An Open Letter to the American People (signed by 61 Nobel Laureates )

[quote name='evanft']If people wanted things to change, why do they continue to vote the way they do? If they are dissatisfied with both major parties, why not vote for one of the many third party candidates? If they care about real issues, why do they only make noise about the stupidest ones?[/quote]

Because people keep drinking the (D) and (R) Kool-Aid thinking that a third-party vote won't make a difference or is wasted. In general independents haven't made as much of an impact as they could, but I think the next four years will be telling to see if things really will change.
 
[quote name='GuilewasNK']Because people keep drinking the (D) and (R) Kool-Aid thinking that a third-party vote won't make a difference or is wasted. In general independents haven't made as much of an impact as they could, but I think the next four years will be telling to see if things really will change.[/QUOTE]

Here's some info to back you up:

http://www.wnd.com/files/noneoftheabove/Poll1one.pdf

[quote name='Zogby poll']9. Would you like to see more viable political choices and political parties competing for your vote in the future?

Yes = 62.4%
No = 34.1%[/quote]

People just think they have to choose Demlicans or Republicrats because nobody else can possibly win. They don't realize that if everyone who wanted another choice was brave enough to vote that way, we could actually have another choice (or a few hopefully).

Which of course reminds me of this:

watch
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']The solution isn't changing the system, it is improving education. You see less of these flaws (not knowing the issues, focusing soley on hot button social issues) as years of education increases.[/QUOTE]

That's such a ridiculous, short-sighted conclusion. Statistics are useless unless you consider causation.

That's like saying the average IQ of chess players is higher than non-players, so if we want to increase humanity's average IQ we should get everyone to play chess.
 
[quote name='Koggit']That's such a ridiculous, short-sighted conclusion. Statistics are useless unless you consider causation.

That's like saying the average IQ of chess players is higher than non-players, so if we want to increase humanity's average IQ we should get everyone to play chess.[/QUOTE]

Bored, so I hit view post....

There's not a 1:1 causal relationship per se. But it's hard to argue that the process of getting a college education leads to being exposed to a multitude of ideas, issues, viewpoints etc. and thinking critically about them if you're going to graduate.

Such a person is more likely to think more critically about politics than someone that never got out of their rural small town or urban ghetto and hear nothing but conservative/liberal talking points.

It's not a matter of becoming smarter, just of being exposed to new things and being forced to think about things more critically that matters IMO.
 
I'm liking GuilewasNK more and more.

Also, I agree with those saying that education is the real key to change. But I also believe there is a huge difference between intellectualism and intelligence. The more people did get educated on our past, the worlds past, the constitution, etc., the more likely we are to break out of the two party shit-cycle.

Conversely, I guess you could also say the reason we have what I like to call the 1.2 party system for so long is lack of education.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Both Obama and McCain have humble beginnings.[/quote]

John McCain, the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, had a humble beginning?

Born humble aside from being born naked and screaming? No.

Would McCain be the nominee if he wasn't a legacy?
 
Since nobody has used it, I will.

"When has Science kissed a girl?"

...

Education? That's a sucker's bet I took. What's smart about taking yourself out of the workforce for years, saddling yourself with loans and having a starting salary less than a construction worker, electrician or a plumber?

Education is not the key. Self-sufficiency is. Grinding personal finance into a person's head would help this country a lot more than English Lit or Womens' Studies.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']
Education? That's a sucker's bet I took. What's smart about taking yourself out of the workforce for years, saddling yourself with loans and having a starting salary less than a construction worker, electrician or a plumber?

Education is not the key. Self-sufficiency is. Grinding personal finance into a person's head would help this country a lot more than English Lit or Womens' Studies.[/QUOTE]

That's a very negative view from your poor experiences.

1. Many people make more than that, particularly with advanced degrees.

2. The advantage is that it isn't manual labor which many people don't want to do.

3. You don't have to take a ton of debt. Go to a state school, plus these days many people's parents saved up for their college or can just afford to pay state school tuition. Many people in grad school get a free ride and paid to go. I have for all but my first year of my masters (so paid for last 2 years of Masters and for all 4 years of Ph D so far--should be my last year).

4. The overall point is to better yourself, not just to earn a paycheck. I'd agree such people should probably just learn a trade and work with their bodies rather than their brains. College isn't for everyone for sure. But I'd respect someone with a liberal arts degree who struggles to make ends meet more than the construction contractor with a high school diploma (if that) making six figures. Money isn't everything, and shouldn't even be the main thing IMO.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']Since nobody has used it, I will.

"When has Science kissed a girl?"

...

Education? That's a sucker's bet I took. What's smart about taking yourself out of the workforce for years, saddling yourself with loans and having a starting salary less than a construction worker, electrician or a plumber?

Education is not the key. Self-sufficiency is. Grinding personal finance into a person's head would help this country a lot more than English Lit or Womens' Studies.[/QUOTE]

Damz straight!! Us internet people know grammers for them Nazi and the only thing you need to know about women is in front of their chest and between their thighs.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']

Education? That's a sucker's bet I took. What's smart about taking yourself out of the workforce for years, saddling yourself with loans and having a starting salary less than a construction worker, electrician or a plumber?

Education is not the key. Self-sufficiency is. Grinding personal finance into a person's head would help this country a lot more than English Lit or Womens' Studies.[/QUOTE]

I should have been more clear.

I don't equate the word "education" with institutionalized money sinks that are these entities we call universities, handing out papers for lots of memorization, busy work, and in exchange for your family savings or debt.

What I meant by Education, was we need to find a way to get people to "wake up" to certain realities, issues, and key facts. We need to find a way to get the majority of Americans to develop a healthy cynicism for being puppets in the dog and elephant show for the past several decades. We need to get people to see past the illusion of big differences between the two parties.

If we find a way to do that through the school system, great, but I certainly am not married to the notion that it's the only way.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']the process of getting a college education leads to being exposed to a multitude of ideas, issues, viewpoints etc.

