Lab Results and Real-World Disconnects: Covid Vaccinations

edited 12/16/21

'Tis many the slip twixt cup and lip. -- Adage.

Introduction. President Biden wants kids (young or old) back in school. Their parents do, too. Ditto, the many other people who are inconvenienced, even suffering, from school closures. So do I, having been a teacher for some 43+ years. (Older kids likely want to come to school, too, if only to cut classes to hang out with their friends or to enjoy, if only vicariously, other forms of stimulation.)

Should teachers, instructors, and professors go back into their classrooms because the Center for Disease Control states that they all, under certain safety conditions, need no vaccinations to return to school?

Unless certain special conditions were carefully observed and monitored, I would vote, "NO!". I would so insist, not just because President Biden wants it; I agree with him. Not just because some think the vaccines tested by the CDC can't be trusted; I trust CDC( -- so long as its pronouncements are scientifically based.) Not because I don't care about the economy or about the mental health of our populations; I do care.

I would vote NO because there are, especially in education, too many possible circumstances that can block safe access to schools, despite our political leaders trying to raise morale by appointing "Czars," or "special mandates" or "emergency operations." No matter what directives come from on high, educational institutions tend to be very sensitive to local concerns down to, even, departmental levels. It is a rarity, usually a tragedy, that makes a school event broadly "newsworthy." (If it bleeds, it leads.)

Consequently, externally sourced "problem-solving" tends to be late, clumsy and overhyped and only pursued until a more headline-grabbing event occurs. There are many easily recognized "impediments" to "getting vaccines into arms." They might be more or less realistic, for example, realistic: a scarcity of vaccines, or lack of medical resources. Less realistic are: for example, Blaming the bat-boys: teacher unions, or expecting too much from Leadership.

Does Better Science mean Better Practice? Sometimes. Not infrequently, not.

A vice-president of a large electronics corporation once invited me to visit a company warehouse where "amazing" inventions were stored away, not (to be) developed for sale.

He told me that there were many wondrous things to be seen that really worked but unfortunately couldn't be scaled up from their prototypes to items that could be profitably marketed.

Even with vaccines it's a matter of costs and benefits, even though the Federal Government may pick up the expenses. There are two disadvantages with any possible "market" item. The first is that its costs might be greater than the price it can garner from prospective buyers. By "costs" for the producer, here, are meant more than the search costs for and monetary costs of wages and salaries of labor and materials. Also there are opportunity costs: the inability of committed labor to work on other, later discovered, better prospects; and, the costs of materials that may not be recoverable for other purposes.

From some perspectives, such considerations might rationalize a comprehensive national response to the Covid emergency rather than a state-by-state pursuit, likely competitive, for lack of individual state funding. (Which is not to say that such a federal response would be problem-free.)

Promotional Failures

27% of teachers are considering quitting because of Covid, survey finds. -- AJ Hess CNBC Mon, Dec 14 2020 9:34 AM EST

American education has a long history of spending on seductive items for improving education. Such attractive, even "scientific"ideas have often turned out, despite gushes of enthusiasm, to be not even moderately successful.

In addition to production and opportunity costs, there are possible psychological costs, e.g. disappointing prospective customers with products that can't meet promoted schedules or quality.

It's too bad that President Biden has put a time limit (100 days) on the injection numbers for the Covid vaccine. I hope such targets can be hit. However, too many uncertainties have already turned up to make that, already, an iffy projection, particularly, we will see, as it applies to schools.

Already, Feb 13, 2021 3 A.M., there are indications that one-third of our adult population are undecided about getting the Covid vaccine. (But they say they might be persuaded by family or friends.)

In the best of times, the expected job-life of a newly graduated teacher candidate is three years. Each year, 12-13% of public school teachers quit the profession for good. In 2019, 50% of teachers report having considered quitting for various reasons. Teachers who don't quit have likely been long inured to reneged-on promises for resources for school improvement.

Why and how do people get into (public school) teaching in the first place? A reasonable question. With a hardly-to-be-believed answer that describes my experience and that of many teachers -- not all, far from it, I imagine.

The answer is ... by chance. I was a philosophy major with no intention of ever, ever being a public school teacher. I was out of a job after graduation in 1964 and was told that jobs for potential math teachers were going begging in my home town.

I applied with the school system and, in Fall, 1964, had my first, formal teaching experience. It was a disaster.

I had worked three summers, 1961 - 63, as a camp counselor and really enjoyed it. I discovered, Fall 1964 that teaching cooped up with kids in a hot, stuffy junior high school classroom was very unlike being a camp counselor. On that first day, after only an hour, the kids ran out of the room. They did not return. After two hours, I walked out and left the school, despite being told by the school's head secretary that I would never, ever, ever be employed ever again as a teacher, anywhere.

The next day I was called up from Central Administration and asked if I would make another try at different school. I did, and had a wonderful experience. After six months, I was hooked. The next September I reported to work for the school district.

Are "Educational Institutions" Primarily Educational?

Schools, public, private and higher ed institutions are very variable from the perspective of the instructional personnel. One Great American Myth is that their primary focus is on social and/or intellectual development and that supporting such development is the mission of the schooling organization.

It may, possibly, be so. It is often not. The overwhelming concern at institutional locations is , commonly, to protect or expand departmental budgets and domains. Anything else is of secondary interest. I found this to be true not only in public education, but in private, religious and university education, also.

Not only leaders but jobholders at many levels focus primarily on what they believe supports their individual continued incumbency. This is universal in almost any kind of organization where output is celebrated and verbally emphasized yet cannot be easily evaluated.

For universities that have them, an education department is often supported as a cash cow. For cash cows all grass tastes good. Committed scholarship is reluctantly appreciated. Obsequiousness is "reinforced" and garrulousness is often accepted as intelligence.

Exposure to such training has an effect on teachers in developing disregard of or passive resistence to administrative undertakings regardless of their wisdom or intelligence. Teachers can be very resistant to change as a group, say, a union, or class or activity sponsor, little matter the rationale for the group's existence.

If they have survived in the profession for more than five years teachers, particularly school teachers, have likely swallowed more than their fair share of disrespect, condescension or disregard from administrators, parents and politicians. Teachers resent, particularly, broken promises which they understand to be lack of concern not only of themselves, but of the children (or older students) they teach.

I worked in one school building for 12 years in which the water fountains seldom worked; the bathrooms had no running water or toilet paper; there were bullet-holes in interior steel doors and where the only air-conditioning to be had -- even in 95+ degree weather -- was to be found in the principal's office. (Parents often really underestimate how deeply concerned teachers can be for the well-being of their students.) Likely to avoid further provocation, in that school, teacher complaints were normally received graciously by administrators and conceded sympathy as to their seriousness. Promises were the made for help and then, ultimately, forgotten. (Except when the presenter of concerns was a building union representative.)

(When I left that school after twelve years, the building was pretty much the same, a few haphazard repairs which quickly disappeared had been attempted.)

Why are teacher (or professorial, in universities) concerns ignored? Because functional differences in organizations produce cultural and ethical differences. Administrators are most often rewarded (or punished) by higher-ups for things having little to do with the development of intellectual or social skills in students (but for the kind of obsequiousness that can be renamed "good citizenship" and treated as an indicator of good "classroom management" or "student relationships.")

Politicians seldom have any idea, if they care at all, what really goes on in schools. They imagine that an official document to delivered to schools magically manifests itself as behavioral changes in students. And many parents have other concerns so long as their kids are kept out of their hair and make B's or A's and don't come home pregnant or bruised.

You shouldn't think that these ills are unique to education. All organizations confront conflicts which set internal groups against each other, as well as outsiders.

Many teachers come to learn that promises from administrators, politicians or parents seldom come to fruition. Recently, the Chicago Teacher's Union has agreed to come be into school provided an independent third party will be available to assure that promises to the teachers from school higher up are in fact being carried out. This is wise. Teachers often can't believe assurances from people not "on the front line."

