Daniel Dennett’s Technique for Criticizing a Position

I'm reading Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, by Daniel Dennett (2013). This approach for criticizing a claim caught my eye:

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” 2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement). 3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target. 4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

One immediate effect of following these rules is that your targets will be a receptive audience for your criticism: you have already shown that you understand their positions as well as they do, and have demonstrated good judgment (you agree with them on some important matters and have even been persuaded by something they said).

This passage is at page 33.

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Complexity’s Stern Challenge to Understanding

I just finished reading Michael Crichton's Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century. It's a long read, but well worth it. Crichton was a true Renaissance Man.

I first learned of the existence of complex systems in about 1975, when I observed that the world did not operate in a linear manner. The next thing I learned was that, while many people considered themselves clever by defining crazy as "Doing the same thing and expecting different results," that was more cleverness than truth. Anyone who is married will understand this. It is possible to do exactly what you did earlier, and your spouse will react in a completely different manner. With teenagers, it's more probable than possible.

Everywhere I looked I found complex systems, and began to do some self-study. The first thing I learned is that complex systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and we are foolish to believe we know all of them. In the "spouse" example, above, the second interaction is not a precise duplicate of the first. Your spouse weighs 2.4 grams less than yesterday, talked with your mother-in-law in the intervening period, and got a massage. All of these things affected your spouse and you're interacting with a different person.

The lecture is about fear, complexity and environmental management. Crichton set out to write a book about a global catastrophe in the late 1990s, so he looked at the Chernobyl meltdown. He read the predictions of up to 3.5M or more eventual deaths and the destruction of ecosystems. Articles about the event were heavily sprinkled with fear-inducing words such as cancer and catastrophe, and there were calls for urgent immediate action to save the planet. Then he looked at reality: 56 people died. The health issues with residents near Chernobyl were largely a reaction to bad information about direness, certainty of destruction, urgency, cancer, catastrophe, etc.

He winds his way through a series of predicted civilization-ending imminent catastrophes with calls to set aside all normal rules and turn over resources to "experts'" control, none of which actually came to pass. He concluded that the planet is far more resilient than doomsayers understand. And the pattern is too obvious to ignore. We are controlled through fear, created by bad information from authorities. Today's existential crisis is decarbonization, but Crichton notes that is already underway without surrendering control to authority. That appears typical of the successes claimed by authorities due to their actions. They urged action that was already underway, and he uses Y2K as an example. Governments' contribution to solving the real problem was negligible, not to mention unnecessary, since banks, heavily dependent on old mainframe systems, had already identified the problem and were working to fix it.

We're told many things by authorities, who are rarely held accountable for prior bad information, to maintain a State of Fear, the title of one of one of his last books. About global warming, we're assured that the earth will end in 12 or 50 or 100 years, and this time we're smarter because we've got all the information. That is exactly what we were told about Global Cooling in the 1970s. "But, this time is different." Right.

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RIP James “The Amazing” Randi

James Randi was an inspiration to me. He was one of the many magicians (including Penn Jillette) who also turned their attention toward exposing many paranormal claims. He was a first-rate debunker of those who prey on fear, ignorance and superstition, as well as an entertaining communicator. I was fortunate to be able to see "The Amazing Randi" make a presentation in person at the CSICOP Conference in Buffalo, NY in 1983. It is awesome to see these charlatans fails so dramatically and so publicly

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Time to Revise the Math Curriculum?

I heard Steve Levitt (from Freakonomics fame) discuss this issue on an episode of his new podcast, "People I Mostly Admire." Here's the proposal for changing the high school math requirement for most of us. This is from an organization to which Levitt belongs, 21CMath.org:

We surveyed 900 “Freakonomics” podcast listeners — a pretty nerdy group, we must admit — and discovered that less than 12% used any algebra, trigonometry or calculus in their daily lives. Only 2% use integrals or derivatives, the foundational building blocks of calculus. In contrast, a whopping 66% work with basic analytical software like Microsoft Excel on a daily basis.

When was the last time you divided a polynomial? If you were asked to do so today, would you remember how? For the most part, students are no longer taught to write cursive, how to use a slide rule, or any number of things that were once useful in everyday life. Let’s put working out polynomial division using pencil and paper on the same ash heap as sock darning and shorthand.

What we propose is as obvious as it is radical: to put data and its analysis at the center of high school mathematics.

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Evolutionary Biologist Colin Wright Offers Mini-Lecture on the Science of Sex and Gender

I've enjoyed watching some of the podcasts of British stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster. This episode features Quillette's Managing Editor, Colin Wright, who is also an evolutionary biologist. The topic: the science of of sex and gender, sexual dysphoria, transgender issues, navigating Woke influence at universities and at large. Excellent discussion focusing on basic scientific terms, Woke pushback and new strategic political alliances in order to seek intellectual progress.

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