CAUSAL CHARADES: organizational rituals of evaluation

"…the only measure of the efficiency of a cooperative system is its capacity to survive."
-- Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, p. 44.

Any organization in which it is not clear what is being produced, or how what is produced is to be evaluated, will have someone whose job it is to whip up enthusiasm for the daily grind: e.g. provide “staff development” to obscure the indeterminacy of the goals pursued.

Lack of clear, widely accepted theory as to what causes what, produces play-acting and hugger-mugger: mysteries of "attitudinal adjustment," "leadership," or "conformity with policy." Or, even better, secrecies-acts and "classification" procedures to frustrate easy review of outputs. (See How Not to Develop Staff) If part of my job responsibility is to sit and listen to some "expert" -- often not a technician, in any scientific sense -- expatiate about peripheralities and, especially, to invite me -- in some "humanistic" way -- to "commit to“ or "open up” and "reveal" how I “feel” about them; then, I, too, will likely sense a need to join in and pretend that that expert, too, is earning his keep.

King Magic

The social dynamics of our "democratic" pluralism not infrequently produces exactly such obfuscatory processes in, for example, American politics and education at all levels. Veneers of consensus obscure uncertainties as to which goals are to be pursued, and how and with what rigor their attainment is to be evaluated. That an institution is considered to be a "tradition" is a strong indicator of uncertain productivity. Long survival invariably rests on muddled vision or sloganeering, e.g. "protecting American interests," "answering Society's needs," or "preparing for the future," which masquerade as descriptions of technical outcomes.

To examine these issues further in specific context, see Productivity, Politics and Hypocrisy in American Public Education


Cordially,
-- EGR

Low Cost Interventions for a Better World: Reform by Redefinition?

edited 062720

"To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. " -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus
	Alternative Facts?

A PARABLE

In the Republic of Foz a group of high-minded citizens undertook to remove the bitterness from every medicinal preparation. And with all but one potion they succeeded. But there was an elixir the curative power of which diminished with its bitterness. This elixir was the only antidote for the fatal sting of the Fozfly. Thus, there arose at first a murmuring, then public indignation at the efforts of this band of crusaders.

Fearful that their quest be frustrated, our noble champions regrouped and with the help of a government grant formed the Foz Foundation. The members of the Foz Foundation dedicated their research to demonstrating that the sting of the Fozfly, far from being an affliction, was merely an occasion that precipitated a "natural life crisis."

Now, in the Fozian language, nothing categorized as a "natural life crisis" is considered to be a disease. Nor is anything characterized with the term disease also conceived to be a natural life crisis. Since only diseases require medical treatment, the proper Fozian response to a natural life crisis is acceptance and resignation.

Thus as the influence of the Foz Foundation waxed, the need for the recalcitrantly bitter potion waned. In the final stages of enlightenment to which most of Fozian society was educated -- called Fozzy thinking -- there existed in all the land no medicinal preparation that had a bitter taste.

And death by Fozfly -- still rumored by certain barbarians to be avoidable -- came to be accepted as natural and necessary, if still a discontent of Fozian civilization.

To examine these issues further, see School Violence, Punishment, and Justice

See, also, Cheating Well

Cordially
--- EGR

The Relativity of Exploitation: the overburdened “middleman.”

updated 11/27/19

It burns with a white rage against societies as a whole, from military leaders and chiefs of state to (more common in our time) comfortable civilians in easy chairs, who send rough men out to serve their interests brutally, murderously (what is war?), and then —- when circumstances change and in the exquisite safety and fastidiousness of their living rooms they suddenly find these rough men’s actions repugnant -— and disown them. — Richard Grenier (“The Uniforms that Guard Us” 1981)

A leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk. — John Boehner.

What is Exploitation? Exploitation is not bare-faced fact, an action in and of itself. (See Getting Down to Facts: can we avoid making assumptions?.) Exploitation is a matter of people's perceptions of actions and their judgments about them. These perceptions are about how the benefits and costs of an undertaking are allotted among participants. The judgments are about the fairness of those allotments.

It is important to note right off that even more fundamental value assumptions underlie identifying what to count as benefits, costs and fairness. Although often treated as a tedious diversion from planned action, overlooking who shares such value judgments is often the cause of much unproductive dispute. (See The Nature of Consensus. This preliminary aside done for now, let's get on with the sorrows of middlemen.)

We are all, sometimes, “middlemen.” If we work with people we often act as mediators, even though we tend to think of mediators as outsiders brought into a situation with the specific task of reconciling a dispute. Mediators,especially if by occupation, are usually chosen for their being disinterested or “objective,” i.e. having little personal stake in the proceedings beyond their fees and professional reputation which might bias their judgment.

But when we, working with our fellows, function as mediators, the stakes for us are higher because our mediation affects the people we are involved with. This happens, for example, when we find ourselves "caught" in the middle, obliged to deal with a situation where our actions are constrained by those who obligate us, our superiors, as well as by those we depend on for their cooperation, our subordinates. (It is not whimsy that such a position, if official, is called “middle management.”)

Some examples of such an “informal” mediation-role is often provided by policemen, nurses, teachers, military personnel, office managers and the like. But in fact, being a middleman is relative. Those who give orders may also be required by their higher-ups to follow orders. Those at the relative bottom of the totem pole may also constrain what middlemen above them can do. Subordinates to middlemen can resist by on the spot re-interpretation, mass disregard, or even sabotage of the directives they are given. Policemen, parents, teachers, and business managers, constrained themselves by laws, policies and traditions, yet dealing with subordinates, i.e. the workers, children, patients or public, know this all too well.