Overlooked Sub-group Conflicts: disregarding the "elephants in the room."

Once the rocket goes up,
Who cares where it goes down?
That's not my department...
-- T Lehrer, Werner von Braun

Professional differences in a group addressing a "common problem" may produce conflicting interpretations and different claims on group resources. I taught a class in policy analysis some years back at Widener University. One of my students was a Ph.D. chemist whose company was involved with several school districts in identifying students who might be using illegal drugs.

I asked the group, consisting mostly of administrators of schools and of related health professions to come up with a problematic policy they were involved with that we could work on in class. They selected "Testing students for drug usage."

I had them read an article that cautioned about common errors of practice that could produce undesirable results in such things as collecting urine samples for analysis. This is especially problematic because control of the provenance of the samples, how they were collected, identified and passed along to the testing laboratory was laxly supervised.

A major error was a narrow focus and complete reliance on test accuracy, without considering the likely percentage of users in the population.

The results of such error would be a profusion of false positives; that is, student who were not users being identified as users. Such results, the group recognized, would disrupt not only board members, but many other groups in their communities.

There was one person who objected to the analysis: the Ph.D. chemist. He insisted, the 99% accuracy used our simulation was ridiculous. In his labs, he said, his test accuracies were reliable to the sixth decimal place.

I conceded that the tests he ran were really highly accurate. But those tests were to find out whether the contents of the sample bottles he received with contained an illegal drug.

The tests the school personnel were concerned about was whether a sample identified as coming from a certain person was, in fact, from that person. Only then could its contents indicate a drug-user. School people, parents or other community members were concerned with "provenance" or source accuracy; not the accuracy of lab-testing, which is only a small part of establishing provenance.

What "the problem" was, was different for the chemist from what "the problem" was for the rest of the group. This kind of interpretive confusion is not infrequently the cause of many frustrations in addressing problems: plausible alternative interpretation. (This might even cause an original group of concerned participants to break up because some members now feel that their professional authority on group decision has been diminished.)

I reassured our chemist that I understood and accepted that his laboratories did high quality work. But the real problem, often missed, was a contextual one. It required a broadening of perspective.

The chemist grimaced, stood up and left. He never came back

. See Public “Science” Controversy: distrust is not the only issue.

See, also, The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision.

Cordially, EGR February 15, 2021

The Presidential Election: What? No Tidal Wave? Some reasons why not.

Updated 12/1/2020 11:32 AM

I originally wrote this blog Wed Nov 4th at 5:30 AM in my residence just outside of Philadelphia, PA (in Montgomery County). At that point, Biden had 238 possible electoral votes to Trump's 213. This changed. Perhaps it would have been better if I had just shut down and gone back to bed. But I voted for Biden and couldn't stop thinking that two important presumptions among the Biden campaign managers (and possibly Biden himself) had undercut the candidate's appeal to many of the people I lived among in Philadelphia for the first 35 years of my life. (Those people, I suspect, have given strong support to Trump.)

I was born in Bridesburg, a section of Philadelphia NOT usually thought of as Middle Class. People moved elsewhere when they started making money (unless their ethnic ties were strong). My father's best civilian job, all his life, was as a machinist working for Westinghouse corporation. By "Middle Class," had he even thought about the words, he would likely have understood to be those people who were scratching out a livihg in our neighborhood as small store owners, or "professionals" like doctors or clerics, local politicians or teachers.

My dad was a union member, a WWII veteran, and a member of our active, local Democratic Party. We were not "Middle Class." His union was involved in occasional strikes against Westinghouse. (Yet, I, going through public schools for 11 years, never even heard the words, "union" or "strike," mentioned by any of my teachers, who were all considered to be "middle class".)

I thought Vice-President Biden's focus on "Rebuilding the Middle Class" would be seen by many as unduly narrow. A common charactistic of many of the "working class" people (of whom I was seen to be one, even with a college degree and working as a teacher) was an antagonistic -- yet, polite -- attitude towards middle class people, despite their not infrequent condescension. Such "middle class people? were believed to do "less work" and still make more money, because they had "connections." (People in Bridesburg whom we believed to have "connections" were either occasionally middle-class, lucky by marriage, or mobsters.)

America was not built by the "middle-class" alone. Few immigrants arrive, even today, as "middle-class." No coal-miner, nor shoe-maker, nor street-sweeper, nor short-order-cook was, nor even today is, considered middle-class. Benefits promised to "rebuilding the middle-class" are likely seen by many working-class people, job-holders, church-goers, and as civic-minded as leftover energy permits, as benefits not likely designated for them. Advice: broaden the category! Don't talk about class. Talk about function, e.g. "essential workers" or "economic supporters" or "social contributors."

The second concern is easy(!) enough to address. Even now I encounter floods of the same old lies about Joe Biden on the same TV channels like clockwork. Repeated claims by Republicans that have been refuted as false by recognizable authorities should be nonetheless repeatedly challenged. One refutation is not enough. We "middle class" people, often highly educated, not infrequently fall into the comfortable presumption that saying something once, or a very few times -- even if sporadically -- is enough. It isn't! I have taught in all levels of education. Intelligently timed repetition is essential. Otherwise the many distractions of life erase the message.

I felt some urgency to blog about this now while it is still likely that Biden will win. I hope he does. But winning presents a danger that sifting the ashes of failure might be more likely to avoid. People who win are more tempted to hubris. What would be overlooked in a Biden win might be the reasons an expected tidal wave success became an actual tight race.

For a number of parallel concerns, see Why Democrats Keep Losing Rural Counties Like Mine.

(More on possible root causes, e.g. "factionalism vs diversity," to come in future blogs. - egr. See Living in a Cloud of Buzzwords? Two possible remedies.)

Cordially, -- EGR

Discussing What You "Ought Not" Say: taboo, philosophy and politics

updated 1/24/20

Lay lady lay
Lay across my big brass bed
Stay lady stay
Stay with your man a while
Until the break of day -- Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay (1969)[1]

"You slimy weasels want some sex education? I'll give it to you. Just keep your zipper shut and you won't end up with some God-awful disease!"[2]

Looking for Consensus on Controversial Topics.

Some decades back, I was invited by a Catholic university to give a lecture on the topic of corporal punishment. The presentation would be open to both faculty and students, both undergraduate and graduate and, in effect, to any interested attenders. I gathered from the invitation that I was to talk about both the nature and morality of corporal punishment, particularly as it might occur in an educational environment.

My philosophical approach was to employ case studies, common situations, to see what, if any, consensus we could reach on criteria to be generalized for discussion.[3]
The first case I presented was this:

5 year-old Arnold is bitten by a squirrel after pinching his sister and running out into the backyard.

Question: By his being bitten by the squirrel, has Arnold been punished? The audience was to use a 5-point scale:

1 = definitely not; 2 = probably not; 3 = unclear; 4 = probably so; 5 = definitely so [4]

On a handout sheet, audience members,indicating only their university status and case evaluation, gave in their responses to a small team who tallied them.

The audience appeared to be balanced between faculty and others. (Many were identifiable as such by their clerical garb.) However, I was somewhat surprised by the responses. The great majority of the faculty put down 1, a few 2. Among the undergraduate students most put down a 5, fewer a 4. There were very few 3's.

But before I began a discussion, I told the audience that the description of the case was clearly very sketchy. Perhaps, I suggested, if I had given them more information about Arnold's situation, it might have influenced their judgement. In fact, I suggested that they write down some conditions that might influence their judgement in the opposite direction from their first response, counter-evidence, as it were. For example, what additional information would convince them to change their 1 to a 2 or higher; which, to change a 5 to a 4 or lower.

