Category Archives: Education

Zero-Tolerance means Zero Responsibility

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zero toleranceWe haven’t had many of these zero-tolerance stories in the news lately but there is a big one out now.

In this case teenager Erin Cox went to pick up a friend from a party. The friend was too intoxicated to drive herself. When Cox arrived the police showed up as well and gave a summons to every underage person at the party. Cox violated the schools zero-tolerance policy for students attending parties in which alcohol is served. She was suspended for a few games from her volleyball team and removed as captain.

There’s a lot of outrage about the ruling because Cox was there not to party but to help a friend. That Cox is being punished for helping  her friend avoid driving drunk. I totally agree with the idea that Cox is blameless in this but I want to look at the idea of a zero-tolerance policy and what it really means: Zero responsibility.

The stated idea behind a zero-tolerance policy is to ensure the safety of people, generally students. The danger of drugs is so terrible that we cannot allow any drugs in the school; including aspirin. The horrors of teenage drinking and driving with its attendant accidental deaths is so great we must protect our students by punishing anyone going to a party where alcohol is available.

The reality behind zero-tolerance policies is that adults are afraid to make decisions. Zero-tolerances gives them the opportunity to mete out punishment without taking any responsibility.

Why are they afraid? Because if they give different punishments for the same crime based on circumstances they will be sued by the other parents, accused of favoritism, racism, nepotism, and just about anything else. They could lose their livelihoods in the storm of lawsuits that will follow.

Why are lawmakers afraid to make legislation? They will lose their job. That’s why we have a dozens of Propositions on the ballots when in a Representative Republic our elected officials should make decisions. It is why there is gridlock in Washington D.C.

Why does our legal system rely on mandated sentencing guidelines?

I’ll tell you why. Our society is filled with people more than happy to blame everyone else for what is wrong with their lives. Listen to a politician talk and if lips are moving, someone else is being blamed. It’s not just politicians. It’s everywhere and it’s rampant. Read the comments on any news story about anything. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Anyone who stands up and takes a position is bulldozed in the ensuing blame Olympics. I’m not surprised that schools enact zero-tolerance policies out of fear. I’m not surprised that Cox is being punished for her actions. Zero-tolerance means no one has to make a decision. That all decisions are mandated and that means that the person making the decision can utter the most useful phrase in the United States, “Blame Canada!”

So, in this latest case who are we blaming? The administrators who created this policy out of absolute fear that they’d be punished no matter what decision they made about student drinking. Whose fault is that? Look in the mirror. It’s your fault. It’s my fault. Our willingness to blame everyone but ourselves is to blame.

You don’t like zero-tolerance policies? Then stop blaming everyone else when something goes wrong.

You don’t like our useless government? Blame yourself and start voting better.

You don’t like your job? Go out and get a better one. Educate yourself. Work hard.

Your kid got the raw end of a deal? Tell them that’s life. Watch out in the future.

You don’t like this blog? Stop reading.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eBook)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt (Out very soon!)

The Education Gap – Adults Count Also

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EducationThere was an interesting study recently completed by a group called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies in which they tested adults in various countries on Math, Reading, and Problem Solving skills.

I recently wrote about how China and India are graduating huge numbers of college students and that the United States is falling behind. That this transition of intelligence from the US to other countries does not speak well of our nation and our chances to continue to be a world leader in scientific advancement, economic power, and military power.

The new study did not survey adults in China and India and I certainly wish that it had. It would give us a more complete picture. However, the U.S. continues to score extremely poorly on education tests pretty much across the board. This is often explained by the fact that in the U.S. we have a very diverse population with large numbers of immigrants. There is truth to this statement as smaller countries tend to have better educational systems simply because they have fewer students to teach.
The nations that dominate us in this most recent survey are generally smaller in population and that means we still have a greater number of highly intelligent people, it’s just that our average is lower.

I’m firmly convinced that our economic power, our scientific acumen, and our military dominance grew largely out of the fact we had a huge number of intelligent people in the United States in the 50’s and 60’s. Some of them born here and educated through our system and others who fled totalitarian regimes.

It matters not that we ended up with a huge advantage in intellect; it only matters that we had it and much of our power today stems from that time.

That advantage is clearly ebbing although we are still the world leader in economics, barely, and military might, by a large margin. It seems to me that if we continue down this path it is inevitable that new inventions, new ideas, economic power, and military power will shift away from the U.S. and to the increasingly smarter nations. That is why I’m disappointed India and China were not included in this survey.

I love the idea that other nations are producing intelligent adults. I’m all for education around the world. I love great ideas and the people who promulgate them. I think these ideas make all our lives better and result in economic bounty for everyone. I just want my country, the U.S. to keep up.

If this survey is to be believed; Americans rank 17th in Problem Solving abilities of the 23 nations surveyed. Yikes.

Here is a look at the entire file on the U.S.

They looked at a number of other factors and it makes for interesting reading including the fact that blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. were a significant drag on the scores. They make up a huge percentage of the worst scores with whites and Asians making up the high-end of the scale. Something the article does not talk about, I’m sure to avoid being accused of racism.

The article also talks about how those with higher intelligence are paid more, as it should be.

I’m not a fear-monger. I think despite these scores the U.S. has not fallen irretrievably behind other nations. We still have a massive population and many intelligent people. We need to focus on getting people to value education. President Obama, Colin Powell, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sonia Sotomayor, and other highly educated and prominent minorities are making that effort but it in the end it comes down to the parents and the communities.

Those people who value education will succeed in life and those who do not, will not. Those nations that value education will prosper and those who do not, will not. Those who spurn academia, education, science, and intelligence will reap what they sow.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, the rest of the world is gaining, are we up to the challenge?

Time will tell.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eBook)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Tough Teacher is the Best Teacher

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Tough Teaching MethodsThere’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal about why it’s better to have a tough teacher than an easy teacher. It goes into a number of reasons why this is the case and I largely agree with one important side-note.

The author recalls a tough music teacher who berated both her and fellow students by calling them idiots, who prodded their hands and arms into the proper physical position with pokes from a pencil. The article then goes on to say that a teacher would be fired for such behavior in the modern classroom.

The article continues by citing a number of excellent studies suggesting that teachers who tell us we are wrong when we make a mistake, that make us memorize fundamental ideas, that don’t mind assigning us exercises which we are likely to fail, and who put us under stress, are almost assuredly helping us.

All this is clearly true. I’ve spoken out a number of times on this subject even suggesting that it was a mistake to allow a wrestler with cerebral palsy win a match. That we did neither the winner or loser of that match any favors.

I’m in almost total agreement with the author and the article. Almost.

The one thing the writer conveniently forgets is that for every well-meaning Mr. K out there who called people idiots not because he thought they were idiots but to encourage them to try harder. For every Mr. K out there who gently prodded with a pencil; our past education system also spawned generations of sadistic, bullying, power-mad teachers who enjoyed mentally tearing down students, played “favorites” to birth sycophantic slaves, and who got sick gratification from doling out corporal punishment. I had  a couple of teachers that fit this mold and I’ll bet most of my readers did as well.