Abusing the Middlemen. There is a not uncommon practice where those in charge sit buffered from the “front lines,” concocting or imposing “rules of engagement” which do not take into consideration the realities of the person-to-person confrontations that middlemen, the implementers of rules, regulations, laws and policies face. (See Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?

For example, I have talked with nursing and support staff in mental health services where aggressive patients occasionally harm other inmates and staff. They tell me of the insistence from state-level officials that they, the on-site staff, reduce the use of physical restraints disregarding any complaints about the dangers on-site staff face. Published statistical reports then tend to praise reductions in the use of physical restraints but to ignore increases in patient or staff injuries.

The Disregardful Treatment of Military And Law Enforcement Service People is another major problem. When people are under threat, they are effusively thankful for military or police intervention to protect them. Otherwise, many are very much less than sympathetic for the daily burdens such service people face.

Legislators, fulminating with modish “moral” fervor against some even minor misadventure will pass draconian laws with little consideration for the difficulties of their enforcement or for the collateral damage done to the good community relations those legislators otherwise give such vehement lip-service to.

Service personnel, upon retirement, find that legislatures are often much less ready to fund adequate long-term medical care or pensions than they were placing them in service in harm’s way.

The Emphasis of this essay, however is not on exploitation but on its relativity. Whoever acts as a “middleman” in a situation, and consequently risks exploitation, is not necessarily dependent on traditions or laws, but on contexts. For this reason I will rely on research described in Kenwyn Smith’s book,Groups in Conflict. Prisons in Disguise (1982), in which he analyzes groups as comprised by subgroups he calls Uppers, Middles, and Lowers. His model is more context-independent than something like “Directors-Administrators-Behavioral-Change-Targets” or “Leaders-Followers-Public.”(See Schneider&Ingram. ”Policy design: elements, premises and strategies",(1990).)

Here are some examples of other research fit into Smith’s tripartite scheme:

a. Professor Director - Student Experimenter - Student Experimental Subject (Milgram, 1969)
b. Professor Director — Student Enforcer — Student Prisoner (Zimbardo, 2008)
c. Professor Director — Student Experimenter — White Rat (My experience, 1963 -- EGR))

Outside Academia we can handily find:

d. Club Sponsors - Club Chairperson - Club Members
d. Party Donors — Party Platform Committee — Party Members
f. Mayor — Police Chief — Police Officer ; and important to our discussion below
g. Statutes — Administrators — Target Populations (which effect goals aimed at by Statute Makers.}

Internal Conflict Situations Get Worse as the relationships from uppers to middlemen to lowers becomes formalized, either by tradition or law. There is what seems to be some kind of “social-class” bias in many organizations. The rule-of-thumb in institutions I have observed is:

“If a doctor (or high-ranking member) is assaulted, call in the police and prepare a report. If a nurse (or lower-ranking staff) is assaulted, call in a social worker and make no report.” This seems to reflect a well-established encasement.

Smith holds that if group members do not have sufficient experience at all three levels, Uppers-Middles-Lowers (not necessarily in the same group) because of legal or traditional practices, they develop attitudinal “encasements” which bias them against other levels with often mythological beliefs in the faults of individuals not in their level. Encasement may generate avoidable, costly and counter-productive conflicts. SNAFU may well be an encasement outcome.

The following is a chart that gives a synopsis of Smith’s research

How do we avoid encasement? It is particularly difficult especially if tradition is strong and supported by law. Groups with rigid hierarchies become what Smith calls "monocratic." Monocratic organizations risk encasement. Jeffrey S. Nielsen in The Myth of Leadership (2004) suggests that organizations press to move from rank-based to function-based governance structures. That will provide members with experience of — and hopefully sympathy for — members participating at levels other than their own.

What About “Chain of Command?” To judge by the media, especially during a political season, one would think that very few people are acquainted with the notion of “chain of command.” On the one hand questions are asked why a president hasn’t raised the GNP; or why terrorists managed to elude the efforts of a homeland defense official. The regnant idea here seems to be command-effect model, like rolling a rubber ball down a playground slide. He who rolls the ball is held responsible for where it rolls to.

Links in the Command Chain are Actors, too. Despite the simplistic command-effect sound-bite model many people know that chains of command can be problematic. For example, without Congress’s help presidential efforts to get legislation passed can be stultified. Each “link” in the “chain of command” can have its own agenda. And not even brutal dictators may be able to long control opposition from within. Historical examples abound. One approach to understanding what connects the links in a chain of command is given by Schneider&Ingram. These are illustrated in the next diagram which begins with Uppers and ends in the actual outcomes effected by Lowers (presumably desired by the Uppers).

From Uppers (assumed producers of the Statute) through Middles (Administrators) to Lowers (the Target Population) exist connecting but possibly fragile threads of rules, tools (available resources) and assumptions resulting in Goals.

What Roles do the Middles Play? It is their task to negotiate to adjust the demands of the Uppers to the realities of using alloted resources and the Lowers as agents for the achievement of goals in an environment whose complexity the Uppers may well have underestimated.

Encasements tend not only to undermine the development of practically adequate, subtle understandings of the casual relations between commands and goals; but, also, overly politicize the tasks of the Middles — in accord with the Peter Principle: every one rises to his level of incompetence. — reducing their expertise to the crudest kind of amateurism and the opprobrium that it produces.

