On 1-10-2011 23:21, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/1/2011 4:46, Warp wrote:
>> Care to give an example?
>
> I actually had a review rejected because my review was "5 of 5. Nothing
> to say except perfect." Now, it wasn't a science article but a computer
> science article that was about the formal math rather than science, but
> people didn't believe I had read the article when really it was "this is
> perfect. what more can I say?"

You might give some remarks on why it is important and hint at places 
where having read this article earlier might have saved you some 
trouble. Perhaps even point to a field the authors did not mention and 
might have overlooked, while including it would make the paper stronger.

If I have a good paper under review I sometimes do things like that. 
Reviewing is more than pointing at the errors, you try to improve the 
article in any way you can. The highest honour you can get as a reviewer 
is 'we thank an anonymous reviewer' in the acknowledgements. I have not 
achieved that yet. :(

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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>> I thought they still pretty much do that. Granted real scientists don't
>> follow the steps with absolute rigor. They may form an idea of what they
>> think should happen, then test by experimentation, record their results,
>> then try to repeat the results, then have peers repeat the results.
>
> That happens in some classrooms, but it's not as widespread as it should
> be.
>
> And we wonder why US students "fail" at math&  science in the real world.

To be fair, while the US is legendary for stupidity, there are plenty of 
stupid people in other countries too. Visit any shop while the computers 
are down and watch the poor checkout girl struggle to compute £2.99 + 
£4.85. Watch, and sigh.

>> Definitely. Rote memorization teaches nothing, except how to memorize.
>
> Exactly, and primary school is supposed to (or should be) be about
> learning how to learn rather than how to memorize.

But testing whether you've memorised specific facts is way easier than 
testing whether you're actually stupid or not.

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On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:07:54 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> Definitely. Rote memorization teaches nothing, except how to memorize.
>>
>> Exactly, and primary school is supposed to (or should be) be about
>> learning how to learn rather than how to memorize.
> 
> But testing whether you've memorised specific facts is way easier than
> testing whether you're actually stupid or not.

Well, that's true, but if we're talking about measuring IQ, that's one 
thing.  Testing whether you can do stuff is actually not that difficult 
to do or evaluate.  You have someone do the job (or tasks of the job) and 
evaluate their performance.

It's time consuming, but it's not actually that difficult to do, 
especially if you're focused on the end results rather than how they got 
there (as long as it's within a certain period of time).

Jim

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>>>> Definitely. Rote memorization teaches nothing, except how to memorize.
>>>
>>> Exactly, and primary school is supposed to (or should be) be about
>>> learning how to learn rather than how to memorize.
>>
>> But testing whether you've memorised specific facts is way easier than
>> testing whether you're actually stupid or not.
>
> Well, that's true, but if we're talking about measuring IQ, that's one
> thing.  Testing whether you can do stuff is actually not that difficult
> to do or evaluate.  You have someone do the job (or tasks of the job) and
> evaluate their performance.
>
> It's time consuming, but it's not actually that difficult to do,
> especially if you're focused on the end results rather than how they got
> there (as long as it's within a certain period of time).

I don't know about other countries, but here the entire educational 
system seems to be focused on meeting targets and out-competing other 
schools. Measuring whether the pupils at your school understand the 
scientific method is hard; measuring whether they know Snell's Law is easy.

(Yet another example of how competition is always a bad thing.)

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On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:02:50 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> I don't know about other countries, but here the entire educational
> system seems to be focused on meeting targets and out-competing other
> schools. Measuring whether the pupils at your school understand the
> scientific method is hard; measuring whether they know Snell's Law is
> easy.

No.  Measuring whether your pupils understand the scientific method is 
time consuming, not hard.

Memorizing a formula is not difficult for most people.  Being able to 
apply that formula in a real world situation (knowing that it applies, 
and which formula applies) is harder because it requires cognitive 
abilities and reasoning.

I remember arguing with my physics professor about this when I was at 
university.  I was taking engineering physics as a computer science 
student (and so was in a programme that represented < 10% of the students 
in the class) and we were required to memorise formulas for the exams.

I maintained that it was more important for me to know how to use the 
formula, as in a situation where I would be developing a simulation used 
to train pilots (as a concrete example), I'd be verifying the formula to 
use before coding it using a reference, just to be sure it was right 
because it is a high stakes situation that requires the formula be 
correct.

But my use case, had I continued down that career path, would be to need 
formulas infrequently, since once it was in code, it could be part of a 
reusable library so I wouldn't *have* to remember it.

Of course, in the prof's mind, this was wrong, and as a result, I didn't 
recall the formula when it came time to take the exams, and I failed the 
course.

But to this day, I know I was correct in my use case analysis and what 
was important for me as a CS student was knowing *when* to use the 
formula, not *what* the formula was.

> (Yet another example of how competition is always a bad thing.)

When one deals in absolutes, one is usually wrong or being hyperbolic.

Jim

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> To be fair, while the US is legendary for stupidity, there are plenty of 
> stupid people in other countries too. Visit any shop while the computers 
> are down and watch the poor checkout girl struggle to compute £2.99 + 
> £4.85. Watch, and sigh.

  Can you blame them?

  When was the last time you wrote something on paper with a pen, other
than your name / other personal information / signature?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 04/10/2011 08:21 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> To be fair, while the US is legendary for stupidity, there are plenty of
>> stupid people in other countries too. Visit any shop while the computers
>> are down and watch the poor checkout girl struggle to compute £2.99 +
>> £4.85. Watch, and sigh.
>
>    Can you blame them?

Um, YES?



(Also... what's up with the character encoding?)

>    When was the last time you wrote something on paper with a pen, other
> than your name / other personal information / signature?

Lamentably, about 2 hours ago...

(I'm required to write often quite verbose items of data for 
documentation purposes on a regular basis.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 04/10/2011 8:21 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> To be fair, while the US is legendary for stupidity, there are plenty of
>> stupid people in other countries too. Visit any shop while the computers
>> are down and watch the poor checkout girl struggle to compute £2.99 +
>> £4.85. Watch, and sigh.
>
>    Can you blame them?
>

Yes, the above sum is mental arithmetic. It does not need pencil and paper.

>    When was the last time you wrote something on paper with a pen, other
> than your name / other personal information / signature?
>
For me it was a shopping list a couple of hours ago. Also I often make 
drawings at work to either clear my mind or to explain something.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:21:46 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> To be fair, while the US is legendary for stupidity, there are plenty
>> of stupid people in other countries too. Visit any shop while the
>> computers are down and watch the poor checkout girl struggle to compute
>> £2.99 + £4.85. Watch, and sigh.
> 
>   Can you blame them?
> 
>   When was the last time you wrote something on paper with a pen, other
> than your name / other personal information / signature?

Well, I can't speak for Andy, but I do nearly every day.  I use a 
dayplanner and when I have many tasks to do, I find it an easier way to 
track stuff - and I don't have to worry about the battery dying on me.

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >    When was the last time you wrote something on paper with a pen, other
> > than your name / other personal information / signature?

> Lamentably, about 2 hours ago...

  I don't remember when was the last time I wrote something on paper.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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