Richard Feynman on the uncertainty of knowledge. 2:50 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0
Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...2811#post97204
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...2995#post97788
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Richard Feynman on the uncertainty of knowledge. 2:50 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0
Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...2811#post97204
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...2995#post97788
One of the first things I learned in college, though not in any classroom, was that most of what is wrong in the world stems from man's need to have an explanation for everything, even if that means conjuring up magical beings with unrealistic capabilities.
Real science doesn't need immediate explanations; packaging observations into an after the fact theory is good enough so long as one is willing to discard that theory as soon as a contradiction is observed and proved genuine.
Dr. Richard Feynman was one of the greatest minds America ever produced. It's rare that a physicist must develop his own mathematics to explain his physics, but that is what Professor Feynman did. A brilliant and yet very practical man. The interview with him that showed on PBS back in the 1980's from the BBC Interview was probably THE best interview with a scientist that I've ever watched (and it's not because I was in Physics grad school at the time either!).
I have been a fan since I can remember.
Some of my favorite Feynman quotes...
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.
The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things.
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?" RF...
@0:27 - I like his subtle jab at the over-exuberance of the all-encompassing theory pushers (like the Theory of Everything).
The last one is my favourite.Quote:
Originally Posted by mklotz
I wonder what Richard would have had to say if he had lived to see college courses of study like:Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyfoale
social ecology
equine kinesiology
or colleges that grant a BS in music...
https://music.osu.edu/future/undergr...chelor-science
https://www.bachelorstudies.com/BSc/Music/
Oh dear, that means that if I get ill it is likely that my doctor will be low down the scale.
Actually we have to be careful interpreting IQ and similar tests. We all have different talents and different tests will favour different people with different talents. IQ tests tend to favour those of us who have a natural inclination towards science and engineering, but give me a test that favours musicians and artists and I'll hover near the bottom of the scale.
The IQ test is also biased for language and such.
Of course I looked at an English final exam that our sponsor Nadia uses, she's a top English teacher in Russia. I couldn't get past the first few questions mostly because it's British English and we all know those guys can't speak properly!
:)
Yes that is very true. It also requires a good command of the language grammar to understand the questions and lamentably that seems to have been left out of modern english speaking education.Quote:
Originally Posted by jdurand
Surprised to see I am up there, almost at the level of mathematicians!
To give a personal response to these posts would require an essay. Would you like one?
Briefly, however, 2 books I read last year, 1, “Superintelligence” byNick Bostrom, about artificial intelligence, and 2 “The Big Questions” by Steven Landsburg both refer to the theory that the universe is artificial, created by superintelligence. This is not an idea which can be tested, I think. I wonder what Feynman would have made of that?
Do I detect a degree of contempt in these post for those who have studied the humanities?
Personally, I do not regard a high IQ as the most important human attribute.
I would have liked to have studied music, but when I was 9, I was told I was not clever enough to learn the violin. Music theory is rather difficult, I agree.
The ability to read, interpret and write the language is in itself a mark of intelligence. (Note that I'm assuming we're talking about exams couched in the exam taker's native language.)Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyfoale
You're quite correct, Tony, about the death of language education in today's schools.
I've studied (informally) the language usage on many of the forums I've frequented. As a result, I've concocted the following conjecture...
Conjecture: The typical native English-speaking forum contributor is incapable of writing an original composition of 200 or more words without making a major grammar error.
And, before someone raises the "it's informal writing" argument, let me say that "informal" is not a synonym for "incorrect".
You are correct to state that many British people are unable to use their language correctly. I tried, and failed in many cases, to help them assume their birthright, for over 25 years, but now all I can do is complain to the BBC about their frequent infelicities.Quote:
Originally Posted by jdurand
There are, I know, many gifted craftsmen, including ones who have gained many awards on this forum, who left school feeling that they were failures, because of dyslexia.
Prevailing cultural attitudes aren't just infecting language, or the educational tilt towards social criticism. Here's a gem: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction
This is NOT a parody or joke of some sort. The basic tenets of mathematics instruction, like objectivity, showing your work, and how skills are built upon each other, are all cast as white supremacy. Here are a few picks:
https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...athematics.jpg
https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...thematics3.jpg
https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...thematics2.jpg
More: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction
Just look at this graph. Does it makes sense that all high IQ people go into the hard sciences?
I went to https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/...t19_318.30.asp and saw no mention of IQ.
Do your really think that Health Professionals all have low IQs and Physicists all have high IQs? The next time you need a doctor, you better hope this isn't true.
Rick
I think a good answer is that that chart (which is only one chart) displays averages, and not the IQs of all people in a specific field. The ambiguity of "Health Professions" is a good criticism. I believe that specific chart focuses on students in their last year of undergraduate studies, which means that it doesn't really display med school students. If you look up other analyses of IQ by profession, you'll see doctors coming up around 10 points higher; this suggests to me that Olson is lumping in pre-med students with other "health professionals" who are probably more numerous and less intelligent on average. Olson provides more data on his blog.