I then asked for people who would reveal their original situation and give a reason why they changed it by telling us about their new "counter-evidence." One faculty member, a nun, who initially gave a 1 = definitely not punishment, said that there was not clear cause and effect relationship between the pinching and the biting. It looked to her that the biting was a random occurrence -- unless Arnold's mother had trained a squirrel to bite big brothers who pinched little sisters. That got a laugh but was accepted as a relevant condition, thus able to move the judgement away from a 1 to something higher.

An undergraduate who thought Arnold was being punished, 5, said he thought that the squirrel might be an instrument of God delivering what Arnold deserved. But, after turning in the handout he had some misgivings and reconsidering that, in the original sketchy depiction of Arnold's pinching, it could have been that Arnold pulled the squirrel's tail just before the bite. That would be a more likely scenario. It's easier to delve into the mind of a squirrel, he said, than into the mind of God.

(Faculty present may, perhaps, have felt some relief, at least, that they had had some influence on that student's education.) Besides, continued the undergraduate, we don't know whether Arnold actually hurt his sister; nor, whether she provoked him. Nor, have we been told how long it was before the biting squirrel incident occurred.

As it turned out, the discussion developed such that trying to negotiate a consensus on the nature of punishment, was only partially successful for lack of time; but it did seem to get the audience to recognize the complexity of the notion of punishment and the issues of justice and cruelty that were pertinent to them.

Dirty Words and Obscene Implications.

Ten or so years ago I went into a Whole Foods market to get something. Behind me came a man and woman perhaps ten to fifteen years older than I was. Music was playing softly in the background. I heard Bob Dylan singing Lay Lady Lay in a strangely deep voice. It was the first time I had ever heard the song. It sounded erotic to me, but not unusually so. Here's what happened next.

The couple behind me (call them "the Smiths") stopped, shuddered and hurriedly went back outside. They seemed to be agitated. Mr. Smith came back alone and said to a cashier, "I have to talk with the manager." The cashier called another man, who came and asked how he could help.

Mr. Smith protested, "Don't you hear what they're singing on that record. I can't bring my wife in here with that garbage playing! Turn if off!"

The presumed manager said, "Look, I'm only the assistant manager. The manager's home sick today. And I have no authority to change the music piped into our store."

"Well, then," said Mr. Smith. "We certainly cannot stay to shop in a store that plays pornography!"And out he went.

We ought not dismiss this as an ephemeral example of the sexual "hang-ups" of "old fogies." So let's extend our attention to other areas of present-day controversy. Often we are chided, often quite vehemently, not to "speak evil," i.e. not to use dismissive or biased terminology in discussing people. This caution often occurs in attempts to acculturate not only non-English speaking immigrants but also native-born Americans to settle conflicts between and within their different groups. Issues of conflict are often not only terminological but also racial and gender-related.

Speak No Evil, Teach No Evil, Mention No Evil?

Back in the '70's I got a position in a Philadelphia Junior School (grades 7-9) teaching in and "coordinating" an ESOL program. (ESOL means English to Speakers of Other Language."Coordinating" means "a lot more responsibility, some little blandishment, no extra remuneration.")

The school had a regularly assigned officer from the city Police Department, whose presence and quick access to reinforcements kept the turbulence in the school to a generally non-threatening minimum. But violent incidents were not infrequent.

The 1200 students assigned to the school -- built for 600 -- were a mixture of 30% neighborhood kids, and bused-in others. The neighbor kids were those White kids not attending local Catholic schools. The bused-ins, not neighborhood kids, were about half African-American and half Hispanic. My program served about 100 immigrants from several nations whose English language skills ranged from almost nothing to American 2nd-grade-level.

Conflicts between different student groups of boys were usually along ethnic lines; although, infrequently, when Cupid crossed such barriers, girls would fight ferociously, too. Exceptions to the general ethnic bellicosity were the ESOL students.

After a few years I started running presentations for the faculty and other staff on cultural difference and cross-cultural and ethnic conflict. Attendance was fine, since I was given time from the regular schedule of Wednesday afternoon faculty meetings. Few absented themselves. No one from outside school came in.

Then I announced that I would hold a session on vulgar and obscene words that our Hispanic boys, in particular, used to insult each other, and occasionally, staff and faculty. The use of such language was an issue because it often provoked student fights or faculty upset. (Once the students inclined to use such language found out that I knew Spanish, they never confronted me with "bad words", especially as I would contact their parents if they persisted.)

On the afternoon of the meeting, at 2:30 PM, our school library, which could comfortably hold about 50 adults, was packed full (SRO) with close to 100 people others standing out in the hall. I did not recognize many of those visitors (but some seemed to be parents of our charges).

I was a little concerned that not being members of our staff nor a teacher, the extra people would not understand what I was doing, especially when I repeated the kind of language that "their kids," regularly used. "Their kids" they held to be, maybe, occasionally "mischievous," but really deep down "merely somewhat immature, not intending any harm. (For some "kids," I thought otherwise, having been a school disciplinarian for several years.)

I announced to the audience that I was going to review the most frequently used improper and/or obscene language commonly heard throughout the school. I would give them first in Spanish, then translate them into English. Then I would indicate the degree of offense they were considered to offer in various circumstances, e.g. talking to your peers as opposed to your parents, teachers or to strangers. The words would range from sexual crudities to ethnic slurs.

I then said, "You might find some of these words, especially in the English translation, to be offensive and inappropriate. If you feel you might be uncomfortable or upset, please take the next five minutes to leave the room and make space for someone standing out in the hall waiting to come in."

No one moved. No one so much as shifted their weight or moved a muscle. It seems as if they were holding their breath. I waited two minutes and then began: "The most frequent Spanish taboo word I have heard in our school is mama'o. It is formed from the verb mamear which means suck. The corresponding English word to mama'o has three syllables and means, one who performs fellatio.

I said the English word. Dead silence. Five long seconds passed. And then the reaction occurred...


To find out what happened and its consequences, see Philosophy, Race and Language: Conflicting Value Priorities )

Cordially
--- EGR

---------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] See Bob Dylan Lay Lady Lay Songfacts

[2] My junior high school gym teacher (Spring 1957, Vare JHS, Philadelphia, PA) very begrudgingly was set to teaching us ninth-graders "sex education" after it was made a school board policy emphasis. --EGR. See Doing Violence to 'Violence'

[3] Unless I am dealing with formalized languages, e.g. logic, mathematics or some general scientific theory, I avoid beginning with specialized definitions and trying to "deduce" suggestions for practical application. "High-level" theories normally do not enjoy broad recognition, much less consensus, outside of their specializations.

I used a formula to generate my case study examples, but it was not divulged to the audience until they had discovered most of it for themselves after the lecture during the discussion and development session. That formula was: Person P imposed a "treatment" T on another person V, for which P had a reason (for T}.

For a theory-first approach, see Rozycki, EG School Violence, Punishment, and Justice The concept of punishment used in the school violence article I took from Anthony Flew in S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters, The Principles of Political Thought (New York:Free Press, 1965) p. 202.


[4]For more on this procedure, Rozycki, EG Doing Ethics: concerns & procedures.

Also, for expanded instructions for case analysis, see A Library of MODEL CASES FOR ANALYSIS.

Between You And I: Please, Be I's Friend!: Is case-grammar just a matter of taste?

updated 12/31/19

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors... -- Bertrand Russell

I had an elementary public school teacher, call her Miss Taylor, who insisted that the correct way to pronounce the word "piano" was pee-ah-no.[1] She gave up trying to "correct" our normal pronunciation, pee-an-o, after many of my classmates began parodying it with such pronunciations as "bahnahnah", "run, rahn, run", "sit, saht, saht", "Mahs-ah-chu-sets". Or, using a popular song lyric, "If I didn't cahr".