Such a person is more likely to think more critically about politics than someone that never got out of their rural small town or urban ghetto and hear nothing but conservative/liberal talking points.[/QUOTE]

No, that's an awful conclusion, again. You completely missed the point.


People who are more likely to be interested in current events (politics) are also more likely to be interested in pursuing an education. Conversely, people who aren't interested in devoting 4+ years to academics are less likely to be interested in spending their time learning about politics.

The demographics are self-selective. You can't just look at the statistic and conclude education makes a voter more responsible. That's ridiculous. The more logical conclusion is that the type of people interested in higher education are the type of people interested in being informed voters.


I don't know why I ever try to explain logical reasoning to you... much like political interest, a person is either going to have it or they won't. I should learn to let you live oblivious...
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']
I don't equate the word "education" with institutionalized money sinks that are these entities we call universities, handing out papers for lots of memorization, busy work, and in exchange for your family savings or debt.
[/QUOTE]

And that's a pretty poor characterization of a university education (do you have one?).


I agree knowledge is fairly pointless if you just memorize it and don't learn the big picture. But I disagree that that characterizes the University experience in general.

Rote memorization is usually only in the introductory 100 level courses--and at a good school, in a good class, with a good professor even those have a lot of work on applying knowledge (papers, essay exams, in class debates etc.) rather than just memorization.

Upper level courses are much more centered on applying knowledge, and of course grad school is all on applying knowledge (masters level) and creating new knowledge (Ph D level).

Again, college isn't for everyone, but I don't like these kind of baseless generalizations about its usefulness.
 
[quote name='Koggit']You're adding a meaning to my words that isn't there. Everyone is motivated by self-interest. You're asserting that these scientists want increased funding so that they financially prosper, and that is definitely not the case.

This would be fair, were it possible to exclude you from their work's positive effect. Science advances society -- the cost is society's to bear.[/QUOTE]

Please tell me, and the rest of the class, how any of these scientists have "advanced" society. And before that, you may kindly explain what "advancing" society means.
 
[quote name='Koggit']No, that's an awful conclusion, again. You completely missed the point.


People who are more likely to be interested in current events (politics) are also more likely to be interested in pursuing an education. Conversely, people who aren't interested in devoting 4+ years to academics are less likely to be interested in spending their time learning about politics.

The demographics are self-selective. You can't just look at the statistic and conclude education makes a voter more responsible. That's ridiculous. The more logical conclusion is that the type of people interested in higher education are the type of people interested in being informed voters.
[/quote]

Of course there is a self selection bias. But I've also seen plenty of people (both people I knew in high school, to students I've had in classes as a TA or instructor) go to college as disinterested and/or ignorant to those types of things become interested in them as they go along.

Also, voter turnout is usually pretty low among college students, so I wouldn't say most people who go to college are already responsible citizens, much less informed voters.

Anyway, my point was that Joe Six Pack redneck, or his equivalent in the ghetto, are never going to gain any perspective on the world if they never get out of hick town or the ghetto and learn to see the world more critically. Stereotypes and shallow thinking rule in those environments, thus they will seldom get past hot button issues or straight party line voting.

College is a great way to change, as it exposes people to a diversity of viewpoints and forces them to think critically about it. Thus, for the few of these type of people that go to college, it's a great avenue for change. As such, I think a great way to get a more responsible electorate is to improve public education and get more of these people into college.

That's all my point is. Not that college the college experience explains totally why college graduates are more informed. Just simply that it is one mechanism for improving the odds a person will care and be an informed citizen.


I don't know why I ever try to explain logical reasoning to you... much like political interest, a person is either going to have it or they won't. I should learn to let you live oblivious...
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See, this is why I don't usually read your posts. For being a blow hard that always touts how great your school is, you're just as ignorant as the unwashed masses and can never have a discussion without resorting to petty insults that would get your ass kicked if you said them to someones face.

Anyway, back to not reading them as it's not worth the time to attempt to have discussions with people that have nothing to offer but insults. I'm sure UW is proud to have students like you.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Please tell me, and the rest of the class, how any of these scientists have "advanced" society. And before that, you may kindly explain what "advancing" society means.[/QUOTE]

I'm not looking through that last, but do you really think science doesn't advance society?

Medical advances? Understanding the world? The solar system? What works and what doesn't in preventing crime (my area)?

The world is full of questions, science attempts to provide answers. To argue that it doesn't advance society is one of the more ignorant viewpoints I've ever heard espoused. I'd go so far as to say that humanity is pointless without science. Without our intellectual ability to understand the world we live in we're not better than any other species on the planet.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I've also seen plenty of people (both people I knew in high school, to students I've had in classes as a TA or instructor) go to college as disinterested and/or ignorant to those types of things become interested in them as they go along.

Also, voter turnout is usually pretty low among college students, so I wouldn't say most people who go to college are already responsible citizens, much less informed voters.

Anyway, my point was that Joe Six Pack redneck, or his equivalent in the ghetto, are never going to gain any perspective on the world if they never get out of hick town or the ghetto and learn to see the world more critically. Stereotypes and shallow thinking rule in those environments, thus they will seldom get past hot button issues or straight party line voting.[/QUOTE]

Again, short-sighted. Let's break it down. There are two demographics.

More education -> More informed voter
Less education -> Less informed voter

The fact of the matter is those who seek education are more likely to seek information regarding current events. Because of that fact you cannot use any unadjusted correlation between education and voters to form conclusions about the effects of the education itself. You're asserting that an education results in being a responsible voter, and there is absolutely nothing for you to base that on.

You're like a humanities or social science major, right? You should know this crap. It's common sense, but your bullshit courses surely railed on it for weeks at a time. It's pretty ironic how little you've learned.

[quote name='bmulligan']Please tell me, and the rest of the class, how any of these scientists have "advanced" society. And before that, you may kindly explain what "advancing" society means.[/QUOTE]

You really want to ask this? Through a computer, on the internet, after the space race, you think this is a good question to ask? You honestly don't know the answer?
 