My wife was educated in the UK, she has no knowledge of grammar. She has no idea of what a verb, noun or adjective is. On the other hand my kids all have a good knowledge of English grammar. They learnt English as a second language in a Spanish school, of course they had to have been taught the grammar of their first language, Spanish, before being expected to understand that of their second.Quote:
Originally Posted by mklotz
My experience has been that it is the native English speaking countries which have declined the most in the teaching of their own language. I often ask how can this trend be reversed, because there will be no teachers capable.
Due to changing politics when I was in school, we went through several versions of "English" training with year-long gaps between versions. The result is we studied a lot of literature but very little actual grammer.
This has made it "interesting" learning Russian since I never learned various grammer terms and now need to use them. With one of the hardest languages for an English speaker to learn.
Oh well, if it wasn't challenging, it wouldn't be fun...right?
I couldn't agree more, Tony.Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyfoale
I've long contended that folks who learn English as a second language write and speak better than native speakers because they had to study the language, which the native speakers thought was unnecessary since they already spoke it. English is arguably one of the most difficult Western languages to learn. To think you comprehend it because you speak some local redneck garble of English words is really laughable.
When I was in school, the curriculum included an English course and a math course every semester right through high school graduation. I decided that, though the teachers didn't know everything, that amount of attention to these two subjects meant that they must be very important for life and so required serious attention. I'm really glad I made that decision because, when I got to college (MIT) they had no English courses (except for non-native speakers); they expected you to have learned all that stuff in high school.
At the rate that English usage is currently deteriorating, there will soon be job opportunities for scribes who convert your slang and garble into material fit to use in school or job applications, formal letters, legal documents, etc..
I routinely taught parts of speech to my pupils. Unfortunately, almost all of them could not remember one from another. While much of this may have been down to me, I was not the only one who had tried!Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyfoale
I did not learn them myself when at secondary modern, but through the acquisition of German as a foreign language. Personally, I do not think it makes much difference to the ability to use and understand English, if you do not know the parts of speech and formal rules of grammar. My ability in English was formed by absorption in literature, from infancy. Much of it comes from a memory of what is general usage. So, if you were to ask me whether a word was used correctly in a sentence, mostly I would be correct, without reference to any rules. English (unlike German) is quite irregular! I realize I can no longer explain the rule for “who/whom”, so please, don’t ask! I can tell you, eg, that “none” as the subject of a sentence requires the singular form of the verb, but hardly anybody gets that right. How do I know that “They gave it to Tony and I” is wrong? (Or, worse “...to we” - I read that on CNN) It is down to experience.
Ability in English is merely my good fortune, not the result of formal study: it does not give me the right to sneer at those who are less fortunate, on the contrary.
Just to re-iterate: I have known many good people, some of whom have lots of awards on this forum, who were unable to read and write as children, and were convinced that they were failures when they left school. Some of them are training the next generation of craftsmen now.
But the teachers in schools today have to be far better than I was. They have to be! But I do not envy them. It is a very stressful, despised and poorly paid profession. If any of my children’s friends are going in to teaching, I tell them to obtain insurance against premature breakdown.
-My deepest sympathy and keep up the good work!Quote:
Originally Posted by jdurand
"Russian's a bidge" to digest even for most speakers of Germanic languages.
Cold War Story: Over forty years ago, I flunked miserably by not easily wolfing down 350 russian words/ week,
and found myself kicked outta the Interpretor's Course* with the seemingly kind words:
-Johan, don't resist! Unleash your inner interpreter!
But given your meagre test results, I guess you've finally realized you're not amongst us happy few...
Nothing personal this time - and not everyone is born as an interpreter, you know.
Ten years later, in '92 we did a job in Moscow with a 34 person crew, and I became the team's liaison with the natives...
Then, given the amazing looks I got, I realized that Soviet-age military terms for some reason had dropped outta fashion...
ATB to you and your wife, Jerry!
Cheers
Johan
* With a 25-30% annual washout rate at that course and another, more thrilling commission I quickly got over that trauma.
That assignment was also "darned hard fun" but apparently more fitting, given the outcome :)
Just to name a one problem when estimating one's own knowledge or skills:
One might just lack the very proficiency needed to correctly judge that ability,
instead applying false assumptions and illogical reasoning to finally reach indorrect conclusions.
Add peers of that same ilk, and you get the self-reinforcing, perfect group-thinking and cock-sure cadre.
-I started the above from my experience working at a university -
but suddenly realized the lines above describe one necessary trait of a cult following...
FWIW:
From a 12p paper (K Wu & D Dunning, UMich 2017) called Hypocognition: Making sense of the landscape beyond one's conceptual reachQuote:
We argue that people’s finite conceptual horizons are a pervasive
and powerful constraint on how they make sense of the world.
These horizons represent the hard boundaries of where people’s
possible interpretation of their circumstances can go, and define the
finite channels into which their understanding is funneled.
To be sure, what each individual person knows is considerable, but it
pales against the entire landscape of concepts that are possible to know.
The typical 20-year-old English speaker knows the equivalent
of 42,000 dictionary entries, with the number rising to 48,000
by age 60 (Brysbaert, Stevens, Mandera, & Keuleers, 2016).
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, however, contains
roughly 470,000 entries; the second edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary contains over 600,000.
Attachment 38710
You should never trust an organ that named itself...