Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: A critique
Dear Ecolog readers and commenters, I'd like to take the opportunity to provide a very brief critique of the education portion of the now I've seen it all thread. In general, I think this forum makes a lot of assumptions based on little to no evidence. Below I will provide a few counterarguments and alternate hypotheses to the themes of poor attitude, ill prepared, and uninterested students. All the evidence cited below is from the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement, a higher education research institute that surveys 129 U.S. institutions at various degree levels. Several readers have commented that today’s student is less likely, or unable, to put together ideas from other classes. Some have claimed that institutions are even shifting from a liberal education to adhere to the wants of these “profession” driven agendas. The fact that 77% of freshman surveyed this year expect to “put together concepts from several courses on a report “often” or “very often” directly refutes several of these claims. As for liberal educations, one alternative hypothesis to the “shifting universities” idea is that more technically universities are being created to fill the demands of today’s information driven society, but that the sheer number of liberal arts colleges has actually remained static. As for the preparedness of students, to which one responder stated “students are certainly less prepared for college [today than in the past]”, I would like to point out that record numbers of students are taking AP and community college courses before graduating high school. Finally, on a scale of 1 to 6 with 6 being “very important”, nearly 90% of the approximately 15,000 freshman students surveyed this year answered 4,5, or 6 on the question: “how important is it that your university provide a challenging academic experience”. This tells me that today’s students are indeed interested in learning. For reference, many questions regarding student attitudes were centered on 3 with very few 5’s or 6’s. Again, this information and more can be found at: http://bcsse.iub.edu/pdf/BCSSE09%20Institutional%20Report%20%28bacc%29.pdf Thank you very much, Sarah Fann Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. - Fortune cookie From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert [cien...@silvert.org] Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 10:38 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective I think that Derek's older gentleman friend may have an idealistic view of why students went to college back in the remote 60's. When I entered college in 1954 (a good one, an Ivy League university) there was a reception for the scholarship students at which I met the Dean of Admissions. He immediately recognised me, to my great surprise. When I expressed shock that he could recognise me from a single photograph in a university with thousands of applicants he laughed and replied that I was especially memorable because of my reply to the question, Why do you wnt to go to Brown University?. My answer, which I thought straightforward but which was apparently unusual, was To get an education. I hardly believe that it became more common ten years later. Bill Silvert Brown '58 - Original Message - From: Derek Pursell dep1...@yahoo.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: sábado, 23 de Janeiro de 2010 6:20 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective A good friend of mine, an older gentleman who has worked as president for an environmental NGO in the northeast for years, put it to me in a particularly striking way. He said, and I am paraphrasing, In terms of education, the reality in America is that a lot of people are going to college who shouldn't. When I asked him to expound on his point, he said, Ideally, especially when I was going to university in the 60's, it was viewed as a way of getting an education and expanding your mind and interests. The fact it could lead to meaningful and satisfying work was an afterthought. The point was education. Today, it feels like many students, and others have said this too, are going for certification. Instead of education being the end, it is the means to something else, such as a job position. It isn't like I am saying that people should not try to educate themselves; what I am saying is that the trend towards mass production of education (which very obviously has led to some real shortcomings in quality) has damaged the overall education of many students, and that some people who are students shouldn't be; standards have dropped for entry to many universities, and it shows. After hearing his thoughts, I thought about all the students I had met as a student whom were there because their parents told them to go
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective
A good friend of mine, an older gentleman who has worked as president for an environmental NGO in the northeast for years, put it to me in a particularly striking way. He said, and I am paraphrasing, In terms of education, the reality in America is that a lot of people are going to college who shouldn't. When I asked him to expound on his point, he said, Ideally, especially when I was going to university in the 60's, it was viewed as a way of getting an education and expanding your mind and interests. The fact it could lead to meaningful and satisfying work was an afterthought. The point was education. Today, it feels like many students, and others have said this too, are going for certification. Instead of education being the end, it is the means to something else, such as a job position. It isn't like I am saying that people should not try to educate themselves; what I am saying is that the trend towards mass production of education (which very obviously has led to some real shortcomings in quality) has damaged the overall education of many students, and that some people who are students shouldn't be; standards have dropped for entry to many universities, and it shows. After hearing his thoughts, I thought about all the students I had met as a student whom were there because their parents told them to go and gave them the money to do so. Many of them didn't want to be there; they only knew that college was expected of them and they wouldn't resist being pushed into it, considering how many students these days treat college as an extension of high school. I realize that the opinions expressed here seem harsh and the evidence only anecdotal, but these are my personal observations. In the same breath, my former advising professor told me a story of a student years ago who came into his office angry. He asked the student why he was upset and he said he didn't want to be there. My professor pressed him and asked why, and he said it was because his old man was making him go to college. My professor informed him that he was an adult and didn't have to go to college if he didn't want to. The frustrated young man looked at him, nodded, thanked him, said goodbye, and as my former advisor professor testified, he never saw him again. It appears as if at least some people figure out on their own that college isn't for them, hm? - Derek E. Pursell --- On Fri, 1/22/10, Wayne Tyson landr...@cox.net wrote: From: Wayne Tyson landr...@cox.net Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Date: Friday, January 22, 2010, 9:14 PM Honorable Forum on Ecology and Education: This is one of the best threads I've read on Ecolog. There have been so many good points made from such a varied assemblage of participants that what we have here, is a high potential for actually communicating on a very important subject. Because it is important, comment can be touchy, but the quality of the responses has shown that most everybody has straddled the line between frankness and abusiveness pretty well. I, at least, think I've learned a lot. There are some aspects of this issue that have not been discussed, and I will offer some in the hopes I can learn whether or not there is sympathy, hostility, or neutrality out there. In the USA, we have a strong tradition of the concept of a free education. There is also a strong tradition that comes from pioneering, hard work, and an instinctive contempt for elitism and an embracing of the concept of a classless society. There is also a tradition born out of a strong sense of inferiority in the realm of letters. There can be little question that there is some truth and some exaggeration in all of these factors. It seems that higher education in the USA has developed more strongly and increasingly along the lines of specialization and preparation of marketable skills than a truly liberal education. There is an undercurrent that seems to imply that specialists needn't or shouldn't waste their time on irrelevant matters like literature and arts--humanities and other soft subjects. Increasingly, there seems to be more division than integration, as well as a growing trend, ironically, toward hybrid curricula that attempts a middle ground between hard and soft, resulting in an education that is neither fish nor fowl--but which provides a watered-down dose of science and humanities and degrees that satisfy the need for numerical expansion of universities at the expense of the kind of intensive devotion to intellectual development that, for example, was the strong meat upon which Darwin and other Caesars of the intellect doth fed (Latin and other languages, literature, mathematics, etc.). It involved a tradition, not of grinding though or even running the gauntlet, but one in which the goal was a fully integrated and competent and honest individual. This example
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective
I think that Derek's older gentleman friend may have an idealistic view of why students went to college back in the remote 60's. When I entered college in 1954 (a good one, an Ivy League university) there was a reception for the scholarship students at which I met the Dean of Admissions. He immediately recognised me, to my great surprise. When I expressed shock that he could recognise me from a single photograph in a university with thousands of applicants he laughed and replied that I was especially memorable because of my reply to the question, Why do you wnt to go to Brown University?. My answer, which I thought straightforward but which was apparently unusual, was To get an education. I hardly believe that it became more common ten years later. Bill Silvert Brown '58 - Original Message - From: Derek Pursell dep1...@yahoo.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: sábado, 23 de Janeiro de 2010 6:20 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective A good friend of mine, an older gentleman who has worked as president for an environmental NGO in the northeast for years, put it to me in a particularly striking way. He said, and I am paraphrasing, In terms of education, the reality in America is that a lot of people are going to college who shouldn't. When I asked him to expound on his point, he said, Ideally, especially when I was going to university in the 60's, it was viewed as a way of getting an education and expanding your mind and interests. The fact it could lead to meaningful and satisfying work was an afterthought. The point was education. Today, it feels like many students, and others have said this too, are going for certification. Instead of education being the end, it is the means to something else, such as a job position. It isn't like I am saying that people should not try to educate themselves; what I am saying is that the trend towards mass production of education (which very obviously has led to some real shortcomings in quality) has damaged the overall education of many students, and that some people who are students shouldn't be; standards have dropped for entry to many universities, and it shows. After hearing his thoughts, I thought about all the students I had met as a student whom were there because their parents told them to go and gave them the money to do so. Many of them didn't want to be there; they only knew that college was expected of them and they wouldn't resist being pushed into it, considering how many students these days treat college as an extension of high school. I realize that the opinions expressed here seem harsh and the evidence only anecdotal, but these are my personal observations. In the same breath, my former advising professor told me a story of a student years ago who came into his office angry. He asked the student why he was upset and he said he didn't want to be there. My professor pressed him and asked why, and he said it was because his old man was making him go to college. My professor informed him that he was an adult and didn't have to go to college if he didn't want to. The frustrated young man looked at him, nodded, thanked him, said goodbye, and as my former advisor professor testified, he never saw him again. It appears as if at least some people figure out on their own that college isn't for them, hm? - Derek E. Pursell
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective
. . . brisk rub, that provides the vital spark! --Alexander Reid Martin - Original Message - From: Frank Marenghi frank_maren...@hotmail.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 6:27 PM Subject: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education- student's perspective Venerable ECOLOGGERS, I actually once had a teacher tell me that the point of all in-class instruction was that at some point in the future when we entered “the real world” we would of already heard about some of the topics in lecture so that we may look them up. She said that it would be easier for us to learn about topics that we had already heard about than ones that were completely new (that part is probably true). Of course, I’ve forgotten who said that, now. There is also huge difference between classes that are required and electives. I learned more (and may have even gotten better grades, incidentally) in elective classes than required ones. I don't think I was alone in that. I wanted to be in the elective courses and I did not often have an interest in some of the required ones. I hear teachers lamenting about “all students care about are grades,” and “is this going to be on the exam,” and “exams are a barrier, not a challenge.” You know, they’re probably right. Exams are barriers. Degrees (or lack thereof) are barriers, at least they are considered as such by the general public – even by a lot of teachers. We are taught from a young age that the point of school is be done with school. How many commencement speeches have a “now you will be entering the real world” component? Why is being a student not real? School may be an obstacle to fuller, longer-lasting learning because of the systemic problems that have been so eloquently mentioned on this listserv (standardized exams, etc.) - not necessarily holistic or rubric-based approaches, which as a student, felt to be more fair and more rigorous at the same time). Although there is something inherently ironic about complaining about exams and then continuing to give and grade them. I do not mean to sound condescending at all, here. It is just that we will never eliminate the “is this going to be on the test?” question unless we eliminate the requirement of taking (and passing) tests, regardless of how sophisticated they may be. This mostly applies to “traditional age” students, right out of high school. Non-trads are completely different. Again, this is because they want to be there, not because it is part of their chores. I have not been out of school that long (28 y old and just graduated with a Master’s last year after taking some time off after undergrad) and I am confident that I have learned more on my own outside of school than I learned in school (and I learned a lot in school)! And I am talking about things of an academic nature, not to mention social, spiritual, etc. I enjoy learning, like most of the subscribers on this list, however it wasn’t until I was “through with school” that I had the most intellectual freedom. I have also noticed a decline in academic standards but, as with others, this could be because of simple changes in physical location, as I suspect much of it is. Some of my “graduate-level” courses, for example, were not as rigorous as some of my undergrad classes. I also had 4 years of “real-world” and research experience prior to going to grad school and I may have had a different perspective if I had taken them right out of college. I also felt that many of my fellow students probably shouldn’t have been in grad school and wouldn’t have gone years ago, but were nevertheless there because of a combination of “that’s what you’re supposed to do” and perhaps, lower standards for admission. Either way, there is a tremendous amount of variation between and among programs. I value education and like learning. Many of the students in advanced degree programs (including master’s) are there because of this “higher demand for education,” because politicians and administrators want them there, and because students (and their parents) are afraid they won’t be able to compete in the job market without that “piece of paper.” I don't think it is because they (or their parents) value education or love (or even like) learning. I don’t know how many times through school I’ve heard “D stands for Diploma.” Regards, Frank Marenghi Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:00:08 -0700 From: bangr...@isu.edu Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Now, perhaps, we need to consider the student's perspective. Since our culture values quantity over quality, is the student's attitude of just tell me what I need to know really that odd or unreasonable? Given that they are being shoveled massive amounts of information in several courses, not just one course, and need to finish in four years. Following this thread gives the impression
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
Dave has hit upon a major difference between today's students and those in the past: a strong tendency towards continuous multi-tasking, and failing to focus upon one thing at a time. For the last month or so I have been mentoring an undergraduate at KU who approached me for assistance with his study habits and learning skills, because despite putting in lots of hours of study time, this student still was not getting the grades desired (B's rather than A's). The first question I asked was, is the TV on while you are studying; the answer was yes. The second question was, is your iPhone also turned on, and do you text periodically during studying; the answer was yes. The third question was, is your computer open not only to your classes' PowerPoints, but also Internet Messaging, on which you actively chat while studying; the answer was yes. I suggested discontinuing all three distractions, and to focus instead on the job at hand: learning the material, without interruption. I also asked this student what he/she would think if a surgeon picked up a phone to text someone while performing surgery on a patient; predictably, the student shuddered, and said no. I think he/she got the point. However, I suspect that my youngest daughter (age 18) thinks that I am a Neanderthal when I try to tell her the same basic message (smile). Best wishes, Val Smith On 1/20/2010 10:22 PM, David M. Lawrence wrote: Why would this discussion give the impression that students are taking only one ecology course? To earn a bachelor's degree today, you have to take about 120 semester hours. To hear a bachelor's degree in the Archaean (when I was an undergrad), you had to about 120 semester hours. Textbooks were as large then as they are now (though today's books often have better graphics), and I know that the stuff shoveled per class today (at least in classes that I teach) approximately equals the stuff shoveled per class when I was an undergraduate. There are more distractions available today -- instead of three television channels, there are hundreds. Instead of landline phones, we have smartphones that can play albums and movies. Instead of Dungeons and Dragons, we have a host of electronic games and gaming systems, etc., etc., etc. Still, I should not lower my expectations of how students should perform today based on how poorly they manage their time. I'm sympathetic to students who have to work their way through school -- financial aid, or lack thereof, is a significant problem -- but it seems to me the adjustment should be on their part by taking lighter loads (12 hours per semester instead of 18) rather than me diluting the content and lowering the standards in MY class. Dave On 1/20/2010 12:00 PM, Randy Bangert wrote: Now, perhaps, we need to consider the student's perspective. Since our culture values quantity over quality, is the student's attitude of just tell me what I need to know really that odd or unreasonable? Given that they are being shoveled massive amounts of information in several courses, not just one course, and need to finish in four years. Following this thread gives the impression that students are only taking a single ecology course. randy = RK Bangert = -- Val H. Smith Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 USA 785-864-4565 FAX: 785-864-5321 e-mail: vsm...@ku.edu