[quote name='Koggit']
The fact of the matter is those who seek education are more likely to seek information regarding current events. Because of that fact you cannot use any unadjusted correlation between education and voters to form conclusions about the effects of the education itself. You're asserting that an education results in being a responsible voter, and there is absolutely nothing for you to base that on.

You're like a humanities or social science major, right? You should know this crap. It's common sense, but your bullshit courses surely railed on it for weeks at a time. It's pretty ironic how little you've learned.
[/QUOTE]

Again with the insults. :roll:

Of course I know that stuff, I do social science research for a living and have been quite successful at it so far in terms of publications etc.

Read my post agove, I was talking from anecdotal evidence of seeing first hand the change in people who were pretty ignorant politically going into college. Not statistics--though I'll admit I confounded that a bit by mentioning the fact that polls showed college students to be more informed in an early post.

But I wasn't meaning to use that to argue that those stats prove that college causes people to be more informed. My point was that if you send an ignorant person into an environment of fellow students and professors who tend to be pretty informed and they're likely to emerge in 4 years caring more about being informed than they would if they had not gone to college. You read too much into what I was saying and/or I just worded it poorly.

College exposes students to a diversity you find in few other places and forces you to think critically about things. There's pretty much no way that cannot help shed ignorance. It's would be kind of like taking a racist and making them live with African-Americans for 4 years would be pretty likely to reduce their racism. People are social animals and can't help but be influenced by those around them, especially in a learning environment.

It's not guaranteed that college will make people give a shit about staying informed, and you're right that the polls prove nothing in that regard, but it's one of the best environments for change and intellectual development and I've seen first hand how the experience can show people the importance of being informed about the world around us--including current events/politics.

Thus I think getting a larger portion of the population to go through that experience can only help. Just my opinion from 10 years in academia, not something I can, or meant, to prove with statistics.

It would be an interesting study though. Poll outgoing high school seniors on knowledge of current events/politics etc., then poll the same sample again in 4 years and see if those who went to college had more improvement in knowledge over that time than those who didn't. Then the self selection thing is controlled for since you have a baseline measure of everyone's knowledge to control for pre-existing differences before college.
 
Your proposed study proves you're still missing the point entirely. Wow. That would do absolutely nothing to prove anything about what we're discussing. Nothing at all. The only way it would be relevant is if those seniors were randomly split into two groups -- force one of those groups to go to college and force the other group not to go to college.

I could point out how your observations of friends do not apply to your argument, but I'd rather just marvel at your ability to get everything so completely wrong.

Maybe bmulligan's right... maybe it is a waste of taxpayer's money to fund people like you.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's would be kind of like taking a racist and making them live with African-Americans for 4 years would be pretty likely to reduce their racism.[/quote]

Some blacks, yes. All blacks? That's pretty likely to exacerbate their racism. contact hypothesis and all that, y'know?

People are social animals and can't help but be influenced by those around them, especially in a learning environment.
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Won't disagree with that tho'.

Can't say I've read much else in this thread. I saw someone post "show me how these scientists have advanced society" and I think I'm outta here.

FWIW, though, here's some selected people on the list that I'm sure will be summarily dismissed by the sourpusses among us who feel the need to maintain "philosophical consistency" to the point of rolling in their own incorrect filth like a fat sow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Axel
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2005/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_D._Kornberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Smithies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Cohen_(neurologist)

fuckin' chumps, man. Buncha do-nothings. Lazy pricks. Makin' vinegar-and-baking-soda volcanoes all day long, I bet.
 
[quote name='Koggit']Your proposed study proves you're still missing the point entirely. Wow. That would do absolutely nothing to prove anything about what we're discussing. Nothing at all. The only way it would be relevant is if those seniors were randomly split into two groups -- force one of those groups to go to college and force the other group not to go to college.

I could point out how your observations of friends do not apply to your argument, but I'd rather just marvel at your ability to get everything so completely wrong.

Maybe bmulligan's right... maybe it is a waste of taxpayer's money to fund people like you.[/QUOTE]

Again with the insults. Why can you not discuss things without insulting people?

Of course a randomized study would be the most powerful design, but it's impossible as you can't randomly assign people to college or not.

What you do is match people based on current knowledge and see who's knowledge changed the most after 4 years. i.e. take people who scored say 50%-60% on the knowledge test and who are similar on demographics (sex, race, SES etc.) who went to college and see how post college scores compare to those who scored 50-60% who didn't go to collge after 4 years.

It's far from perfect, as other things could happen in those four years (the maturation effect as it's called in longitudinal research, try to measure and control for other variables but it's tough), but in social science such quasi-experiments with matched control groups are often the best we can do as randomized experiments are often neither practical or ethical. No doubt they're the best design, I'm running one now, but they just can't be done in social science for many topics.

It's just a problem of social science, unlike the hard sciences, you can never get irrefutable answers to most research questions. You just do what you can to maximize the internal validity of your studies to the best that you can with your question and resources for the study.

As for my personal observations not being relevant....I'm just discussion my opinions on a video game board, not trying to scientifically argue something here. Lighten the fuck up.

[quote name='mykevermin']Some blacks, yes. All blacks? That's pretty likely to exacerbate their racism. contact hypothesis and all that, y'know?
[/QUOTE]

Of course. I thought about putting "middle class blacks" or something like that, but didn't want to come across as racist! But my point was just you put people in a positive environment where your exposed to diversity and it's hard for at least some ignorance not to be shed.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Please tell me, and the rest of the class, how any of these scientists have "advanced" society. And before that, you may kindly explain what "advancing" society means.[/quote]

Maybe advancing society means funding the search for a cure to AIDS instead of simply funding the search for a better way to give a rich old guy a stiffy.

Or funding research of stem cells to hopefully one day cure debilitating diseases instead of simply funding research on a better brand of face-lift botox.

Because you know, leaving it all up to the short-term profit-driven markets has some pretty ugly consequences.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Again with the insults. Why can you not discuss things without insulting people?

Of course a randomized study would be the most powerful design, but it's impossible as you can't randomly assign people to college or not.

