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New York, 1:38 PM
Sat Nov 7
62 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/05/09
11/05/09
I haven't read the new book yet, but the original one just seemed like a compendium of propositions supported by individual (smallish, but interesting) data studies. It didn't purport to "pin" or "blame" or even draw final conclusions about anything -- thus it was necessarily incomplete. The original book just presented the outcomes of certain (again, smallish) studies and proposed that final answers to the questions posed would have to take those outcomes into consideration -- even if the outcomes and book wound up being thoroughly debunked, which is part of the progress of science anyway.
Is the new book as different from the original as this post strongly suggests? If true, that fact seems like it would be worth an explicit mention or two.
11/04/09
11/04/09
But hey when you're using flawed logic you may as well back it up with equally flawed data! #superfreakonomics
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Clearly, Monsieurs Levitt and Dubner are not familiar with the expression "end of pipe solution". #superfreakonomics
11/04/09
agh agh aghggghhhhhh blargle this is the worst idea ever. #superfreakonomics
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11/04/09
This is crazy shit. How could you even begin to think it was a good idea, after you had thought about it for more than about 5 or 6 seconds? #superfreakonomics
11/04/09
11/05/09
This sort of unwavering faith in endless progress and an endless upward curve in the economy drives me nuts. "Oh, we don't need to do anything! The white-haired team of einsteins in their privately funded lab will come up with something that'll save us all from near-certain doom! Let's go drive around the block in the Hummer while we wait for the giant acid rain pipeline to the sky!"
*stab stab stab* #superfreakonomics
11/05/09
@Catabolic: Yeah, that's what gets me, too. There's a belief that someone will just come save you. You don't need to change your habits - just buy the new product and don't worry about a thing! I mean, we're all in this together, and I think we're all going to have to change what we do, a little bit. Yeah, the few things I do myself won't make a difference, but if a thousand people do them, there will be change. So jump on the train, people, because it's better for all of us! #superfreakonomics
11/04/09
And what is so wrong with trying to conserve some fossil fuels? They're going to run out sooner or later anyway, so we might as well start figuring out our next step. #superfreakonomics
11/04/09
He went on to say that geo-engineering solutions are attractive because they would work faster, thereby giving conservation more time to work. He admits that running a tube into the sky is just a short-term fix, but that it would give longer term solutions time to be implemented and have an effect. #superfreakonomics
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11/04/09
Perhaps part of the problem is the declining quality of NYC public school chancellors. Unlike the chancellor, I'm sure many of the aforementioned sub-standard teachers still know the difference between "is" and "has". #superfreakonomics
11/04/09
11/04/09
I was only offended because I thought it was his typo, and as such made his criticism of sub-standard teachers kind of irrelevant. #superfreakonomics
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11/04/09
a) The students - male and female - who are best at subjects aren't steered toward education degrees. There's still the unspoken rule of "those who can't do, teach." If you're really good at science, you're encouraged to go into research, medicine, engineering, etc. If you're really good at music, you're put on the track to be an orchestral musician, composer, or conductor. It's people who are just okay, not great, who are encouraged to go into education.
b) When you do get someone who is really stellar who decides to go into education because it's their passion and whatnot, they're often met with hostility from other teachers who embrace mediocrity, or even from administrators. The truth is, whether they admit it or not, a lot of public schools are hostile to people who are innovative or who rock the boat. And the worse a school is, the more likely this is to be the case, which is why ailing schools continue to get only the worst teachers except in the case of incentives like Teach for America. My mom's a teacher who passionately supports the need for public schools, but she's finally been driven into teaching at private schools just because she can't take it anymore.
Of course, it's a lot easier to just blame the problem on women's liberation and not question why it's a woman's job to do the teaching, and why we can't just elevate the teaching profession so that top students of both sexes are encouraged to pursue teaching, and reform schools more so that they don't drive the best teachers out. #superfreakonomics
11/04/09
11/04/09
That's one way to help fix the teacher crisis; rather than having ed programs be the "easier" version of a regular major, make it a regular major plus education classes.
11/04/09
11/04/09
Additionally, women are disincentivized from seeking out better paying opportunities or returning to work after kids and so often discrimination is masked as women making a personal choice--it can be masked in the data, in Superfreakonomics, everywhere. #superfreakonomics
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