That much of the coddling of students we see today stems from reforms designed by former students who were abused in this fashion.

So, what’s the middle line? How do we get the tough, but loving, teachers who see our potential and drive us to our highest level of achievement while avoiding the sadistic psychopaths who enjoy torturing children?

There are no easy answers here at the Blog of Tom Liberman. I’m not going to stand up and call everyone else an idiot and claim there’s a simple path.

We must churn out people with education degrees who have learned these principles. In other words, we teach people to teach properly. Administrators must carefully interview potential teachers and weed out those with tendencies towards sadism. We must monitor a teacher’s progress in the classroom and, with tough love, help them improve their teaching skills.

We must listen to student and parent complaints and fairly adjudicate them. We must support teachers who practice tough love even if it hurts our feelings. We must fire, after fair warning, those who cross the line.

We must spend time and effort doing what is right, because it’s worth it in the end.

What would be the state of our educational system, our nation, and our world be if we had nothing but great teachers?

What I just wrote seems straight-forward I’m sure. Gosh, Tom, that sounds easy. Let’s get to work. Well, it’s the getting to work that’s the hard part and I like to think Mr. K. would agree. We can’t just espouse what are clearly good ideas and pat ourselves on the back.

No one can instantly make every teacher better. The Cardinals didn’t win the 2013 National League Central Division Crown with one victory (Go Birds!). It starts with one person and one action. The next action you take. The next action I take.

Each action, each decision, each moment of our lives is an opportunity to be better. That’s what being a Libertarian, what being a Objectivist means. Will I make mistakes? Was my Access 2010 class the other day not my best effort? You bet.

Will I try to do better next time? Will I realize the errors I made and correct them? How I answer is the real test.

It’s hard to pay attention to detail, to work at your craft constantly, to accept failure graciously, to change patterned behavior, to improve, to improve some more, to truly listen to ideas outside your ideology, to get better.

No easy solutions here.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eBook)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Body Mass Index – The BMI Fraud

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Overweight GirlAt lunch today I spotted an interesting article about something called BMI (Body Mass Index) which is often used, unfortunately, to measure if a person is healthy or not.

In this case an 11-year-old girl was determined to be unhealthy and overweight because she is 5′ 4″ 124 pounds. A quick perusal of the BMI charts indicate that this is actually a perfectly normal weight and it wasn’t until I read the comments on the story that I found out a new piece of information. When reporting BMI some school districts take into account something called the CDC Growth Chart.

This chart looks at normal children and their weight compared to statistical outliers. In this case the girl is very tall and heavy for her age and, despite being in the normal range of BMI, is considered overweight when the CDC Growth Chart is taken into account.

I’m not against  tracking people’s health and I don’t think there’s necessarily anything completely wrong with either BMI or the CDC Growth chart, if they are taken in context. That’s the problem. They are not taken in context and they are often used to fraudulently claim people are overweight.

Let’s get a little background first.

The BMI was created in the mid 1800s by a Belgian polymath. A polymath is someone who is extremely intelligent and excels in a variety of disciplines. This index is flawed under a number of circumstances particularly very tall people, very short people, small boned people, large-boned people, and people with large amounts of muscle mass.

BMI is used by most insurance companies as a way to determine if a person is unhealthy. Anyone who is so determined must pay higher insurance rates. There is clearly a financial incentive to have as many people listed as unhealthy as possible. In the United States what used to be healthy in 1997, a BMI of 27.5 or less, became unhealthy when the cutoff point went to a BMI of 25 in 1998. This instantly made 29 million Americans switch from the healthy category to the overweight category. And meant that everyone in that group had to pay more money to insurance companies. Everyone in that group became, at least psychologically, a target for the diet industry. It also means that the pharmaceutical companies have 29 million more potential customers for their medicines.

BMI has come to be an accepted measurement tool for a person’s health.

In the story in question, the 11-year-old girl is very tall for her age and quite athletic. She is not overweight nor are many of the people who are classified as such.

I’m not saying stop using BMI and the CDC Growth Chart. They both have real uses in determining if a person is overweight and unhealthy. I’m suggesting that we stop using them as blanket treatments and people who fall into the regions where the tools are no longer accurate be diagnosed with a different chart. Ideally a doctor would examine each person and make the determination on the results of the exam.

In the case of the 11-year-old, her mother was concerned that being labeled overweight would have a negative impact on the girl’s self-esteem. I don’t think this is a frivolous claim. When the administration of an organization makes such a claim there are real emotional effects. I feel certain that the girl’s mother can explain that the BMI scale and the CDC Growth Chart scale are not accurate for certain body types and her daughter has one of those. I don’t think there’s any real damage done but I do think real harm is done by over-reliance on a system that plainly does not work for certain people.

Everyone should have their health screened regularly. A doctor should see everyone and make the overweight determination based on a physical exam; not a chart that, even the most ardent supporters of will admit, fails under some circumstances.

The fact that we have approximately 48.6 million people in this country who don’t have health insurance and are thus not getting regular screenings is a serious issue. All of those people should be getting screened. When they do not they stand a far higher chance of having serious medical issues, expensive medical issues, that could have been prevented. The taxpayer largely ends up paying those bills.

I’m not going to get into a debate about Obama Care so don’t bother commenting pro or con on that issue.

My point is that we are currently relying on flawed systems, BMI and CDC Growth Chart, that are spewing out, in some cases, clearly nonsensical results. I choose to call that bad.

This is dogmatic thinking. Rigid thinking. Wrong thinking. We can do better.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eBook)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

It’s How You Teach, Not Learning Styles

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Teaching Methods

One of my jobs at Acumen Consulting is being a technical trainer. It’s the thing that until recently has made up the backbone of my work for the last fifteen plus years.

There’s a very interesting article in Scientific American about something called Learning Styles. I’ve always been skeptical of learning styles in general but this article confirmed my doubts. The article attempts to be even-handed, so much so that I think it bends over backwards to soothe those who believe in Learning Styles.

I imagine this post of mine will generate some anger from those who believe in Learning Styles, we’ll see.

The idea behind Learning Styles is that students best learn in different ways and that educators need to take advantage of this. That some students learn by listening, some by watching, and some by doing. That those who learn in particular ways should be taught in that way.

There is no empirical evidence that this is true. It sounds true and that is what makes it attractive to people. We like things that have the ring-of-truth to them. Often times those sort of things are in actuality true. However, just because something sounds like it is true doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be experimentation to prove it.

In this case they’ve finally done some studies and no one has found any connection between a Learning Style and learning faster.

What they’ve found, and what my own experience tells me, is that good teaching methods yield more learning. Period.

I was taught what is called the three-step method. Tell people what you’re going to do, do it, ask them what you’ve just done. It works.

The more senses you get involved in learning the better you are. If you show them that’s a start. If they do it, that’s even better, if they talk about what they just did that’s best. If you are studying don’t use the highlighter. Get a notepad and write down what you would have highlighted, say it out loud as you are writing it.