To see expansion on these issues, See LEADERSHIP AS USURPATION: the Grand Inquisitor Syndrome and Morality in Rank-Based Organizations

Cordially
--- EGR

Self-Driving Cars, Run-Away Trams, & “Unavoidable” Accidents

How should the (self-driving) cars be programmed to act in the event of an unavoidable accident? Should it minimize the loss of life, even if it means sacrificing the occupants or should it protect the occupants at all costs? Should it choose between these extremes at random? -- Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill -- MIT Technology Review, October 22, 2015

A primary cause of philosophical illness: a one-sided diet. One nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example.--- L. Wittgenstein (1967) Philosophische Untersuchungen, §593 (Suhrkamp: Frankfurt a.Main) p.189. (My translation. - EGR)

Who Broke the Copy Machine? And Other Follies.

Vignette, the First: In the main office of his company, Larry waits patiently for a colleague to finish using the common copy machine. Larry needs to duplicate a report for a later meeting. At his turn, Larry loads the machine and pushes the copy button. A strange, loud groan issues from the machine. The attention of everyone in the office is now diverted to an astonished Larry. The machine goes dead and smoke issues from it. The office manager comes over and fretfully asks Larry, “What have you done?” In the ensuing atmosphere of reproach no one mentions -- if they even know -- that the office manager, himself, put off maintenance for the copier, doubling the service interval, at the behest of the company president that expenses be reduced wherever possible.

Vignette, the Second: Mack drives a tram (trolley car) the movement of which is constrained by a track. Mack can only make it stop, go, speed up, slow down or switch over to a connected track. One day, while approaching a blind curve, Mack realizes that his braking mechanisms don’t work: he is in a runaway vehicle. Rounding a blind curve yet picking up speed due to descending an incline, Mack sees a group of people ahead on the track. He fears the worst. Luckily there is a parallel track he can switch over to. Alas, there is already a single person ahead on that track. It is, it seems, a matter of life-or-death. Switch or not-switch. Kill many or one? Which should he choose to do? (See, for example, Thomas Cathcart (2013) The Trolley Problem)

Vignette, the Third: A group of automotive engineers is perplexed. They are constructing the control programs for a self-driving car. No passenger will be a driver, i.e. make driving decisions. They are aware of some form of Vignette, the Second. (They don’t stop to think of examples like Vignette, the First.) The engineers jump to a dismaying preliminary conclusion: in the (likely rare?) event that an unavoidable accident threatens risking human damage and death, the car must, willy-nilly, be programmed for a lethal decision. If faced with the choice of Vignette the Second the car must be programmed to kill, whether many or one. But, in the aftermath, who -- they worry -- will bear responsibility for the damage? (See Will Knight, “How to Help Self-Driving Cars Make Ethical Decisions”)

Responsibility & Intervention. The three vignettes appear to have similar underlying structures. However, there are substantial differences among them. In the first and second vignettes, the actors whose choice behavior we are considering are caught up in a chain of events which they have had no part in structuring. They are, so to speak, minor officers on the Titanic. In the third vignette, the actors are Planners not confronted with choices that immediately threaten catastrophe. The Planners -- and the analysts cited above, i.e. Thomas Cathcart and Will Knight -- mistake the second vignette as a model for the first or third vignettes, respectively, by conflating important distinctions:

a. they confuse “Role” with “Function;”
b. they confuse “Choice” with “Responsibility;”
c. they invoke a vague notion of “unavoidable” that allows equivocation between “Intervention” and “Prevention.” (See Intervention: helping, interfering or just being useless?)

In Vignette, the First Larry’s role, for which he is responsible, is as a procedure-follower. If machinery is involved, Larry is, shall we say, an Engager. He is not himself a duplicate-producer. He employs the copier; it is the copier which produces duplicates. The casual speech of office politics may confound these distinctions, but morally and legally, should it come to that, his having followed procedures may protect him, even if the machinations of other organizational members would have him take the blame. (These distinctions are often disregarded in cases of organizational “disruption” based on what is masqueraded as “performance evaluation.” )

Once started, Larry was not likely able to intervene in the rapid self-destruction of the copier, even had he realized what was happening. Prevention, which is neither part of Larry’s role nor responsibility had been deliberately left undone by the office manager -- a risk taken that failed. The destruction was practically unavoidable, once initiated. But Larry, despite facing issues of responsibility had no practical choice in the matter.

In Vignette, the Second Mack is, also, a procedure-follower, an Engager, whose personal responsibility is delimited by the well-functioning of his machine. The “choice” between not stopping killing many or killing one does not relieve those responsible for accident preventive procedures of their responsibility. This consideration is regularly ignored by those who take advantage of some person’s being a link in a chain of events ending in catastrophe to charge that person with major responsibility for the catastrophe. Mack has a choice, but no fair responsibility.

In Vignette, the Third The automotive engineers worry, as they should, that in order to make their autonomous cars salable, they may end up being held responsible, to some extent, for the damage that results. Just consider the scandal with Volkswagen where their vehicles were programmed to create false pollution reports to enhance salability. There are many other examples of vehicle recall and successful lawsuit that come easily to mind. The engineers are, by role AND function, responsible actors in that they contribute to the production of the outcomes, although not so much as their organizational leadership who may determine what the engineers are permitted to do..

NOTE WELL: It is at this point that the vagueness of the term, “unavoidable,” comes into play. In the debate on autonomous vehicles the invoking of "unavoidable accidents" functions to buffer those in leadership positions from the moral hazards they run as they give considerations other than product safety higher priority. “Unavoidability” provides a shield for morally questionable leadership. (See Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?)

Avoidability. To call something “unavoidable” is not to make a simple empirical judgment. Just consider: if an event is called “unavoidable,” what observations, by themselves -- even with trustworthy instruments -- could support that judgment? It’s a slightly different matter if we modify “unavoidable” with adverbs such as “practically,” or “economically.” These allow us to consider narrower options on which we may find an easier consensus as to what is desirable or not. But there is likely still some necessity for theoretical argument.

