A very interesting discussion so far.
David A. Heiser writes:
>Demming sounds like Karl Marx. In an ideal enlightened society Demmings
>approach would work. However the ideal enlightened society always comes
>apart because of greed.
>
>In a greedy, unenlightened, violent society, survival requires self
>preservation, gated communities, classification, defining categories (us vs
>them) and ranking of people.
I would argue that in a greedy unenlightened, violent society, survival
requires COOPERATION. And since grading (especially grading on a curve and
artificial scarcity of good grades) often encourages destructive levels of
competition instead of cooperation, this may work against our own survival.
This is starting to drift a bit, but perhaps it would be worth reflecting on
what is the most important real world skill that a statistician should have.
In my humble opinion, working well with others is the most important real
world skill. Does our current grading system encourage or discourage the
development of this skill?
Steve Simon, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Standard Disclaimer.
STATS - Steve's Attempt to Teach Statistics: http://www.cmh.edu/stats
