h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Debate between Rabbi David Wolpe and Sam Harris

1 hr 45 minutes, but rather good

http://www.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=1766&u=7037&t=0

Feel free to post this on any relevant discussions. I'm currently abstaining from most of 'em

I'll give that a go at home later.
Don't blame ya for hanging back, I have been too. Still, think we should organise some sort of campaign medal for Gif though!

One of the posting survivors, yes he should get a Good Conduct or whatever. Personally I gave up when I noticed that most of them had turned into p!ss!ng matches.

I know what you mean. The best convos I've had on here in this area have been on others personal spaces where disagreements and so forth have ocurred but have been handled within the format of the debate. People not only giving opinions and positions, but backing them up with reasoning so that you can actually have a debate and both sides get something out of it.

Then there's *That Woman* and the people who love to battle her.

Ah well, at least the front page, ask, the post, friends and the odd good convo make this a better place by far than say, Facebook.

Our local online paper has an interesting article about the current generation of students that seems to reflect the Facebook mentality:

http://thetyee.ca/Life/2008/01/07/StudentsToday/

I *don't* weep for the future, though. My kids made it through the other side with firmly screwed on heads.

Lack of fish oil in the diet?

Or are there just too many 'shiny baubles' (read 'gadgets'), distracting minds already compromised by raging hormones?

Apparently I have a page or something on Facebook, since I was invited by my niece, but I've never bothered with it