Basically, to call something “unavoidable” is to make either of two negative possibility claims:

1. It cannot be intervened in so that its potential effects are nullified; or
2. It cannot be prevented so that its potential effects are nullified.

At this stage of our knowledge (2015) -- examples of practically non-intervenable events would be -- once initiated -- an atomic bomb explosion, the short-range discharge of a bullet, or the ingestion of cyanide. However, they all could be and are preventable prior to their initiation.

It would seem that, logically, any intervenable event is preventable. But there are some things we cannot logically prevent prior to their initiation, because the character which prompts us seeing them as needing prevention does not manifest itself prior to the event, e.g. mayhem, having developed from mere rough-housing. Or disregard for traffic signals. Or possible future adult criminality in children. Attempts at pre-emptive treatment for such examples risk violations of legal and other rights.

Solutions? There is yet another rub: many interventions or preventative actions may be seen as too monetarily costly for individuals, or even large communities; for example, such actions as providing closely monitored special limited access roadways for confining the use of self-driving cars.

In the end, self-driving cars may be treated as many would like to do in the U.S. with firearms: requiring vetted ownership licenses and heavy usage restrictions. This is much more likely since human-driven cars kill more people every year than do firearms. (See Gun Fun or Safe Kids? Must We Make Tradeoffs?)

Unlike with firearms there is, at this time in the U.S. no widespread, traditional use of autonomous vehicles (AV’s) to damp the enthusiasm for imposing restrictions. Nor is there any Constitutional basis for arguing every citizen’s right to own AV’s. But what counters the enthusiasm for highly restricted use of self-driving cars -- e.g. consumer mistrust in their programming and intentions by designers to block owner attempts to intervene at will -- will also counter market enthusiasm to invest in their manufacture.

I will close the present considerations with a more sanguine opinion:

The wide adoption of self-driving, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) promises to dramatically reduce the number of traffic accidents. Some accidents, though, will be inevitable, because some situations will require AVs to choose the lesser of two evils. For example, running over a pedestrian on the road or a passer-by on the side; or choosing whether to run over a group of pedestrians or to sacrifice the passenger by driving into a wall -- Bonnefon, J et al. (2015) Cornell University Library. Autonomous Vehicles Need Experimental Ethics: Are We Ready for Utilitarian Cars? arXiv:1510.03346 [cs.CY]

Afterthoughts. The moral hazards risked by the leadership on issues pertaining to self-driving cars may well become the physical hazards of those affected by that leadership’s decisions. And with it, American worship of the automobile may come to acknowledge the blood sacrifice it has long been paying. Greater evils may be avoided at the cost of creating lesser ones. But it may not be a matter of the length of casualty lists.

To pursue these issues, see Leadership vs. Morality: An Unavoidable Conflict?

Cordially, -- EGR

Charades of Evaluation: mis-connecting cause and effect

updated 4/23/19

"…passing a failing student is the #1 worst thing a teacher can do. … Changing grades is the most undermining contribution to a student’s failure, but above all else – it invalidates your data. Putting aside creating and submitting inaccurate school data for the moment, entering a 'false grade' will make it virtually impossible to reliably measure any improvement of your skills as a teacher. Your improvement will now be based on unsound and worthless data." -- M. Cubbin (8/2/15) The Business of School

"… Is the Customer Always Right?" -- Farrington, Frank (1915) in Merck Report, Volume 24 pg 134-135

Pseudo-Evaluation. Data are not fundamental. On their face, data cannot be distinguished from outputs of a random number generator. Data are like shell chips on a beach mixed in with sand; or, like foam on the tide. (For an article relating “data” and “objectivity,” see Can Criminal or Immoral Behavior Be Dealt With Objectively?)

Far more important to know is what the processes are by which the putative data are collected. And even more critical is knowing which theories connect the data and collection process to what supposedly they indicate.

Much “data-collection” is like trying to identify proportions of bird-species during a fall migration. If the process were merely to tally varieties of southward flying objects, we might well end up confounding red-winged blackbirds with jet planes and monarch butterflies. (See Is It Really a Test? Or Just Another Task?)

In the above epigraph, Cubbin presumes a connection, presumably ideally possible, between school grades, student failure, and teacher skill. Using teachers as graders cuts costs, but is begging for inconsistency: not, because teachers may not “know their stuff.” But, because many institutional processes can overrule even the best of teachers’ judgments, e.g. administors’ prerogative, special education policies, or political involvement in the grading process. There is little consensus, when interest-group push comes to shove, on either goals or concepts appropriate to education. (See What Does a Consensus Mean, Anyway?" )

Requiring teachers to grade then grading the teachers is like judging baseball coaches using their players' batting averages. There will likely be only a tenuous, if any, connection between the data and any causal relationship to coaching (teaching) efforts. (See Power Failure: Losing the Series; Blaming the Bat Boys )

The Diploma-Holder Markets: is the customer always right? An important assumption Cubbin seems to make is that markets for test-passers are comprised of persons looking for those who possess certain proven skills. This is only a minor proportion of the markets for certificate- or diploma-holders.

Consider these other markets for whom actual skill levels are a distant, if even, a second consideration to applicant grade-point average:

a. Colleges, public, private or commercial, who have external, e.g. federal, or foundational, funds available for applicants with a certain grade-point average -- especially if the recipient institutions have tight budgets;

b. Institutions legally required to have certified staff but faced with employee scarcities, e.g. hospitals, clinics, civil-service;

c. School districts needing both adults certified as teachers, and students with birth and health certificates, in order to be run at even somewhat remove from peak efficiency;

d. Government administrations pursuing certain public policy initiatives that depend on items a, b and c, preceding; e.g. special education, affirmative action, STEM (Science, Technology & Mathematics); and last but not least,

e. the children applicants, legacies, to colleges which favor (paying) parents who are past graduates.