Still, Miss Taylor was a good teacher, kindly, interesting and informative. She no doubt acted so as to prepare us to "climb up in the Cold War World," socially, if not so much economically. Had she lived into this 21st Century, however, she might have shaken her head sadly at the many linguistic traditions of "standard" English that have succumbed to an apparently historically uninformed pursuit of status.

Why does status matter? It opens or maintains pathways to wealth and deference. How does one acquire status? Through wealth, inherited or earned, random good fortune, or celebrity. What is somewhat perplexing is that people who already have above average status due to their having higher than average wealth, celebrity, academic degrees, social position, governmental office, or judicial position, appear to have abandoned distinctions of English grammar that, formerly, not even members of the "lower" classes seldom would have abused.

I have heard PhD's (even in the Liberal Arts) say such things as "This will be my wife and I's third visit to Cambridge this year." Not only academics, punctilious in so many a smaller detail, but major media and governmental spokespersons, overcorrect what should be formulated "between you and me" into "between you and I", as if "me" were some kind of dialectal aberration.

So, too, we not infrequently hear "This is a gift for you and we." Have I, him, her, us, them become taboo words? What is going on here? Is every or just any novelty an improvement? (Or, perhaps, a random manifestation of a need to belong?)


So, is it merely a matter of taste? Conceded, some people say "between you and I", others say "between you and me." So what? Perhaps it is a soon-to-be-discarded fad like that of the 18th Century French nobility's dressing up like shepherds or shepherdesses. Or, like American college students wearing pre-shredded pre-faded denims. Or, not so long ago, sporting "Leninist" wire-rimmed glasses and "Russian" workers caps. Even discourse that is at one time considered socially unacceptable, may, at another time be tolerated as "colorful." (See Philosophy, Race and Language. Conflicting Value Priorities )


However, there are three social functions, not necessarily beneficial nor ephemeral, that disappearance of grammatical markers might affect:

1. Maintaining variability in sentence structure while preserving action relationships, for example, in poetry or oratory, or very formal speech. "Let's consider John. Him I would trust with my life!" This is not clearly "merely" a matter of taste. (Compare, English with German "It's all the same to me." with "Mir ist das alles egal." Or, to English speakers, the redundant Italian "La ci darem' la mano.")

2. Maintaining traditions of in-group barriers and acceptance. Such barriers commonly dissolve and are re-erected by all kinds of groups along the lines of age, activity, language, religion, and so on. Slang, jargon, argot and other language variabilities are manifestations of such a function. So are schooling and work divisions, e.g. disciplines and departments. (See Becher, T. Academic Tribes & Territories: the Cultures of the Disciplines. 1989. Also see Multiculturalism & The Problems of Immigration )

3. Maintaining "Targets of Disdain, (TD's)" i.e. classes of persons-to-be-disdained. While still an undergraduate, (for many graduate students and professors, usually considered a TD) I was asked in class, "What does ethnic or religious or other diversity provide a tolerant individual?" I answered, "The opportunity to indulge their belief that "outsiders, although to be tolerated, are not quite so 'fully acceptable' as people of 'their own group.'" Class reactions ranged from a few chuckles, to a small minority of perplexed, to a vehement protestation from a large, apparently upset number -- still not a majority.

I was not championing any viewpoint. I thought I was merely stating a sociological fact. After all, the "holier-than-thou" attitude is so common even among those who ardently preach all kinds of tolerance, that a common joke-line has long been invented:

There are many people who hate others different from them. And I just HATE people like that!

For more examples and to pursue this issue, see The Case for Case

Cordially, EGR

-------------------
Footnote and Comment

[1] Academic Formalities: Just Making Teacher Clones?

Comment: For more on Grammatical Case, you might begin your inquiry on Wikipedia which has a good presentation with explained examples in many different languages.

Value Alignment: "Acculturating" Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

edited 121320, re-edited 121622

Before AGI arrives, we need to figure out how to make AI understand, adopt, and retain our goals. -- Max Tegmark (2019) in Brockman (ed.) [1]

Value alignment is not a problem new or unique to the pursuits of artificial intelligence researchers. Value alignment has long been seen as a general and ancient problem: for governance, for education, for all forms of social control. It is often generally referred to as values- or moral- or citizenship education, or even indoctrination or brainwashing or group-think.

Value Alignment? What are values? A profusion of ideas. Writings on AI behavior often tend to loosely use interchangeably the words, behavior, goals, wants, and values. In this essay I will use examples, described in English, of commonly easily observable human actions focusing on values.

Part of the problem in dealing with values is that the term "value" in used in many different contexts, not necessarily compatible among themselves, and often based on a consensus more hoped for than actual. For example,

1. Promotional (as in marketing): presuming a high degree of consensus on certain values, e.g., "Our new cars have arrived! Don't miss out on the many values we offer."

2. Explanatory (promise of effectiveness): assuming consensus on certain cause-effect relationships, e.g. "Their training will inculcate values of obedience and alacrity."

3. Focus of contention (judgement of desirability): "The contract is so vague as to be of little value in confronting problems."

4. Discursive modification (turn of phrase): creating an abstraction believed to provide a needed de-personalization for general (scientific) investigation, e.g. “A term indicating an item which someone values, valued or will (might) value we will call a “value.”

5. Theoretical: demarcating limits for analysis, e.g. “A value is a hidden variable, of which behavioral instances are indicators.” (Below, we will use a variation of examples 4 and 5.)

6. The manifestation of value pursuit or maintenance may be impeded by lack by the valuer of any of the following: rationality, knowledge, ability, circumstantial impediment, and priority.[2]

Whose value is it? What kind of value? Forty or some years ago, I was taking a graduate course in mathematics in an evening class during a winter semester. There were eight students in the course: seven who had degrees in mathematics and I, a philosophy graduate. They were there clearly enjoying themselves but for the late hours. I, interested but not enraptured, was there to accumulate credits for state certification as a mathematics teacher. After copying three chalkboards of a proof, the instructor stopped and, looking at the boards, muttered, “No, that step won’t work. Something’s missing.” After another short pause, he almost jumped into the board and wrote a formula, (I forget the formula.) and continued on with another board of proof.

I was lost. I had never seen that formula before which was clearly an identity. It equated the number “1” with some log of a function containing an imaginary argument. Up until that point, I thought I had been following the proof very closely. I looked around to my classmates to see whom I might ask later for explanation. They seemed as perplexed as I was.

One of them actually spoke up and said, “Is that a step in the proof?” The professor asked, “How many of you have taken Math 636 (or something like that). No one raised his hands. The prof continued, “Well, when you do, you will understand it completely! There are four methods to prove something: deduction, induction, seduction and intimidation. So, for now, you will have to take it on faith! By the way, which method of proof I am using here?” And he resumed filling the boards.

The discussion among the students at the end of class, after the professor had gone, was somewhat heated. The math majors, for whom the proof was valued intrinsically, I thought, were close to revolt. One said, “I didn’t major in math to take things on faith!” I, for whom the proof was mostly of extrinsic value, found it to be minorly disappointing.

But, what is a Value? What is Value Alignment? To put it most succinctly,

7. A value, V, is a constellation (a set of prioritizations) of defense and pursuit contingencies relating to V. (The apparent circularity here is intentional. See Concept as Abstraction. A hindrance in developing intelligence?)
It is not "free-floating", i.e. "V is a value" implies "Someone values (valued or might value) V."

8. A value is not a feeling nor an episode of behavior, but a disposition to behave in certain ways under certain conditions, unless stifled by certain standard conditions of impediment. For example, valuing a cup of coffee does not mean one is now imbibing nor ever again will imbibe a cup of coffee. (One might, despite valuing coffee for the taste and for the caffeine, need to give it up for the sake of one's blood pressure.) Similarly, sleeping people have not lost their values; just their ability to manifest those values while unconscious. (See Trait vs. Behavior: the sometimes non-science of learning.)