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: IQ
In response to the suggestion that lack of money removes bright students from the college pool Jane Shevtsov wrote: I don't think this would be a very strong influence. Bright students with little money get financial aid, sometimes to the point of a free ride. It may be harder for middle-class students than for those who are poor, but still, schools compete to get the really good students. Schools compete for students with good grades, extracurricular accomplishments, and high exam scores. They do not compete directly for bright students. Students with low socioeconomic status (SES) do not get in (or stay in) four-year colleges and universities at the same rates as those with higher SES. On one hand there's bright. On the other hand there is well-prepared, well-tutored, and/or culturally adapted to the academic and bureaucratic environment of academia. The second set is less accessible to poor and middle class students. It certainly helps to be either, but being both works nicely. A central source for data on the topic: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/SurveyGroups.asp?group=2 Best, Krzysztof --- Krzysztof Sakrejda-Leavitt Organismic and Evolutionary Biology University of Massachusetts, Amherst 319 Morrill Science Center South 611 N. Pleasant Street Amherst, MA 01003 work #: 413-325-6555 email: sakre...@cns.umass.edu ---
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: IQ
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 6:02 PM, Fann, Sarah Lynn slf5...@uncw.edu wrote: Jane and rest of the ECOLOG listserve, Let's think critcally about the assumption that it is easy for bright students who are poor to get funding for college. If that were true, wouldn't we expect a significant portion of American children to be born poor, get educated, and thus rise up through the socio-economic ranks? However, isn't it a known trend that children born poor tend to stay poor and not get an education? Doesn't this trend directly contradict the assumption that it is easy for bright, poor students to get full funding for college? No, it doesn't, and I didn't say it was easy, just that even a free ride was possible. (I graduated from UCLA without paying a dime.) When I said bright, I wasn't referring to inborn intelligence but to the result of education. And that's the kicker. If a poor student has a solid high school program and good SAT scores, financial considerations are unlikely to prevent them from attending college. But few get the kind of K-12 education that will enable this. In regards to the middle-class, I find it interesting that you dropped the bright adjective to describe these students. Because Luanne's hypothesis was that cost was preventing TOP poor students from attending college, thus lowering overall performance. Does that mean that we expect all students from the middle-class to attend college? If that's true, than I expect it would be harder, on average, for middle-class students to get scholarships compared to poor students because 1) they represent a broader range of capabilities, and only those considered best are normally eligible for scholarships, and 2) there is a larger number of middle class students competing, thus the probability of any one middle-class student getting a scholarship is less. Exactly. Plus, middle class students get less need-based aid. Finally, if only a few bright poor students are getting into college, yet a larger range of IQ's from other socio-economic classes are getting into school, than that would lend support to Luanne's hypothesis. The trends of America's poor certainly seems to lead to the conclusion that few poor students are given the oppurtunity to attend college. On the other hand, it is almost expected that every middle or upper class child should attend college. There's no question that cost is a barrier to higher education, but that's not the question that was being discussed. The question was, roughly, Assuming there has been a decline in the average performance of college students in recent decades, can this decline be explained by rising college costs that prevent poor students with high IQs from attending college?. Therefore, only the situation faced by top-performing low-income students is relevant. Best, Jane _ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Jane Shevtsov [jane@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 10:47 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: IQ I don't think this would be a very strong influence. Bright students with little money get financial aid, sometimes to the point of a free ride. It may be harder for middle-class students than for those who are poor, but still, schools compete to get the really good students. Jane On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Luanne Roth ro...@citytel.net wrote: I have been wondering if the increase in the unequal distribution of wealth and the increased costs of higher education might be causing a large shift towards college students who fall into the middle of the bell curve. I recall reading at least one study which showed no relationship between wealth and IQ. If we are eliminating many high IQ students by income constraints and the bell curve has very little area under it at the high IQ end Luanne At 12:18 PM 1/18/2010, you wrote: I watched my evaluation scores decline when I switched to active learning. I got tired of lecturing from powerpoints that the students could memorize, regurgitate on tests, and quickly forget. Somehow, it was unreasonable for me to expect the students to show up for the lectures prepared and willing to participate in class discussions. It was even more unreasonable for me to refuse to just tell us what we need to know, when they couldn't answer very simple questions that I'd toss out to stimulate discussion. It was also unreasonable for me to expect them to ask questions relevant to the material we discussed in class. I had students complain they didn't learn anything from me, but it seems to me that if they weren't asking questions -- either in class, on class discussion boards, or via e-mail -- they couldn't have been trying very hard. Maybe I am unreasonable... Dave On 1/18/2010 12:17 PM, James Crants wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010
Re: [ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Martin (I apologize to all list members who might be offended and to the moderator for not being able to express myself more effectively), but it sounds to me like you are suggesting that we baffle 'em with b.s. If that is how providing help to activists works, then those some people are just as likely to be persuaded in an opposite direction by the next glib voice that comes along -- and that might (is very likely to be) the anti anti-environmental shill. I'm sorry that I can't agree that helping to keep people ignorant furthers any good cause. David Mc On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Martin Meiss wrote: It seems to me that many, though not all, posts on this thread are taking a rather narrow view of communication. When a scientist publishes an article describing his/her research, is this merely broadcasting methods, data, and interpretation? Of course not. Every utterance, spoken or written, has context and subtext. The very same article in different journals has different meaning because of context: it is paired with different articles, is seen as reflecting a different editorial philosophy, and has an audience that will interpret it differently. With regard to subtext, every scientific utterance characterizes the utterer, affects his/her ranking in the competitive sea of academic or corporate or even freelance science. It affects chances of getting tenure, promotions, prestige, pay raises, and dates on Friday night. Most writers will pick their words, consciously or unconsciously, with these social factors in mind. Sometimes that might favor stilted, pompous verbiage, sometimes concrete, to-the-point Anglo-Saxon karate chops. Is being hard to understand a bad thing when addressing the general public? Not necessarily, depending on what your goals are. Do you want the public to understand ecology, or do you want them to support your vision of environmental activism? These are not necessarily the same thing. Some part of your audience will be more impressed, more motivated, if you use words they don't understand, because they will think it proves you're really smart and must know what you're talking about, even if *they* don't. These people's votes count just as much as the votes of those with deeper insight. If you use familiar words that everyone understands, some of your audience will think, Hey, that's just common sense. Anybody knows that. This fellow's not so smart. They might *agree with you*, but it takes * inspiration* to make people go out and ring doorbells with petitions, or attend public hearings on environmental issues, or open their checkbooks. This is an area where pragmatism and idealism can well come to blows. What side are you on? Does it vary from time to time, or issue to issue? 2010/1/20 Jonathan Nelson As scientists, we should always consider the accuracy and precision of our work. Science is wondering and testing and sharing, over and over again. Our communication is part of the sharing phase; we must make sure our words convey our messages. Sometimes jargon, baroque phrasing, and other tools are appropriate, but we should only choose them when we need them (occasionally, for example, in short messages between specialists, or in deliberate signalling to an audience that the definition of a particular word is important). For me, convoluted phrases and dictionary words are often the result of laziness. I might be able to speak more clearly, but I'm hedging, avoiding a commitment to a meaning I'm not sure I'll support next week. Every time I notice myself speaking this way, I know I need to try harder: my message is weak, and my understanding might be weak too.
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
I don't think that students' education level has declined. 20-30 years ago, few high school students went to higher education, but now, having a bachelor degree is almost required for many jobs. In response to the demand for higher education, many universities increased school capacities, instead of limiting students. Consequently, we see more students who are unprepared in the classroom. If you believe in education, (I hope most of you are), then you have to work harder to raise students' level to the standard you believe in, by applying and developing various teaching techniques. I believe that's part of a college professor's job. If a professor just blames students for their unpreparedness and whatever, then I must say that the professor is also just lazy. By the way, I also have seen influx of so called just tell me what I need to know graduate students while I was at the graduate school. When I started about 20 years ago, all my graduate students peers came to the program because they were curious about ecology. Most of us stayed in the school till midnight 2-3 am, arguing about ecological theories in varieties of subjects. They chose research projects that were very difficult, time consuming, and probably far beyond thesis requirement. They worked until they were satisfied of their projects. Consequently, many students spent 7-10 years to finish and get the degree. By the time, I was about to graduate, popularity of ecology/conservation biology increased, and we had influx of students who just want to get a degree as soon as they can, so that they can do whatever with the earned degree. They were very smart, but their attitude was more like just tell me what I need to know to get the degree. They choose research p! rojects th at sure get sufficient results to write a thesis and graduate within 3-5 years, and they took only classes needed for their thesis projects. Needless to say, these new students did not mingle us old-timer graduate students at all. By the way, I saw nothing wrong with this change of attitudes. Toshihide Hamachan Hamazaki, PhD : 濱崎俊秀：浜ちゃん Alaska Department of Fish Game Division of Commercial Fisheries 333 Raspberry Rd. Anchorage, Alaska 99518 Ph: 907-267-2158 Fax: 907-267-2442 Cell: 907-440-9934 E-mail: toshihide.hamaz...@alaska.gov
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
I apologize for the zinger. I completely understand the rubric used to grade undergrads and appreciate the time and effort that it takes to do so. My point (that I so tackily stated) was that students understand this rubric and that is why they ask just tell me what I need to know. I believe that most students start at this point and then integrate this information into the larger context of the subject matter. Again, I apologize, but can we please be a less harsh with our generalizations about our students. The majority of them are trying to absorb what we are teaching them and not shoveling in, then purging information. -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Val Smith Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 6:14 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education Just for information's sake, more than a decade ago I helped to create the University of Kansas' Center for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.ku.edu), and like other teaching faculty at KU, I follow its well-thought-out, professional recommendations with regards to assuring the consistency and fairness of exam grading. The grading of 400 exams containing up to 3-4 short answers and 1-2 essays can take the better part of 12-15 hours or more even when we obtain the assistance of as many as ten highly knowledgeable grading assistants who are already serving as GTAs in the laboratory portion of the course. A grading rubric that defines the best or preferred answers to the questions in any exam is created and provided to all graders (which include the teachers of record): there can after all be only a small subset of completely correct answers to any given question, such as the correct direction of heat energy or material flows in counter-current exchange systems, or the correct direction of water flow in a plant's xylem, or the correct absolute value of Avogadro's number, or the correct equation for exponential population growth, or the correct balanced equation for photosynthesis, or the correct name for the enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of lactose, or the correct definition for gastrovascular cavity, or the major taxonomic characteristics that are considered to be unique to a specific Order of plants (I'm sure that you surely must see my point here). Typically one or two graders (including both of the faculty members who are the teachers of record) are then assigned a certain question, and exam grading proceeds. If there is any concern about a particular student's answer for any particular question, then the entire group stops and deliberates/discusses whether the particular answer under consideration was either correct (100% credit), partially correct (for partial credit), or incorrect (0% credit). The grading rubric is provided electronically to all students taking the course after the exam, and each student then has further recourse by making a formal appointment with the instructors of record to discuss any and all questions for which they might dispute the grading. Just curious: did you intend for your tone in this message to be as hostile to academia, and as intentionally and deliberately derogatory as I perceived it? If so, very tacky, and one might wonder whether you have ever bothered to read the literature on exam grading and learning assessment methods, or whether you have ever actually taught in the classroom? Please explain clearly to me, and also to the readers of ECOLOG, how the extremely lengthy, objective, completely transparent, and highly deliberative grading process above might constitute professorial laziness. It is unfortunately very easy in an electronic forum such as this to write a three-sentence zinger that is completely without basis or merit. Val H. Smith On 1/19/2010 2:29 PM, Meenan, James wrote: Let me see if I have this clear. You criticize students for asking you to just tell me what I need to know and then you grade their essay questions by using a rubric (tell me what I want to hear) that is interpreted by a GTA. Professorial laziness? -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Val Smith Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 9:28 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education Dave, you are not being unreasonable at all. The responses that you mention stem from intellectual laziness and/or short-term-oriented learning strategies. I, too, have had my students say, just tell me what I need to know, and it is very clear that they indeed wish to shovel in the information, play it back to me on an exam, and then purge it from their memory banks. The ideal of obtaining a broad education is largely irrelevant for a substantial portion of the student population, whose goal is simply to pass
Re: [ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
As scientists, we should always consider the accuracy and precision of our work. Science is wondering and testing and sharing, over and over again. Our communication is part of the sharing phase; we must make sure our words convey our messages. Sometimes jargon, baroque phrasing, and other tools are appropriate, but we should only choose them when we need them (occasionally, for example, in short messages between specialists, or in deliberate signalling to an audience that the definition of a particular word is important). For me, convoluted phrases and dictionary words are often the result of laziness. I might be able to speak more clearly, but I'm hedging, avoiding a commitment to a meaning I'm not sure I'll support next week. Every time I notice myself speaking this way, I know I need to try harder: my message is weak, and my understanding might be weak too.