In the article they mention the type of learner makes no difference when teaching geography. A learner who does best by listening? Bunk. Show them a map and they’ll learn more than if you describe the shape and size of the great state of Missouri. It’s how we teach, not how we learn, if there is even a real “learning style” which I doubt.

Some people are smarter than other people and there are those with severe mental disabilities but if we eliminate those at the ends of the Bell Curve I think it’s more than possible to teach almost everyone critical thinking and analysis. Teach them useful skills so that they can enter adulthood with the ability to work and earn a living. With a population schooled in these tools we can build a better society.

There are good teachers, great teachers, and those less talented. Hopefully you had a great one somewhere along the line. The odds are whatever that great teacher taught is what you are now doing as a career. That’s how important teachers are in the world and our lives. Great teacher inspire us and change us.

So, don’t fall back on the excuse that you’re a visual learner and that’s why you failed to understand something. Ask your teacher to explain it better. You can learn it, you can do it.

Tom Liberman

7 Million Chinese College Graduates

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China College GraduatesThere was an interesting article in the news this morning about how a large number of college graduates in China are causing an employment problem in that nation. Larger numbers of graduates make the job market more difficult to penetrate.

It was an interesting premise but not what I took from the article.

If China is graduating seven million highly educated students each year and the United States is producing fewer that means a shift of brain power in the world. An interesting article here shows how China has already surpassed the United States in college graduates and India will do so soon.

This shift of intelligence is changing the dynamics of power and the role of the United States in the world. It’s actually a good thing that countries like China and India are graduating more students and empowering young women. This has many beneficial effects for the world including decreasing population growth and increasing general wealth and well-being. However, it is also a challenge to the United States.

I wrote not long ago about how there is a politically motivated movement to discredit science in the United States. There is a general undercurrent of disdain for academia and intellectual achievement. The power structure of the world is changing as we continue to move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. The countries that embrace this change will lead this new world in the same way the United States led during the Industrial Revolution.

Graduating college students is directly related to new technology, new ideas, and a new way of producing wealth. I’m not suggesting everyone should go to college, that a college degree is the end-all goal of every single person. I am suggesting that the nation that produces the largest number of intelligent people will have an advantage in the new world.

As I said, I’m thrilled to see China, India, and other nations educating their youth and making the entire world a better place. I’m eager for the days of abundant and cheap energy, super-fast transportation, and a stable population with plenty of food and goods for all.

I’m not so encouraged by my country’s response to the gauntlet that has been thrown down by the emerging world, and by Europe and other places. Economic power is, in many ways, military power. If the United States is not making the important breakthroughs, if the United States is not leading the way then we will be following. In some ways we are already following.

China and India have a huge advantage in massive populations but the underlying issue is society’s emphasis on education. It’s stronger in other nations than it is in the United States.

My main fear is that as the United States continues to fall from our preeminent position of power in the world that the citizens of my country will grow increasingly frightened. That we will elect officials who stoke this fear and offer draconian solutions to “save” our nation. That the very tenants of the Founding Fathers will be discarded in order to make us “safe”. On a personal level, that my freedom will be taken away.

In order to combat this decline and this fear I say emphasize education, teach people critical thinking skills, and venerate science.

Let us not fear this new world but instead embrace it and join it as an equal.

 

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eBook)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Modern American Dream

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The American DreamThere was a story in the news recently about how the American Dream is no longer obtainable. I think the very premise of the story completely leaves out the nature of our modern society.

Fifty years ago the American Dream was defined as owning a home and having a couple of children. This article focuses on the owning a home part of the equation. It points out that only 18.2% of Americans see the American Dream as owning a home. That more people view being debt-free and retired as the new American Dream.

The article then laments that people have lost their way.

I couldn’t disagree more. People haven’t lost their path in life, they’ve found a better one. If you don’t want to get married and don’t want to have children then owning a home is a nothing except trouble. A greater and greater percentage of our population has no desire to get married, no desire to have children, and because of that, absolutely no desire to own a home.

I’m not saying home ownership, marriage, and children are wrong. I’m just saying that for an increasingly large percentage of our population they are things people don’t want.

People want, among other things, an education, a good job, and wealth. I applaud them. An education often means going into debt early in life so wanting to get out of that state makes perfect sense. Does our current education system make debt-slaves out of students? Yes. A topic for another day.

The ability to retire and lead your life the way you want is an incredibly good goal. The fact that Americans are turning away from the traditional home-ownership, two-child, lifestyle is not a bad thing.

Change like this engenders fear in people. They ask: What will happen to our nation when people stop having children? Who will take care of the old people? Who will do the jobs?

I can’t stress my next  idea enough; We already have too many people! The flattening population growth the world is experiencing is a wonderful thing. It will certainly cause stress to economic systems that rely on constant growth but maybe that means we should change our economic model. Maybe we should  base our economy not on growth but on providing excellent products at reasonable prices while employing hard-working people. But, again, a topic for another day.

When we look at countries where women are empowered, have access to birth control, and close to equal rights; the population is actually declining. Hooray!

The modern American Dream is having a job you like, doing your work well and being paid for it, owning the things you want, and spending a greater percentage of you life with family and friends.

I want to reiterate that I’m not against home ownership, babies, and the old American Dream I’m just a realist. If people want a life that doesn’t include those things it’s not an indictment of modern society, it’s a celebration of it.

Imagine a world with a stable, sustainable population. People who work at rewarding jobs they like. A vast decrease in poverty and despair. Plenty of food and energy for all. Happy people working and playing with other happy people.

This might not be the American Dream but it’s mine.

Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eNovel)
Upcoming Release: The Spear of the Hunt

1912 8th Grade Exam – Difficult?

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8th Grade ExamThere’s an interesting story in the news today about an 8th grade exam given to students in 1912 Kentucky. The questions are of the sort that anyone who hasn’t been studying recently would find difficult. Judging by the comments that dominate the story it appears that most people think these questions are significantly more difficult than those faced by 8th graders today.

I’m not an 8th grade teacher but I thought the questions were somewhat below what I’d expect to see on an exam given to children of that age today. I base this on my various nieces and friend’s children who I’ve helped study over the years. I may be completely wrong and I’d love to hear from some teachers on the subject.

Sample questions:

  1. A man bought a farm for $2,400 and sold it for $2,700. What was his percentage gain?
  2. What waters would a vessel pass through if traveling from England, through the Suez Canal, to Manila?
  3. Name the organs of circulation?
  4. To what four governments are students in school subject to?

None of those seems like it would present much challenge to a student who had been studying such material. Perhaps I’m totally wrong, perhaps these question are much more difficult than those faced by 8th graders today. That is certainly the overwhelming opinion of those making comments.

The main difference that I noted is the lack of multiple choice questions and I’m of the opinion that this is actually an important distinction.

In the past students were expected to be able to write out complete answers rather than pick answers. Picking answers means that most people will be correct 25% of the time even if they have no clue as to the answer. 25% isn’t a good score but in the past the same students would be correct 0% of the time.