Despite its flaws, (*That Woman*, for one ), for me hootoo is much more attractive than the 'social networking' sites

~~~~~

I think Gif should be sainted

Bullshit, of course (about the students, that is, not about Gif). I'm happy to stand up for The Youth Of Today. They're smarter, better looking and *cooler* than we ever were. Admit it!

>>..smarter, better looking and *cooler*<

Perhaps 2 out of 3

doesn't really matter if the students are more lazy or less lazy, the employment sphere and society will change to accomodate that. If everyone gets A* then unis will select via interview and further exams. If everyone gets a 1st class honours (why? I mean all that shows is you went to uni and forgot to have a good time!) then employers will use other means (interviews and selection tests) to screen potential employees.

But then, one of the most successful people I know left uni with a non-honours engineering degree and walked into a really good job because he had the aptitude and knew how to show it at selection. He was supposed to have a 2.1 to get in but they disregarded it because he interviewed so well. Ability will out, I guess.

Of course, the average ability of students (in the UK anyway) will have gone down since the number (proportion) of the available student population going to uni has increased.

Yes definitely count me in for the campaign to get Gif knighted at the very least.

have to admit I've long thought there should be some sort of community award for excellence in debating. Not based on the views propounded (that would be wrong) but rather on the style of debate the individual has, their ability to discuss, describe, reason etc.

There's a few on here I can think of who should be so rewarded.

I think it might help to promote good debate and raise the profile of one of the things I do think H2G2 is good for, which is serious debate. It doesn;t happen often, but there are some top league minds on here and that is a resource which should not be squandered.

Although no doubt some would see such a thing as just more cronyism and in-group confirmation. So maybe it wouldn't work.

But then I still hope for the Wilde Awards to resurrect again.

He's one helluva nice guy as well. Look at this thread I spoke to him in, when I was feeling bad about a post I made and upset about my style. He even says he values it.

F79732?thread=4934180

>>Of course, the average ability of students (in the UK anyway) will have gone down

By what objective measure?

One that's often touted is the seeming inability to spell. But isn't that a bit like moaning that the youth of today can no longer use log tables or operate slide rules? Surely spelling is an overrated virtue in these days of squiggly red underlines? I'll bet that in the early sdeays of agriculture, there were folk moaning about the decline in spear-lobbing skills.

Another way of looking at it is that just as most of us know less about Ancient Greek than the previous generation, we now find that today's youth aren't so interested in the things we were taught, but know how to - say - write and present with Powerpoint...configure a network...dissect the underlying themes of a TV show...useful stuff like that.

Our current societal attitude towards the youth apalls me. Even if they were monsters (they're not), they'd be monsters of our own making.

based purely on the growing numbers going to uni.
Regardless of exams and what they say, not getting into that one as don;t know enough, the intelligence/ability profile of the population is a bell curve. There's less people at the extremes and more in the middle.

So, if unis are taking more students (which they are) then whilst there will be some increase at the top end, this will be - numerically - much less than the growth to the middle of the population (which is the bottom of the population for uni).
So there will be an increase of students with lower ability.

This means that the average student will have lower ability.

No...that's not the story.

Onceuponatime, basic education was rationed. A large proportion of the population didn't get the chance of attaining university entrance standard. If they did, they didn't have the means to sustain themselves during further education. These factors have, to some extent, been mitigated over recent years (although granted there have been some backward steps more recently).

"I was the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to get to university."

Your turn.

Um, not sure how that in any way counteracts my post?

Doesn't really matter how they get there, be it due to changes in the cost of university (or the way it is funded), changes in public perception of university (which is where I think there has been a big change) or changes in academic scores and requirements.

Thing is, whatever it is that has lead to the increase in students, it applies across the ability range. And, as I say, there will always be more mediocre students than high fliers. If there's a 10% increase across the board then the 10% increase of mediocre will be numerically greater than the 10% increase in the high fliers thus bringing the average down.

>>there will always be more mediocre students than high fliers.

This is the key to it. In the past, the definition of a high flier was 'someone of sufficient ability to get into university'. Only it didn't quite work like that. The education system was skewed against the socio-economically disadvantaged with te effect that many high-fliers were never even counted...and many *potential* high fliers didn't receive the educational resources to turn them from mediocre to high-flying.

But access to education has improved. Could it not be that schools are turning out more people capable of meeting the standard required for universities?

Or should a university education only be granted to the top N%, no matter where the mean lies?

And how do we measure the mean, in order to distinguish between the high-flying and the mediocre?...which was what was behind my question about objective measures.

I think it has most to do with the economic structure of society. In the past large numbers of people were needed in manufacturing industry that mostly required a minimum of academic learning. Much manual trade learning that was needed occured via apprenticeships. Women often did unskilled work in factories. A reletively small number of people were needed for jobs eg civil service or academia. The secondary moderns educated 95% and the grammars/private sector the high flyers.

The profile of our economy has now changed beyond all recognition. Large numbers of people are needed to be academically qualified to an average degree for things like middle management in the great proliferation of jobs in such things as the service sector or leisure, media.

A few high flyers are obviously still needed, and Oxbridge has its oqn way of weeding out these people.

Interestingly...if we take statistics as our gude, rather than (ahem)'public perception', we can see some interesting things:
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf
(see page 10).

For example...

Between the end of WWII adn the early 60's, the number of men gaining first degrees approximately doubled. So this means...what...that students overall became twice as mediocre?

Thereafter, until the 1990s, male students became only slightly more mediocre.

On the other hand...between 1948 and the early 1990s, *female* students became *five times* more mediocre!

"In the past, the definition of a high flier was 'someone of sufficient ability to get into university'."

BUT within the university system those high fliers will not all be high fliers. Some will get 1sts, some will get non honours. And there will be more getting 2.2/3/non honours then there are those getting 2.1/1st. Which is what I am on about.
Increase the number of students going to university and the numbers will proportionally increase - numerically there will be some more 1sts but a lot more 3rd/nonhonours. Hence the average drops.

It doesn't matter *why* they are there - improved education, improved financial circumstances of parents, easier exams. The fact is they are there and there are more mediocre than top flight.

"(see page 10)."
pg 11 if anyone followed the links - pg 10 is about causes of death!

"Between the end of WWII adn the early 60's, the number of men gaining first degrees approximately doubled. So this means...what...that students overall became twice as mediocre? "
Not sure about twice as mediocre, but certainly the *average* student will have been more mediocre - not the overall student body, but the average student.

"On the other hand...between 1948 and the early 1990s, *female* students became *five times* more mediocre! "
No, it means the *average* female student will have become more mediocre.

You seem to be confusing a change in the population average with a change in the abilities of each member of the population. The brainest are still as brainy. Perhaps more so, perhaps not.
The less able are still as less able as before (maybe less so but that isn;t the point).

The point is, given the distribution of intellect within society is not a flat line - put bluntly there a lot more average intelligence people than geniuses - increasing the size of the population will increase the amount of mediocre more than the amount of the geniuses.

Which will bias the average in favour of the mediocre more so than with the previous population.

Or is the disagreement here that you think that academic ability is evenly distributed throughout the poulation and there are as many high fliers as there are mediocre students?