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
Now, perhaps, we need to consider the student's perspective. Since our culture values quantity over quality, is the student's attitude of just tell me what I need to know really that odd or unreasonable? Given that they are being shoveled massive amounts of information in several courses, not just one course, and need to finish in four years. Following this thread gives the impression that students are only taking a single ecology course. randy = RK Bangert = On Jan 20, 2010, at 5:15 AM, Meenan, James wrote: I apologize for the zinger. I completely understand the rubric used to grade undergrads and appreciate the time and effort that it takes to do so. My point (that I so tackily stated) was that students understand this rubric and that is why they ask just tell me what I need to know. I believe that most students start at this point and then integrate this information into the larger context of the subject matter. Again, I apologize, but can we please be a less harsh with our generalizations about our students. The majority of them are trying to absorb what we are teaching them and not shoveling in, then purging information. -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Val Smith Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 6:14 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education Just for information's sake, more than a decade ago I helped to create the University of Kansas' Center for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.ku.edu), and like other teaching faculty at KU, I follow its well-thought-out, professional recommendations with regards to assuring the consistency and fairness of exam grading. The grading of 400 exams containing up to 3-4 short answers and 1-2 essays can take the better part of 12-15 hours or more even when we obtain the assistance of as many as ten highly knowledgeable grading assistants who are already serving as GTAs in the laboratory portion of the course. A grading rubric that defines the best or preferred answers to the questions in any exam is created and provided to all graders (which include the teachers of record): there can after all be only a small subset of completely correct answers to any given question, such as the correct direction of heat energy or material flows in counter-current exchange systems, or the correct direction of water flow in a plant's xylem, or the correct absolute value of Avogadro's number, or the correct equation for exponential population growth, or the correct balanced equation for photosynthesis, or the correct name for the enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of lactose, or the correct definition for gastrovascular cavity, or the major taxonomic characteristics that are considered to be unique to a specific Order of plants (I'm sure that you surely must see my point here). Typically one or two graders (including both of the faculty members who are the teachers of record) are then assigned a certain question, and exam grading proceeds. If there is any concern about a particular student's answer for any particular question, then the entire group stops and deliberates/discusses whether the particular answer under consideration was either correct (100% credit), partially correct (for partial credit), or incorrect (0% credit). The grading rubric is provided electronically to all students taking the course after the exam, and each student then has further recourse by making a formal appointment with the instructors of record to discuss any and all questions for which they might dispute the grading. Just curious: did you intend for your tone in this message to be as hostile to academia, and as intentionally and deliberately derogatory as I perceived it? If so, very tacky, and one might wonder whether you have ever bothered to read the literature on exam grading and learning assessment methods, or whether you have ever actually taught in the classroom? Please explain clearly to me, and also to the readers of ECOLOG, how the extremely lengthy, objective, completely transparent, and highly deliberative grading process above might constitute professorial laziness. It is unfortunately very easy in an electronic forum such as this to write a three-sentence zinger that is completely without basis or merit. Val H. Smith On 1/19/2010 2:29 PM, Meenan, James wrote: Let me see if I have this clear. You criticize students for asking you to just tell me what I need to know and then you grade their essay questions by using a rubric (tell me what I want to hear) that is interpreted by a GTA. Professorial laziness? -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Val
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
No question that the students face a great challenge. Let's hope so, anyway. BTW, finishing in four years doesn't seem to be the norm, what with working outside and other demands. Still remains the ideal I suppose, but not usual, at least in many state universities. David Mc On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Randy Bangert wrote: Now, perhaps, we need to consider the student's perspective. Since our culture values quantity over quality, is the student's attitude of just tell me what I need to know really that odd or unreasonable? Given that they are being shoveled massive amounts of information in several courses, not just one course, and need to finish in four years. Following this thread gives the impression that students are only taking a single ecology course. randy = RK Bangert = On Jan 20, 2010, at 5:15 AM, Meenan, James wrote: I apologize for the zinger. I completely understand the rubric used to grade undergrads and appreciate the time and effort that it takes to do so. My point (that I so tackily stated) was that students understand this rubric and that is why they ask just tell me what I need to know. I believe that most students start at this point and then integrate this information into the larger context of the subject matter. Again, I apologize, but can we please be a less harsh with our generalizations about our students. The majority of them are trying to absorb what we are teaching them and not shoveling in, then purging information. -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Val Smith Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 6:14 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education Just for information's sake, more than a decade ago I helped to create the University of Kansas' Center for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.ku.edu), and like other teaching faculty at KU, I follow its well-thought-out, professional recommendations with regards to assuring the consistency and fairness of exam grading. The grading of 400 exams containing up to 3-4 short answers and 1-2 essays can take the better part of 12-15 hours or more even when we obtain the assistance of as many as ten highly knowledgeable grading assistants who are already serving as GTAs in the laboratory portion of the course. A grading rubric that defines the best or preferred answers to the questions in any exam is created and provided to all graders (which include the teachers of record): there can after all be only a small subset of completely correct answers to any given question, such as the correct direction of heat energy or material flows in counter-current exchange systems, or the correct direction of water flow in a plant's xylem, or the correct absolute value of Avogadro's number, or the correct equation for exponential population growth, or the correct balanced equation for photosynthesis, or the correct name for the enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of lactose, or the correct definition for gastrovascular cavity, or the major taxonomic characteristics that are considered to be unique to a specific Order of plants (I'm sure that you surely must see my point here). Typically one or two graders (including both of the faculty members who are the teachers of record) are then assigned a certain question, and exam grading proceeds. If there is any concern about a particular student's answer for any particular question, then the entire group stops and deliberates/discusses whether the particular answer under consideration was either correct (100% credit), partially correct (for partial credit), or incorrect (0% credit). The grading rubric is provided electronically to all students taking the course after the exam, and each student then has further recourse by making a formal appointment with the instructors of record to discuss any and all questions for which they might dispute the grading. Just curious: did you intend for your tone in this message to be as hostile to academia, and as intentionally and deliberately derogatory as I perceived it? If so, very tacky, and one might wonder whether you have ever bothered to read the literature on exam grading and learning assessment methods, or whether you have ever actually taught in the classroom? Please explain clearly to me, and also to the readers of ECOLOG, how the extremely lengthy, objective, completely transparent, and highly deliberative grading process above might constitute professorial laziness. It is unfortunately very easy in an electronic forum such as this to write a three-sentence zinger that is completely without basis or merit. Val H. Smith On 1/19/2010 2:29 PM, Meenan, James wrote: Let me see if I have this clear. You criticize students for asking you to just tell me what I
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
Why would this discussion give the impression that students are taking only one ecology course? To earn a bachelor's degree today, you have to take about 120 semester hours. To hear a bachelor's degree in the Archaean (when I was an undergrad), you had to about 120 semester hours. Textbooks were as large then as they are now (though today's books often have better graphics), and I know that the stuff shoveled per class today (at least in classes that I teach) approximately equals the stuff shoveled per class when I was an undergraduate. There are more distractions available today -- instead of three television channels, there are hundreds. Instead of landline phones, we have smartphones that can play albums and movies. Instead of Dungeons and Dragons, we have a host of electronic games and gaming systems, etc., etc., etc. Still, I should not lower my expectations of how students should perform today based on how poorly they manage their time. I'm sympathetic to students who have to work their way through school -- financial aid, or lack thereof, is a significant problem -- but it seems to me the adjustment should be on their part by taking lighter loads (12 hours per semester instead of 18) rather than me diluting the content and lowering the standards in MY class. Dave On 1/20/2010 12:00 PM, Randy Bangert wrote: Now, perhaps, we need to consider the student's perspective. Since our culture values quantity over quality, is the student's attitude of just tell me what I need to know really that odd or unreasonable? Given that they are being shoveled massive amounts of information in several courses, not just one course, and need to finish in four years. Following this thread gives the impression that students are only taking a single ecology course. randy = RK Bangert = -- -- David M. Lawrence| Home: (804) 559-9786 7471 Brook Way Court | Fax: (804) 559-9787 Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: d...@fuzzo.com USA | http: http://fuzzo.com -- All drains lead to the ocean. -- Gill, Finding Nemo We have met the enemy and he is us. -- Pogo No trespassing 4/17 of a haiku -- Richard Brautigan
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: IQ
I have been wondering if the increase in the unequal distribution of wealth and the increased costs of higher education might be causing a large shift towards college students who fall into the middle of the bell curve. I recall reading at least one study which showed no relationship between wealth and IQ. If we are eliminating many high IQ students by income constraints and the bell curve has very little area under it at the high IQ end Luanne At 12:18 PM 1/18/2010, you wrote: I watched my evaluation scores decline when I switched to active learning. I got tired of lecturing from powerpoints that the students could memorize, regurgitate on tests, and quickly forget. Somehow, it was unreasonable for me to expect the students to show up for the lectures prepared and willing to participate in class discussions. It was even more unreasonable for me to refuse to just tell us what we need to know, when they couldn't answer very simple questions that I'd toss out to stimulate discussion. It was also unreasonable for me to expect them to ask questions relevant to the material we discussed in class. I had students complain they didn't learn anything from me, but it seems to me that if they weren't asking questions -- either in class, on class discussion boards, or via e-mail -- they couldn't have been trying very hard. Maybe I am unreasonable... Dave On 1/18/2010 12:17 PM, James Crants wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smithvsm...@ku.edu wrote: I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, John (not his real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair project, and /that this is all about learning science/! and she then turned to me to say, If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the chance that our child will win the Best Science Project award. That's unfair competition. And she walked away. As I was reading your post, I was hoping you would mention the role of parents in any decline in the quality of the American education. I think it started with the baby boom. After the Depression and World War II, parents wanted the best for their children, but by providing the best materially, many raised children with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance. When these children raised my generation, self-esteem was seen as the most important quality you could promote in a developing mind, so many of us grew up feeling even more entitled and important. Also, since self-important people like today's parents don't respect authority figures, parents now tend to side with their children over teachers when there is a student-teacher conflict. Worse, since the entire class is, on average, not as prepared as it should be to learn the material you're trying to teach, disgruntled students can look to low average performance for the whole class to assure themselves that it's your fault if they don't get high marks. With students and parents both blaming you for low grades, and a low class average apparently supporting their arguments, it's easiest to lower your expectations and standards. (And you'll probably get higher teaching evaluation scores if you do.) When you do, you end up passing on students who aren't prepared for the next level of education. I understand the importance of questioning authority, and Wendee Holtcamp's example of childbirth in American hospitals attests to that importance (though I believe the doctors rush the delivery because they're trained to believe it's best for the patient, not because they put their spare time ahead of patient care). However, there's an important distinction between questioning authority and assuming authority is wrong. With respect to the original conversation thread, while I certainly agree that it's a problem that people with the appearance of authority are making BS claims on television, I don't think that's the only major threat to scientific authority. Another threat is the widely-held perception that any scientist who thinks they know more than you do about their area of expertise is arrogant (and wrong). Because scientific knowledge is contingent on future results, scientists sometimes find themselves admitting that they were wrong about something. Unlike pundits or politicians, scientists can't blame
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
There is a lot of variation among journals in this regard. My first papers in the marine sciences appeared in the Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, now called the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, which was for many years a leading journal in the field (subsequently brought to its knees by the Ottawa mafia). It was a pleasure to write for and the editor, Cam Stevenson, loved to go to meetings and get to know his authors. They were flexible, and created new sections (such as Perspectives) to accomodate useful papers that were not traditional. I have however found that less distinguished journals are more likely to put on airs and make pretensions of being scientific - I try to avoid these, but have had some nasty experiences with journals that were asked to publish conference proceedings, such as the one I referred to a couple of days ago (cited below) which objected to my using cute and fuzzy instead of charismatic. An example of the harm this can do is reflected in an incident whre I was invited to be the opening speaker at a mini-symposium on the ecosystem effects of marine pollution. I gave an overview of the topic, then there was a series of case studies, and finally a summation by another invited speaker. When the papers wre submitted for publication the editor accepted all the case studies but rejected my talk and the summation on the grounds that they did not contain any data, and this journal has standards. The result was that a coherent program was reduced to a collection of unrelated research papers. A subsequent editor of the same journal agreed to publish the proceedings of a symposium on the ecosystem effects of fishing, but the symposium was so popular that the number of papers exceeded the publication budget and and many had to be rejected simply because of lack of space. I suggested that the overflow be published on the web, but he sniffed that web-based publications are worthless and he would not stoop to that. (He did however publish the paper I coauthored, which can be found along with most of my other papers on the web at http://bill.silvert.org) I think that this kind of attitude reflects a much more general social phenomenon. The priests who guard the temple of science are like mediocrities everywhere, they feel a need to assert their status constantly. Those who are self-confident can afford to be more flexible. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: segunda-feira, 18 de Janeiro de 2010 21:19 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all I'm well aware of the pressures to write badly -- bad writers who don't realize how bad they are tend to make bad editors who want everyone else to sink to their level. A lot of the conflict is the pressure to maintain the elite priesthood versus one of the alleged purposes of science, i.e., to communicate ideas and data. Members of the priesthood do not usually realize that their efforts generally do more to undermine science than to promote it. Look at the often negative treatment given to excellent scientists/communicators by their scientific colleagues. It's not unusual for someone who writes a wildly popular (and informative) book, or hosts a wildly popular (and informative) to get a hostile reaction from purist colleagues. Don't get me started about scientists who think it's beneath them to speak to their public information staff, much less the press as a whole. Sure, journalists screw up, but they don't screw up all the time and they would screw up less if they had more cooperation from the source. Besides, given the source of most of the research funding in many disciplines, scientists have an obligation to reach out to the people paying the tab -- i.e., THE PEOPLE. I offer an anecdote about the discomfort too many in the sciences have with speaking in terms understandable by the masses. My first book, Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution, seemed a natural choice for a review in Eos (Transactions of the American Geophysical Union). The editors declined to review it because it wasn't technical enough. Now, I've been attending scientific meetings off-and-on for three decades now, and I know what kinds of stories scientists tell each other about themselves and their colleagues once they've knocked a few back. I have to say I found the editors' reasoning rather at variance with the facts. Later, Dave On 1/18/2010 4:42 AM, William Silvert wrote: Perhaps then David has managed to escape some of the pressures put on scientists to write badly. On several occasions I have been accused of writing scientific papers in a journalistic style and told that this is not acceptable. Although my reply is usually along the lines of, Aren't journalists the people who are forced to take courses on how to write?, this never
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all -- IQ and SAT Scores
Also, SAT/ACT tests as recently as the 1980's were not required by all schools, especially if you had stellar grades. When I applied to undergrad, if you were in the upper 10% you didn't need to take the test. Now, virtually everyone takes it. Seems like you could get an increase as more and more schools adopted it for all students. This might not only hide the supposed increase, but even create enough noise to miss a decrease! Furthermore, in the case of the ACT didn't they redesign the test in the 90's? And the SAT has been redone several times, and even been subject to racial biases (historically) that no longer appear present. Combine problems with racial biases with the above problem of fewer top students taking it and any increase could be completely cosmetic! On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:36 AM, Ken Leonard kleon...@uga.edu wrote: Jane Shevtsov wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Alyson Mack alym...@gmail.com wrote: the sad truth is, our children ARE becoming more stupid every year. The fact Do you have any evidence for this claim? IQ scores have been rising pretty steadily for a century. (Look up the Flynn effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect.) SAT scores are the highest they've been since the 1960s, although a somewhat larger percentage of high school students are taking the test. There are always fluctuations, but are there any measures of intelligence that have been showing a consistent decline? It is my understanding that IQ tests in general and SAT are both normalized to the community. So far as that is true, I must wonder what a student today would score on the IQ test or SAT of forty years ago? ...and what the student of forty years ago would score on today's IQ test or SAT? I even wonder about myself: In Spring 1963 (Junior in high school) I scored 1600 on the SAT (then only two sections of test) and in Spring 2005 I scored 1595 on the GRE (also then only two sections of test). What would my 17-year old self score on SAT in 2009? What would my 21-year old self have scored on GRE in 1967? -- Ken Leonard, Ph.D. Candidate The University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology (Bradford Lab) 517 Biological Sciences Bldg. Athens, GA 30602 US Contrary to populist opinion, facts are not established by populist opinion. -- after Don Watson, ISPE kleon...@uga.edu, ken_leon...@earthlink.net http://kleonard.myweb.uga.edu/ 1+404.307.6425 -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
