Category Archives: Education

Adaptation, Change, Education

Facts and Evidence Don’t Matter

If you operate in an evidence-based world, the title of this post probably annoys/angers you.  As well it should.  Unfortunately, for increasing numbers of people, belief is more important than evidence.  In fact, evidence contrary to their beliefs may make them fight harder than ever to hold on to their beliefs.

Some news items from the believers point of view:

1] Jerry Sandusky [or fill in blank with whichever child predator is in the news] cannot possibly be a child predator because he loves children and created a charity for children.  Providing these believers with the facts and evidence of ‘grooming‘ just makes the believers angrier and more defensive of Sandusky [or whomever].  Vilification of the accusers occurs rather than analyzing the evidence.

2] How dare the state of Kentucky expect high school students to be taught and tested on evolution when it conflicts with the beliefs of Ricky Line, Superintendent of Hart County Board of Education!  (Education?)  “Stop requiring our teachers to teach, as fact, an evolution that would convince our children that they evolved from lower life forms and, therefore, have reason to discount the Bible and the faith beliefs that follow.  This is not an improvement in our public education system.” [Written to Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holiday on 11/21/2011.]  Commissioner Holiday replied with a very well-reasoned statement of facts and evidence.  I doubt it convinced Superintendent Line.  Line’s beliefs will always trump facts and evidence.

3]  The Florida Family Association, a Christian group, is crusading against TLC’s program All-American Muslim because ‘TLC’s “All-American Muslim” is propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda.’  They are haranguing the show’s advertisers in an attempt to have TLC drop the show because it does not sufficiently cover the jihadist point of view. “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”  How dare TLC show ordinary Muslims!

Clearly, the FFA crusade is ridiculous.  And yet, Lowe’s succumbed.  “Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”  So, Lowe’s, will you cease all advertising if enough people complain about the shows on which you advertise?  Or do you just pick and choose based on belief systems rather than evidence and facts?

4]  Only those who believe in God (or a god) are trustworthy.  Atheists are less trustworthy (more evil?) than rapists; and atheists are despised more than are gays.  This is according to recently-published research by Gervais et al. who conducted six different studies in order to clarify why those who are religious have problems with those who are atheists.  The researchers concluded it came down to trust.  Religious individuals simply cannot trust someone who doesn’t believe in a god because they hold the view that a belief in god provides the glue that holds society together.  However, Gervais et al. point out that “the least religious countries are actually among the most cooperative and peaceful on the planet.”   Belief that atheists are bad and untrustworthy trumps the facts and evidence that if we want a peaceful, cooperative society we would be better off with fewer individuals who are religious [See #3 above.] and more who are atheist.

One would hope that education would help eradicate erroneous beliefs.  But if facts and evidence just make believers fight harder, education probably will not work.  Then how can we solve this problem?  I’d like to read your ideas on this.

Meanwhile, have a great holiday season in which we work to increase cooperation and peace in our society.

 

 

 

 

 

Adaptation, Change, Education

Science is Political

I recently finished reading Shawn Lawrence Otto’s book: Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America.  Otto co-founded Science Debate 2008 which was an effort to get the presidential candidates to have a debate on the important science issues affecting the United States.  Despite strenuous efforts, the candidates refused to agree to such a debate.  The only outcome was that the final nominees, Obama and McCain, did finally agree to answer, in writing, not in debate, “The 14 Top Science Questions Facing America.”   I would like to think that there will be an actual Science Debate in 2012, but given that the only Republican candidate who seems concerned about science and the scientific illiteracy of his fellow candidates is Jon Huntsman, a man who has no chance to be the Republican nominee in 2012, this seems improbable.