9. A given behavior-type may under different conditions manifest itself in the pursuit, maintenance or defense of different values.

10. Values Alignment is achieved when a consensus among different parties on values and their conditions of manifestation is achieved.[3]

The Intrinsic-Extrinsic Dimensions of Value seem to mark an important boundary between humans and robotic AGI. (Perhaps not with cyborgs built from some animal nervous tissue.) Extrinsic values indicate dispositions which can be chained into a sequence, the final link of which is designated as the "intrinsic" value. This is called by some theorists a "sacred" or "fundamental" value.[4]

Humans have intrinsic values to pursue because they have basic needs. They have basic needs because they are organisms that have to find and use sources of air, water, food, shelter, etc. These basic needs have a more or less "natural" priority. Maslow offers an interesting model that he calls a "Hierarchy of Needs."

Acquiring items at the bottom level of the pyramid requires little more than one's animal abilities. But the second level up, with companionship and affiliation, already requires some value alignment, normally inculcated through random encounter or with applications or withdrawals of pain and pleasure. These encounters are often strengthened by verbal communication and evolutionarily built-in dispositions of acquisition, affiliation and their naturally accompanying emotions.

But what can substitute to establish needs, and consequently values, for AGI, lacking the capability of pain or pleasure? Needs, alone, won't do it. There is an ambiguity in the use of the word, need, which often produces a confusion between need as merely technical cause, and need as approved or promoted cause. For example, a robber may need a gun to terrorize his otherwise blasé victims; but, we, disapprovingly deny the robber's need for gun because, more fundamentally, we disapprove of robbery.

Another example is when Sam says to friend Harry, "You really ought to buy a new jacket." Harry replies, "What do I need a new jacket for? This one is just fine for when it's cold." Sam insists, "But it looks kind of worn. Shabby is not stylish anymore." Harry argues he needs the jacket for its function, an extrinsic value. Stylish clothes do not seem to be much, if at all, valued (intrinsically) by him. [5]

Of course, Maslow's model is one among many. It is likely that depending which groups you investigate you would come up with substantially different priorities. For example, Gert Hofstede identifies nationality groups according to such dimensions as Power Distance, Individualism, Assertiveness, Avoidance of Uncertainty, and Long-Short Term Orientation. It is very likely that the priorities built into Maslow's model would be substantially reorganized depending how a population is selected choosing among variants of these five of Hofstede's dimensions. [5b]

Whose Values Should AGI Be Aligned With? Who will wait for answers?

Even if we give robots the ability to learn what we want, an important question remains that AI alone won’t be able to answer. We can try to align with a person’s internal values, but there’s more than one person involved here. … How to combine people’s values when they might be in conflict is an important problem we need to solve. — Anca Dragan (2019) [6]

I have not heard nor read that the general consensus is that The Trolley Problem [7] has been solved. Nor have I seen, heard nor read that auto-makers have stopped rushing to put "self-driving" vehicles on the market, despite collateral damages involving them.

Despite the profusion of glad tidings of burgeoning crowds of marketeers, there seems to be little consensus among professional researchers and users of AI as to the safety of its present state of development.[8]

Consequently, I am even less sanguine that anyone with the capability to do so, is holding back from constructing AI for military purposes, albeit it is still may be quite primitive or indiscriminate in its effects. I suspect that the fear of being caught at a military disadvantage offsets any worries about lack of value alignment with their AI adjuncts or about the "collateral casualties" among their targets.

See, also, Rozycki,EG (2010) The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision.

For more recent comment, see (Quanta Magazine, Dec 20,2022) Mitchell,M What Does It Mean To Align AI With Human Values?

Cordially--- EGR


FOOTNOTES

[1] Tegmark, M “Let’s Aspire to More than Making Ourselves Obsolete” p. 85 in John Brockman (ed.), Possible Minds. 25 Ways of Looking at AI. Penguin. New York. 2019.

[2] See The Conditions for Active Valuing.

[3] See Short Articles on "Sacred" Values

[4] See “Sacred Values” in US Public Schools: pretending there is no conflict.

[5] See NEEDS ASSESSMENT: A Fraud?

[5b] Hofstede G, Hofstede GJ & Mindov, M (2010) Cultures and Organizations. Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival. New York. McGraw-Hill.

[6] Dragan, A , “Putting the Human in the AI Equation.” p.136 in Brockman. See, also, Clabaugh,GK & Rozycki,EG (2007) The Nature of Consensus.

[7] See Self-Driving Cars, Run-Away Trams, & “Unavoidable” Accidents

[8] See John Brockman (2019), throughout. Also, there is a natural tendency for the breadth of consensus on criteria to diminish, proportionally, as research becomes more intense, precise and specialized; especially when choice of criteria bears on economic or political interests.

The Curse of Knowledge vs The Dunning--Kruger Effect: an instructor's dilemma

updated 3/15/20

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. -- George of Trebizond (c. 1433)

Laurence J. Peter: “Look around you where you work, and pick out the people who have reached their level of incompetence. You will see that in every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours.” -- Laurence J. Peter The Peter Principle 1970

Too often, our confidence that we know what is going on is greater at the beginning of an episode, than it is at the end. -- Sloman S & Fernbach P (2017) The Knowledge Illusion p.19

Introduction. In 1960, in the early years of the Cold War, my freshman year, I was placed in ("invited to") a course called "Honors Physics." Three days a week at 8 AM our professor, who, we were told was a renowned researcher, would come in and fill six boards with notes. Except for the two class "geniuses" who, having built a cyclotron in high school, just sat there occasionally nodding their heads, we spent all our time furiously copying. The prof, an apparently shy person, entertained no questions and was not accessible outside of class.

Help understanding the prof's notes was to be provided in small-group seminars by graduate physics assistants. We, the freshmen -- geniuses excepted and usually absented -- often couldn't understand what the prof was getting at. More than occasionally, a graduate assistant would confess the same problem. The seminars soon evolved into deciphering sessions.

Of course, we worried about our grades, since nobody -- geniuses excepted -- ever made above a 50 on the quizzes. (The geniuses regularly got 100's.) On the final, the geniuses were excused by the prof from taking the exam. The rest of us were graded, we were told, by the prof. I got a thirty-six, which seemed to be about average, so far as an informal consensus determined. No matter, the class average was a 34. So I was awarded a B. After all, we surmised, how could a class of "specially invited honors students" be flunked en masse?


Caught Between The Curse of Knowledge (COK) and The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE). Many of us have had a teacher or professor who, we felt, consistently "talked over our heads." This was mostly, I would hope, not done intentionally. What usually happens is that the teacher overestimates how much their students know. This happens often, if not more, as you go up the educational ladder (where it is more embarrassing to admit to ignorance). The professor exhibits this psychological bias, the Curse of Knowledge, by not taking into consideration the possibility of class disparities in prior knowledge. (College entrance exams are presumed, I suspect, to have precluded such ignorance down, even, to course-level specifics.)

Students often exhibit a bias complementary to the COK, the DKE. This is a tendency to overestimate the knowledge one has acquired from minor acquaintance with a topic or area of concern. It seems that some people, even in high places, believe that, from TV, or conversation, or reading fiction, or newspaper reports, they know as well, if not better, as anybody, -- excepting, "nerds" and "wonks" and "so-called" experts -- about, say, law, espionage, economics, politics, and diplomacy, etc.

Countering the Biases. The instructor can counter both biases to some extent by giving pretests that don't affect the students' grades. The procedure is

a. create (an often difficult procedure) and administer the pretest (See, e.g., Your Image of University Life: a course prequiz );
b. have students indicate what they think their grade will be (they can write it on the pretest;
c. grade the test and let the students see their graded papers.
d. tell them about the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

I have used this technique for years for students through high school up through doctoral education. For upper-level research writing, make the students' grades partially dependent upon their writing in critical "editors-subgroups" reviews of each other's papers.(See Examples of Papers and Critiques.)