Dave, you are not being unreasonable at all. The responses that you mention stem from intellectual laziness and/or short-term-oriented learning strategies. I, too, have had my students say, just tell me what I need to know, and it is very clear that they indeed wish to shovel in the information, play it back to me on an exam, and then purge it from their memory banks. The ideal of obtaining a broad education is largely irrelevant for a substantial portion of the student population, whose goal is simply to pass their exams and to get acceptable grades /*now*/. They also consistently ask me to prune or restrict the lecture content: if a fact, concept, or idea will not appear on the MCAT, for example, it is deemed irrelevant because it does not help with their short-term goals (these same students forget that my General Biology course is required of all Biological Science majors, and not just pre-Health Science majors). This problem is particularly apparent during the general botany and the general ecology portions of my 400-student General Biology class, but I help them to /*see*/ the relevance of this material by, for example, pointing out that the human gut is functionally an ecosystem whose microflora obeys the known principles of population and community ecology. One could equally well create teaching slides which refer to the literature that links ecological principles to outbreaks of Lyme disease, or other human pathogens. If you /*show*/ them how and why a key concept or fact is relevant, they are less likely to complain about it. I have stopped pandering to this attitude entirely: I have stuck with question-driven, active learning methods, and I simply accept the increased probability that I will likely receive lower evaluation scores. I also make it very clear within the formal wording of my syllabus that mine is a very demanding and highly interactive class, and that all exams will be based upon a mix of multiple choice + short answer + essay questions (even in the 400-student class; we hire GTAs to grade the short answer and essay sections of these exams after providing each of them with a formal grading rubric). If they choose not to enroll, and wish to wait for a semester when my course has a different professor, then that is their own personal choice. My teaching rigor has not stopped students from nominating me for the best teaching awards that KU offers (some of which I have indeed won), confirming that the student population still contains a significant number of students (including pre-Health Science) who really /*do*/ care about learning, and who respect my methods. Thankfully, I have and am completely supported by an Upper Administration at KU that strongly believes in teaching rigor, and thus I do not risk reprisals; I fear that this is not always the case in every U.S. university or college, however. Best wishes, Val Smith University of Kansas On 1/18/2010 2:18 PM, David M. Lawrence wrote: I watched my evaluation scores decline when I switched to active learning. I got tired of lecturing from powerpoints that the students could memorize, regurgitate on tests, and quickly forget. Somehow, it was unreasonable for me to expect the students to show up for the lectures prepared and willing to participate in class discussions. It was even more unreasonable for me to refuse to just tell us what we need to know, when they couldn't answer very simple questions that I'd toss out to stimulate discussion. It was also unreasonable for me to expect them to ask questions relevant to the material we discussed in class. I had students complain they didn't learn anything from me, but it seems to me that if they weren't asking questions -- either in class, on class discussion boards, or via e-mail -- they couldn't have been trying very hard. Maybe I am unreasonable... Dave On 1/18/2010 12:17 PM, James Crants wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smithvsm...@ku.edu wrote: I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, John (not his real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair project, and /that this is all about learning science/! and she then turned to me to say, If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
I've been teaching college biology and ecology for more than 20 yrs, and I'm not convinced that this supposed decline in student preparedness and attitudes is real. I've always had a mix of poorly- prepared, bad attitude students and well-prepared, intellectually adventurous ones. Of course, that's just another piece of anecdotal evidence. Where are the data that show education is really getting worse? Charles Charles W. Welden Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies Southern Oregon University Ashland, OR USA 97520 wel...@sou.edu 541.552.6868 (voice) 541.552.6415 (fax) On Jan 19, 2010, at 6:28 AM, Val Smith wrote: Dave, you are not being unreasonable at all. The responses that you mention stem from intellectual laziness and/or short-term- oriented learning strategies. I, too, have had my students say, just tell me what I need to know, and it is very clear that they indeed wish to shovel in the information, play it back to me on an exam, and then purge it from their memory banks. The ideal of obtaining a broad education is largely irrelevant for a substantial portion of the student population, whose goal is simply to pass their exams and to get acceptable grades /*now*/. They also consistently ask me to prune or restrict the lecture content: if a fact, concept, or idea will not appear on the MCAT, for example, it is deemed irrelevant because it does not help with their short-term goals (these same students forget that my General Biology course is required of all Biological Science majors, and not just pre-Health Science majors). This problem is particularly apparent during the general botany and the general ecology portions of my 400-student General Biology class, but I help them to /*see*/ the relevance of this material by, for example, pointing out that the human gut is functionally an ecosystem whose microflora obeys the known principles of population and community ecology. One could equally well create teaching slides which refer to the literature that links ecological principles to outbreaks of Lyme disease, or other human pathogens. If you /*show*/ them how and why a key concept or fact is relevant, they are less likely to complain about it. I have stopped pandering to this attitude entirely: I have stuck with question-driven, active learning methods, and I simply accept the increased probability that I will likely receive lower evaluation scores. I also make it very clear within the formal wording of my syllabus that mine is a very demanding and highly interactive class, and that all exams will be based upon a mix of multiple choice + short answer + essay questions (even in the 400- student class; we hire GTAs to grade the short answer and essay sections of these exams after providing each of them with a formal grading rubric). If they choose not to enroll, and wish to wait for a semester when my course has a different professor, then that is their own personal choice. My teaching rigor has not stopped students from nominating me for the best teaching awards that KU offers (some of which I have indeed won), confirming that the student population still contains a significant number of students (including pre-Health Science) who really /*do*/ care about learning, and who respect my methods. Thankfully, I have and am completely supported by an Upper Administration at KU that strongly believes in teaching rigor, and thus I do not risk reprisals; I fear that this is not always the case in every U.S. university or college, however. Best wishes, Val Smith University of Kansas On 1/18/2010 2:18 PM, David M. Lawrence wrote: I watched my evaluation scores decline when I switched to active learning. I got tired of lecturing from powerpoints that the students could memorize, regurgitate on tests, and quickly forget. Somehow, it was unreasonable for me to expect the students to show up for the lectures prepared and willing to participate in class discussions. It was even more unreasonable for me to refuse to just tell us what we need to know, when they couldn't answer very simple questions that I'd toss out to stimulate discussion. It was also unreasonable for me to expect them to ask questions relevant to the material we discussed in class. I had students complain they didn't learn anything from me, but it seems to me that if they weren't asking questions -- either in class, on class discussion boards, or via e-mail -- they couldn't have been trying very hard. Maybe I am unreasonable... Dave On 1/18/2010 12:17 PM, James Crants wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smithvsm...@ku.edu wrote: I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
Try the Socratic Method sometime. I did, for my entire career of 40 years. But, it was not popular, though I was sometimes (and sometimes definitely not) a popular instructor. The general word was that I refused to answer questions (because I responded with questions intended to elicit better understanding). I did not refuse to answer questions, I chose to lead students to the answer or to the skills needed to find the answer. I had great success with some, but it was like pulling teeth with most, and a good many were too willing to give up. It worked best in a laboratory situation. I had resolved early on that, patterned after a mentor whom I admired greatly, I would use active learning primarily, and I assigned groups to investigate and so on. For sanity and survival I had to revert to more traditional lecture format for a lot of the teaching I did, but I always tried to mix in more active, including Socratic, approaches. Of course, lab is the place where that was easiest to accomplish, but for students trained to follow a cook book, that was sometimes difficult, too. The inevitable question (when extension of content went beyond what students expected) of, Will this be on the test, was also a challenge to my commitment. For the average to moderately good student the bottom line to any course always seemed to be the test, not taken as a challenge, but as a barrier. Oh well. All in all, I enjoyed teaching. It was just frustrating at times. I miss it a lot, btw. David McNeely On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:18 PM, David M. Lawrence wrote: I watched my evaluation scores decline when I switched to active learning. I got tired of lecturing from powerpoints that the students could memorize, regurgitate on tests, and quickly forget. Somehow, it was unreasonable for me to expect the students to show up for the lectures prepared and willing to participate in class discussions. It was even more unreasonable for me to refuse to just tell us what we need to know, when they couldn't answer very simple questions that I'd toss out to stimulate discussion. It was also unreasonable for me to expect them to ask questions relevant to the material we discussed in class. I had students complain they didn't learn anything from me, but it seems to me that if they weren't asking questions -- either in class, on class discussion boards, or via e-mail -- they couldn't have been trying very hard. Maybe I am unreasonable... Dave On 1/18/2010 12:17 PM, James Crants wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smith wrote: I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, John (not his real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair project, and /that this is all about learning science/! and she then turned to me to say, If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the chance that our child will win the Best Science Project award. That's unfair competition. And she walked away. As I was reading your post, I was hoping you would mention the role of parents in any decline in the quality of the American education. I think it started with the baby boom. After the Depression and World War II, parents wanted the best for their children, but by providing the best materially, many raised children with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance. When these children raised my generation, self-esteem was seen as the most important quality you could promote in a developing mind, so many of us grew up feeling even more entitled and important. Also, since self-important people like today's parents don't respect authority figures, parents now tend to side with their children over teachers when there is a student-teacher conflict. Worse, since the entire class is, on average, not as prepared as it should be to learn the material you're trying to teach, disgruntled students can look to low average performance for the whole class to assure themselves that it's your fault if they don't get high marks. With students and parents both blaming you for low grades, and a low class average apparently supporting their arguments, it's easiest to lower your expectations and standards. (And you'll probably get higher teaching evaluation scores if you do.) When you do, you
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
Just for information's sake, more than a decade ago I helped to create the University of Kansas' Center for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.ku.edu), and like other teaching faculty at KU, I follow its well-thought-out, professional recommendations with regards to assuring the consistency and fairness of exam grading. The grading of 400 exams containing up to 3-4 short answers and 1-2 essays can take the better part of 12-15 hours or more even when we obtain the assistance of as many as ten highly knowledgeable grading assistants who are already serving as GTAs in the laboratory portion of the course. A grading rubric that defines the best or preferred answers to the questions in any exam is created and provided to all graders (which include the teachers of record): there can after all be only a small subset of completely correct answers to any given question, such as the correct direction of heat energy or material flows in counter-current exchange systems, or the correct direction of water flow in a plant's xylem, or the correct absolute value of Avogadro's number, or the correct equation for exponential population growth, or the correct balanced equation for photosynthesis, or the correct name for the enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of lactose, or the correct definition for gastrovascular cavity, or the major taxonomic characteristics that are considered to be unique to a specific Order of plants (I'm sure that you surely must see my point here). Typically one or two graders (including both of the faculty members who are the teachers of record) are then assigned a certain question, and exam grading proceeds. If there is any concern about a particular student's answer for any particular question, then the entire group stops and deliberates/discusses whether the particular answer under consideration was either correct (100% credit), partially correct (for partial credit), or incorrect (0% credit). The grading rubric is provided electronically to all students taking the course after the exam, and each student then has further recourse by making a formal appointment with the instructors of record to discuss any and all questions for which they might dispute the grading. Just curious: did you intend for your tone in this message to be as hostile to academia, and as intentionally and deliberately derogatory as I perceived it? If so, very tacky, and one might wonder whether you have ever bothered to read the literature on exam grading and learning assessment methods, or whether you have ever actually taught in the classroom? Please explain clearly to me, and also to the readers of ECOLOG, how the extremely lengthy, objective, completely transparent, and highly deliberative grading process above might constitute professorial laziness. It is unfortunately very easy in an electronic forum such as this to write a three-sentence zinger that is completely without basis or merit. Val H. Smith On 1/19/2010 2:29 PM, Meenan, James wrote: Let me see if I have this clear. You criticize students for asking you to just tell me what I need to know and then you grade their essay questions by using a rubric (tell me what I want to hear) that is interpreted by a GTA. Professorial laziness? -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Val Smith Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 9:28 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education Dave, you are not being unreasonable at all. The responses that you mention stem from intellectual laziness and/or short-term-oriented learning strategies. I, too, have had my students say, just tell me what I need to know, and it is very clear that they indeed wish to shovel in the information, play it back to me on an exam, and then purge it from their memory banks. The ideal of obtaining a broad education is largely irrelevant for a substantial portion of the student population, whose goal is simply to pass their exams and to get acceptable grades /*now*/. They also consistently ask me to prune or restrict the lecture content: if a fact, concept, or idea will not appear on the MCAT, for example, it is deemed irrelevant because it does not help with their short-term goals (these same students forget that my General Biology course is required of all Biological Science majors, and not just pre-Health Science majors). This problem is particularly apparent during the general botany and the general ecology portions of my 400-student General Biology class, but I help them to /*see*/ the relevance of this material by, for example, pointing out that the human gut is functionally an ecosystem whose microflora obeys the known principles of population and community ecology. One could equally well create teaching slides which refer to the literature that links ecological principles to outbreaks of Lyme
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
I can't imagine what data could objectively show whether education has gotten worse. Education has changed with changes in both technology and education theory. Even if standardized tests (and the pool of students taking them) had not changed, scores on them probably would, yet those changes in scores might have nothing to do with changes in the quality of education. Rather, the changes could reflect the changing relevance of the skills and knowledge the tests were intended to assess. Snopes.com has an example of a supposed graduation test for eighth graders in Kansas in 1895 that most of us on this list would probably fail. If the exam really served the purpose described, its difficulty mostly reflects the steady shift in the skills and knowledge considered important for an educated person over the past 115 years (e.g., few of us need to know how big an acre or a rod is, and we can look it up if needed). Charles may be right that there is no real decline in student preparedness and attitudes. I taught labs and discussions for just 10 years, and the changes I saw in student attitudes over that time could be due to differences between students in Wisconsin, where I started, and Michigan, where I finished. My perceptions have been reinforced by the anecdotes of professors with much longer teaching careers, but I don't expect to ever see any more persuasive evidence for a decline in standards or attitudes. Maybe it's best to go with the adage that most people rise or sink to meet your expectations, so you should keep your expectations high, in the best interest of your students. Jim Crants On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Charles Welden wel...@sou.edu wrote: I've been teaching college biology and ecology for more than 20 yrs, and I'm not convinced that this supposed decline in student preparedness and attitudes is real. I've always had a mix of poorly-prepared, bad attitude students and well-prepared, intellectually adventurous ones. Of course, that's just another piece of anecdotal evidence. Where are the data that show education is really getting worse? Charles Charles W. Welden Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies Southern Oregon University Ashland, OR USA 97520 wel...@sou.edu 541.552.6868 (voice) 541.552.6415 (fax) On Jan 19, 2010, at 6:28 AM, Val Smith wrote: Dave, you are not being unreasonable at all. The responses that you mention stem from intellectual laziness and/or short-term-oriented learning strategies. I, too, have had my students say, just tell me what I need to know, and it is very clear that they indeed wish to shovel in the information, play it back to me on an exam, and then purge it from their memory banks. The ideal of obtaining a broad education is largely irrelevant for a substantial portion of the student population, whose goal is simply to pass their exams and to get acceptable grades /*now*/. They also consistently ask me to prune or restrict the lecture content: if a fact, concept, or idea will not appear on the MCAT, for example, it is deemed irrelevant because it does not help with their short-term goals (these same students forget that my General Biology course is required of all Biological Science majors, and not just pre-Health Science majors). This problem is particularly apparent during the general botany and the general ecology portions of my 400-student General Biology class, but I help them to /*see*/ the relevance of this material by, for example, pointing out that the human gut is functionally an ecosystem whose microflora obeys the known principles of population and community ecology. One could equally well create teaching slides which refer to the literature that links ecological principles to outbreaks of Lyme disease, or other human pathogens. If you /*show*/ them how and why a key concept or fact is relevant, they are less likely to complain about it. I have stopped pandering to this attitude entirely: I have stuck with question-driven, active learning methods, and I simply accept the increased probability that I will likely receive lower evaluation scores. I also make it very clear within the formal wording of my syllabus that mine is a very demanding and highly interactive class, and that all exams will be based upon a mix of multiple choice + short answer + essay questions (even in the 400-student class; we hire GTAs to grade the short answer and essay sections of these exams after providing each of them with a formal grading rubric). If they choose not to enroll, and wish to wait for a semester when my course has a different professor, then that is their own personal choice. My teaching rigor has not stopped students from nominating me for the best teaching awards that KU offers (some of which I have indeed won), confirming that the student population still contains a significant number of students (including pre-Health Science) who really /*do*/ care about
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Perhaps then David has managed to escape some of the pressures put on scientists to write badly. On several occasions I have been accused of writing scientific papers in a journalistic style and told that this is not acceptable. Although my reply is usually along the lines of, Aren't journalists the people who are forced to take courses on how to write?, this never seems to sink in. On one occasion my lab director even sniffed that a paper I had written read like something that might appear in Scientific American. I was flattered but forced to change it. My favourite example was the time I wrote a paper in which I argued that we have to teach the public that there is more to biodiversity than cute harp seals and fuzzy pandas, and the reviewer complained that if I knew how to write a scientific paper I would know that words like cute and fuzzy are unacceptable, and I should have referred to charismatic megafauna. I even had a T-shirt made up with the message I brake for charismatic megafauna. Fortunately a few papers I wrote on applications of fuzzy set theory to ecology made it into print. I once wrote a paper presenting a general theory of managing multi-species fisheries, and was informed (see, passive voice!) that the journal required that the Latin names of the species had to be included. Given the generality of the theory, I provided the names Squid pro quo and Dolus fictus, but was eventually forced to use the generic names species A and species B. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 18:44 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely nothing to lower the quality or the beauty of the writing. Some of the greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in the form of haiku -- 17 syllables. Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable substitutes.
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
There is a reason for using long words when writing in a foreign language, although I do not know whether it is relevant to native Chinese-speakers. Long words are often easier to learn in a foreign language because they fit in a pattern of cognates. This is especially true for words based on Latin since there are cognates in so many European tongues. Once you encounter the various patterns it is easy to guess at how to translate occupation into French, Italian Spanish or Portuguese, but coming up with short words equivalent to job takes more effort. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Cara Lin Bridgman cara@msa.hinet.net To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 10:16 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all Orwell, via Jane Shevsov, makes excellent points. These are points I keep trying to make to my students who are Taiwanese, but have to write papers in English. An aunt of mine, who teaches writing classes to American college students has noticed a tendency to use long words when there are plenty of short words that are as good or better.