The change to largely multiple choice questions is simply a function of classroom size. Teachers are expected to grade hundreds of quizzes and tests weekly and this is a heavy, heavy burden. I’m of the opinion that this trend can be reversed by automatic grading using tablets and computers. No more handwriting. Computers are getting intelligent enough to recognize partially correct answers and grade accordingly.

However, back to the topic at hand. I really don’t see these questions as anything that would be a great challenge to today’s students; except perhaps the geography which I don’t think is taught as heavily in today’s classrooms. I could be wrong about that as well.

In any case, I’d absolutely love to hear from parents of 8th graders, teachers, and other who have more direct knowledge of the current educational system for students of that age.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($20.00 for a hardback – $17.01 discount for an eBook = $???)
Upcoming Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Relationship between Coach and Athlete

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Player coach relationshipsI blogged not long ago about a coach’s behavior as fair game for scrutiny when a player engages in violent activities off the field of play. One of the complaints I heard from my legion of loyal followers was how unfair it is to blame anyone other than the perpetrator of the violence.

The main thrust of the argument against me was that a teacher couldn’t be blamed if a student killed someone outside of the classroom. It got me thinking about whether or not the teacher-student relationship compares with the coach-athlete relationship.

I’m of the opinion that the coach-athlete relationship is far more influential and far more familial, than the vast majority of teacher-student relationships. Certainly teachers have influence. Teachers build relationships but the reality is that the coaches and players are together hour after hour, day after day, year after year. This incident involved the relationship  between a college player and a college coach. I argue that this is, literally, the most important relationship any young athlete has outside of family, maybe even inclusive of family!

The college coach came to the house of the player and convinced said player to come to a particular college. The coach talked to the parents and convinced them that this was the right choice for their child. All before a single practice. Recruiting is the lifeblood of any college team and coaches spend large amounts of time and effort convincing the best athletes to come to their school.

Once at the school the student is destined to spend four and often five years with that coach. Unlike a student-teacher relationship it doesn’t end after an hour in the classroom, after a semester. The athlete gets to know the coach, the coach’s family. They spend many hours on planes or buses with the coach. Hours are spent practicing.

Coaches take this relationship seriously. They talk again and again about the team being a family, about the influence they have on their players.

Players take this relationship seriously. It is often a life-long friendship.

I was an athlete. Not a particularly good one but I tried hard. I played hockey, baseball, soccer, tennis, swimming, water polo, and rugby. I had good coaches who cared about me and bad ones who didn’t. When the coach cares about the player as a person and not just as an athlete it is a special, profound bond.

Ask anyone who played for Dick Vermeil, or Bobby Knight, or John Wooden, or Mike Krzyzewski, or Woody Hayes, or Vince Lombardi, or Paul Bryant, or … well the list is endless. These men change the lives of those they coach. They can be a force of a tremendous good or a force of not so great. They can take a young man on the wrong path and turn him right or they can choose to ignore the bad because it will help the team win championships.

I’m certainly not saying even the best coach is perfect. I’m not saying that the best coach could have changed Aaron Hernandez. In the end Hernandez is responsible for his own actions. I am saying that a different coach might well have done better with Hernandez. It’s not black and white. The best athletes aren’t always the best people. A coach needs good athletes and even the best attempts to help can fail. When they let poor behavior go without punishment because the team needs that player, they encourage bad actions, bad decisions. This win at all costs attitude can eventually end with tragic results and I think the coach bears some, certainly not all, but some responsibility.

To all you great coaches out there, who care about the boys and girls you’re teaching, who know that learning to live a good life is more important than winning the game; a tip of the hat.

As those great coaches know well; if you surround yourself with good people, who work hard, have passion, and do things the right way, well, that almost always translates into wins. Wins in the game, and wins in life.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 and full of win)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Aaron Hernandez and Urban Meyer

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Win at all CostsFor my followers who are not sports fans there is a terrible story making headlines in the National Football League (NFL) these days. A player in the league is accused of premeditated murder. That he killed one of his friends reportedly because that friend was talking to some other people.

The case is in its infancy and guilt or innocence will not be determined for a long time so I’m not going to get into the particulars of the incident. Likewise there is much talk about the violent tendencies of NFL players but statistical analysis seem to indicate that professional athletes, football players included, are no more criminally inclined than the rest of the nation, actually less so.

What I do want to talk about is the culture of winning that pervades college and pro athletics. The responsibility a coach has when one of their players commits crimes, particular violent crimes. In this case the player in question, Aaron Hernandez, was coached at the University of Florida by Urban Meyer. There were apparently a number of incidents at Florida that put a question to Hernandez’s character, and more importantly to the NFL, his potential to be a great player instead of a public relations nightmare.

Meyer told Coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots that Hernandez was worth drafting although he was drafted well below his ability level, likely because of his off-field problems. Meyer has said that it is wrong and irresponsible to connect either he or the University of Florida to the misbehavior of Hernandez.

I strongly disagree. I will not lay the blame squarely on Meyer, Belichick, Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft, the University of Florida, the NCAA, or the NFL but there is certainly a connection. People with special ability in the sporting world are given chance after chance that other people do not get. They are entitled, coddled, favored, and allowed to behave badly without consequence again and again.

Here in St. Louis we drafted an extremely talented cornerback named Janoris Jenkins with a troubled past including failed drug tests and an arrest in a nightclub fight.

It angers me when I hear Meyer instantly dismiss any responsibility in the situation. Not only dismiss responsibility but actually attack anyone who dares suggest that he might have done something to prevent the situation. Meyer could have kicked Hernandez off the team, as Meyer’s successor Will Muschamp did to Jenkins almost immediately upon taking over as head coach at Florida.

It can be argued that Jenkins was a far more talented player than Hernandez. That Muschamp’s decision to kick Jenkins off the team was a much more damaging move than would have been removing Hernandez.

So far Jenkins has been a relatively trouble-free in St. Louis. He missed a curfew and Coach Jeff Fisher suspended him for one game. That’s what I’m talking about here today. That’s my point. Muschamp made Jenkins responsible for his actions. Fisher made Jenkins responsible for his actions. Apparently Meyer and Belichick did not do the same for Hernandez.

Who is ultimately responsible for our own actions? We are. Hernandez is. Jenkins is. But so is Meyer. He allowed Hernandez to continue to play and recommended him to the NFL. Personal responsibility doesn’t mean blaming everyone else when you make a mistake in judgment.

Meyer could have said that he understood Hernandez had problems. He tried to help. He wanted the best for the young man and gave him chances with that in mind. Instead he chooses to deny all responsibility. To bury his head in the sand and avoid any consequences to his actions. A terrible role-model, a terrible person.

I’m not blaming Meyer for Hernandez, I’m blaming Meyer for Meyer. Taking responsibility doesn’t always mean taking the credit when things go well. Personal responsibility means accepting consequences, or at least scrutiny, when things go wrong.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for hours of reading pleasure)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Second Grader Ostracized or Not?

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OstracizedThere is a highly emotional story making the rounds in the news world these days and I’m more than a little frightened to jump into the fray because I think I’m on the bad guy side.