Institutional Resistances to Trying to Counter COK and DKE biases. Sometimes students react to pre-testing by dropping out of the course. I had one such student - in a course focussed on policy evaluation -- tell me that he thought his experience as a highly trained laboratory technician would get him through "the BS of the soft-science stuff."

I had a dean worry to me that letting students on to how much they would have to learn might reduce the number of applicants in the long run.

I talked with a professor -- who really worked at accommodating his students' personal weaknesses -- who told me how his college was going to relax admissions requirements so as to increase tuition revenues. He didn't think he could deal with both increased numbers of students whose literacy and math levels were much below the already feeble standards that were traditional.

At another university of my long acquaintance, professorial folklore has it that new faculty who win recognition for excellent teaching take it to be an omen of future failure to get tenure. Trustee opinion: "If a professor spends so much time trying to engage students well, how can he or she be participating in committees and doing good research besides?"

An interesting situation is when a governor of a university exhibits DKE with respect to how educational processes proceed. At a meeting of faculty and university trustees, I heard the following comment from a trustee, "I hear that there are members of the faculty who have published books this last year. That's really good! Very productive! What I want now is to see you all publish two books next year."

To pursue these issues, see What is Worth Knowing? A Philosophical Distraction from a Problem in Leadership


Cordially, EGR

A Conundrum(?) about Empirical Knowledge and Empirical Belief.

addenda 031819

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” -- Karl Popper

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. -- Albert Einstein

BEGINNING:The Empirical Conundrum.

Original Assumption: Knowledge and Belief are not the same.

Belief may be a component of Knowledge, but Knowledge need not be a component of belief. Some beliefs are not knowledge.

Proposition A: Empirical Knowledge Claims are Defeasible (falsifiable), by virtue of their being empirical.

, i.e. defeasible means subject to withdrawal by virtue of possible (though maybe as yet unknown) countering evidence, CE. (See Three Human Dimensions of Conceptualization.)

Then,

Proposition B: Empirical Knowledge claims are, at best, Empirical beliefs.

So, it follows that

Proposition C: if something is at best an Empirical Belief. it is not Empirical Knowledge,

according to the Original Assumption.

Proposition C applies to anything that is claimed to be empirical evidence.

Thus Empirical Knowledge is not defeasible and consequently not empirical, gotten via the contrapositive of Proposition A.

Attempted Rebuttal.

But what is this CE? Is it Empirical Knowledge? If so, then by Proposition A, it is defeasible, ergo, merely Belief.

Thus, if counter-evidence CE is merely Empirical Belief; it is not really counter-evidence. Thus, Propositions B and C are gainsaid and consequently, Empirical Knowledge is, indeed, defeasible. (GO BACK TO BEGINNING.)

When you've gotten tired going repeatedly back to the Beginning, in considering the vulnerabilities of the above argument, see both
Pseudo-Science: the reasonable constraints of Empiricism
and
Knowledge: The Residues of Practical Caution..

Cordially, EGR

The Virtues of Hypocrisy

edited 030919

Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive ...
-- Israel Zangwill (1906)[1]

When you're smilin', when you're smilin'
The whole world smiles with you.
Yes, when you're laughin', when you're laughin'
The sun comes shinin' through.
But when you're cryin', you bring on the rain
So stop your sighin', be happy again.
Keep on smilin', 'cause when you're smilin',
The whole world smiles with you.[2]

Hypocrisy is consciously and deliberately saying something which you believe to be false or doing something you believe or feel is not right while maintaining a public demeanor of righteous indifference or neutral sanguinity.

If what you say is a statement, e.g. "I have returned your book to the library," when in fact you haven't, then it would be commonly called a lie. But if your statement is intended to have some sort of moral force or focusses on an act which you would reluctantly, at best, perform yourself, then it would also be considered hypocrisy, e.g. "Stop your sighing', be happy again."

Hypocrisy is generally considered undesirable, especially, in theorizing (moralizing?) if possibly mitigating circumstances are not considered. However, there are many situations which arise where disregarding concerns for hypocrisy is reasonable. Human history abounds with examples.

Two common social situations follow: the first is when a person of less power is dealing with someone threatening. For example, when importuned by persons (whether true believers or hypocrites) who are authorized, capable and willing to cause you hurt or harm.[3] Such situations can be a matter of life, death or imprisonment.

Situation I examples. Austrian Lutherans, for example, when offered the options by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1623-1637) of emigration, death, or conversion to Roman Catholicism, pretended to convert.

The Russian Communist Party membership purge under Stalin 1929-1930 resulted in the execution of over 3,000 people and tens of thousands who lost their positions and privileges for either former membership or sympathy with those who resisted Bolshevik dominance. The "Great Purge" of 1937-39 resulted in the deaths of from 600 thousand to over one million Communist Party and government officials, and wealthy landlords. We can imagine that the victims would have felt no pricks of conscience at vehemently, though hypocritically declaring their loyalty to the Party.

German resistance to Nazism was generally unable to mobilize political opposition that would lead to a coup against Hitler. However, 77,000 German citizen resisters, presumably non-Jewish, were killed by Special Courts, or People's Courts. "Tens of thousands" more were said to be sent to concentration camps.

During the years 1947 - 1954 many Americans were pressured by US government officials and police as to whether they were communists or communist sympathizers. Rumors abounded and jail was not an unlikely outcome for many. In order to be eligible for employment as a substitute teacher in 1965, I, myself, at age 22 had to sign a document attesting to the fact that I was not, nor ever had been, a member of or sympathizer with the Communist Party of America.

I signed easily since, having had little political experience at my age, my declarations were true. If they had been false, I would have signed anyway, since I badly needed a job and I considered such documents to be irredeemably stupid and counter-productive. It seemed to me that anyone who was actually a Communist would sign it, anyway; rather than draw back and say "Sorry, I can't sign this oath for reasons of conscience." Back then in 1965, such a declaration, divulged as a lie, might just get you, not a job, but a prison sentence.

Situation II, where hypocrisy is a matter of course, occurs with a tactful inquiry, "How are you?" where the conversants lack sufficient intimacy to reveal the truth. Tact is hardly even imaginable as being other than a virtue except, say, when a normally tactful, if rather informal, question is severely out of place. For example, upon being presented to the Queen of England to receive the CBE, one extends one's hand and asks, "How's it goin', Toots?" Whatever fault we might find with this, it is not likely to be that of hypocrisy.[4]

The Values of Hypocrisy. If you are in a position of relative power or authority over some persons then your own hypocrisy (often reconceptualized as "leadership discretion") may facilitate any of the situations mentioned above: examples:

To reinforce the legitimacy of organizational or social status. [4A]

To maintain the hierarchy deriving from an ethos.[5]

To intimidate persons of inferior status to forestall defiance or resistance.[6]

As a procedural step in the initiation of military or academic recruit training.[7]

To maintain a of veneer of respectability or sanguinity.

These are no small incentives for hypocrisy. Such hypocrisy, if at all held to be morally objectionable, is likely to be considered a "Lesser Evil" than the likely consequences of "Transparency".

James G. March (1976) suggests that we would be better off with less rationality. And that we would be well served by a concept of "sensible foolishness". Freed from the constraints of pre-existent purposes, the necessity of consistency and the primacy of rationality (formal or algorithmic approaches, e.g. policies, mathematical theories) often appear less salient. [8]

We could use the act of intelligent choice as a planned occasion for discovering new goals, unpredicted and attractive value consequences. We become intelligently foolish by treating goals as hypotheses, intuition as real, hypocrisy as a transition, memory as an enemy and experience as theory.

For a continuation on these issues, See March, J. G. & Olsen, J. P. (1976) Ambiguity and Choice. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. Accessible at
Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy: generalizing the Rationale.