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
I agree with David's comment about the dubiousness of using standardized test scores as a measure of the success of learning. Speaking as an American student whom has been subjected to standardized tests for most of his academic life, there are primarily two things that taking these tests teach you; how to memorize a lot of information, and how to reason the correct answer from a multiple choice question when you don't have the slightest idea otherwise. I suppose you could call it professional guesstimation; regardless of how it is labeled, it is a poor way to test students. Taking standardized tests removes the joy from expressing what you have learned by filtering down everything into four bubbles, one of which is correct. A child that has learned how to color in circles statistically has a chance to pass one of these tests. It is a joke; one that isn't funny. I believe the standardized testing system should be greatly revised, but how do you go about making those kinds of changes when there is so much money and political will behind the standardized tests as they exist? - Derek E. Pursell --- On Sun, 1/17/10, David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com wrote: From: David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Date: Sunday, January 17, 2010, 1:44 PM As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely nothing to lower the quality or the beauty of the writing. Some of the greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in the form of haiku -- 17 syllables. Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable substitutes. You do not serve the reader well when you force him or her to run to the dictionary every two or three sentences. You do not serve science well when your writing is so full of specialized jargon that only the select few initiates into the priesthood can understand understand it. I remember reading some historical stuff about Latin, the mass, and the Bible, and controlling the masses by denying them access to (and personal understanding of) the founding documents of their faith. At a time when an improved public understanding science is necessary, I would strongly argue that scientists take heed of Orwell's recommendations. Even if you are only thinking of communication among scientists in an interdisciplinary research program -- arguing for the sanctification of inscrutable writing does not further that goal. The problem today is not that Hemingway's style gained favor over Faulkner's, the problem is that students are not getting sufficient training in reading and writing, period. I place a lot of the blame on the fetish built up around standardized testing -- teaching students to memorize trivia that can be easily regurgitated on a multiple-choice test does little to prepare them for the time when they'll be called upon to detect and interpret patterns, to relate observations of unfamiliar phenomena to phenomena that is known and understood, to string together a coherent thought. The simple numbers -- test scores -- may arouse politicians and educational administrators, but the numbers and the process used to produce them seem to me to work against the development of a well educated population. Dave On 1/16/2010 11:57 PM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: Yes, it would be interesting to see some scans of the book, although somebody who has actually taken a college-level health class would be better positioned than I am to compare the book to modern ones. Your points about vocabulary and reading comprehension are interesting and I have to thank you for inspiring me to read the whole of Orwell's Politics and the English Language. I'll quote some passages at length here, because it seems to me that similar advice is responsible for a large part of the changes you talk about. (Of course, pedagogical philosophies also played a role.) I don't want to place the blame entirely, or even largely, on Orwell, but he exemplifies a movement toward deliberate simplification of language. Here are two of Orwell's complaints. Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give
Re: [ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
My very wise adviser many years ago told me that whenever I was speaking formally, at a meeting or in a seminar, there would be someone I could see who looked as if he or she wondered, What in the world am I doing here? I have no idea what these people are saying. My job was to make sure that person clearly understood everything I said. David McNeely On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 8:08 PM, David M. Lawrence wrote: Forwarded at Henshel's request... Original Message Subject:Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:56:25 -0500 From: Diane S. Henshel To: David M. Lawrence CC: ECOLOG-L@listserv.umd.edu Thank you David, I agree with you. One reason that scientists need to learn to write clearly, as laid out by Orwell, is so that we can communicate with non-scientists. We need to train new scientists who need not have a language barrier on top of the information barrier. We need to convince society that the science results are important and relevant. We need to make sure that regulators think that our science is worth funding! Writing clearly is very important, even in our peer reviewed journal articles. Scientific writing needs to be clear for communication between scientists as well. As we slowly emerge from our narrow fields to start working interdisciplinarily, we can learn about potentially relevant work in other fields much more quickly if we also do not have to overcome the jargon-filled science-speak barrier we create around our narrow disciplines. Science-speak is a great way to help us feel like we are a member of the in crowd or that we have learned something with all of this time spent doing research (See - I can talk circles around you and you don't even understand what I am saying!), but is a terrible way to communicate our scientific knowledge and understanding to others, including to scientists in other disciplines. And science-speak, unfortunately, also contributes to the generation of multiple, sometimes apparently contradictory, definitions for the same term. All too often two scientists seem to be talking at odds until someone stops and says, wait, what do you mean by x. Once terms are defined, and differential uses of the same term are clarified, it seems to me that many apparent disagreements evaporate. Unfortunately, the lay public only sees (and remembers) the apparent disagreements, and neither notices nor cares that these disagreements are sometimes simply based on semantic differences. Diane Henshel On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 1:44 PM, David M. Lawrence wrote: As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely nothing to lower the quality or the beauty of the writing. Some of the greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in the form of haiku -- 17 syllables. Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable substitutes. You do not serve the reader well when you force him or her to run to the dictionary every two or three sentences. You do not serve science well when your writing is so full of specialized jargon that only the select few initiates into the priesthood can understand understand it. I remember reading some historical stuff about Latin, the mass, and the Bible, and controlling the masses by denying them access to (and personal understanding of) the founding documents of their faith. At a time when an improved public understanding science is necessary, I would strongly argue that scientists take heed of Orwell's recommendations. Even if you are only thinking of communication among scientists in an interdisciplinary research program -- arguing for the sanctification of inscrutable writing does not further that goal. The problem today is not that Hemingway's style gained favor over Faulkner's, the problem is that students are not getting sufficient training in reading and writing, period. I place a lot of the blame on the fetish built up around standardized testing -- teaching students to memorize trivia that can be easily regurgitated on a multiple-choice test does little to prepare them for the time when they'll be called upon to detect and interpret patterns, to relate observations of unfamiliar phenomena to phenomena that is known
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smith vsm...@ku.edu wrote: I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, John (not his real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair project, and /that this is all about learning science/! and she then turned to me to say, If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the chance that our child will win the Best Science Project award. That's unfair competition. And she walked away. As I was reading your post, I was hoping you would mention the role of parents in any decline in the quality of the American education. I think it started with the baby boom. After the Depression and World War II, parents wanted the best for their children, but by providing the best materially, many raised children with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance. When these children raised my generation, self-esteem was seen as the most important quality you could promote in a developing mind, so many of us grew up feeling even more entitled and important. Also, since self-important people like today's parents don't respect authority figures, parents now tend to side with their children over teachers when there is a student-teacher conflict. Worse, since the entire class is, on average, not as prepared as it should be to learn the material you're trying to teach, disgruntled students can look to low average performance for the whole class to assure themselves that it's your fault if they don't get high marks. With students and parents both blaming you for low grades, and a low class average apparently supporting their arguments, it's easiest to lower your expectations and standards. (And you'll probably get higher teaching evaluation scores if you do.) When you do, you end up passing on students who aren't prepared for the next level of education. I understand the importance of questioning authority, and Wendee Holtcamp's example of childbirth in American hospitals attests to that importance (though I believe the doctors rush the delivery because they're trained to believe it's best for the patient, not because they put their spare time ahead of patient care). However, there's an important distinction between questioning authority and assuming authority is wrong. With respect to the original conversation thread, while I certainly agree that it's a problem that people with the appearance of authority are making BS claims on television, I don't think that's the only major threat to scientific authority. Another threat is the widely-held perception that any scientist who thinks they know more than you do about their area of expertise is arrogant (and wrong). Because scientific knowledge is contingent on future results, scientists sometimes find themselves admitting that they were wrong about something. Unlike pundits or politicians, scientists can't blame some other party, and people will hold onto those errors as evidence that we're not as clever as we think we are, so they can ignore us if they don't like our message. Also, some people just don't like smart people much, so mistakes made by smart people are cherished as proof that they aren't so smart after all. Mind you, I have little evidence for most of the generalities I'm making here, but this is just my model of why students seem to be less prepared than they used to and why scientific authority doesn't get the respect I think it should. Jim Crants
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
Hmmm, native to North America seems to have turned into originated north of Mexico. Aside from the fact that at least when I went to high school Mexico was considered part of North America, there were certainly foods like peanuts, corn and squash that were native to North America even though they may have originated south of the border. But I think that this discussion may have wandered a bit away from ecology, although the origin of foods is a fascinating topic which is why I am so proud of my mother's book. I might add a note about what happened to these American foods after the globalisation of 1492. My wife grew up in East Timor and one day we were sitting at dinner eating a traditional Timorese vegetable stew and discussing what we could serve at a Thanksgiving dinner we were planning. Suddenly I looked down at my plate and realised that almost everything in the stew came originally from the Americas, and that it would make a fine Thanksgiving dish. Of course not everyone is happy with these observations. My mother received an angry letter pointing out that the Chinese have cultivated peanuts for hundreds of years, so they couldn't have come from North America. And don't try to tell an Italian that pomodori are not native to Italy! Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey geoffrey.hene...@sdstate.edu To: William Silvert cien...@silvert.org; ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: segunda-feira, 18 de Janeiro de 2010 13:08 Subject: WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods Bill's mother is certainly correct: Central and South America have yielded many foods now widely cultivated and enjoyed. I still maintain that few contemporary foods appear to have originated north of Mexico: specifically, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries, and cranberries. Are there others? Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:06 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey geoffrey.hene...@sdstate.edu To: William Silvert cien...@silvert.org; ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry
[ECOLOG-L] WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
Bill's mother is certainly correct: Central and South America have yielded many foods now widely cultivated and enjoyed. I still maintain that few contemporary foods appear to have originated north of Mexico: specifically, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries, and cranberries. Are there others? Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:06 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey geoffrey.hene...@sdstate.edu To: William Silvert cien...@silvert.org; ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Jane Shevtsov wrote: Yes, it would be interesting to see some scans of the book, although somebody who has actually taken a college-level health class would be better positioned than I am to compare the book to modern ones. ... And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. ... Allowing that Orwell was addressing writing for public consumption and not for the scientific community I would suggest reading at least the first three (?) chapters of Angelika Hofmann, 2009, Scientific Writing and Communication: Papers, Proposals, and Presentations, Oxford University Press. Maybe less to Malcolm's original point and more to the needs of our scientific community, I would recommend Hofmann's book to every one of our readers of this ListServ. -- Ken Leonard, Ph.D. Candidate The University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology (Bradford Lab) 517 Biological Sciences Bldg. Athens, GA 30602 US I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -- Galileo Galilei kleon...@uga.edu, ken_leon...@earthlink.net http://kleonard.myweb.uga.edu/ 1+404.307.6425
[ECOLOG-L] Testing Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Honorable Forum: An eloquent if ungrammatical expression of the persistent legacy of authoritarian control having education in its terrible grip. The mere fact that testing has persisted in academia is its strongest indictment. It is a near-ultimate irony that academia continues to place the Mark of Cain upon students because they failed to grasp some fact in time, and reducing perhaps the most complex phenomenon of all to elementary arithmetic, as if percentages and letter grades actually reflected PERFORMANCE and POTENTIAL. This irony is inescapable, and contaminates the thinking process, diverting intelligence into ruts rather than giving it room to soar. It is the iron grip of CULTURE overwhelming the QUEST. WT - Original Message - From: Derek Pursell dep1...@yahoo.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 2:14 AM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all I agree with David's comment about the dubiousness of using standardized test scores as a measure of the success of learning. Speaking as an American student whom has been subjected to standardized tests for most of his academic life, there are primarily two things that taking these tests teach you; how to memorize a lot of information, and how to reason the correct answer from a multiple choice question when you don't have the slightest idea otherwise. I suppose you could call it professional guesstimation; regardless of how it is labeled, it is a poor way to test students. Taking standardized tests removes the joy from expressing what you have learned by filtering down everything into four bubbles, one of which is correct. A child that has learned how to color in circles statistically has a chance to pass one of these tests. It is a joke; one that isn't funny. I believe the standardized testing system should be greatly revised, but how do you go about making those kinds of changes when there is so much money and political will behind the standardized tests as they exist? - Derek E. Pursell --- On Sun, 1/17/10, David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com wrote: From: David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Date: Sunday, January 17, 2010, 1:44 PM As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely nothing to lower the quality or the beauty of the writing. Some of the greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in the form of haiku -- 17 syllables. Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable substitutes. You do not serve the reader well when you force him or her to run to the dictionary every two or three sentences. You do not serve science well when your writing is so full of specialized jargon that only the select few initiates into the priesthood can understand understand it. I remember reading some historical stuff about Latin, the mass, and the Bible, and controlling the masses by denying them access to (and personal understanding of) the founding documents of their faith. At a time when an improved public understanding science is necessary, I would strongly argue that scientists take heed of Orwell's recommendations. Even if you are only thinking of communication among scientists in an interdisciplinary research program -- arguing for the sanctification of inscrutable writing does not further that goal. The problem today is not that Hemingway's style gained favor over Faulkner's, the problem is that students are not getting sufficient training in reading and writing, period. I place a lot of the blame on the fetish built up around standardized testing -- teaching students to memorize trivia that can be easily regurgitated on a multiple-choice test does little to prepare them for the time when they'll be called upon to detect and interpret patterns, to relate observations of unfamiliar phenomena to phenomena that is known and understood, to string together a coherent thought. The simple numbers -- test scores -- may arouse politicians and educational administrators, but the numbers and the process used to produce them seem to me to work against the development of a well educated population. Dave On 1/16/2010 11:57 PM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: Yes, it would be interesting to see some scans of the book, although somebody who has actually taken a college-level health class would be better positioned than I am
Re: [ECOLOG-L] WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
Several different types of squash are also native to various regions of the Southeast and East Coast. Tree nuts were also managed intensively for food purposes as well as many native tubers that most are not familiar with. Wild rice is also native to the Great Lakes Region and is still managed by American Indians today. There is a surprising amount of native agrobiodiversity that was intensively managed - although not 'domesticated' and managed as the other centers and regions of origin for most of our economically important crop species. Many crops have significant local and regional cultural value but have not diffused broadly (yet). Laura R. Lewis Assistant Professor Crop Evolution and Biogeography Department of Geography and Environmental Systems University of Maryland, Baltimore County On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:08 AM, Henebry, Geoffrey wrote: Bill's mother is certainly correct: Central and South America have yielded many foods now widely cultivated and enjoyed. I still maintain that few contemporary foods appear to have originated north of Mexico: specifically, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries, and cranberries. Are there others? Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:06 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/ tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey geoffrey.hene...@sdstate.edu To: William Silvert cien...@silvert.org; ECOLOG- l...@listserv.umd.edu Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry
Re: [ECOLOG-L] WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
Geoffrey, certainly pecans and hickories and their variants originated in the US. I assume that all of those western berries like salmon berries, logan berries, etc. did too, just as we have wild blackberries all over the south. The small native persimmon also is good to eat. Blueberries as mentioned, maple syrup - I'm an animal ecologist so this is out of my balliwick, but here are a few that haven't been mentioned g. cheers, g2 -- Gary D. Grossman, PhD Professor of Animal Ecology Warnell School of Forestry Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens, GA, USA 30602 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish G. Grossman Fine Art http://personal.negia.net/grossman
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
I'm well aware of the pressures to write badly -- bad writers who don't realize how bad they are tend to make bad editors who want everyone else to sink to their level. A lot of the conflict is the pressure to maintain the elite priesthood versus one of the alleged purposes of science, i.e., to communicate ideas and data. Members of the priesthood do not usually realize that their efforts generally do more to undermine science than to promote it. Look at the often negative treatment given to excellent scientists/communicators by their scientific colleagues. It's not unusual for someone who writes a wildly popular (and informative) book, or hosts a wildly popular (and informative) to get a hostile reaction from purist colleagues. Don't get me started about scientists who think it's beneath them to speak to their public information staff, much less the press as a whole. Sure, journalists screw up, but they don't screw up all the time and they would screw up less if they had more cooperation from the source. Besides, given the source of most of the research funding in many disciplines, scientists have an obligation to reach out to the people paying the tab -- i.e., THE PEOPLE. I offer an anecdote about the discomfort too many in the sciences have with speaking in terms understandable by the masses. My first book, Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution, seemed a natural choice for a review in Eos (Transactions of the American Geophysical Union). The editors declined to review it because it wasn't technical enough. Now, I've been attending scientific meetings off-and-on for three decades now, and I know what kinds of stories scientists tell each other about themselves and their colleagues once they've knocked a few back. I have to say I found the editors' reasoning rather at variance with the facts. Later, Dave On 1/18/2010 4:42 AM, William Silvert wrote: Perhaps then David has managed to escape some of the pressures put on scientists to write badly. On several occasions I have been accused of writing scientific papers in a journalistic style and told that this is not acceptable. Although my reply is usually along the lines of, Aren't journalists the people who are forced to take courses on how to write?, this never seems to sink in. On one occasion my lab director even sniffed that a paper I had written read like something that might appear in Scientific American. I was flattered but forced to change it. My favourite example was the time I wrote a paper in which I argued that we have to teach the public that there is more to biodiversity than cute harp seals and fuzzy pandas, and the reviewer complained that if I knew how to write a scientific paper I would know that words like cute and fuzzy are unacceptable, and I should have referred to charismatic megafauna. I even had a T-shirt made up with the message I brake for charismatic megafauna. Fortunately a few papers I wrote on applications of fuzzy set theory to ecology made it into print. I once wrote a paper presenting a general theory of managing multi-species fisheries, and was informed (see, passive voice!) that the journal required that the Latin names of the species had to be included. Given the generality of the theory, I provided the names Squid pro quo and Dolus fictus, but was eventually forced to use the generic names species A and species B. Bill Silvert -- -- David M. Lawrence| Home: (804) 559-9786 7471 Brook Way Court | Fax: (804) 559-9787 Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: d...@fuzzo.com USA | http: http://fuzzo.com -- All drains lead to the ocean. -- Gill, Finding Nemo We have met the enemy and he is us. -- Pogo No trespassing 4/17 of a haiku -- Richard Brautigan