The situation is that a second grader with spinal muscular atrophy was taking his class picture. They had the students set up on a bleacher and the kids didn’t quite fill the section leaving about one kid’s width room on the side. Miles Ambridge, confined to his wheelchair, was moved as close to the edge of the bleachers as possible but this left about a three-foot gap between him and the nearest child. The gap was the extra bit of bleacher along with the wheels of the wheelchair. The kids were also sitting up very straight with their hands in their laps adding to the perceived gap.

His mother saw the picture and decided that her son was being ostracized by the adults who organized the picture. Miles’ father is incensed because Miles seems so happy with his big smile in the picture. “He’s naive as to how people treat him” was the comment.

Some people commented that he should have been taken out of the wheelchair and placed with the other students but that seems to me to be an unlikely possibility. Moving someone with a severe spinal disease onto a bench with a bunch of other potentially squirmy kids? At best they could have sat in an off-center position to the edge of the bench and the gap would have been decreased by half but there still would have been a gap. Maybe they could have ditched the bleachers altogether but it’s likely the camera was setup with lighting designed for that position.

The picture I’ve included above is an example of being ostracized. When I was in sixth-grade they conducted an interesting exercise with us. They asked us a complex math problem and told us to figure it out in our heads. They wanted answers from two of us, me the nerd, and the pretty, popular girl. I had one answer. She had another. They asked us to move to opposite sides of the room and told everyone join the person they thought was right. I was alone and ostracized in the little game in the way I often felt in real life. It’s not fun to be ostracized. Kids can be very cruel. Adults can be awful as well.

Here’s my take, I just don’t think Miles was ostracized. Miles is different. He’s in a wheelchair and can’t sit on the bench. There’s no denying that fact. By making such a fuss the parents are not helping, they’re actually emphasizing that he’s different. It’s hard to tell from one picture but he looks like a pretty happy kid.

We can’t make other people be nice to us. We can’t stop kids from being cruel to one another over differences, real or perceived. Some kids will be mean to Miles but there are others who will not, particularly if Miles is happy with the way he is. We should teach kids to be themselves and accept their real limitations while striving to attain their maximum potential. To make good friends, do as well as they can, to have fun.

I’ve got some advice for you, Miles. If someone ostracizes you because of your disability, screw them. Keep smiling, be friends with the kids who like you for being you, wheelchair and all. Be good at what you’re good at, it won’t be sports or sitting in the bleachers. Your parents aren’t improving your life by forcing people to be “fair” to you. However, if you keep smiling like that you’ll end up with real friends and a great life.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (300+ pages of nerdy D&D inspired fun for $2.99)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Price of a College Education

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Is College Worth the MoneyFormer Secretary of Education William Bennett is out promoting a new book and in a recent interview talked about how a college education is hurting more people than it is helping. The book itself looks at various colleges around the country and tries to determine if they give value for their investment. I have not read the book but its results are no secret. That only a few colleges and a limited number of degrees are worth the investment of both time and money. Not having read the book I can’t speak to the methodology of making the evaluations but the result certainly seems accurate as to what I see in the world.

Students are coming out of college, even with a degree, unable to gain employment in their field of choice. Over 40% of students simply drop out of college. I’m an excellent example of that group. I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do with my life and simply milled around for four years before calling it an education. Happily I chose a university, the University of Idaho, that didn’t charge huge fees and I was able to finish without debt. That’s not the case for the majority of students today who are leaving school with large amounts of debt.

In the interview Bennett talks about how he thinks college should be about teaching young adults how to think and that his own degree was in philosophy. I think even the strongest detractor of the current college education system would agree that learning how to think properly is a useful trait. The question becomes; is college a viable place to gain this skill? At this stage, with the price of an education going up and up, I think the answer has to be no. That’s a real shame. I’ll leave it to the book and Bennett to provide the arguments against going to college and I’ll take this opportunity to offer some ways I think we can improve the situation.

One of the most important things we can do is stop insisting that everyone go to college. It’s fine for me to spout off that people don’t need to go to college but what alternatives are there for people without degrees? I blogged just the other day about how people need to be intelligent to hold down a job in modern society. I think education is an increasingly important player in keeping the United States powerful. So, how is this accomplished except through college?

I’m of the opinion that a system of apprenticeship is an excellent tool in this regard. In Germany they have a strong apprentice program. I’ve worked with steel mill employees in Granite City who go to work immediately after high school and eventually rise into high-paying, skilled jobs. The idea is that someone who isn’t really interested in a higher education can immediately go into the workplace and learn a job. Many times the employer will not only pay the apprentice but encourage them to continue their education as well. This is a winning system in that young people are gainfully employed while learning a skill and companies have eager employees, with lower salaries, who move up in the company internally to higher paying jobs.

This system certainly cannot replace a degree in Philosophy or Engineering but it would dramatically cut down on students who didn’t really want to go to college in the first place. Even for degrees like engineering a student might well start out at a low-level job with a technical company and go to school part-time while working with skilled co-workers.

I think this would also have the benefit of alleviating high schools from having to prepare students for college and allow them to return to what many call a classical education. We could dispense with ridiculous testing and standards and get back to teaching kids how to think properly.

This is a hugely important issue in relation to the United States’ place in the world. If we continue to churn out people with a college education who cannot hold down a job, our nation is in peril. More disability, more welfare, less work, less excellence. The rise of a class system of haves and have-nots. This is a recipe for the decline of our nation.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for 300 pages of neck snapping adventure)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Shrinking Middle Class

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Middle ClassMy middle younger sister (yes, I have three younger sisters) recently linked an interesting radio show from This American Life on her Facebook page. The topic of the show was the precipitous rise in disability claims in the United States over the last twenty years. It’s an interesting show for a number of reasons. While I somewhat disagree with its conclusions, it did lead me to some interesting thoughts. Here is a summary of what it talks about.

In 1996 the United States passed a sweeping welfare reform act largely at the behest of the newly elected Republican Congress as part of their Contract with America. President Clinton signed it into law. Clinton had vetoed two earlier attempts and with Congressman Newt Gingrich arrived at this compromise bill.

The main focus of the bill was to allow each individual state more leeway in who was allowed to be on welfare and for how long. The state took over some of the funding for welfare although still received much federal money. Largely the bill only allowed people to get welfare if they were actively looking for work and stopped welfare after a period of time, largely five years although this varied by state.

In the early years there was a large reduction in welfare recipients and decrease in the unemployment rate although this was certainly at least somewhat related to the dotcom boom of the time. The radio broadcast points to a direct link between the rise in disability claims of that era and said reductions of welfare. That those leaving welfare took up disability instead.

I took some time to look up a few statistics and I see the point made by the broadcast but I’ve come to a different conclusions. Disability is not necessarily replacing welfare as a place to get free government handouts for doing nothing, although I’m sure there are many who abuse the system. Since 1990 the number of disability claims has been going up, this started six years before the 1996 welfare reform act.