REFERENCES

[1] Zangwill, I (1896) Children of the Ghetto. A study of a peculiar people. New York: Macmillan and Co. page 510

[2] Written by Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay, Mark Fisher (1928). See, also B Ehrenreich (2009)Smile or Die ISBN:9781847081735

[3] See Hurt, Harm & Safety

[4] See Good Lies, Wise Evasions

[4A] See Merchandizing Science (...or Religion? ...or Politics?)

[5] See Constricting Social Ideals: breaking the values-action link to ensure "stability."

[6] See Good Lies, Wise Evasions

[7] See Teaching Values: basic lessons in hypocrisy?

[8] See Choosing The Lesser Evil: a Moral Failure?

Are You a "Person of Principle"?

Transactional (in)Psychology. An interaction of an individual with one or more other persons, especially as influenced by their assumed relational roles of parent, child, or adult. -- Dictionary.com

Principles? Or Excuses? It's interesting that that the term "transactional", particularly in referring to President #45, has become his normal description. His admirers use it to explain his decision-making, finessing the issue of principle. His detractors use it to focus on (what they considers his lack of) principles.

Were the question of the title posed to you, you might respond, "It all depends on the principle," implying that there is a distance between being "principled" and being "unprincipled." I would tend to agree with you.

In the wider world, especially in this our multicultural, multi-religious, multi-political, more-or-less democratic United States of America in 2019, there are scads of principles, many of them contradicting others, or even themselves.

Do Principles Exacerbate Conflict? Despite this multi-dimensional pluralism (or, perhaps, because of it) we find many, many people who think it is important to be a principled person. They tend to believe that people who claim to be such are more trustworthy than those who are reticent to proclaim such.

Interestingly, it appears that the vaguer, the more-distant-from-everyday-goings-on the principle seems to be, the more likely it will have adherents. Such principles tend to become slogans of camaraderie, rather than moral or practical guides. This development is likely to bolster our democracy, rather than undermine it. It reduces the likelihood of conflict over specifics. Every successful negotiator recognizes this.


But What If You Consider Yourself Principled? (I personally do. I do not preach or practice, I believe, otherwise.) Then, can you answer the following questions about any of your principles?

Here are Ten Questions for Examining a Principle. Can You

1. ... state the principle (clearly)?
2. ... explain the important or critical terms in the principle?
3. ... give an example of an application of the principle?
4. ... contradict the principle?
5. ... give examples of the contradicted principle?
6. ... give reasons, if possible, for accepting the principle?
7. ... give reasons, if possible, for rejecting the principle?
8. ... tell how the principle helps us to think rationally or opens up possibilities for action?
9. ... tell how rejecting the principle restricts possibilities for thought or action?
10 ... find two other principles one more important, the other less important than the principle being evaluated?

Here are two examples of possible principles to consider:

A) An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
B) To get ahead, learn how to fake competence and passion.

Use the questions above to decide whether, and under what circumstances, you might accept or reject the principle.

For fuller explanation, and examples to practice on, see
What is it to Know How to Use a Principle?

Cordially, EGR

Escaping Accountablity: selecting the "right" scapegoat.

It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat. -- Richard Hofstadter Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963)

Not many years ago I heard an interview on National Public Radio during which the guest, to the apparent delight of the host, expressed the view that it was time to "hold colleges and universities responsible for the failure of their students to graduate on time."

"Public colleges," he explained, "have never been held accountable for, that is, given state appropriations in proportion to, the success of their students. The have received funds merely on the basis of the number admitted." Things had to change!

Excuse me! Is this a person who has ever worried about grade inflation? Or about "empty diplomas?" Should "party-school" graduates number among the most successful? Will medical schools, in the long run, also, be held to this notion of accountability?

The provost of a local college in Philadelphia, strapped for funds, recently informed the faculty that all their classes will begin to be "bimodal." What is this? Well, in the past, there were two groups of students identified by the admissions committee: those who met admissions standards; and, those who failed to meet them. The former group had, on the average, higher high school and SAT averages than the latter.

To increase university income, both groups will now be admitted. It is up to the professors to "individualize instruction according to the unique needs of the student" in order to that No Student (tuition payment?) be Left Behind.

Professorial reaction has been muted to the point of indiscernibility, much as that of many public school teachers was, when No Child Left Behind was vaunted as a "school reform."

I learned from my mentors many years ago when I was pursuing licensure as a school principal that the first, the Primary, Rule of Administration was CYA, Cover Your Asse(t)s. You practice the first rule by putting to use the Second Rule of Administration.

The Second Rule of Administration -- I have learned through experience -- is, Theorem: "Pick on the quiet, the long-suffering. Otherwise, "Never Scapegoat the Squeaky Wheel."

Lemma: "Dump on the Humble, the Self-sacrificing and the Patient, but not if they are protest-prone." (Also, available for bullying are those stupid enough to believe that it is "unprofessional" to protect their own interests.)

For references and to examine these issues further, see Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?"



Cordially, EGR

Teaching Values: basic lessons in hypocrisy?

But of all wrong there is non more heinous than that of those who when they deceive us most grossly, so do it as to seem good men. -- Cicero De Officiis, Book 1, 13, 41.

You might have had a childhood experience similar to the following: your parents, or teachers, or religious leaders, intensely, seriously labored to impress on you that it was important always to tell the truth. (In the US it used to be presented to elementary schoolers that George Washington never told a lie so you shouldn’t, either.)

But if you mentioned that Grandma’s breath stank, or that something Mom made for dinner tasted bad, or that school was boring, you were scolded for being nasty or for deliberately saying what you knew wasn’t true, “just to be hurtful.” ("Fake news" as some of today's would-be 'moral leaders' drone about in their admonitions.)

Perhaps you let it be known you didn’t like playing or sharing with your cousins, or neighbors, or classmates. You may have been told by an adult, “You’ll like it if I tell you to like it, or else.” Being no dummy you soon realized that telling the truth brought pain; telling lies and calling those lies “the truth” brought you, more often than not, adult appreciation.

You may have learned that the word hypocrite was an important word. But even more importantly you learned that whatever a 'hypocrite' was, it couldn’t be any adult who had the power to punish you. If such a thought even crossed your mind, it was best you just kept quiet.

As we became older, supposedly wiser, we learned that (almost?) all general statements could be prefaced (if only to ourselves) with the phrase "Under certain conditions,..." We were initiated into the perpetual struggle between morality and acculturation.

This process was called “learning values.” It was an important part of what was called “growing up.” (So tedious, so omnipresent was this struggle -- many of us thought -- that we grew to defaulting to "what we wanted (felt)" so long as we could act as though in accord with the cultural or moral environment we found ourselves in.)

Apparently there are still many people around today who worry (feel?) that kids are not learning “values.” And they want the schools to teach, legislators to proscribe, or police to enforce “values.”

But can schools, legislators or police improve on what family and community, for better or not, already do?

To examine these issues further, see Values Education or Values Confusion?

Cordially-- EGR

P.S. Thank you Mahdiabbasinv. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:زبان_tongue.jpg

Learning Common Sense: tricks and false consensus?

updated 061418

AI still lacks what most 10-year-olds possess: ordinary common sense. -- Paul Allen, quoted in C Gohd "It’s Really Hard to Give AI “Common Sense” [1]

...once (AI) becomes very large, and it has thousands of units per layer and maybe hundreds of layers, then it becomes quite un-understandable. - T Jaakkola, MIT [2]

AI is useless until it learns how to explain itself. -- L James Towards Data Science[2]

"It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree." -- Baudelaire [3]

"Playing" with Deception. Many of the games adults play with even very young children work at getting them to recognize that sometimes what they see, hear, feel or remember can be misleading. Even one-year olds can be introduced to "peek-a-boo" in which they learn that the immediate disappearance brought about by covering one's eyes does not, by itself, make what they have just seen, go away.