Otto’s main thesis is that for the last several decades, scientists, while busy doing science, ignored the erosion of the public’s confidence in science and the rise of a belief system that claimed there is no objective reality; that we each create our own subjective ‘reality;’ therefore, the conclusions of science are only one way of viewing the world, and not necessarily the ‘best’ way.  This flight from objective reality may well be why the United States ranks #23 in the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test of scientific knowledge.  In addition, the United States ranks just above Turkey in a graph of countries depicting the percentage of the population accepting the validity of evolution, based on research published in Science. The educational system is failing the United States given that the researchers found that percentage accepting evolution actually declined over twenty years.  Otto is convinced that this is because scientists failed to recognize that science is political; that scientists have to write for and speak to the public in language that will make it clear that science is necessary for the future stability, growth, and well being of the United States.  Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin understood that science was political.  Their goal was to create a country where science could flourish.  They would be appalled to discover that at the beginning of the 21st century, a huge chunk of the population is retreating into the anti-science mysticism of the centuries prior to the Enlightenment of the 18th century.

One of the key concepts that has been lost in the relativistic present is that there are not necessarily two sides to every argument.  Otto points this out in the following example (p. 10):

“Journalism: There are always two sides to every story.  Bob says 2 + 2 = 4.  Mary says it is 6.  The controversy rages.

Science:  Most times, one side is simply wrong.  I can demonstrate using these apples that Bob is right.

Politics:  How about a compromise?  New law: 2 + 2 = 5.”

Journalists create controversy where, based on the scientific facts, there is none.  “If one side presents knowledge and the other ‘but faith, or opinion, but not knowledge,’ [John Locke] simply reporting both sides is not balanced journalism and constitutes malfeasance by the press.” (p.204-05) Such malfeasance is in large measure due to the fact that few media sources in the United States actually have scientifically-trained reporters.  In fact, according to Otto, most media sources have cut or cut out their science departments.  This is in contrast to the rest of the world where science news remains a vital part of media coverage.

Otto also discusses de Tocqueville‘s views of American democracy, published in 1835, after his travels throughout the new country.  While impressed by many things, de Tocqueville also saw cause for concern.  He saw Americans as tinkerers/inventors rather than as thinkers.  The focus was on practicality rather than the search to understand the unknown; i.e. pure research without thought of how it might be used.  “His [de Tocqueville’s] tale [of 19th century China’s retreat from science] suggests the dangers posed by embracing tradition and precedent at the expense of openness and creativity, applied research at the expense of basic science, fear at the expense of wonder, utility at the expense of beauty, and an insistence on financially quantifiable projections before an investment is made, the idea of which runs contrary to the entire process of discovery and creativity.” (pp. 58-9)

“If knowledge does not have primacy in public decision making, then no truth can be said to be self-evident, and we are left with the tyranny of ideology enforced by might (p. 219)…led [by] a generation of leaders that are at once arrogant and ignorant…(p. 134) Ignorance is not bliss.  It’s tyranny.” (p. 252)

Otto points out that scientifically-literate children are most likely to have parents who are scientists or, and this is critically important, parents who are immigrants.  “Fully 70 percent of the finalists in the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search competition were the children of immigrants–a stunning figure considering that immigrants make up only 12 percent of the US population…” (pp. 291-92)

This matters because if the United States continues to restrict immigration and/or makes life difficult for immigrants, these talented students will be lost to the United States, while at the same time providing a ‘brain gain’ to other countries.  If anti-science attitudes continue to prevail in the United States, it will lose the future to other nations, particularly those in Asia.  During the Middle Ages, science burned brightly in the Islamic countries.  But fundamentalist, anti-science views came to dominate in those regions, and science was lost.  To say such a future is not possible in an anti-science United States is arrogant ignorance.

 

 

 

 

 

Education

Bounding in to Solve the Textbook Cost Dilemma

Students are always strapped for cash.  Textbooks cost a bundle.  Some schools are now renting textbooks to students who cannot afford to buy new and/or for whom used texts are unavailable.  Many students hope to get by without buying the textbook.  But that can be a risky option.