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all: Decline in education
I watched my evaluation scores decline when I switched to active learning. I got tired of lecturing from powerpoints that the students could memorize, regurgitate on tests, and quickly forget. Somehow, it was unreasonable for me to expect the students to show up for the lectures prepared and willing to participate in class discussions. It was even more unreasonable for me to refuse to just tell us what we need to know, when they couldn't answer very simple questions that I'd toss out to stimulate discussion. It was also unreasonable for me to expect them to ask questions relevant to the material we discussed in class. I had students complain they didn't learn anything from me, but it seems to me that if they weren't asking questions -- either in class, on class discussion boards, or via e-mail -- they couldn't have been trying very hard. Maybe I am unreasonable... Dave On 1/18/2010 12:17 PM, James Crants wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smithvsm...@ku.edu wrote: I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, John (not his real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair project, and /that this is all about learning science/! and she then turned to me to say, If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the chance that our child will win the Best Science Project award. That's unfair competition. And she walked away. As I was reading your post, I was hoping you would mention the role of parents in any decline in the quality of the American education. I think it started with the baby boom. After the Depression and World War II, parents wanted the best for their children, but by providing the best materially, many raised children with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance. When these children raised my generation, self-esteem was seen as the most important quality you could promote in a developing mind, so many of us grew up feeling even more entitled and important. Also, since self-important people like today's parents don't respect authority figures, parents now tend to side with their children over teachers when there is a student-teacher conflict. Worse, since the entire class is, on average, not as prepared as it should be to learn the material you're trying to teach, disgruntled students can look to low average performance for the whole class to assure themselves that it's your fault if they don't get high marks. With students and parents both blaming you for low grades, and a low class average apparently supporting their arguments, it's easiest to lower your expectations and standards. (And you'll probably get higher teaching evaluation scores if you do.) When you do, you end up passing on students who aren't prepared for the next level of education. I understand the importance of questioning authority, and Wendee Holtcamp's example of childbirth in American hospitals attests to that importance (though I believe the doctors rush the delivery because they're trained to believe it's best for the patient, not because they put their spare time ahead of patient care). However, there's an important distinction between questioning authority and assuming authority is wrong. With respect to the original conversation thread, while I certainly agree that it's a problem that people with the appearance of authority are making BS claims on television, I don't think that's the only major threat to scientific authority. Another threat is the widely-held perception that any scientist who thinks they know more than you do about their area of expertise is arrogant (and wrong). Because scientific knowledge is contingent on future results, scientists sometimes find themselves admitting that they were wrong about something. Unlike pundits or politicians, scientists can't blame some other party, and people will hold onto those errors as evidence that we're not as clever as we think we are, so they can ignore us if they don't like our message. Also, some people just don't like smart people much, so mistakes made by smart people are cherished as proof that they aren't so smart after all. Mind you, I have little evidence for most of the generalities I'm making here, but this is just my model of why students seem to be less prepared than they used to and why scientific
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
CHILLING! And I thought this phenomenon was limited to California . . . I'm afraid I must lay the responsibility, in large part, to the helping professions, most notably the excuse-makers, aka social workers and their kin--some of the kindest, nicest, most sensitive and intelligent people on the planet. Much as I despise the present method of testing and grading for its inadequacies, I am even more opposed to laxity in the realm of education and the even more onerous trend of academic institutions' (and a growing number of parasitic diploma-mills which take deception several stages further) to let students slip by with certifications (degrees) that are more indicative of their presence, more or less, at university than their ability to think and perform. Airplane pilots are instructed, but they also are taught, not only by their instructors but by their peers, in a continuous process that never ends. One acquires various levels of certification based upon an understanding of sound principles (the application of which enables one to use them to integrate realities, timing, and feedback into a deep understanding that goes beyond the formal testing) that, for example, gives one the ability to perform far above grade-level when necessary, as in putting an Airbus into the Hudson River a little more than a year ago, with no loss of life. In flying, as in ballet or serving food, or acting or anything, the essence of performance is full integration of the performer with that being performed, a dedication, not to minimal standards, but to excellence. Son, always sweep a good floor, one of my earliest mentors told me. Pilots are formally tested, and many pass that end up screwing their airplane into the ground while screwing around in the cockpit, taking themselves and innocents aboard with them, not to mention the even more innocent on the ground. Automobile drivers are licensed by a lax system that results in tens of thousand of deaths every year. They slip by . . . Violinists need zero certification, but they cannot bring an audience to tears without dedication to their pursuit and full integration of themselves with their instrument. They are not all in Carnegie Hall. A few months ago I shoved some money (and inadequate amount) into the hat of a man sitting on the sidewalk with his guitar. Casting his pearls before a crowd increasingly crowded with certified slippers-by . . . I weep in outrage. WT - Original Message - From: Val Smith vsm...@ku.edu To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 12:04 PM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all At age 60, I estimate that I personally have taught, advised, and mentored more than 2,500 college undergraduates over a period of 37 years. From 2007-2009, I also served as Interim Director of KU's Undergraduate Biology Program, the single largest undergraduate teaching unit at the University of Kansas, with 22 staff members who serve more than 1,400 undergraduate majors at any one time. I thus have had a large student population from which to form my perceptions of their capabilities and academic performance. Rather than being stupid in the literal sense, I believe that Alyson actually intended to suggest that our children are increasingly less well educated, in the sense that they acquire an ever-declining knowledge of the fundamentals (this has sometimes been referred to as one component of the dumbing down of America). To me, this decline has been quite evident and quite pronounced. This trend also has in my opinion led to progressive pressure upon educators by students to reduce the rigor of their lectures and exams, and also has led to more frequent battles with students (and their parents) who think that they deserve a certain grade. While I believe that each new Freshman class in America always contains some of the very best and very brightest students whom one would ever wish to teach and mentor, I would argue that the frequency distribution of these incoming students /with regards to their overall performance/ is continually shifting to the left. During a recent business trip, my seatmate on the plane was a young (ca. 35 year-old) teaching professional who was just moving out of the university environment and into the private sector, and she expressed to me an identical perception, based upon her own personal teaching experiences in a Southeastern university. Even our Graduate Teaching Assistants in the biological sciences at KU are beginning to remark that _/*on average*/_ the freshmen with whom they interact each year are coming in progressively less well-prepared, especially in the areas of communication and math. Are they on average less intelligent? I doubt it. Are they on average less well prepared for the college curriculum? Absolutely. On average, do they have progressively poorer study and exam-taking skills? You bet! I have lost track of the number of young people
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
Well, I guess we need to have a common understanding of the term native in order to converse clearly on this subject. Peanuts originated in South America, and diffused to the north prior to European colonization. Corn and squash certainly originated in Mexico, and their wild progenitors grow there today. They diffused further north and south from Mexico. So yes, corn and squash are native to North America. I would say that peanuts are not, though when Europeans arrived they were being cultivated by some Native Americans. That doesn't make them any more native there than they are to Africa or China, where they were taken during colonial times. I believe that the usual use of the term native for a crop would be the location of original adaptation into agriculture from wild progenitors. Maybe not, maybe Bill's use of the term as being grown in a location when Europeans arrived is ok. David On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 8:07 AM, William Silvert wrote: Hmmm, native to North America seems to have turned into originated north of Mexico. Aside from the fact that at least when I went to high school Mexico was considered part of North America, there were certainly foods like peanuts, corn and squash that were native to North America even though they may have originated south of the border. But I think that this discussion may have wandered a bit away from ecology, although the origin of foods is a fascinating topic which is why I am so proud of my mother's book. I might add a note about what happened to these American foods after the globalisation of 1492. My wife grew up in East Timor and one day we were sitting at dinner eating a traditional Timorese vegetable stew and discussing what we could serve at a Thanksgiving dinner we were planning. Suddenly I looked down at my plate and realised that almost everything in the stew came originally from the Americas, and that it would make a fine Thanksgiving dish. Of course not everyone is happy with these observations. My mother received an angry letter pointing out that the Chinese have cultivated peanuts for hundreds of years, so they couldn't have come from North America. And don't try to tell an Italian that pomodori are not native to Italy! Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey To: William Silvert ; Sent: segunda-feira, 18 de Janeiro de 2010 13:08 Subject: WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods Bill's mother is certainly correct: Central and South America have yielded many foods now widely cultivated and enjoyed. I still maintain that few contemporary foods appear to have originated north of Mexico: specifically, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries, and cranberries. Are there others? Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:06 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey To: William Silvert ; Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity
Re: [ECOLOG-L] WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
pecans, black walnuts, rainbow trout, salmon, channel catfish, oysters, mussels, buffalo fish, sunfish (all produced in agriculture today and sold in commerce). I'm sure others would come to mind if I thought the exercise worth spending more time on. On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Henebry, Geoffrey wrote: Bill's mother is certainly correct: Central and South America have yielded many foods now widely cultivated and enjoyed. I still maintain that few contemporary foods appear to have originated north of Mexico: specifically, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries, and cranberries. Are there others? Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:06 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey To: William Silvert ; Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
I should have chosen my words more carefully and made a distinction between intelligent and educated. I didn't mean that children are becoming more stupid, as in their IQ or mental capacity. I meant that are children are becoming less and less educated. Fewer children are being given adequate opportunities to reach their full intellectual potential - which is a social factor, not a genetic/biological factor. I think that the minds of children today are just as capable as ever - they are sponges - which your reference to improved SAT and IQ scores supports. But a capable mind, if not given adequate opportunities for growth and development, as well as proper health care and adequate nutrition, will not reach its potential. One excellent read on the subject is The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by C. Iserbyt. Another excellent read is Deer Hunting With Jesus by J. Bageant. Collectively, these books give insights into what may be causing our public education system and society as a whole to fail our children. The end result is that many children, particularly those from poor or low-income families are simply unable to learn and perform well in school (there are multitudes of studies to support this point with a quick online search). Sadly, in the US poor children are not a minority. According to 2006 statistics by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University, 57% of children in the US live in poor or low-income families. Until we address the larger societal factors that plague the lower working class in this country, their children will continue to suffer. Schools simply cannot compensate for the needs these children have. I find it unfortunate that teachers are often the first to be blamed for low test scores and the failure of public education. I think the vast majority of teachers are hard-working and compassionate, and they are doing their best, but any teacher who works in a low-income school (inner-city OR rural) knows that something needs to be done to improve the home lives of these children. If they are living in poverty, fear, and instability at home, then school is often the last thing they can think about. As a teacher, I can give a plethora of anecdotal evidence to support this. For example, how can a child who is living in a run-down trailor with a cursing, alcoholic father and a stressed-out screaming mother who is working 2 minimum wage jobs to support the family possibly gain the impetus to go to college, let alone graduate high school? I have taught young children who are living in homeless shelters. This is a national disgrace, it is a societal problem that is too often ignored, and it must be addressed if we are ever to see an improvement in our public education system. -Alyson On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Jane Shevtsov jane@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Alyson Mack alym...@gmail.com wrote: the sad truth is, our children ARE becoming more stupid every year. The fact Do you have any evidence for this claim? IQ scores have been rising pretty steadily for a century. (Look up the Flynn effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect.) SAT scores are the highest they've been since the 1960s, although a somewhat larger percentage of high school students are taking the test. There are always fluctuations, but are there any measures of intelligence that have been showing a consistent decline? On a different note, who here has read _The Demon-Haunted World_ or _Why People Believe Weird Things_? They're both relevant to the larger discussion of critical thinking. Jane On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 5:11 PM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org wrote: At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV
Re: [ECOLOG-L] WAS: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell; NOW: origin of foods
pecans, black walnuts, rainbow trout, salmon, channel catfish, oysters, mussels, buffalo fish, sunfish (all produced in agriculture today and sold in commerce). I'm sure others would come to mind if I thought the exercise worth spending more time on. to the above list add chilies, which grow wild (and are native) all over S. Texas and S. Arizona. bison is also raised in agriculture and sold commercially. On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Henebry, Geoffrey wrote: Bill's mother is certainly correct: Central and South America have yielded many foods now widely cultivated and enjoyed. I still maintain that few contemporary foods appear to have originated north of Mexico: specifically, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries, and cranberries. Are there others? Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:06 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey To: William Silvert ; Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
I'm shocked to find myself defending the general public, but I do think that you are grossly overstating the issue. The American understanding of advertising is complex. Individual's reactions are not simply based on what they are told, especially in an advertisement. If this were true, you would find more consistency in the verbally communicated messages of advertisements. How many ads have you seen where the visual content and spoken dialog have had virtually nothing to do with the brand or product? How many ads have you seen that are self reflexive? The complexity of our advertising has been forced to evolve as Americans have become more savvy. While much of America seems unable to think critically with regards to a logical argument or seems to misunderstand how science is regulated, I still believe they can distinguish the scientific community from a TV endorsement. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)is a cognitive psychology theory used in advertising. It suggests that strong opinions are formed when when a person has both the desire and capacity to analyse information presented to them. Otherwise, a weak opinion is formed. Weak opinions are formed in a passive process and aren't necessarily conscious. I don't think medicine ads are being processed through in a manner that creates strong opinions about science. I would actually say that most of them are designed to discourage any logical thinking. Consider that nearly all of the imagery is about how great your life will be at the same time they are telling you about the possibility of death. The wiki on ELM is decent and it gives the cite for the original text if you choose to hunt it down ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaboration_likelihood_model). I would also like to address another potential difficulty in this argument; It is my belief that American perceptions of 'medical science' and of 'academic science' (for lack of a better term) are substantially different. If Americans trusted academic science as much as they do medical science, climate change would have been acted upon 20 years ago. If people are buying these products primarily because they are actively thinking about the scientific endorsements, then they should be taking academic science more seriously. But, since most people who buy these products are uncertain about academic science, it would seem to either support my suggestion that the are two 'sciences' in this case or support the formation of a weak opinion in accordance with ELM. (There are also many other theories to help interpret what you and I have described. I am merely offering one.) Your argument, as I understand it, would also be considered 'slippery slope' fallacy because assume that disbelief in science in one specific instance leads to a greater disbelief in science as a whole. We have also both done our readers a great disservice by not carefully defining terms. 'People' and 'Americans' are not words that have fixed meanings in a national or perhaps even international discussion. And by failing to define them we have also failed to make a vital connection: Are people who are persuaded by medical advertising also people who doubt the credibility of science? I think what you have brought up is incredibly important to the future of science. The scientific community should be deeply concerned about how it is represented in popular media. How the scientific community balances rhetorical delivery and information in its communication is something that warrants extensive discussion. -Hanno On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 5:11 PM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org wrote: At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV that did nothing but moisten her skin. Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Is it really oversimplification and is it really a problem? I agree that things 8th graders were reading 100 years ago are things college students struggle with now. Take children's literature, such as Alice in Wonderland (which does not present a wordy style) or What Katy Did Next (which is a wordy case in point). Neither book simplifies its vocabulary for younger readers. Since English does have an astonishingly huge vocabulary, it is sad if American college students do not have the vocabulary to read papers and books written as little as 50 years ago (think of some of those early papers in Foundations in Ecology). Orwell, via Jane Shevsov, makes excellent points. These are points I keep trying to make to my students who are Taiwanese, but have to write papers in English. An aunt of mine, who teaches writing classes to American college students has noticed a tendency to use long words when there are plenty of short words that are as good or better. I tell my students that the most important reason for writing a paper is communication. If readers cannot understand it, then why write the paper? In otherwords, if we have to choose between writing clearly and writing beautifully, scientists should choose writing clearly every time. It's one thing to write beautifully, and some scientists do write beautifully and clearly, but we have to remember that science is an international endeavor and most readers of scientific papers are in the same shape as my students--reading English as a second language. If we use complicated sentence structure, large words, foreign phrases, and cultural allusions, then our foreign colleagues will have a terrible time trying to understand our papers. Another thing I keep telling my students is that they do need to know the jargon of their field, if only because they will encounter it in texts and papers. They do not, however, have to use this jargon when writing their own papers. Frankly, a lot of the bad writing we see in scientific papers is just the result of bad habits. Like all bad habits, they're infectious. My students pick up awkward and wordy and jargon-filled phrasing from the papers they read. CL Jane Shevtsov wrote: And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Rules 2-5 lead to precisely the kind of oversimplification of language that you worry about. I do not know what should be done about it or even if it really is a problem. (The case can be made that your reading comprehension skills should match the material you are actually likely to encounter, not more challenging material that few people write any more.) Still, it would be interesting to find out what our colleagues in English departments think of the situation. ~~ Cara Lin Bridgman cara@msa.hinet.net P.O. Box 013 Shinjhuang http://megaview.com.tw/~caralin Longjing Township http://www.BugDorm.com Taichung County 43499 TaiwanPhone: 886-4-2632-5484 ~~