What you do is match people based on current knowledge and see who's knowledge changed the most after 4 years. i.e. take people who scored say 50%-60% on the knowledge test and who are similar on demographics (sex, race, SES etc.) who went to college and see how post college scores compare to those who scored 50-60% who didn't go to collge after 4 years.

It's far from perfect, as other things could happen in those four years (the maturation effect as it's called in longitudinal research, try to measure and control for other variables but it's tough), but in social science such quasi-experiments with matched control groups are often the best we can do as randomized experiments are often neither practical or ethical. No doubt they're the best design, I'm running one now, but they just can't be done in social science for many topics.

It's just a problem of social science, unlike the hard sciences, you can never get irrefutable answers to most research questions. You just do what you can to maximize the internal validity of your studies to the best that you can with your question and resources for the study.

As for my personal observations not being relevant....I'm just discussion my opinions on a video game board, not trying to scientifically argue something here. Lighten the fuck up.[/QUOTE]

Your proposed study proves you're still missing the point entirely.
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And still, wow.

Please explain to me how, in any way at all, your proposed study would be any different than the statistic you originally based your argument on. You admit the original statistic is useless, then say "Sure, but the results would be interesting if it were done this way: blah blah" and explain a study that, for all intents and purposes, is faulted by the exact same point as the original statistic.

Neither accounts for the disproportionate intellectual curiosity of either group so neither the original statistic nor your proposed study would be pertinent to this conversation. Both are completely meaningless with respect to what we're discussing.

I was being a dick earlier because I'm a bad mood: weather sucks, my roommate's moving out because her friend's a bitch and my EE homework is hell. Now I'm less of a dick because I finished my EE homework but you're still pretty wrong.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']That's a very negative view from your poor experiences.[/quote]

No, it is a honest interpretation of what has happened in my life. Get over it.

[quote name='dmaul1114'] 1. Many people make more than that, particularly with advanced degrees.[/quote]

Yes, the double down strategy. Spend 4 years getting a degree. Not making enough? Get a Masters. Still not making enough? Get a PhD.

Let's take where I work as an example. Does my BS in Computer Science help anything? Not really. If I want a promotion, will a MS or PhD help? No. Will a CCNA? Yes. Do I need a BS in Computer Science to get a CCNA? No. Does it help with the prep? Maybe. I hear there is some router programming involved.

Let's take my employer out of the equation. When I look at jobs in my field, employers are looking for experience. Interships might have helped. A MS or PhD wouldn't.

[quote name='dmaul1114'] 2. The advantage is that it isn't manual labor which many people don't want to do.[/quote]

One of my friend's professors in law school often lamented he hadn't become a plumber. Nobody wants to deal with literal shit until they deal with all of the figurative shit in most jobs. Manual labor is honest labor. The only real problem with some manual labor is that it can wear your body down to a nub by the age of 50. Of course, a lot of desk jockeys have significant health problems from obesity and inactivity by the age of 40.

[quote name='dmaul1114'] 3. You don't have to take a ton of debt. Go to a state school, plus these days many people's parents saved up for their college or can just afford to pay state school tuition. Many people in grad school get a free ride and paid to go. I have for all but my first year of my masters (so paid for last 2 years of Masters and for all 4 years of Ph D so far--should be my last year).
[/quote]

And ... some parents such as mine didn't/don't save shit for their kids' college bills. When I went to college for my first degree, I had three choices. Choice 1: the cheap unaccredited school for $10K in student loans. Choice 2: Mizzou for $20K in student loans because I wasn't a valedictorian. Choice 3: Wash U in St. Louis for $21K in student loans.

At the end of four years, I was spending a lot of time around Post-Docs. People with PhDs making $18,000 a year and working 50 hours a week for up to 9 years until some university blessed them with a teaching position. After that, the rest of their lives would involve begging for money aka grants. It seemed like a waste.

[quote name='dmaul1114'] 4. The overall point is to better yourself, not just to earn a paycheck. I'd agree such people should probably just learn a trade and work with their bodies rather than their brains. College isn't for everyone for sure. But I'd respect someone with a liberal arts degree who struggles to make ends meet more than the construction contractor with a high school diploma (if that) making six figures. Money isn't everything, and shouldn't even be the main thing IMO.[/quote]

Money isn't everything unless you want to eat something, have health insurance, drive a car, own a house, send kids to college or retire.

Better yourself? There are other and cheaper ways to do that besides higher education.
 
[quote name='Koggit']
Neither accounts for the disproportionate intellectual curiosity of either group so neither the original statistic nor your proposed study would be pertinent to this conversation.
[/QUOTE]

You missed my point.

You're assuming that everyone who goes to college is more intellectually curious than those who do not. That's not true, plenty are not curious at all and just go because their parents want them to, or they just want a degree to try and get a paycheck, they just want to get out of home and go party on their parents dime etc. etc. etc.

What my idea would do is have a survey of high school seniors that measured things like knowledge of current events, intellectual curiosity etc. etc. That's your baseline. Then you do another survey in 4 or 5 years of the same people.

What you then do is match similar people and compare change. Person A got a 50 on the pre-test and went to college, and person B got a 50 on the pre test and did not go to college. So for our purposes that means they're assumed to be the same on knowledge of current events, intellectual curiosity etc. Person A and B have similar demographics.

Finally, once you have the second wave of post data collected, you compare how much scores changed from the pre test to the post test for the the two matched groups, assuming that college/no college is the main explanation since they have similar demographics and had similar pre test scores. Essentially the pre-test and matching are controls for pre-existing differences in things like intellectual curiosity etc. so you can say with more confidence that any differences between the college/non-college group are at least partly do to the college experience since you controlled for such differences.

That's a matched design quasi-experiment and generally considered the next best thing to a randomized experiment, and it's the best you can do in situations where you can't randomize. You've matched people (or groups of people) to be as similar as possible on the variables of interest so you can try to isolate the effect of the "treatment"--college in this case.

It's a far cry from a randomized experiment in terms of internal validity, but there are tons and tons of papers published in top social science journals with that kind of methodology and tons and tons of papers with weaker designs published as well.