If skills really counted, there would be something like board standard examinations to be passed; normally, to be retaken at standard intervals. Teacher grades would not be accepted in place of board exam results. (See The Dangers of Diplomas)

But where the sheepskin alone is most important, rarely will the sheep’s diet be.


For examples and to pursue the issues raised in this essay, see

1. “Data-Driven”: a slogan to distract from organizational disagreement?;

2. Classification Error in Evaluation Practice:
the impact of the "false positive" on educational practice and policy

Cordially
--- EGR

Common Sense, or Merely Common Hubris?

edited120918

“Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.” ― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

Hume was on to something. John Locke had proposed that our senses responded to our experience by presenting sensations to the mind. The mind in turn worked to store these sensations as memories or to connect and then store these sensations as complex memories.

David Hume saw Locke’s theory as disabling the distinction between what we nowadays call “correlation” and “causation.” Our sensations are of events in our experience. All we can observe through our senses, even our senses amplified by instruments, are events. But we are in the habit of believing in cause and effect if one kind of event is consistently followed by events of another, different kind.

Indeed this tendency to connect one predecessor class of events to another following class gives rise to the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, “after that, therefore because of that.” For example, people more often feel queasy after eating raw clams, than after eating zucchini; so, they think, "Raw clams cause queasiness more so than does zucchini.” (But what if people who eat raw clams stuff themselves more frequently than those who eat zucchini?}

Between correlated event-classes we do not observe an intermediate event, a causal nexus, as it is sometimes called, that helps us distinguish between causation and “mere” correlation. True. But there is another way to look at this.

Maintaining Cause and Effect. Immanuel Kant attempted a rescue by proposing that Locke had gotten it wrong. The Mind (in German, Verstand, translated both as “mind” and as “understanding,” -- not Seele, Gemüt, or Sinn also translatable as “mind”) does not merely make connections of sensation brought in through the senses. The Mind’s very structure tends to process correlative event classes as cause and effect. We can hardly help but understand -- at least initially -- repeated correlation as indicating cause. This theory has been found to be much more attractive in the US since the withering of radical Behaviorism in the later 20th Century. (See A Critical Review of B.F. Skinner's Philosophy )

However, invoking some logic, there is a more direct way of thinking about it. We can accept Hume, yet maintain the distinction between correlation and causation. Consider universal negatives, which are statements that propose that, at any place or at any time, something is not; or, that nothing is, a certain way or thing.

For example, “There are no such thing as dragons,” or, what is logically equivalent, “There are no dragons, anywhere, ever.” The issue here is not whether the claim of the non-existence of dragons is true or false; but, whether there is an observation we -- or beings like us, of limited breadth of experience in space and time -- can perform to establish it.

Note that it is easier to disprove a negative universal than to establish it. The find of one dragon disproves it. But despite a very, very large number of failures to find a dragon, any claim that they don’t exist is not proven by that failure. It was, in fact, widely believed in the 19th Century and earlier that there was no such thing as a black swan. There are, in Australia. Also, tomatoes were considered to be poisonous, e.g. there was no such thing as a tomato that could safely eaten by humans. We know differently.

Disproving "No Swans are Not White."

Reconsider the example given above about the relation of eating raw claims and queasiness. The very argument against its being causation demonstrates that we bring much more to such a causal claim than a narrow consideration of correlation: we consider possible alternatives, or intermediaries, standardly characterized as confounding or mediating variables. A host of assumptions and presuppositions supports our observational reports.(See Identifying Trans-ideological Epistemological Presuppositions)

The “Common Sense” of American (School) Reform. There is always the possibility of hidden, overlooked or disregarded causes or effects that undermine an assertion that one situation causes another. As many have discovered, an apparent “common-sense” causal relation can disappear under closer scrutiny due to confounding or mediating variables.

There are a host of causal myths involved with all sorts of reform efforts, in particular, American education, primary, secondary, and higher, be it public, private or parochial. For example:

Bad or insensitive teachers are the primary cause of failing students.

Students have learning styles. Teachers can teach to them, i.e. no child is unteachable.

College is a pure waste of time, i.e. nothing worth the cost is learned.

Today’s schools are in a position to forestall 21st Century employment problems.

(See References to Schooling Myths.)

Such “common sense” beliefs underlie the hubris that drives a great many of today’s school reform undertakings. Their prospect is to continue on in a century-long American tradition: the cavalier waste of mis-aimed scarce resources leading to reform failure.

To examine these and related issues at greater length, see Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry: 
how much can school reform enhance a student's occupational fitness?)


Cordially
--- EGR

Cause & Effect: essential belief, misapprehension, moral hazard?

updated 071322

The brain is a construction of the brain. -- Nietzsche

There Must Be a Better Way! (The proctological principle?) I was waiting in a doctor’s office to arrange an examination, when a nurse answered a phone call. The irate voice on the other end of the line resounded throughout the small room: “I’m getting a colonoscopic exam tomorrow and I’m told I have to flush my system out by drinking a gallon of some insipid water concoction over the next twenty-four hours.” “That’s correct,” replied the nurse. “That’s absolutely ridiculous!” retorted the caller. “In this day and age there must be a better way to do it!” “No, sir. There is not,” responded the nurse.

A stream of expletives gushed from the telephone receiver. I thought to suggest to the nurse that she advise the patient to use a plumber’s snake instead of the prescribed water solution. But I kept my silence.