Two-year olds can be surprised and entertained with a game called, "I caught your nose," where the adult or older, less naive child, uses curled forefinger and middle finger of one hand to gently clasp the younger's nose, moves the hand away while sliding the thumb in between the two fingers and says "I caught your nose."

I have seen such games played hundreds of times. The naive child's initial reaction is usually one of surprise -- although sometimes one of dismay or even shock -- but, as the "nose-holding" hand opens up empty and the adult says, "feel you face" the child, relieved, will smile or even laugh and invite: "Do it again."

But playing with deception most likely only works under two (among many possible other) conditions. These are that

1. the children are more or less "normal," i.e. healthy, awake, and undistracted by such things as a wet diaper or hunger and

2. the experiences of the learners bring them to develop a sense of probability concerning what they perceive in contrast to other options that might occur.

If, for example, a person playing peek-a-boo hides or, say, dons a mask, while the child is covering its eyes, the experience will likely not teach much about what is likely to happen under which circumstances. Nor will it happen if the child is developmentally too under- or overdeveloped to benefit from the interaction.[4]

Deception games in educational contexts are usually a kind of training in "normality," e.g. merely covering the eyes does not change what's "really there." Or, if something's where it should be, say, you nose on your face, then it can't also be somewhere else. This is training in what we call "common sense."

However, a sense of "normality" is different from "common sense." As children grow, they might get training in a more sophisticated, less "common," form of "common sense." For older children we might use a poem such as

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Every wife had seven sacks.
Every sack had seven cats.
Every cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?

One or more students hurry to do the arithmetic and come up with 2401. We "correct" them by saying that the answer is "one", because I, alone, was going to St. Ives. The teaching point is usually to get them to read more carefully.

But a more insightful student might point out that the poem does not originally indicate, "I alone was going to St. Ives." It's possible, therefore, had I already had (unmentioned) co-travelers, that at least 2402 were going to St. Ives. The original teaching point -- Read Carefully! -- fails, but is (hopefully) compensated for by the discussion of the possible assumptions and what they let us infer.

Even relatively sophisticated adults can be fooled by clever illusionists who appear to make coins disappear and, then, pull them from a spectator's ear. Trained scientists have been known to insist that they have seen individuals bend spoons without touching them. Illusionist's confederates are "seen" to get cut in half and survive the sawblade's mutilation. And elephants can disappear in a puff of smoke!

In such circumstance, however, the victims of the illusion either

1. are not able to carefully examine the surroundings of the events, for e.g. being seated in an audience; or,

2. are generally ignorant of techniques of illusion, e.g. coin-palming, or attention-distraction,

which, though employed in their present circumstances, are rare in day-to-day experience.

Of greater concern to us, perhaps, should be the abundant presence of illusionists of political and commercial enterprise armed with well-established research on psychological biases and manipulation techniques. Educational institutions have yet to catch up with, much less keep abreast of, these clever people.

Both schooling and experience, in general, work toward refining "common sense" even to the point of supplanting it with something else. But a socially important, very problematic conception of these processes is the common myth that some substantial residues of the original "common sense" remain as a substrate, so to speak, of newer learnings. The myth holds it that the residues remain not merely as individual inclinations and skills, but as widely shared, if only latent, tools all can rely on.[5]

Consider the following conversation between an employer (E) and a prospective job-holder (P):

E: P, I've brought you in, P, to ask you to run our Department of X.

P: But E, as a Y manager, I haven't had any experience really working with X!"

E: Yeah; but, you've been successful with Y. And your heart's in the right place. I feel we'll get along just fine. So when it comes to working with X, just rely on your common sense!"[6]

Whether or not we find such a conversation problematic might well depend on the kind of organization E and P will be involved in. If it is, say, a small but expanding family-owned-and-run retail operation, that is one thing. However, if it is a middle-sized medical-surgical establishment, or a large kitchen-facilities factory, other concerns arise.

As Joan Woodward [8] has long argued, there are important and complex relations between organizational structure, staff social relations, and productivity.[9]

What is Common? What Makes Sense? A typical definition of common sense from The Cambridge English Dictionary gives us:[10]

The basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way.
Examples: Windsurfing is perfectly safe as long as you have/use some common sense.

Note how many terms presume anterior "definition": basic level, practical, knowledge, judgment, reasonable, perfectly, safe. But what level is "basic?" What kind of information is "knowledge?" Who does "we all?" refer to? What is "reasonable;" what is "safe?"

Our natural languages use terms that are often vague and ambiguous, highly dependent on situation. Many of our linguistic choices are based on our belief that others can understand and trust us even though we vacillate in choice of words -- not meaning "literally" what we say -- to color our speech with our own values, moods and intentions.[11] We make them functionally precise ("clear" enough) by adjusting them, ad hoc, to the contexts we use them in and in relying (perhaps, wrongly) on our assumptions of normality.

Consider the following example of an all-too typical conversation,

Harry: Snow again! It's May! I've lived here all my life and never before seen so much snow!
Jack: Uh-huh. It shows how global warming is just a fraud!"
Harry: What makes you think so?"
Jack: It's obvious to anyone who has any common sense." More snow, less warmth!

A critical claim here is "More snow, less warmth!" This is common sense to millions of people, in the U.S. at least. We may say they are mistaken, but the falsity of their premise does not necessarily affect the logic of their argument. The argument may be based on a "confusion" between the notions of "climate," a characterization of weather events over extended periods of time and with large areas of occurrence; and, "weather," states of the atmosphere, e.g. phenomena of temperature change, precipitation, etc. considered from restricted perspectives which are more likely to be experienced by individuals or smaller populations. Breadth of perspective is independent, one would think, of commonality.

When was the last time a poll was taken to ascertain which individuals living under which conditions share common agreement on the assumptions underlying the definitions of the Cambridge English Dictionary? [12]

Depending upon where they are located and how informed they are, they may well be exercising their "common sense" even though it brings them to false conclusions. Recall only how phlogiston once provided a scientifically acceptable theory of combustion. Recall, also, that despite the efforts of Lister and Pasteur, many educated people rejected bacterial action as a cause of infection.

Every linguistic transaction is a wager which may not gain "high predictive probability" by being written down in "black and white" or entered as code into a computer program. Just as arguments can be valid without being sound, so can valid arguments yield falsehoods though they rest on common sense.

To continue with similar considerations, go to The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision.

-- Cordially, EGR


Footnotes and References

[1] quoted in Chelsea Gohd (Futurism, 3/11/ 2018) It’s Really Hard to Give AI “Common Sense

[2] Knight, W (MIT Technology Review, 4/11/18) The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI
See also James, L Towards Data Science (2018) AI is useless until it learns how to explain itself.

[3] Baudelaire, C Intimate Journals XCIX
See also G Clabaugh & E Rozycki (1999) The Nature of Consensus

[4]"Developmentally appropriate" is one of those educational concepts that is both theoretically dense and vague as well as hard to specify a non-circular definition for. See Redden & Frederick below.[7]

[5] See Rozycki, E (2014) Common Sense, or Merely Common Hubris?

[6] See Rozycki, E (2017) Hard Practical Questions? Handle Them or Dodge Them! Here's How

[7] Redden, JP & Frederick, S (2011) Unpacking Unpacking: Greater Detail Can Reduce Perceived Likelihood Journal Of Experimental Psychology

[8] Joan Woodward, Industrial Organization. Theory and Practice. Reprint. (London: Oxford University Press, 1966)

[9] See, also Productivity, Politics and Hypocrisy in American Public Education.

[10]The Cambridge English Dictionary on 'common sense'

[11] See Rozycki, E (2016) Three Human Dimensions of Conceptualization

[12] See Rozycki, E (2016) All Definition Ultimately Rests on Stipulation, i.e. Communal Agreement.