Now you can poo poo the methodology if you want, plenty of out social science do and that's why it gets belittled as a "soft" science. But such a study design is quite solid in the social science realm.
 
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[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']No, it is a honest interpretation of what has happened in my life. Get over it.[/quote]

Doesn't make it true for everyone. Or every field.



Yes, the double down strategy. Spend 4 years getting a degree. Not making enough? Get a Masters. Still not making enough? Get a PhD.
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Fair point. Those things should mostly be done for the sake of knowledge, rather than money. Other than things like MBAs, law degrees, MDs etc. that are more financially motivated.

Let's take where I work as an example. Does my BS in Computer Science help anything? Not really. If I want a promotion, will a MS or PhD help? No. Will a CCNA? Yes. Do I need a BS in Computer Science to get a CCNA? No. Does it help with the prep? Maybe. I hear there is some router programming involved.
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Again, doesn't mean it's true for all fields. You made the mistake of going to school in one of the most over-saturated majors/fields at a time when it was where everyone thought the quick money was. There are too many people in the field, so it's hard to get started with or without a degree as you're up against people with more experience.

Let's take my employer out of the equation. When I look at jobs in my field, employers are looking for experience. Interships might have helped. A MS or PhD wouldn't.
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Again, varies by field. If you want to do, say many kinds of research jobs, degrees are usually required for even the entry level jobs, sometimes even MS required.

One of my friend's professors in law school often lamented he hadn't become a plumber. Nobody wants to deal with literal shit until they deal with all of the figurative shit in most jobs. Manual labor is honest labor. The only real problem with some manual labor is that it can wear your body down to a nub by the age of 50. Of course, a lot of desk jockeys have significant health problems from obesity and inactivity by the age of 40.
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Nothing wrong with manual labor. I'm just saying it's not for everyone and getting a degree is a good way to avoid it. I prefer intellectual work and hit the gym 4 days a week along with hiking and some sports and a healthy diet, so my fitness is covered.

But I have total respect for people that choose to learn a trade.


And ... some parents such as mine didn't/don't save shit for their kids' college bills. When I went to college for my first degree, I had three choices. Choice 1: the cheap unaccredited school for $10K in student loans. Choice 2: Mizzou for $20K in student loans because I wasn't a valedictorian. Choice 3: Wash U in St. Louis for $21K in student loans.
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Fair enough. It can be worth it for some. I had no loans for undergrad, but around $50K for grad school. Financially, not a good investment at I'll probably start at $60-70K when I finish. But I love my work, all the options I have with my degree, especially the chance to be a professor and be able to do whatever research work I choose to focus on. For other fields (law school, med school etc.) the degrees are needed and they make high salaries so it's financially worth the debt for some. Not for everyone by a long shot, but I have no regrets.


At the end of four years, I was spending a lot of time around Post-Docs. People with PhDs making $18,000 a year and working 50 hours a week for up to 9 years until some university blessed them with a teaching position. After that, the rest of their lives would involve begging for money aka grants. It seemed like a waste.
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Again, not all fields. Everyone that's graduated from my program got a good job straight out of the Ph D program here. Most as professors (post docs aren't common in my field, and if they are they usually pay $40-50K) and a few other in research firms or government positions that pay more than Academic positions (a couples started at $80K, one is making $100 K after 4 years).

Money isn't everything unless you want to eat something, have health insurance, drive a car, own a house, send kids to college or retire.
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You know that's not what I meant. You of course have to pay the bills, I just meant amassing wealth shouldn't be one's only goal. And college is a good way to make a decent living assuming you get a degree in a well paying field with high demand--not a saturated field like computer science.

But yes, if one just cares about paying the bills, then they should say fuck college and just learn a trade as they'll make enough money for a decent lower middle class to middle class living faster that way.

Better yourself? There are other and cheaper ways to do that besides higher education.
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True, but a good college is a unique learning opportunity do to the exposure to leading scholars and the general exposure to a wide diversity of ideas.



In short, I have no problem with your experience with education. But I don't like when people shit on the whole value of college just because it didn't work out for them. You're situations sounds like it sucked, but you choose a major in an oversaturated field where there are so many people in the field with years of experience that coming out with a degree and no experience isn't much help these days. In other field a degree is a huge help and for some jobs is a requirement.

And aside from that, I just think there's great value in the college experience. It's a unique opportunity to learn a ton of stuff you'd never bother learning otherwise through required courses and just the sheer diversity you're exposed to.
 
Getting back to the elitist part, there's a good column (2 actually, one slamming Palin and a rebuttal column) that hits this issue on the head in last weeks Newsweek. Doesn't look like the column is up on the website at the moment, just a few excerpts from it it. The column is "When Atheists Attack" by Sam Harris. A lot of it is slamming Palin's religious beliefs, and bashing the role of religion in government lately in general, but he makes a great point about the negativity towards elitism in politics.

Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talents and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to dveote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth--in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.
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[quote name='dmaul1114']... do you really think science doesn't advance society?

Medical advances? Understanding the world? The solar system? What works and what doesn't in preventing crime (my area)?

The world is full of questions, science attempts to provide answers. To argue that it doesn't advance society is one of the more ignorant viewpoints I've ever heard espoused. I'd go so far as to say that humanity is pointless without science. Without our intellectual ability to understand the world we live in we're not better than any other species on the planet.[/QUOTE]

Claiming science "just does" isn't an answer worthy of a highly edumacated person such as yourself. Such a grandiose proposal that science advances society with no basis in fact is more than ignorance, it's laziness.

After you can tell me what advancing society means, you can then move onto specifics and explain how they would never have come into existence were it not for government sponsorship. Surely your eminent doctorial intelligence can tackle this problem. In fact, I'm sure your intelligence is so highly trained in societal advancement, it should be mere child's play for you.

Please, let's not leave that last advancement - your father's sperm donation some twenty or so years ago - as the only legacy for posterity when there are so many more questions to be answered about the universe.
 