What we see in our country are two trends that both drive people onto disability and increase the wealth gap between those who have sufficient money and those who do not. This gap, this increase in people unable (or unwilling) to work presents real problems for our country. A strong middle-class is vitally important to a strong nation. When the poor have real opportunity to gain wealth we have a fairly equitable society. When they do not, we risk revolution, the possibility of becoming a police state, or both.

I think the rise in disability claims is more closely tied to an increasingly unhealthy population and stupid people. Unhealthy people cannot work. This didn’t used to be true for stupid people. Prior to the last ten years or so there were always plenty of jobs for stupid people. Not the highest paying jobs, but jobs that provided adequate income. Stupid people are seeing their employment opportunities dwindle and are essentially disabled because they cannot work productively in modern society. They can’t do simple jobs because modern jobs, even simple ones, require an education.

As the ability for stupid and the ever-growing number of unhealthy people to get jobs diminishes, the middle class vanishes. This is very dangerous. We have moderately high unemployment but a quick, unscientific survey of my friends indicates their companies would hire more people if they could find qualified people.

There is no effective way to legislate health or study habits. By the way, when I say stupid, I generally mean people who choose not to learn. Not the mentally disabled. I think the vast majority of people could learn simple tech jobs. Not the highest paying jobs, but people would be able to support themselves with this sort of work.

So, what is the solution?

Value education. Value health. That’s the only answer. We cannot make people eat healthy food and study in school. Legal remedies will never work. But, why do Jewish kids generally do well in school? Asian kids? We cannot deny these facts. Why are some people healthy? Why do they exercise? Why do they eat better? I argue that it is because they grew up in a home, in a society, that valued these things.

We can blame Democrats, Republicans, laws, liberals, conservatives, Paris Hilton, McDonald’s, whoever. I don’t think it’s their fault. Our society is raising hordes of people who cannot hold down a job. Let’s look in the mirror. Let’s make some changes.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (totally awesome, I might add)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Elastic Currency and National Debt

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Elastic CurrencySome time ago when I first starting blogging here on WordPress I wrote a post about the Gold Standard. In it I tried to explain the concept in its most simple form. Today I’m going to try to explain the term of Elastic Currency. These two terms are linked together as monetary policy siblings and a thorough understanding of both concepts is a precursor to being able to fully understand the financial problems that face the United States.

As with my Gold Standard article I’m not going to get too technical nor am I going to make too many suggestions as to whether or not this policy is best for the country and the world. I think it’s important to understand the concepts and only after that can people make informed decisions about the financial future of the United States.

The idea of Elastic Currency is that a central banking institute can expand or contract the amount of money available to lending institutions based on economic conditions. This is deemed to be important for two linked reasons. The history of economies throughout the world is a history of boom and bust cycles. These cycles bring tremendous hardships to nations and the goal is to alleviate the pain of these events.

In a boom/bust cycle a particular item becomes attractive to buyers which spurts a speculative interest in those sorts of items. Be it dotCom, Housing, or whatever. Basically people find that they can purchase the product and then sell it later for a profit. This fuels the boom. More and more people purchase the product which drives the prices higher and higher generating further profits and more speculation. The boom “bubble” grows and grows until the product is selling for far more than it is worth. Then, all the people holding the product at the end are bankrupted when people suddenly stop buying. This destroys economies because the people can’t pay back the money they’ve borrowed and the people who loaned the money also go bankrupt. Thus, there is no money to loan others and we enter bust.

The idea behind Elastic Currency is that a central banking institute recognizes a boom cycle is going on and reduces the amount of available currency to loan and tempers the speed and size of the bubble which bursts with far less grave consequences. Likewise, during the ensuing bust cycle the banking institute allows more money to become available for loans thus paving the way for new growth by those who played it safe and did not engage in the boom but would otherwise be shut out by the lack of available loans.

The demise of the Bretton Woods gold standard in 1971 and the rise of Bretton Woods II is clearly linked to the current level of indebtedness that the United States and much of Europe face. Whether there was another, better, solution is unclear.

So, that’s the main idea of Elastic Currency.

I promised not to make too many suggestions as to fixing the rising debt we face but one thing that I think has been ignored by the Federal Reserve and the financial agencies of other countries is that Elastic Currency can and should be contracted at times. It is not merely a tool to fuel growth but also to temper expansion. The other suggestion is that the Federal Reserve’s job to limit the boom/bust cycle is not to eliminate all bust. Moderate bust is good. It weeds out weak players and allows for the growth of new, vigorous entrants into the economy.

I hope this little essay explains some of the concept of Elastic Currency to my legion of followers. I do not pretend it is an exhaustive treatise on the subject and I recommend a perusal of the Wiki articles linked above for a far greater understanding of the process.

Thanks for listening and feel free to comment below either in agreement or disagreement. All are welcome!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Hammer of Fire
Upcoming Release: The Sword of Water

Princess Scientist and Girl’s Self Image

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Science PrincessI read a fascinating article at Yahoo yesterday about a woman named Erica Ebbel Angle who has a television show aimed at promoting science to Middle School students. Oh yeah, she’s also a graduate of MIT, has a Ph.D in Biochemistry, and has entered a few beauty pageants.

The reason this seems to be causing an issue is she is calling herself the Princess Scientist and some people think this is a bad message for young girls. That being pretty is of equal importance to being smart. I don’t think that’s the message at all but some people are up-in-arms.

The first thing I’d like to look at is the general pairing of pretty or athletic with stupid. Like most stereotypes it’s not completely unfair as many very athletic or very attractive people are not motivated to spend time on their education. Likewise it is completely unfair to associate stupidity either with athleticism or beauty in the individual. We had a player here for our local St. Louis Cardinals baseball club who was both an outfielder and graduated college with a degree in aerospace engineering.

There are plenty of intelligent athletes and beauty queens and many unintelligent, less athletic, unattractive people. There are a great number of people who fit into all combinations of both groups. It’s not correct to associate or disassociate one attribute with the other.

I think this is the root cause of the issue. People are unhappy with Dr. Erica because she is saying it’s fine to want to be attractive. There is an intellectual backlash against putting beauty in front of intelligence in this country and I’m not opposed to that idea but if you want to promote being attractive and intelligent then I see no issue. Not only is there not a problem but it’s a good thing.

Life isn’t just about being smart. A brilliant scientist who takes no time for personal hygiene is largely unwelcome in social situation and cannot use that intelligence to its best advantage. Why not encourage young women to pursue the sciences and be attractive at the same time?

The argument goes that time spent primping on beauty takes away from schoolwork. I’m not an expert on primping for beauty but the time I spent playing sports was good for me. My time at the gym working on my physical body helps me mentally. Life is a combination of attributes and we do well to work on many fronts. Would we tell a husband and father to ignore his kids to perfect his work? Time being a good father makes for a better worker.

All you girls and boys out there. Play sports, look good, but study in school. It’s not that hard to study and I regret not being a better student myself. I was too concerned with other things and that has limited me. Broaden yourself in every respect. Obsessing your focus on a single topic eventually tends to makes you a strange, unhappy person.

And for you adults who want to limit your children to one thing or another, shame on you. Encourage your children in all their endeavors.

