's good to have a sense for what you know and what you don't know.
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