It's really as simple as I stated it. There are questions to be answered. Science answers them. Be them questions related to solving health problems, putting men in space, or understanding social issues. If you can't understand that I'm not going to waste my "doctorial intelligence" trying to explain the concept to you.

Definition of advancing society= expanding human knowledge. As I said, knowledge is what makes us human, and expanding our knowledge/understanindg of ourselves, the world and universe around us is advancing society and all of humanity in my view.

Could they be done without government funding? A lot probably couldn't. Take the space program. Look at how much money it consumes. It's unlikely private funders would or could shell out that amount that's went into it. Now it's your own perogative if you think it's worth while, or if exploring space is advancing society, but it is in my view.

You could make similar arguments about medical research. Where would our already bad state of knowledge on cancer be without the NIH funding from the Nixon era on? Would drug companies support it when it's not leading to successful drugs when they could fund more profitable things like Botox and viagra? How about the social science research I do. People want less crime in communities, but they're not going to shell out money to study how effective say various police strategies are in preventing crime or how various rehab programs work in preventing recidivism.

There are lots of important issues out there which need research to improve knowledge, many of them are not profitable for corporations or people to fund, thus government funding is needed and donations would never cover the needed costs. In many areas, even government funding is drastically too low to do much needed research.

And that's all I'll say on that as we'll never agree on the topic given our 100% polar opposite views on the way society and government should function.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's really as simple as I stated it. There are questions to be answered. Science answers them. Be them questions related to solving health problems, putting men in space, or understanding social issues. If you can't understand that I'm not going to waste my "doctorial intelligence" trying to explain the concept to you.

Definition of advancing society= expanding human knowledge. As I said, knowledge is what makes us human, and expanding our knowledge/understanindg of ourselves, the world and universe around us is advancing society and all of humanity in my view.

Could they be done without government funding? A lot probably couldn't. Take the space program. Look at how much money it consumes. It's unlikely private funders would or could shell out that amount that's went into it. Now it's your own perogative if you think it's worth while, or if exploring space is advancing society, but it is in my view.

You could make similar arguments about medical research. Where would our already bad state of knowledge on cancer be without the NIH funding from the Nixon era on? Would drug companies support it when it's not leading to successful drugs when they could fund more profitable things like Botox and viagra?

There are lots of important issues out there which need research to improve knowledge, many of them are not profitable for corporations or people to fund, thus government funding is needed.
[/QUOTE]

How is our society, i.e. our inter-personal relationships, our politics, our villlages, our government, more advanced than ancient Greece, Rome, Medieval England, or Ancient Egypt? Science? Are we that much more advanced because we have velcro on our shoes instead of leather laces? Or that we've seen the moon close up? How are we that much more advanced becuase we now know radiological cures for certain cancers? Your tautological arguments of advancement are moot. Science may advance, but it does not mean society is advancing. Comforts and leisure are growing, but if anything, I might argue that it has been to its detriment.

It's a poor argument to claim societal advancement rests upon scientific discovery. Clearly, our advancement has come primarily from philosophy, or advancement in thought, not in how many transistors my radio has today compared to 50 years ago. What a shallow, superficial view of mankind you have. You live on the backs of others' achievements, claim them as your own, and offer yourself as an advanced human being because of them. We have many more toys than the first ape-man, but I daresay we are any more advanced.
 
I didn't say it was the sole method to advancement. It is just a major one, and one I place great value on as there's nothing I desire or value more in life than knowledge.

Advances in philosophy of course matter. Changes in how we think about the world first allowed science to develop and continue to inform the types of science we do and how we do science. But in the end of the day, ways of thinking matter little if not backed up by hard evidence--and science exists to test theories derived from philosophical thought and see if the evidence backs them up. Unless your a religious buffoon who just turns to spirtual explanations for everything.

But we'll just have to agree to disagree because I'm not wasting more time arguing with someone who has such a poor view of science. Reminds me of how happy I am that everyone in my current circle of friends at minimum has a Master's degree....and reminds of why I had stopped reading or responding to your posts in the first place. I won't make the mistake of doing so again.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']How is our society, i.e. our inter-personal relationships, our politics, our villlages, our government, more advanced than ancient Greece, Rome, Medieval England, or Ancient Egypt? Science? Are we that much more advanced because we have velcro on our shoes instead of leather laces? Or that we've seen the moon close up? How are we that much more advanced becuase we now know radiological cures for certain cancers? Your tautological arguments of advancement are moot. Science may advance, but it does not mean society is advancing. Comforts and leisure are growing, but if anything, I might argue that it has been to its detriment.

It's a poor argument to claim societal advancement rests upon scientific discovery. Clearly, our advancement has come primarily from philosophy, or advancement in thought, not in how many transistors my radio has today compared to 50 years ago. What a shallow, superficial view of mankind you have. You live on the backs of others' achievements, claim them as your own, and offer yourself as an advanced human being because of them. We have many more toys than the first ape-man, but I daresay we are any more advanced.[/QUOTE]

I hope you require an organ transplant at some point in your life. See how far Descartes gets ya.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114'] Reminds me of how happy I am that everyone in my current circle of friends at minimum has a Master's degree.....[/QUOTE]

That's almost sig material.


Edit: Conversely, now that I think it over, I feel much happier now that I limit my circle of friends to those with LESS than masters degrees. I have only one friend, now, that has a Masters, and he's fine as long as it's fine doses.
 
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[quote name='mykevermin']I hope you require an organ transplant at some point in your life. See how far Descartes gets ya.[/QUOTE]

:applause:
 
Look around you, bmulligan. Science and technology form the basis of all human activity, from the houses we live in, the food we eat, and the cars we drive.

I do understand your thoughts on how technology has made some people complacent and lazy, but certainly we could assume it's equivalent to how some people became "lazy" when light bulbs or wheels became common.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']You missed my point.

You're assuming that everyone who goes to college is more intellectually curious than those who do not. That's not true, plenty are not curious at all and just go because their parents want them to, or they just want a degree to try and get a paycheck, they just want to get out of home and go party on their parents dime etc. etc. etc.