Practically Necessary Beliefs. Our way of life depends on a certain system of beliefs handed down through the centuries, although substantially modified in the process. Our notions of self-control, insanity, responsibility, criminality, and justice rest ultimately on the belief that some events relate to one another as cause and effect.

Daily we debate about who has done what; or, who can do what -- pretending all along that these “practical” questions have little to do with what “ivory-tower types” would call “philosophy.” In the debate we presume our investigations rest on a firm foundation: not merely the “belief,” but the “reality” of cause and effect. The operative train of thought here seems to ride on the Proctological Principle: if we (think we) need it, it must, in this day and age, be “a reality.”

Are Cause and Effect Illusions? Bertrand Russell recounts in his memoirs how, as a young man, he woke up in his bed one morning and came to a frightening understanding as to what David Hume meant by his theory of causation. All we ever observe, Hume had written, are correlations; regular sequences of event. Cause is our interpretation, our belief, more commonly, an assumption that normally observed regularities of precedence and propinquity will continue into the future.

Russell feared to step out of his bed onto the floor. It might, if Hume were right, suddenly open up beneath him, since there was nothing more than assumption to guarantee the persistence of its support. Thus, he would fall into an abyss of … nothingness (?).

(Russell’s reasoning here is somewhat inconsistent: If he could not trust that the floor, though sound and normal, would continue to support him, how could he come to any conclusion about what might happen next? Maybe he might float over the abyss!)

Being ultimately a pragmatist, as we all tend to be, Russell got past this fear and out of his bed and on with his life. Possibly he came to the realization that his bed, too, -- or the foundation of his house, or England in its entirety -- could just as likely open up to swallow him as he imagined the floor might.

Ultimately, perhaps, Russell, being a philosopher, might have come to concede (he did so, later) that there is more involved in identifying cause-and-effect relations than what our perceptions give us. Even today we warn our students, friends, associates, and acquaintances, perhaps, -- often futilely -- that mere “correlation” neither indicates nor denies “cause.” Little matter; if they are gamblers, day-traders, newspaper columnists, or political incumbents, they tend to ignore us.

Cause = Perceptions + Assumptions. Russell’s, and our, ability to act in this world rests heavily on structures of trust in generally unproven (and purely empirically unprovable) regularities of persistence. We construct edifices of trust with bricks of hope and desire cemented together with no more than the mortar of our assumptions. (See Varieties of Explanation & Cause.)

Immanuel Kant, some decades after Hume, presented a counter to Hume’s apparent empirical skepticism by denying that the human mind could go beyond experience, even such experience as augmented with scientific apparatus, to settle questions such as the “nature” of causation or objectivity. Our knowledge, Kant says, such as it is, is limited to phenomena.

Phenomena are constructed within the framework of human categories of understanding, which constitute the structure of the human mind, although interacting in someway with entities -- or entity -- of the extra-phenomenal world. Number, unity or plenty, says Kant, is a category of human understanding; not necessarily to be expected to parallel extra-phenomenal “reality.” (Check out the notion of quantum entanglement to appreciate how Kant's distinctions still retain relevance; although, he seems not to have considered how developing technologies and theories might interact to substantially expand human experience.)

It is amazing how many people in so many walks of life just hate this kind of theory: the theory that in culling out the true from the false, the wishful or delusional from the real, we ultimately invoke items of belief that themselves can only be judged, ad infinitum, by invoking other items of belief. (See Getting Down to Facts: can we avoid making assumptions?)

Is there a Bedrock of Knowledge? So what if claims of knowledge are always risky, resting on a potentially infinite chain of assumptions? Why the panic? Or more likely, the dismissive disdain? (Much more polite, if more condescending.)

I suppose it’s frightening. What? No absolute bedrock of The Known upon which to build our temples of Value, Prestige, Justice and Faith? Must everything be at risk? Can we, no matter how high our IQ or repute, how vast our wealth or influence, never be free from the risk of mistake?

Excepting formal linguistically constructed systems, i.e. knowledge by definition or stipulation, never, it would seem.

But does it really matter whether we occasionally stumble through life, rather than exhibiting perfection in all our decisions? Apparently to some people it does. Many who would reject the idea that knowledge may be essentially tentative are not inclined to even bother to present counter-argument or -evidence. Their basic concern, one might suspect, is more to preserve their incumbency in privileged positions; or, their right to importune others less empowered, i.e. to be in a condition of permanent moral hazard.

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

See also Varieties of Explanation. & Cause

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--- EGR

**Consider the similarities also in

Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

And, also, the conversation between Faust and Mephistopheles (1335-1337 and 1345-1358 Original German edition, my translation -- EGR) wherein Faust's question as to who Mephisto is is answered "I am a part of that power that always pursues Evil yet always yields Good."

Faust counters, "How can you be a part of something when you present yourself to me as a whole?", Mephisto replies,"... Although (you) a human, from that a tiny world of fools, may consider yourself a whole, I am a part of a part that once was Everything, the Darkness that gave birth to Light."

Educator Self-Lobotomy with Slogans

It's not teaching if there's no learning... Justin Tarte . Blog. Life of an Educator. 9/27/13

Despite my advancing years -- which belie the common belief that with age wisdom increases -- I never cease to be amazed, disturbed, even, by how those who style themselves “educators” insist on benumbing their thought processes with hyperbole: short, catchy, unfortunately memorable slogans. (We ancients can remember such gems as, “I’d walk a mile for a mild, mild Camel “ -- a cigarette, not a beast of burden. Ah… nostalgia!) See Slogans: junkfood, dead-weight or poison?

Can you imagine doctors who would say, “If the patient does not get well, we are not 'really' practicing medicine.”?

Would a physicist declare, “Since our research failed to support our hypothesis, we must have been practicing culinary arts instead of physics!”?