Three entrepreneurs decided to solve this dilemma by creating a company that produces open-sourced, online textbooks matched to a popular textbook in a particular subject that students can access for free.  Free!!  How do they do that?  Well, with a major venture capital investment and a lot of contracted consultants, including me.

I worked on the college Biology textbook: mapping content, validating the content others mapped, and synthesizing the content of still other consultants into cohesive chapters that covered the same topics in the same order as in the chapters of the reference Biology textbook.  We consultants scoured the web for the best open-source materials on a particular topic.  The end result is an interactive text with graphics and video clips embedded within the text.  It looks great and functions well.  And it’s free.  Boundless Learning also has free textbooks for college Economics and Psychology.  They plan to produce free textbooks for more subjects in future months.

I was involved, in one way or another, in the creation of about 40% of the chapters.  So, believe me when I say, “This was a huge endeavor.”  Student-user input will be used to tweak and modify the text for an even better learning experience.  Is this the future of textbooks?  Maybe, for a subset of the most commonly-used texts; but probably not for the vast majority of textbooks for at least two reasons:   it is not that easy to re-create a textbook using open source material; and professors are unlikely to willingly give up both the prestige and revenue stream of writing and publishing textbooks.

What is this firm that is creating these free textbooks?   Boundless Learning was founded in March, 2011, in Boston, MA by three serial entrepreneur friends (Aaron White, Ariel Diaz, and Brian Balfour) with venture capital funding of $1.75 million. While their track record as entrepreneurs and knowledge of funding sources surely played a large role in obtaining those funds, improving education and educational products is very ‘sexy’ right now.   Bill Gates invests millions in schemes to improve education. Peter Thiel (of PayPal) has his own take on higher education: skip it and start a business.   He is providing fellowships to 20 young entrepreneurs under age 20.

Anyone who pays attention knows that education does need an overhaul, so the Boundless Learning Trio made a smart decision to move into this potentially lucrative field; which makes it intriguing that they are giving away their product.  Their ultimate goal appears to be to hook students with the free textbooks, and then to later offer premium services that will include ‘online tutoring, prep test help, and premium study aids.’  This is smart marketing, but will their funding carry them through until they are profitable?  This seems doubtful, so I presume they are looking for more funding from their original investors and from new investors.

Another concern is over how they will differentiate their premium products from those already offered by the Princeton Review or Kaplan, among many others.  How is the Boundless Learning team going to shake up the market for online tutoring and test prep?  And are those really the premium services they should offer?  In a phone conversation I had with Arial Diaz on October 18, 2011, I asked him about the viability of the premium services Boundless Learning is thinking about offering.  He admitted that even though students do have plenty of disposable income for pizza and movies, it may be difficult to turn free textbook users into paying customers.  Currently, only about 10% of those students who downloaded a textbook use it once a week or more.  At least 50% of the students appear to use it only to study for exams.  This is a major hurdle the team will have to overcome if they want to move these students into premium products.  Students may not know what they really need to succeed.  Tutoring and test prep have their place, but if Boundless Learning really wants to be on the cutting edge of an educational revolution, the team needs to think beyond the typical products.

According to Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap, business leaders want employees who demonstrate Seven Survival Skills:

•    Critical thinking and problem solving
•    Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
•    Agility and adaptability
•    Initiative and entrepreneurialism
•    Effective oral and written communication
•    Accessing and analyzing information
•    Curiosity and imagination

Perhaps Boundless Learning could really differentiate itself from the pack by developing premium services that aid students in achieving those Seven Survival Skills.  I suggested to Ariel that his team develop a game that increases critical thinking skills and offers a certificate of achievement for reaching the highest levels.  If they could get support for such a product from major businesses who recruit on campuses, this would encourage students to play the game so that they could show the certificate to recruiters.  Developing products and services which offer students the opportunity to increase their Seven Survival Skills may be a more difficult task than offering online tutoring and test prep services, but it would be more exciting, cutting edge, and a potentially huge game-changer in education.