What my idea would do is have a survey of high school seniors that measured things like knowledge of current events, intellectual curiosity etc. etc. That's your baseline. Then you do another survey in 4 or 5 years of the same people.

What you then do is match similar people and compare change. Person A got a 50 on the pre-test and went to college, and person B got a 50 on the pre test and did not go to college. So for our purposes that means they're assumed to be the same on knowledge of current events, intellectual curiosity etc. Person A and B have similar demographics.

Finally, once you have the second wave of post data collected, you compare how much scores changed from the pre test to the post test for the the two matched groups, assuming that college/no college is the main explanation since they have similar demographics and had similar pre test scores. Essentially the pre-test and matching are controls for pre-existing differences in things like intellectual curiosity etc. so you can say with more confidence that any differences between the college/non-college group are at least partly do to the college experience since you controlled for such differences.

That's a matched design quasi-experiment and generally considered the next best thing to a randomized experiment, and it's the best you can do in situations where you can't randomize. You've matched people (or groups of people) to be as similar as possible on the variables of interest so you can try to isolate the effect of the "treatment"--college in this case.

It's a far cry from a randomized experiment in terms of internal validity, but there are tons and tons of papers published in top social science journals with that kind of methodology and tons and tons of papers with weaker designs published as well.

Now you can poo poo the methodology if you want, plenty of out social science do and that's why it gets belittled as a "soft" science. But such a study design is quite solid in the social science realm.[/QUOTE]

You're still wrong -- it's not disagreement, you're simply wrong. Seriously, I challenge you email this thread to a scholar you respect in your field and request their opinion. I'm serious. We've done this little exchange three times and you're still missing the point entirely, in the field you're pursuing a graduate degree in... it's sad, it's disheartening.
 
**Rant deleted** Wasn't worth the effort to type it or have it distracting from the topic I apologize to everyone but Koggit. :D


At any rate, it's ridiculous that I'm pissed off by some random, ignorant shit posted by someone on the internet that I already had on my ignore list. So shame on me for reading his posts and getting riled up. I won't make that mistake again. And I'm going to take another break from the Vs. forum as I've been getting to fed up with posts here in general lately and it's just not worth it.
 
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[quote name='Chase']Look around you, bmulligan. Science and technology form the basis of all human activity, from the houses we live in, the food we eat, and the cars we drive.

I do understand your thoughts on how technology has made some people complacent and lazy, but certainly we could assume it's equivalent to how some people became "lazy" when light bulbs or wheels became common.[/quote]

I take comfort that the world will never reflect bmulligan's professed political and economic ideals. He is utterly alone in his beliefs, he is a prime example of ivory tower thinking.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']**Rant deleted** Wasn't worth the effort to type it or have it distracting from the topic I apologize to everyone but Koggit. :D


At any rate, it's ridiculous that I'm pissed off by some random, ignorant shit posted by someone on the internet that I already had on my ignore list. So shame on me for reading his posts and getting riled up. I won't make that mistake again. And I'm going to take another break from the Vs. forum as I've been getting to fed up with posts here in general lately and it's just not worth it.[/QUOTE]

I feel your pain, that's why I stopped posting in here.
 
[quote name='camoor']I take comfort that the world will never reflect bmulligan's professed political and economic ideals. He is utterly alone in his beliefs, he is a prime example of ivory tower thinking.[/quote]


Mmm, ivory tower. That reminds me of cake. Now I want cake. :drool:

34qjmud.jpg

^there's my ivory tower. yum.
 
When a self-proclaimed expert is wrong on the exact same point 6 - 7 posts in a row, yes, I get a little spiteful... especially when that expert put me on ignore for disliking Dave Mathews
 
[quote name='Koggit']When a self-proclaimed expert is wrong on the exact same point 6 - 7 posts in a row, yes, I get a little spiteful[/QUOTE]

Eh, you proclaim to know everything, so I don't know what you're talking about.
 
[quote name='docvinh']I don't know what you're talking about.[/QUOTE]

Thank you. If only dmaul were capable of admitting this and learning from my brilliance we wouldn't have a problem here.
 
[quote name='docvinh']Eh, you proclaim to know everything, so I don't know what you're talking about.[/QUOTE]

There you go, since you didn't know how to quote correctly, I helped you out.
 
fuck it. I can't sleep.

[quote name='Koggit']When a self-proclaimed expert is wrong on the exact same point 6 - 7 posts in a row, yes, I get a little spiteful... especially when that expert put me on ignore for disliking Dave Mathews[/QUOTE]

1. I'm not wrong. You're just an undergrad engineering student who thinks you know everything about every field. The study I described is a perfectly valid example of a panel design survey research that is very often done in the social sciences. If you don't buy it, fine. But it's a fairly rigorous study as far as non-randomized survey research designs go.

As I said earlier, ther'e's plenty of people who don't buy into most social science research since we can seldom get at clear causality the way the hard sciences can. That view point is fine, but you need to quit trying to talk about things you know nothing about. And especially quit belittling people who actually work in those fields and know what they're talking about when it comes to saying what is or isn't reasonable quality work in their field.

I'm not going to talk down to you about engineering as I know nothing about it. Grow up and quit trying to be a pompous know it all behind a computer screen posting anonymously on internet forums. Let's see you talk that way to my face in person, tough guy.


2. Again, I didn't put you on ignore for disliking Dave Matthews. I could care less what music you like and would prefer not to have anything in common with you.

I put you on ignore as, like the complete asshole you are, you posted rude remarks bashing people for liking Dave Matthews band in a thread where people were posting condolences ABOUT THE DEATH OF ONE OF THE BAND MEMBERS. That was one of the most classless posts I've seen on these forums, and par for the course from you unfortunately.


[quote name='Koggit']Thank you. If only dmaul were capable of admitting this and learning from my brilliance we wouldn't have a problem here.[/QUOTE]

No. Your a pompous moron who just thinks he knows everything when I've yet to see you make a single valid point in any thread on any topic on CAG. All you do is spout off ignorant bullshit and insult people. When it boils down to it you're likely just a troll who does nothing but post inflammatory shit to get people riled up (and I'm embarrassed to have fallen for it).