What member of the clergy would concede, “Because our congregation members continue to sin, it must be the case that we are -- intentionally, or not -- servants of Satan.”?

Even those putative educators enamored of snappy, mindless slogans might reconsider their allegiance to exaggerations such as “It's not teaching if there's no learning” were they to be told that their paychecks would be reduced after a year in proportion to the demonstrated depth and breadth of learning of all the pupils in their charge, no excuses accepted.

At this point -- someone, particularly among a group of “reform-minded” educational “theorists” (usually not in-the-trenches public school teachers) -- will jump up and declare, “But it’s time we stopped making excuses for our failures and got something accomplished.” (Likely there will be much hand-clapping to follow and assorted hoots of approval.)

Really? What if they’re not “our” failures? Will our “taking ownership” of them result in our acquiring the power to have an effect on them? And since when does wanting to get something done count as being able to do it? Cheerleaders, and, even, enthusiastic fans, do not win games. Skilled, somewhat lucky players and coaches do.

Don’t underestimate luck: Whitey Herzog, widely recognized by fans as one of the top-ranking field coaches in baseball, once estimated that his skills made a difference in six to eight ball games out of the hundred and fifty or so his team played each season. (See Leadership subsection of Morality & Leadership)

Many people have wondered -- after considering the descrepancies among

a. who is permitted to become a public school teacher,

b. how he or she is trained, and

c. how, finally, our public spokespersons would have him or her evaluated

whether teachers are trained to fail. Are they merely cannonfodder to be expended in deeper conflicts among competing cultural and political interests? (See Cannonfodder)

At the end of the day, of course, we could just, more comfortably, perhaps, adopt the attitude that such slogans as “It's not teaching if there's no learning,” are just harmless pep-talk confected by teacher-trainers to whip up enthusiasm in their clientele.

I would suggest that it is more accurate, wiser even, to recognize such slogans as dysfunctional to the preparation of good teachers. They are not medicine, not even palliative, to the ills of schooling.

To examine these issues further, see Causal Fallacy in Teaching and Learning

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--- EGR

Are You A Free Individual? Or Just Deluded?

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.-- Edmund Burke

“If only I didn’t have to work!” is likely said a million times a day.

The reality is that you don’t have to work, if you are willing to accept the consequences of not working. You don’t have to do anything, if the consequences of not doing it are no concern of yours. This is an obvious kind of freedom we all have. This is why some religions preach giving up all connections to other things to achieve Nirvana. But what "sane" person can just stop being concerned about all consequences, all connections?

If you think you can, just try this practice for a day. Deal with your bodily functions the way you did as an infant. See if you can keep that going for very long.

Now, suppose you don’t want to give up connections. Someone might say, “I’m free. I can do what I please. I can just follow my whims and impulses!” This is another kind of freedom, perhaps, but what if other people or things can control what you please? What if things like advertising, or expressions of approval, disapproval, like or dislike, can be used to constrain your whims or impulses? Would you call that “freedom?” Or is your “freedom” a delusion that makes your obedience, your submission to external authority, tolerable?

You have been through years of schooling. You have probably forgotten most math, foreign language and social studies. But you have not forgotten how to raise your hand, to keep your opinions to yourself, to stand in line, to wait until a person in authority is willing to recognize you, and to not contradict what that authority says.

Can you control these responses? Can you extend your internal locus of control over those things that you respond to as authority?

To examine these issues further, see PERSONAL LIBERATION THROUGH EDUCATION


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--- EGR

Intervention: helping, interfering or just being useless?

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson

A little power, like a little knowledge, can be a dangerous thing. Some people think of power as though it were a muscle: Use it or lose it. So they easily give into the temptation to “intervene” into others' affairs.

But intervention can easily be seen as “interference” by those who gain nothing from it. Those who welcome the intervention and the advantages it brings will call it “help.” Easily overlooked is the likelihood that the intervention will not have any effect besides producing headlines in newspapers, or hours of comment by media pundits. The fact that an intervention may be well intended does not prevent it from turning out to be a long-term disaster. The wars in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan were all initiated though interventions based on presumably honorable intentions. Notably, the costs of these interventions were not borne, in the largest measure, by their initiators.

BLOODLETTING The Burns Collection

Educational reform in the United States has been a continuing focus for delusional intervention through more than a century of U.S. history. Why delusional? Because the basic logic of intelligent intervention was ignored or replaced by wishful thinking.

What is this basic logic? It consists of three things. Do not intervene unless…

1. (cue) … you have accurately determined whether the situation that prompts you is, in fact, what you think it is. (Misperceptions and false starts abound.)

2. (concern) … the situation prompting your intervention will, in your best judgment, negatively affect your (whose?) interests. (Is it your “business”; is it worthwhile?)

3. (control) … your actions (or strategic inactions) will generate effects that influence sufficiently lasting changes in the situation. (Will things revert back to the way they were before intervention?)

I worked for many years in a school system with a “zero-tolerance policy” on fighting: students, otherwise peaceable, who offered resistance against the physical assault of bullies were suspended along with their attackers. One particular student, a quiet sort, was admonished by the principal, “Johnny, you’re such a good student; but, you keep on getting suspended for fighting back. I’ve told you time and time again that whenever someone assaults you, to are to come tell me about it.”

Johnny replied, “What’d you do before that has ever stopped ‘em botherin’ me? You gonna walk me home or to school? How’m I supposed ta live in my neighborhood, if I get a rep(utation) for running to a teacher every time I’m in trouble?”

The principal responded with a not untypical intervention: Johnny was sent away to a disciplinary school for being “highly insubordinate.”