You go Science Princess!

P.S. While there is an intellectual backlash against putting superficiality over intelligence the reality is our society largely promotes that idea. We worship the beautiful and athletic while ignoring the scientific achievers. That’s wrong and dangerous to society. Perhaps fodder for another blog.

Tom Liberman

Student Sues Over Grade

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gradesI spotted an interesting story on Yahoo today and I don’t have all the facts so I don’t want to go overboard with my conclusions, but it did strike a nerve with me. I’m a teacher myself and I was a rather poor student at one time. I’ll review the facts of the case first and then tell you what I think.

This young student was a straight A, honor student who had completed all his work and earned a 106% score in the class. I assume this means he did much extra-credit and honors work. This is apparently not in dispute. He had a prior committment and couldn’t attend a scheduled lab for which he was given an excused absence. The teacher and student couldn’t come together for a make-up of the lab. This missed lab apparently dropped his grade from an A+ to a C+. That seems extreme on its own but I’ll take the story at face value until I learn more.

Efforts appear to have been made through the proper channels, the teacher, the administrators, the principal, but no resolution was found and the case is now in the courts.

This whole thing is a disaster from my perspective. It never should have come to this. I can’t make completely accurate judgments because I haven’t heard the teacher or district’s full account of events but I’m going to speculate a little bit and keep in mind I might have to retract later when the story develops further.

I’ve known students like this and teachers like this.

A student overly obsessed with his grades who thinks one bad score will destroy his future. There is some truth to the idea that an overall GPA is important in getting into college but there are many other factors and top-level schools do interviews where this case could be explained. I’m not sure he was in any real danger of not getting into his top school choices.

A teacher who enjoys making students dance to puppet strings over the threat of bad grades, particularly when they know the student is obsessed. I’ve known more than one teacher who purposely gave unfair grades to students so they would come begging for changes. Sickening but true.

Let’s assume the worst. The teacher is sadistic and the student is obsessed. At what point does the administration have to step in? When does the adult have to admit to being wrong? I think before it gets to court. The administration did change the grade from a C+ to a B in an effort at reconciliation but it didn’t work.

The teacher is clearly now entrenched in her position. The student and his parents won’t quit until they’ve had a favorable outcome so we end up with a giant mess where no-one really wins. The student comes across as obsessed, the teacher as vindictive. A mess.

If the facts are true as presented I think an administrator needed to step in and insist the boy be allowed to make-up his lab and let his grade reflect that event. I’m not saying give in and grant the student an A+ but let him take the lab. How hard is that? All parties honorably let off the hook.

Give the teacher a stern talking to about such things and let her know that she is being watched. Explain to the student that one grade isn’t going to change his life. Try and settle this thing before it spirals out of control. Too late for that now but, if in the future you see such a situation developing try to intervene before both parties become so entrenched in their positions the only resolution becomes the courts. You could save a lot of heartache.

What do you think? Tell me in the comments.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
New Release: The Hammer of Fire

Yoga Teacher Fired – Texting Student

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YogaThere is a relatively small situation all over the news lately that I find endlessly interesting and worthy of discussion. A yoga teacher in San Francisco was fired from her position at the Facebook campus two weeks after giving a dirty look to a student who was texting in class. This is interesting to me for several reasons.

I take yoga classes, I’m big technology guy, I’m a teacher, and I’m a heavy user of social media. My good friend’s wife is the Social Media director at Siemans and I’m interested to see what she thinks about this case. I think it brings up several incredibly interesting points.

To start with I noticed the heavy preponderance of comments sided with the yoga teacher in question. They ran the gamut from suggesting lawsuits to vilifying the texter and I’d say it was about 50 – 1 against the firing. I’m going the other way on this one and I’ll tell you why.

As a teacher of adults I fully understand that the paying students are in my class on their time. They could be doing a lot of things but chose to pay money to take instruction from me. I think this is a fundamentally different situation from a primary school teacher whose students are children. Generally when a phone rings during class, my reaction is to tell the student that it’s not a problem. If they have to take care of business step outside and I’ll catch them up on the material when they return.

When I see students texting or checking their email during class I simply ignore it. These are adults with real jobs and in modern society jobs are not 9 – 5 anymore. It’s likely that my students are going to get important emails, texts, and phone calls during my class. These important work related items must be dealt with and are, in the big scheme of things, far more important than my class.

What’s not at issue here is that it was a ringing phone. Ringing phones can be a distraction at any sort of public gathering because they intrude on the other people. In this case the yoga student was answering a text. In yoga class a ringing phone is an issue because it takes focus away from the pose at hand. A text, on the other hand, is a quiet activity that is largely not distracting. I would equate it to a student who during a strenuous pose decides to move to a rest position. It’s not what everyone else in class is doing but it’s not disruptive in any way.

I also have an issue with the teacher giving the student a disapproving look. Again, we are adults here. I think the best way to handle a disruptive situation, which I don’t think this rose to a level of being, is to tell the student you understand work is important and to please take care of it outside.

In this particular instance it was to a group of Facebook employees! To be surprised and annoyed that they might be texting during class seems not particularly thoughtful to me.

Of course, it’s possible that the yoga teacher in question was not a good teacher for other reasons but that’s not really the question in this case. Maybe she was a great teacher. I just don’t think publicly chastising an adult student in a class is generally a good plan. There are certainly times when disruptive behavior must be dealt with but I’m of the opinion that this case did not come anywhere near that line.

Should she have been fired? Not if this was a one time incident, in my opinion. I think a quick session in which it was explained to the instructor that her Facebook students get important texts and will be dealing with them is part of the class. Communication!

What do you think? Was the yoga teacher perfectly reasonable? Was she unreasonable? Tell me in the comments!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
New Release: The Hammer of Fire

Science is good and so is the Higgs Boson

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Higgs BosonThere was some fairly momentous news in the scientific community last week in regards to a sub-atomic particle called the Higgs Boson. It won’t be too difficult for you to find out more about this particle on your own but the purpose of my blog today is to speak to the topic of scientific endeavor and why it is such a good thing.

Lately when I read an article about scientific topics the comments tend to be filled with Luddite remarks about the practical worthlessness of research, generally from Republican based sources, or about how we could better spend the money helping people, generally from Democrat based sources. Not that the criticism is consistently from one side or the other. I just think that these sorts of advancements are crucially more important to society and my life than just about anything else. Yet, it seems, the majority of people in the United States are against funding research of this nature for one reason or another.

First off I will quickly mention something called Particle Accelerators. Not what they do but what damage a failure to appreciate this sort of research did to the United States. Many of the most amazing discoveries, scientific advancements, and great minds of the world are gathering at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. It was built for 7.5 billion Euros (about 5 billion dollars depending on currency exchange rates). Sadly, a much larger collider, the Superconducting Super Collider which was scheduled to be built in the United States was cancelled in 1993. It was estimated it would cost $4.4 billion originally but costs spiraled to $12 billion by the time of cancellation.