You must be a truly pathetic in real life to have to pretend to be such a wanna-be genious tough guy on the internet.
 
I seriously laughed out loud at that post, haha. Man... okay, I'll respond more than a couple lines this time. Hopefully we can put this issue to rest.



I'm not trying to say I know how to conduct a social science experiment better than you. I'm just saying there's something here that, after many posts, you still seem to be missing. Let's recap:

(1) You quoted the statistic that Better Education -> Better Voter and concluded that, in order to get better voters, we should better educate people.

(2) I replied saying that statistic does not necessarily support that conclusion, because the people who get better educations likely do so as a result of having the personality traits that cause a person to be a more informed voter (intellectual curiosity & capacity).

(3) You conceded this point, and said that a better study to determine college's effect on voters would be to poll students as they leave high school, then again after four years, comparing those who went to college and those who did not.

(4) I replied stating that your proposed study would be skewed by the exact same bias, in the exact same magnitude, as the original statistic.

Several posts back and forth since then and it still seems like you don't understand the problem with the study -- underscored by the fact that you think your proposed study is an improvement over the quoted statistic. In the study you proposed, absolutely nothing is different -- the problem remains the same: those who choose to go to college are likely to differ in intellectual capacity & curiosity from those who choose not to go to college, so those who go to college are likely to be better voters. You cannot use the results of such a study to conclude the effects of college because there's no control and no means to correct the bias.

That's what really just baffled me. In response to the invalidity of the original study, you proposed a study that was invalid for the exact same reason... you may think that, by assuming you didn't understand, I'm a condescending asshole... but you have to admit, assuming you don't/didn't understand is the rational conclusion. When you propose to fix a flawed study with a study that has the exact same flaw, it's definitely a rational conclusion.

Also, two other things need to be clear on the record:

(1) I'm a piss-poor engineer.
(2) My post in that Dave Mathews thread was funny, not disrespectful.
 
[quote name='Koggit']
(4) I replied stating that your proposed study would be skewed by the exact same bias, in the exact same magnitude, as the original statistic.
[/QUOTE]

I understand that, what you miss is how I say we address such biases, as best we can in social sciences, and how the study design I proposed would get at that by trying to reduce that bias. As this comment shows.

[quote name='Koggit']
(3) You conceded this point, and said that a better study to determine college's effect on voters would be to poll students as they leave high school, then again after four years, comparing those who went to college and those who did not.
[/QUOTE]


I never said that the study would simply poll people before and after college and simply compare the results. You poll them before college and create matched groups. By matched groups I mean people who are demographically simlar and have similar scores the the variables of interest as they're leaving high school (i.e. similar knowledge of current events, similar levels of intellectual curiosity).

What you then do is take that big sample, and pare it down to matched groups of equal sizes, who went to college and who didn't. You seem to think that everyone who goes to college is more intellectual curious and knowledgable than those who don't. On average, that's true. But at the individual level, that's not the case, some are, some aren't and just go to party, because their parents make them etc.

So you take a big sample so you can get X number of people who are low on intellectual curiousity who went to college, and match them up with an equal number of people who scored similarly and did not go to college.

With this sampling and matching strategy you can create groups with similar levels of curiosity/knowledge of current events etc. who went to college and who did not.

Then after 4-5 years you survey these groups again and see how they score on curiosity/current event knowledge etc., as well as collecting data on life experiences they have had over that time to control for other things that could cause change besides college vs. no college.

Run a multivariate statistical model and see what impact college has on knowledge of personal events controlling for other factors.

That's how we deal with bias in these type of social science studies. It's far better than just doing a poll one time and seeing how knowledgeablle college grads are vs. people who never when to college as it at leasts make some effort to control for self selection bias through matching on the high school scores on curiosity/knowledge and demographics, rather than just supidly trying to make causal statements from descriptive statistics from a cross sectional survey that has no controls for pre-existing differences etc.

It's of course not as strong as a randomized experiment. That's the gold standard. But they're not practical/ethical in many cases, including this one as you can't randomly assign high school students to college or not. Thus studies like this are how we use research design and statistical methods to try to control for biases in social science.

You're free to feel that social science is a bunch of horseshit as a result. Plenty of people do, as we generally just can't get at causality like the hard sciences can. The social world is messy, and human behavior is very complex, most of the time the best we can do is use these types of quasi-experimental designs, along with multivariate statistics, to try sourt out this mess by controlling for biases as best we can.

But don't presume to tell me that I don't know how to design a rigourous study by social science standards when you know nothing of social science research design and methodology. That's the only explanation I can think of for your posts, aside from just wanting to troll and get a rise out of me.

You simply don't understand how social science research design and advanced multivariate statistics are used to control for biases so you haven't grasped my points.

Hopefully this post makes it clear. Again, you're free to disregard them as most outside of social science think the bulk of our studies are horseshit. But hopefully you'll at least have a better understanding of what we do in social science and how studies like the one I outlined are the best we can do when randomized experiments aren't feasible, and at least quit presuming that you know how to design research in my field better than I do.

[quote name='Koggit']
I'm not trying to say I know how to conduct a social science experiment better than you.
[/QUOTE]

And to clarify this again, this hypothetical study is not a social science experiment. It's a panel design survey study, using a quasi experimental design (the matched groups). Again, experiments are often not practical in social sciences. They are the gold standard (and I'm conducting one related to policing currently) but many times they aren't practical.

Quasi-experiments are the next best things, particularly if the matching is strong. And many studies are weaker than that relying on simple pre-post designs.

Social science isn't medicine where only randomized experiments are accpetped. In social science, and especially criminology, they aren't even the norm--much less the standard.


[quote name='Koggit']
(2) My post in that Dave Mathews thread was funny, not disrespectful.[/QUOTE]

No it was not. It was classless.

Fans were mourning the death of a muscian they respected and enjoyed. That's not a place for bashing peoples musical tastes, even in jest.
 
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