“They .. make a desert, and they call it peace” -- Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117)

For references and to examine these issues in detail, see Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy



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--- EGR

Technician, or Magician: Can You Tell the Difference?

udated 1/26/21

… he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currently without discovery ... — Thomas Ady, A Candle in the Dark, 1656

If baldness treatments really work then why does a wealthy man like Donald Trump still have problems? If Hollywood spas and diets really work, then why are they visited again and again by pretty much the same movie stars? If prisons help to reduce crime, why is the American prison population the largest in the world and still growing?

If pious declarations of Faith mean anything then

a. why is the Bible Belt plagued by “acts of God” so very much more than the Sin Cities of this country; and
b. why are many of the previously unsuccessful “prophets” of the End Time still pushing their wares?

Why do even “the best” hospitals and universities closely guard data as to their successes and failures? Why does the popularity of our political, economic and psychological pundits contribute directly to the failure of their predictions? (See Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment)

What is the difference between a magician (an illusionist) and a technician? It is not, merely, that one wears stage clothes and the other, "scientific" garb, e.g. a stethoscope, a loupe or a sheepskin. The important difference is whether the causes and effects they believe to be at work are, in fact, at work.

People everywhere show a desperate willingness to believe in some kind of causal connection, a hope that somebody, somewhere knows what and how to do something. Many sincere people, possessed by one or another blinding Faith, stumble about in search for answers. But their very Faith often makes it impossible even to carefully examine the “answers” they encounter.

If private and parochial schools are so much better than public schools, why don’t the better students of the former consistently beat out those of the latter? Why are schools, already crammed full of gimcracks and geegaws from a thousand different manufacturers and universities, nonetheless perpetually in “need” of reform?

How many school "reformers" turn out to be little more than illusionists? How much talent, hope and money has been wasted pursuing their illusions?

For references and to examine these issues further, see The Teacher as Technician


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--- EGR

Top School Leadership: fooled or fools?

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.
-- Albert Einstein

Is there any more telling evidence of the failure of American education than the blather promulgated by Harold O. Levy, New York City school chancellor from 2000 to 2002 and trustee of several colleges (New York Times, 6/8/09)?

Every child should attend school until age 19 because, Levy says,

The benefits of an extra year of schooling are beyond question: high school graduates can earn more than dropouts, have better health, more stable lives and a longer life expectancy.

This is a clear confusion, at best, of correlation with cause. Besides, Levy compares kids who might take an extra year of school with dropouts, when the much more important comparison should be between those who graduate with the present limit of 18 years and those who might take an extra year. Why incur the costs of an extra year of school if it makes little difference as to who graduates?

Is this so deep that even a chancellor can’t understand it? Or is another agenda at work here?

To examine these issues further, see Illogic and Dissimulation in School Reform

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EGR

Diagrams: Show me how you think schools influence on-the-job success

In the United States of America educators have been told for years and years that it is they who have to prepare students for the “World of Work.” It is they who have the major responsibility to get kids ready for a job.

Unfortunately, educators have accepted this burden without thinking it through. It is clearly nonsense! What responsibility does your ninth-grade English teacher have for the fact that you got laid off 25 years later because your company is "resizing" because it overexpanded?

In a world of commerce – “free enterprise” it is misleadingly called – in businesses that can’t even keep track of legal records, that can’t and won’t police its own pirates, whose stock markets are vulnerable to arbitrary manipulations, exactly how is a first, or second, or for that matter, an eleventh or twelfth grade teacher supposed to influence his student’s future success on the job?

Diagram it! Let A -> B be read “A influences (causes) B.” What in-school-A's influence on-the-job-B’s? Watch out here that you don’t step in any fresh cowpies! There are two basic rules to follow:

1. Every effect, B, has more than one (contributing) cause.
2. Every cause, A, has multiple effects.

When you start diagramming all the possible causes influencing any B, you soon see that school influences may be a weak contribution to the total.

To examine these issues further, see Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry: 
how much can school reform enhance a student's occupational fitness?


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--- EGR

Teaching, Parenting and Learning: what are the connections?

You have probably seen the cartoon about a teacher-parent conference:

Frame 1-- Teacher and parent think about their successful student’s achievements.

Teacher: It’s good teaching.

Parent: it’s heredity!

Frame 2: -- Teacher and parent think about their failing student’s failures.

Teacher: It’s heredity!

Parent: it’s bad teaching!

How does what teachers and parents do connect with what students learn? Do teachers really influence the future like the slogan has it? Is parent influence really so important?

Bad teaching, so we are often told in the mass media, has helped bring about the trade deficit, increase in juvenile crime or other calamities. And parents are to blame as well.

But why not blame someone or something else? Why should educators, and parents, even, be held even partly responsible?

Can we clarify what it is reasonable to hold teachers and parents accountable for? A clearer idea of what notions like cause and effect are might help.

To continue this discussion see Causal Fallacies in Education

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EGR

"Making Kids Learn” and Other Twitter-Worthy Superstitions

updated 2/3/21

A good deal of TV airtime is spent showing talking heads talking to other talking heads chosen by mysterious persons for obscure reasons to fill-in time between commercials. The economy is the hot issue right now so we get “experts” – who somehow managed not to see the crash coming – telling us how it should have been avoided and how it can be fixed. Ah! The Science of Economics!

Another favorite topic for talk-show wheezes is how to “fix” the public schools. Taking time away from their spells and potions, assorted “authorities” present their latest encantations to ward off or invoke obscure, ill-defined “effects” by manipulating even vaguer “causes.” Ah! The Science of Education!

To examine these issues further, see
Causal Fallacy in Teaching and Learning


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--- EGR>