Now, spiraling costs and mismanagement are terrible things and good project management is necessary. Congress, with a Democratic majority in both houses and against President Clinton’s advice, cancelled the program in a cost cutting move. For those interested Republicans were solidly for cancelling (about 70%) while democrats were moderately for keeping funding (53%) All the work currently being done in Europe, collecting the great scientific minds of our generation, is being done in Switzerland. Good for the Swiss, not good for the United States.

In our current financial mess other scientific programs, technological advancements, and varied other projects will be lost. The cost of all these losses is incalculable.

But, back to my topic, why is science so good?

Computer science was the main stimulus behind the huge economic boom of the 1980’s. What a few people accomplished brought comfort, profit, jobs, ideas, health, and other things to more people than can be imagined. Abundant, sustainable energy technology will drive huge profits and change the world but a lot of the research is happening outside the US. Not that I’m all gloom and doom. Key players continue to drive the US forward in this field and others. All is certainly not lost.

What disturbs me is the seeming increase in the view that scientific research is a waste of money and time. Just take a second to look around you at what science has provided. The fibers in your clothes, electronics, electricity, computers, your mattress, your vehicle, your eyesight, your health, there really isn’t a moment of your day when science hasn’t brought you comfort and ease. In a representative republic if the people think science is a waste of time so will government officials. And we are headed in that direction.

Sure, some projects don’t work out. And managers need to watch costs to keep things in line. But when we devalue science in the United States we hurt only ourselves.

If you wonder why such a momentous scientific event like the confirmation of the Higgs Boson happened in Switzerland then remember the Superconducting Super Collider. I can’t tell you exactly why confirming the Higgs Boson is so good for you but I know this, it is.

Science = good.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
New Release: The Hammer of Fire

Independence Day – July 4th = Synonyms?

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Indpendence DayI pissed off a co-worker again. Not surprised, are you? I did hold back from making the full argument which would have really escalated the situation. It’s happened over a subject I’m a little passionate about and that is calling Independence Day the 4th of July. They are not synonyms! The 4th of July is a day of the year, like April 12th. Independence Day is a day that celebrates our independence from Britain.

I’ll recap the debate.

********************************

Co-worker: July 4th is coming up.

Me: Independence Day, you mean.

Co-worker: Same thing.

Me: No, actually not. Most countries have their own Independence Day and it is on different days of the year. The 4th of July is just a date.

Co-worker: What do they call the 4th of July in England?

Me: I’m not sure.

Co-worker: Ha, see, I told you so.

Me: I’m not sure you told me that. I suppose they call July 4th the 4th of July in England. But that’s not the question. What do they call Independence Day in France?

Co-worker: I don’t know.

Me: Bastille Day, it falls on July 14.

Co-worker: So, what do they call Independence Day in England.

Me: I’m not sure but not the 4th of July.

Co-worker: Ha, see, I’m right then.

Me: *Stunned silence*

Co-worker: Why are you being such a dick today, get out of here.

Me: *Leaves*

*******************************

So, what just happened there? My co-worker completely lost track of his argument and eventually took my original position and claimed it was his own. It’s a common tactic I see although I don’t really think it’s a tactic. I think it’s muddle-headed thinking combined with the inability to admit an argument is wrong, which is a hallmark of religious, faith-based thinking. Yes, my co-worker is a religious Republican. But, to be fair, I see it in religious Democrats well.

My co-worker, by arguing that everyone calls the date July 4, “the 4th of July”, but people have different names for independence day depending on their country of origin proves that the 4th of July and Independence Day are not synonymous. My original point. Yet, he believed he “won” the argument. I left without pointing this out, which save me from further alienating my co-worker, but rankles me. I don’t mind being wrong. I really don’t. When someone brings forth a fact or a thought I hadn’t considered I’m actually generally pretty happy. It’s like a shiny new toy for me. To think about, to analyze, to ponder. I like that.

The underlying issue is the inability to admit being wrong. I think it is general human nature to not want to admit to a mistake but I find that faith-based thinking leads to extreme levels of delusion when it comes to this principle. A faith-based thinker must somehow rationalize their argument as correct even when it is demonstrated as false.

The three ways I see this happening are 1) as above. The person changes his position to the correct one but claims that is what they said all along. 2) The person refuses to speak about it anymore generally at the same time calling the person or people on the other side idiots, or 3) The person sticks to their original, wrong arguments, but every more loudly and insultingly.

What it all means is that it’s difficult  to have a productive discussion with faith-based thinkers. They will not, cannot, accept being wrong about anything. Even one mistake might mean that their entire philosophical world could come tumbling down. interestingly this thinking rarely intrudes onto their business decisions but is paramount in political and philosophical questions.

What I want to say to faith-based thinkers, and rational thinkers who lock onto their positions is this. Relax, it’s ok to be wrong. Listen to the other point of view. Debate with logical arguments. The end result is worth it, even if it turns out you were wrong to begin with.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
New Release: The Hammer of Fire

Fanaticism and Brain Damage

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FanaticalWhen I look around I see a lot of anger and hatred in the world and yet there are relatively few people going out and murdering as many others as they can. There is certainly the perception that such attacks are on the rise but I wonder if statistical evidence supports this idea?

What I really want to look at in this topic is if people who do such things have actual brain damage. The textbook case for brain damage leading to mass murder happened in 1966 when a former marine named Charles Whitman climbed a tower at the University of Texas in Austin. An autopsy later revealed a highly aggressive brain tumor.

However, Whitman was court martialed from the marines, suffering from familial stress, abusing drugs, and suffering pain so it’s not clear that the tumor played a role in the attacks.

There does not seem to be a correlation between traumatic brain injury and violent behavior. There have been documented cases of behavioral changes but no particular bent towards violence. There isn’t even a correlation between schizophrenia and violence despite popular culture’s claims.

There are actually several studies that suggest interpersonal violence has decreased in modern society.

I would conclude that the targeted violence we see today towards people of one particular party, religion, or country in the form of terrorism, school attacks, work attacks, or other such behavior is largely not the fault of brain damage. It is the fault of failure in thinking mechanisms.

Wikipedia’s article on violence includes a prevention section which mentions several things that make sense. Children who are well nurtured by parents or caregivers are far less prone to violence. Children who learn coping skills to deal with stress are likewise less violent. There is also a very important intervention component. When someone sees a person starting down the road of fanatical violence an early intervention can do much to prevent it.

I’m of the opinion that this intervention can be very subtle. When a person is heading towards fanaticism simply conversing with them in a non-violent way and offering alternative points of view can be helpful. I talked about this concept at length yesterday so I don’t want to repeat myself too much.

I guess in conclusion; we can’t blame brain injury for fanatical violence. People who are raised in violence are prone to act in such a way and they’ll find a cause to support their insanity one way or another. There also seems to be a correlation with drug or alcohol abuse.

I’m left with the idea that what drives people to such madness is lack of critical thinking skills. Certainly violence in childhood, learned hatred of other groups, and drug abuse play their role but I’m of the opinion that if we can teach strong reasoning skills that we’d reduce such violence. Maybe I’m a dreamer.

Tom Liberman