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
You make a really good point and I appreciate that you are bringing up this important issue. I am an environmental educator and have worked with hundreds of students from across the country over the past few years. Here is a shocking fact I learned during my graduate studies: most of what children today know about the environment is learned from television. Is this as frightening to you as it is to me? Students are learning more about environmental issues from television than from parents, educators, real life experiences, books, etc. Now, if television programs have become such a central educational tool for our nation's children (and a large percentage of adults I might add), then it seems that we should be VERY concerned about the content of this media. Advertisements and even some news programs are allowed to spread blatant misinformation, creating political debate and confusion on issues that the scientific community has already reached consensus. The corporations in charge of these programs and commercials are out to make money at any cost, as is the goal of any corporation, even if the cost is the public mind - and the sad truth is, our children ARE becoming more stupid every year. The fact that we are still dealing with illiteracy in this country is a national disgrace. Television programming/ads are providing a great disservice to society on many levels. As you said, Malcolm, it has the potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community - and that is a frightening prospect. Rather than keeping people informed on current events and issues, backed by the most up-to-date scientific information that we have, it spreads confusion, doubt, fear, and political dissent. Media in the US are still arguing about whether global climate change exists, while Europe has long since reached scientific and political consensus. How can a democracy function properly without an informed citizenry? I, for one, am of the belief that the political/corporate powers that be in this country want it to be this way: an uninformed citizenry is much easier to control and make money from, and what better tool to use than television. I would love to see the scientific community take a leading role on this issue to take back the mind of the public, through the media and the public education system. Alyson On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 5:11 PM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org wrote: At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV that did nothing but moisten her skin. Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These products are much more harmful that simply misleading people, they are more than simply false advertising, they really should not be allowed to make the extraordinary claims that they do. Some of the products are harmless, some are dangerous simply in the fact that folks choose to depend on these prior to seeking real medical advice, but all have a serious potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell
It is interesting to see how scientific writing fits with these rules. Consider (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. This is certainly not the case with modern scientific writing, but it used to be - consider Newton's Principia, in which every proposition begins with Dico (I say). Who uses the first person today? Who would write I measured the ...? As for jargon, for which scientists are often blamed, it is a necessity to defend us against a hostile press and political pressure. Remember Senator Proxmire and his Golden Fleece awards to scientists who got funding for research that sounds ridiculous? Any scientist who applies for funding to study the sex lives of wasps must be crazy - but to study reproductive strategies of parasitoids of Brachonidae for biological control might get through OK. I've seen one scientist pilloried for studying the Jerusalem artichoke for biofuel, if only he had done his research on Helianthus tuberosus! Among themselves scientists don't usually abuse jargon. We refer to gelatinous zooplankton as jellies, zooplankton in general as bugs. But obscure English translations don't get used, we never refer to Pleurobrachia as sea gooseberries. Orwell's prescriptions are more the result of his personality than of his literary skills. Some authors still write flowery or elegant prose, and carry it off well. Others write in a succinct fashion like Hemingway, and that is good too. But when the general public can only read Hemingway, we are in real trouble. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Jane Shevtsov jane@gmail.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 4:57 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Rules 2-5 lead to precisely the kind of oversimplification of language that you worry about. I do not know what should be done about it or even if it really is a problem. (The case can be made that your reading comprehension skills should match the material you are actually likely to encounter, not more challenging material that few people write any more.) Still, it would be interesting to find out what our colleagues in English departments think of the situation. Jane
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Alyson Mack alym...@gmail.com wrote: the sad truth is, our children ARE becoming more stupid every year. The fact Do you have any evidence for this claim? IQ scores have been rising pretty steadily for a century. (Look up the Flynn effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect.) SAT scores are the highest they've been since the 1960s, although a somewhat larger percentage of high school students are taking the test. There are always fluctuations, but are there any measures of intelligence that have been showing a consistent decline? On a different note, who here has read _The Demon-Haunted World_ or _Why People Believe Weird Things_? They're both relevant to the larger discussion of critical thinking. Jane On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 5:11 PM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org wrote: At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV that did nothing but moisten her skin. Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These products are much more harmful that simply misleading people, they are more than simply false advertising, they really should not be allowed to make the extraordinary claims that they do. Some of the products are harmless, some are dangerous simply in the fact that folks choose to depend on these prior to seeking real medical advice, but all have a serious potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. -- - Jane Shevtsov Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org Check out my blog, http://perceivingwholes.blogspot.comPerceiving Wholes The whole person must have both the humility to nurture the Earth and the pride to go to Mars. --Wyn Wachhorst, The Dream of Spaceflight
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Maybe Cara has stated my case more clearly than I have, but I would only add that, to me at least, clarity IS beauty. WT Eschew obfuscation. --author unknown - Original Message - From: Cara Lin Bridgman cara@msa.hinet.net To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 2:16 AM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all Is it really oversimplification and is it really a problem? I agree that things 8th graders were reading 100 years ago are things college students struggle with now. Take children's literature, such as Alice in Wonderland (which does not present a wordy style) or What Katy Did Next (which is a wordy case in point). Neither book simplifies its vocabulary for younger readers. Since English does have an astonishingly huge vocabulary, it is sad if American college students do not have the vocabulary to read papers and books written as little as 50 years ago (think of some of those early papers in Foundations in Ecology). Orwell, via Jane Shevsov, makes excellent points. These are points I keep trying to make to my students who are Taiwanese, but have to write papers in English. An aunt of mine, who teaches writing classes to American college students has noticed a tendency to use long words when there are plenty of short words that are as good or better. I tell my students that the most important reason for writing a paper is communication. If readers cannot understand it, then why write the paper? In otherwords, if we have to choose between writing clearly and writing beautifully, scientists should choose writing clearly every time. It's one thing to write beautifully, and some scientists do write beautifully and clearly, but we have to remember that science is an international endeavor and most readers of scientific papers are in the same shape as my students--reading English as a second language. If we use complicated sentence structure, large words, foreign phrases, and cultural allusions, then our foreign colleagues will have a terrible time trying to understand our papers. Another thing I keep telling my students is that they do need to know the jargon of their field, if only because they will encounter it in texts and papers. They do not, however, have to use this jargon when writing their own papers. Frankly, a lot of the bad writing we see in scientific papers is just the result of bad habits. Like all bad habits, they're infectious. My students pick up awkward and wordy and jargon-filled phrasing from the papers they read. CL Jane Shevtsov wrote: And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Rules 2-5 lead to precisely the kind of oversimplification of language that you worry about. I do not know what should be done about it or even if it really is a problem. (The case can be made that your reading comprehension skills should match the material you are actually likely to encounter, not more challenging material that few people write any more.) Still, it would be interesting to find out what our colleagues in English departments think of the situation. ~~ Cara Lin Bridgman cara@msa.hinet.net P.O. Box 013 Shinjhuang http://megaview.com.tw/~caralin Longjing Township http://www.BugDorm.com Taichung County 43499 TaiwanPhone: 886-4-2632-5484 ~~ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.432 / Virus Database: 270.14.147/2628 - Release Date: 01/17/10 07:35:00
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely nothing to lower the quality or the beauty of the writing. Some of the greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in the form of haiku -- 17 syllables. Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable substitutes. You do not serve the reader well when you force him or her to run to the dictionary every two or three sentences. You do not serve science well when your writing is so full of specialized jargon that only the select few initiates into the priesthood can understand understand it. I remember reading some historical stuff about Latin, the mass, and the Bible, and controlling the masses by denying them access to (and personal understanding of) the founding documents of their faith. At a time when an improved public understanding science is necessary, I would strongly argue that scientists take heed of Orwell's recommendations. Even if you are only thinking of communication among scientists in an interdisciplinary research program -- arguing for the sanctification of inscrutable writing does not further that goal. The problem today is not that Hemingway's style gained favor over Faulkner's, the problem is that students are not getting sufficient training in reading and writing, period. I place a lot of the blame on the fetish built up around standardized testing -- teaching students to memorize trivia that can be easily regurgitated on a multiple-choice test does little to prepare them for the time when they'll be called upon to detect and interpret patterns, to relate observations of unfamiliar phenomena to phenomena that is known and understood, to string together a coherent thought. The simple numbers -- test scores -- may arouse politicians and educational administrators, but the numbers and the process used to produce them seem to me to work against the development of a well educated population. Dave On 1/16/2010 11:57 PM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: Yes, it would be interesting to see some scans of the book, although somebody who has actually taken a college-level health class would be better positioned than I am to compare the book to modern ones. Your points about vocabulary and reading comprehension are interesting and I have to thank you for inspiring me to read the whole of Orwell's Politics and the English Language. I'll quote some passages at length here, because it seems to me that similar advice is responsible for a large part of the changes you talk about. (Of course, pedagogical philosophies also played a role.) I don't want to place the blame entirely, or even largely, on Orwell, but he exemplifies a movement toward deliberate simplification of language. Here are two of Orwell's complaints. Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth. Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective,
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all (lengthy)
Well, the original poster was not decrying the streamlining of writing, or the lack of difficulty in reading conveying the same information as more difficult reading. He was decrying the reduction in information content of modern textbooks compared to older ones. As a long-time (40 years, now retired) professor, I have seen the decline in information content of textbooks, mainly for nonmajors, in my lifetime. The focus in textbooks in the last several years that I was teaching was in the presentation of the information, which added tremendously to cost, but did convey information more effectively to modern audiences. To the publishers, the students (and the faculty choosing which books if any to assign) are simply a market. Make the book fit the market has been the approach. Consequently, there appeared many books with minimal content, part of the content reduction being (despite my comment above concerning difficulty of reading) due to lowering of reading level to meet the demands of students for material they could and would read without effort. Vocabulary in particular suffered. The vocabulary of science is complex for reasons, mainly precision of communication. But modern students strain at vocabulary, and give up if too much is demanded. Consider this, not from nonmajors, but from majors experience. When I first began teaching limnology in a regional state university (in actuality a college by traditional institutional nomenclature), I was gung ho to help students to gain as much understanding as I could. I chose and assigned to them the most complete and comprehensive textbook available for the course, Wetzel. Soon I realized that most were not reading it, and I attempted to learn why. I placed the copies of Cole that I had, a compromise text with less demanding vocabulary, and more descriptive handling of the content, on reserve in the library. The text is intermediate in difficulty of reading, completeness of content (especially as relates to aquatic chemistry and modeling of ecological processes) compared to Wetzel and some other texts available. I found that the students read the text. From my original gung ho perspective, they learned less than if I had continued to require Wetzel. But they learned more than they would have had they had access only to Wetzel. In future semesters, I assigned Cole as required, but made Wetzel available to students who wished to dig a little deeper -- and some did. My students there were upper division undergraduates and first year master's students in a general biology program and an environmental studies program. As Jane inferred in her post, many of my students would not have been in college in earlier generations. Most of them were first generation college students from a regional U.S. culture where education had not been a long-time expectation, and indeed had not long been available. They were on average not well prepared for what they were involved in, some having come initially to college from high schools that did not even offer trigonometry or physics. So, many of us, me definitely among us, have decried a perceived decline in the quality of the educational enterprize over the years. Meanwhile, no smaller percentage of youth are attaining high level education and training than before. But a much larger proportion than before are achieving SOME level. I have no idea how good or bad any of this is. It just is. I do know that had I continued to require Wetzel of my students in that place at that time, I would have been far less successful than I was at helping them achieve their goals. Yet Wetzel is an excellent Treatise on Limnology (most of you will recognize the allusion to an earlier generation of limnological literature). Thanks for reading. David McNeely On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: Let me play devil's advocate on this one. Is a more difficult-to-read textbook better than an easier one that conveys the same information? My impression is that writers like George Orwell and E.B. White were largely responsible for the increased streamlining of modern prose compared to that of 100 years ago. (I am not saying that streamlined prose is necessarily better -- IMHO, Strunk and White are responsible for a great deal of mediocre writing.) BTW, what fraction of children in Texas completed the eight grade in 1908? The state did not have a compulsory education law until 1915. Jane On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 12:46 PM, malcolm McCallum wrote: Its actually much worse than that. A retired friend of mine brought me a book on Human Health. It was dated around 1908. The student who read this book would require a much higher reading comprehension, larger vocabulary, and greater dedication than a student using the health book widely used for principles of health in modern college classes. The book had depth, provided specifics and generalities, and it
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell
All: Methinks there be a flock of sheep who could do with a bit o' shearin' o' at least a wee bit o' excess wool, yet a smidgen of rhetoric, if it illuminates rather than benights the message, or even stimulates enquiry, could be a more therapeutic than painful massage. If 'tis relevant, leave it in; if it obscures, out w' 't. The irony is that within the group, verbal floristics may well work some magic, yet to the outs it excludes. (My apologies, for example, for this example, of how, within a limited group, rhetoric can work yet confound those, for example, for whom English may be a second language and those who may be unfamiliar with a given dialect. Still, within its limited sphere, word-play can add a certain potency that pure phrasing might lack. The antidote for this is ENGAGEMENT rather than argument, and the removal of expectations that a given statement is the end rather than the beginning of communication. WT - Original Message - From: William Silvert cien...@silvert.org To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 9:08 AM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell It is interesting to see how scientific writing fits with these rules. Consider (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. This is certainly not the case with modern scientific writing, but it used to be - consider Newton's Principia, in which every proposition begins with Dico (I say). Who uses the first person today? Who would write I measured the ...? As for jargon, for which scientists are often blamed, it is a necessity to defend us against a hostile press and political pressure. Remember Senator Proxmire and his Golden Fleece awards to scientists who got funding for research that sounds ridiculous? Any scientist who applies for funding to study the sex lives of wasps must be crazy - but to study reproductive strategies of parasitoids of Brachonidae for biological control might get through OK. I've seen one scientist pilloried for studying the Jerusalem artichoke for biofuel, if only he had done his research on Helianthus tuberosus! Among themselves scientists don't usually abuse jargon. We refer to gelatinous zooplankton as jellies, zooplankton in general as bugs. But obscure English translations don't get used, we never refer to Pleurobrachia as sea gooseberries. Orwell's prescriptions are more the result of his personality than of his literary skills. Some authors still write flowery or elegant prose, and carry it off well. Others write in a succinct fashion like Hemingway, and that is good too. But when the general public can only read Hemingway, we are in real trouble. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Jane Shevtsov jane@gmail.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 4:57 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Rules 2-5 lead to precisely the kind of oversimplification of language that you worry about. I do not know what should be done about it or even if it really is a problem. (The case can be made that your reading comprehension skills should match the material you are actually likely to encounter, not more challenging material that few people write any more.) Still, it would be interesting to find out what our colleagues in English departments think of the situation. Jane No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.432 / Virus Database: 270.14.147/2628 - Release Date: 01/17/10 07:35:00
[ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Forwarded at Henshel's request... Original Message Subject:Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:56:25 -0500 From: Diane S. Henshel dhens...@gmail.com To: David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com CC: ECOLOG-L@listserv.umd.edu Thank you David, I agree with you. One reason that scientists need to learn to write clearly, as laid out by Orwell, is so that we can communicate with non-scientists. We need to train new scientists who need not have a language barrier on top of the information barrier. We need to convince society that the science results are important and relevant. We need to make sure that regulators think that our science is worth funding! Writing clearly is very important, even in our peer reviewed journal articles. Scientific writing needs to be clear for communication between scientists as well. As we slowly emerge from our narrow fields to start working interdisciplinarily, we can learn about potentially relevant work in other fields much more quickly if we also do not have to overcome the jargon-filled science-speak barrier we create around our narrow disciplines. Science-speak is a great way to help us feel like we are a member of the in crowd or that we have learned something with all of this time spent doing research (See - I can talk circles around you and you don't even understand what I am saying!), but is a terrible way to communicate our scientific knowledge and understanding to others, including to scientists in other disciplines. And science-speak, unfortunately, also contributes to the generation of multiple, sometimes apparently contradictory, definitions for the same term. All too often two scientists seem to be talking at odds until someone stops and says, wait, what do you mean by x. Once terms are defined, and differential uses of the same term are clarified, it seems to me that many apparent disagreements evaporate. Unfortunately, the lay public only sees (and remembers) the apparent disagreements, and neither notices nor cares that these disagreements are sometimes simply based on semantic differences. Diane Henshel On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 1:44 PM, David M. Lawrence d...@fuzzo.com mailto:d...@fuzzo.com wrote: As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely nothing to lower the quality or the beauty of the writing. Some of the greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in the form of haiku -- 17 syllables. Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable substitutes. You do not serve the reader well when you force him or her to run to the dictionary every two or three sentences. You do not serve science well when your writing is so full of specialized jargon that only the select few initiates into the priesthood can understand understand it. I remember reading some historical stuff about Latin, the mass, and the Bible, and controlling the masses by denying them access to (and personal understanding of) the founding documents of their faith. At a time when an improved public understanding science is necessary, I would strongly argue that scientists take heed of Orwell's recommendations. Even if you are only thinking of communication among scientists in an interdisciplinary research program -- arguing for the sanctification of inscrutable writing does not further that goal. The problem today is not that Hemingway's style gained favor over Faulkner's, the problem is that students are not getting sufficient training in reading and writing, period. I place a lot of the blame on the fetish built up around standardized testing -- teaching students to memorize trivia that can be easily regurgitated on a multiple-choice test does little to prepare them for the time when they'll be called upon to detect and interpret patterns, to relate observations of unfamiliar phenomena to phenomena that is known and understood, to string together a coherent thought. The simple numbers -- test scores -- may arouse politicians and educational administrators, but the numbers and the process used to produce them seem to me to work against the development of a well educated population. Dave On 1/16/2010 11:57 PM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: Yes, it would be interesting
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell
I must take issue with the phrase one of the few foods native to North America and would like to reciprocate Geoffrey's reference with a reference to a book that my mother wrote called The Taste Makers: How New World Foods came to Old World Kitchens which describes numerous foods from the Americas which have made their way to the rest of the world. I believe that she describes 16 different foods, and while some are from South America, many are from the north. She did not include the Jerusalem artichoke, and I am sure that there are other omissions as well. Since my mother, Vicki Oppenheimer, was an anthropologist, she focussed on foods that had cultural significance. Information on the book can be found at http://milpah.silvert.org/tmfinal/ and the entire book can be downloaded there in PDF format for free, although it is also in print and available for sale. Even for those who are not foodies, there is some material of ecological interest as well. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Henebry, Geoffrey geoffrey.hene...@sdstate.edu To: William Silvert cien...@silvert.org; ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 19:24 Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell
With respect to the biofuels potential of one of the few foods native to North America, Helianthus tuberosus, let me suggest an entertaining read: The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream by JA Amato. Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/A/amato_great.html): In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nation's most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a providential plant destined to be a new and saving crop-the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s. Enjoy! Geoff Henebry -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 11:09 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all - says Orwell It is interesting to see how scientific writing fits with these rules. Consider (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. This is certainly not the case with modern scientific writing, but it used to be - consider Newton's Principia, in which every proposition begins with Dico (I say). Who uses the first person today? Who would write I measured the ...? As for jargon, for which scientists are often blamed, it is a necessity to defend us against a hostile press and political pressure. Remember Senator Proxmire and his Golden Fleece awards to scientists who got funding for research that sounds ridiculous? Any scientist who applies for funding to study the sex lives of wasps must be crazy - but to study reproductive strategies of parasitoids of Brachonidae for biological control might get through OK. I've seen one scientist pilloried for studying the Jerusalem artichoke for biofuel, if only he had done his research on Helianthus tuberosus! Among themselves scientists don't usually abuse jargon. We refer to gelatinous zooplankton as jellies, zooplankton in general as bugs. But obscure English translations don't get used, we never refer to Pleurobrachia as sea gooseberries. Orwell's prescriptions are more the result of his personality than of his literary skills. Some authors still write flowery or elegant prose, and carry it off well. Others write in a succinct fashion like Hemingway, and that is good too. But when the general public can only read Hemingway, we are in real trouble. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: Jane Shevtsov jane@gmail.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 4:57 Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Rules 2-5 lead to precisely the kind of oversimplification of language that you worry about. I do not know what should be done about it or even if it really is a problem. (The case can be made that your reading comprehension skills should match the material you are actually likely to encounter, not more challenging material that few people write any more.) Still, it would be interesting to find out what our colleagues in English departments think of the situation. Jane
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Hanno you bring up a very intriguing point about the distinction between what people trust in the medical science community versus the academic science community. I had never put that together but I think you're right on. I get dismayed at how trusting people are of their doctors, and how doctors treat people as if their responses will be on a bell curve rather than treating them holistically (one blatant example is with birth - if patients do not proceed according to the timetable, they give pitocin to speed the birth, which almost inevitably leads to a cesarean). And of course most pregnant women just follow along, fearful of a negative outcome, while the doctors more concerned about getting home to watch the football game, and/or malpractice. This is of course an oversimplification but it happens. But the distinction with the general public's acceptance of academic science - something to think about. And that phenomenon may well be different in the US than elsewhere. There was a study I saw about how the US is an outlier in terms of religious belief and poverty. Most highly religious nations are higher in poverty. We're one of the few that are a first world nation with a high degree of religiosity. And I believe that the rejection of academic science is a direct result of that religiosity because it is the religio-political conservatives that reject climate change and evolution. There are active Christian ministries opposing those two major issues - including the well known Focus on the Family (James Dobsons organization). And I myself am a Christian, but a progressive one who accepts science, evolution etc and in fact am writing a book (due out Fall 2010) on making peace between evolution and Christianity. Also Malcolm I wanted to make a response to one point. While most of the things being touted as medical solutions are bunk, some are not. There are certainly some things like Echinacea perhaps, and other natural medicines that DO make a difference but the research has not been done. Wendee ~~ Wendee Holtcamp, M.S. Wildlife Ecology ~ @bohemianone Freelance Writer * Photographer * Bohemian http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com http://bohemianadventures.blogspot.com ~~6-wk Online Writing Course Starts Feb 6, 2010 (signup by Jan 30)~~ ~~~ Im Animal Planets news blogger - http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Hanno Murphy Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:31 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all I'm shocked to find myself defending the general public, but I do think that you are grossly overstating the issue. The American understanding of advertising is complex. Individual's reactions are not simply based on what they are told, especially in an advertisement. If this were true, you would find more consistency in the verbally communicated messages of advertisements. How many ads have you seen where the visual content and spoken dialog have had virtually nothing to do with the brand or product? How many ads have you seen that are self reflexive? The complexity of our advertising has been forced to evolve as Americans have become more savvy. While much of America seems unable to think critically with regards to a logical argument or seems to misunderstand how science is regulated, I still believe they can distinguish the scientific community from a TV endorsement. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)is a cognitive psychology theory used in advertising. It suggests that strong opinions are formed when when a person has both the desire and capacity to analyse information presented to them. Otherwise, a weak opinion is formed. Weak opinions are formed in a passive process and aren't necessarily conscious. I don't think medicine ads are being processed through in a manner that creates strong opinions about science. I would actually say that most of them are designed to discourage any logical thinking. Consider that nearly all of the imagery is about how great your life will be at the same time they are telling you about the possibility of death. The wiki on ELM is decent and it gives the cite for the original text if you choose to hunt it down ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaboration_likelihood_model). I would also like to address another potential difficulty in this argument; It is my belief that American perceptions of 'medical science' and of 'academic science' (for lack of a better term) are substantially different. If Americans trusted academic science as much as they do medical science, climate change would have been acted upon 20 years ago. If people are buying these products primarily because they are actively thinking about the scientific endorsements, then they should be taking academic science more seriously. But, since most
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
From: malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:11:47 -0600 At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. ... Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These ... but all have a serious potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community. I see an extended set of this problem in much of the material that appears on so-called factual channels on TV service, at least here in US. I watch (at least the first few minutes of) many programs on History Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel (yes, I include even this once respected organization in the source of the problem), Science Channel, etc. I do this for two reasons: first, to find potential teaching material and, second, to get a feel for what I might use for teachable moments in undergraduate science courses. I see a few really good presentations of science but I see much more utter rubbish: pervasive over-simplification of virtually any scientific topic, credulous programs on UFO-logy (or spirit-ology or conspiracy-ology), mindless sensationalizing of natural disasters (or venomous animals or exceptional natural phenomena), decide for yourself presentation of non-theories--I could go on for hours. It's hard enough trying to teach the Darwinian-evolutionary synthesis to the fearful followers of preachers of the lesser deity. It can be even harder to explain the ordinariness of volcanism and plate tectonics, the exigency of habitat destruction and diversity loss, the not-so-simple reality of amphibian decline. Some days the stuff is so bad and so thick that it makes my hair hurt. -- Ken Leonard, Ph.D. Candidate The University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology (Bradford Lab) 517 Biological Sciences Bldg. Athens, GA 30602 US To Learn is a human instinct. To teach is a humane duty. kleon...@uga.edu, ken_leon...@earthlink.net http://kleonard.myweb.uga.edu/ 1+404.307.6425
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
At age 60, I estimate that I personally have taught, advised, and mentored more than 2,500 college undergraduates over a period of 37 years. From 2007-2009, I also served as Interim Director of KU's Undergraduate Biology Program, the single largest undergraduate teaching unit at the University of Kansas, with 22 staff members who serve more than 1,400 undergraduate majors at any one time. I thus have had a large student population from which to form my perceptions of their capabilities and academic performance. Rather than being stupid in the literal sense, I believe that Alyson actually intended to suggest that our children are increasingly less well educated, in the sense that they acquire an ever-declining knowledge of the fundamentals (this has sometimes been referred to as one component of the dumbing down of America). To me, this decline has been quite evident and quite pronounced. This trend also has in my opinion led to progressive pressure upon educators by students to reduce the rigor of their lectures and exams, and also has led to more frequent battles with students (and their parents) who think that they deserve a certain grade. While I believe that each new Freshman class in America always contains some of the very best and very brightest students whom one would ever wish to teach and mentor, I would argue that the frequency distribution of these incoming students /with regards to their overall performance/ is continually shifting to the left. During a recent business trip, my seatmate on the plane was a young (ca. 35 year-old) teaching professional who was just moving out of the university environment and into the private sector, and she expressed to me an identical perception, based upon her own personal teaching experiences in a Southeastern university. Even our Graduate Teaching Assistants in the biological sciences at KU are beginning to remark that _/*on average*/_ the freshmen with whom they interact each year are coming in progressively less well-prepared, especially in the areas of communication and math. Are they on average less intelligent? I doubt it. Are they on average less well prepared for the college curriculum? Absolutely. On average, do they have progressively poorer study and exam-taking skills? You bet! I have lost track of the number of young people who complained to me that they had a 4.0 GPA in High School, and yet are struggling to get B's and C's at KU. The availability of online and other preparatory resources has probably assisted young people in continuing to scoring well on standardized tests such as the SAT. However, my experiences during the education of my three daughters (ages 36, 24, and 18) have allowed me to view firsthand the perceptible decline that has in my opinion occurred in the quality of their average peers' preparation and attitude towards learning. I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, John (not his real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair project, and /that this is all about learning science/! and she then turned to me to say, If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the chance that our child will win the Best Science Project award. That's unfair competition. And she walked away. Sincerely, Val Smith Val H. Smith Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 On 1/17/2010 12:03 PM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Alyson Mackalym...@gmail.com wrote: the sad truth is, our children ARE becoming more stupid every year. The fact Do you have any evidence for this claim? IQ scores have been rising pretty steadily for a century. (Look up the Flynn effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect.) SAT scores are the highest they've been since the 1960s, although a somewhat larger percentage of high school students are taking the test. There are always fluctuations, but are there any measures of intelligence that have been showing a consistent decline? On a different note, who here has read _The Demon-Haunted World_ or _Why People Believe Weird Things_? They're both relevant to the larger discussion of critical thinking. Jane On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 5:11 PM, malcolm McCallum
[ECOLOG-L] Marketing Extinction RE: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Dear Malcolm,Extinction risk for almost all the charismatic endangered species today (terrestrial and marine) is linked to the fallacies you describe, particularly to the promise of aphrodisiac power. Rhinoceros horns, seaturle eggs, Bengal tiger testicles, dried up seahorses, shark fins, live reef fish trade, etc. The list is way too long for one email. Ingesting powdered rhinoceros horn has the same aphrodisiac power than bitting of your fingernails. Yet, false advertising (whether in the media or in more mouth-to-mouth urban legends), continues to fuel the carnage, and many species will eventually disappear if people at large continue to ignore science and believe instead on an easy fix to their problems. There might be ways in which legitimate scientists can team up with non-scientists, so we fight ignorance in today's post MTV, media hungry world. For example, in previous conservation-related conferences I proposed conservation scientists to team up with the makers of Viagra and Cialis, some sort of advertising campaign, that will allow to redirect demand towards the little blue pills and away from the critically endangered animal species. The reaction from my fellow scientists was quite negative. But we must fight fire with fire, and I am convinced my proposal should work. Marketing lies is part of today's economy, and when it comes to Biodiversity, marketing extinction becomes the norm. It will take a great deal of creativity and innovation, both from scientists and non scientists, if we want to change things around. Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D. Marine Conservation Biologist http://independent.academia.edu/SarahFriasTorres Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:11:47 -0600 From: malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org Subject: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV that did nothing but moisten her skin. Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These products are much more harmful that simply misleading people, they are more than simply false advertising, they really should not be allowed to make the extraordinary claims that they do. Some of the products are harmless, some are dangerous simply in the fact that folks choose to depend on these prior to seeking real medical advice, but all have a serious potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Its actually much worse than that. A retired friend of mine brought me a book on Human Health. It was dated around 1908. The student who read this book would require a much higher reading comprehension, larger vocabulary, and greater dedication than a student using the health book widely used for principles of health in modern college classes. The book had depth, provided specifics and generalities, and it very aptly provided positive guidance on the overview of how to live a healthy life based on the dogma of the time. Now here is the punchline, that book was mandated by the stated board of education in Texas for 8th grade. I almost fell over. I have seen some graduate level textbooks that are not as good as that 8th grade text. I suspect that this is more widepread than we might want to believe. Malcolm On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Abraham de Alba A. aalb...@yahoo.com wrote: Yes Mal, it is depresing to see that critical thinking is very seldom applyed even in educated persons, I myself think that it is a primary fault of our educational system. It is not until you are in your masters or even PhD that your mentor appreciates your thinking capabilities and not your knowledge. What can we expect after 20 years of indoctrination in school ? and that´s for the ones that manage to go to school. Abraham de Alba Avila Terrestrial Plant Ecology INIFAP-Ags Ap. postal 20, Pabellón Arteaga, 20660 Aguascalientes, MEXICO SKYPE: adealba55 Tel: (465) 95-801-67, 801-86 ext. 126, FAX ext 102 alternate: dealba.abra...@inifap.gob.mx cel: 449-157-7070 From: malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org To: ecolo...@listserv.umd..edu Sent: Fri, January 15, 2010 7:11:47 PM Subject: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV that did nothing but moisten her skin. Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These products are much more harmful that simply misleading people, they are more than simply false advertising, they really should not be allowed to make the extraordinary claims that they do. Some of the products are harmless, some are dangerous simply in the fact that folks choose to depend on these prior to seeking real medical advice, but all have a serious potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Let me play devil's advocate on this one. Is a more difficult-to-read textbook better than an easier one that conveys the same information? My impression is that writers like George Orwell and E.B. White were largely responsible for the increased streamlining of modern prose compared to that of 100 years ago. (I am not saying that streamlined prose is necessarily better -- IMHO, Strunk and White are responsible for a great deal of mediocre writing.) BTW, what fraction of children in Texas completed the eight grade in 1908? The state did not have a compulsory education law until 1915. Jane On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 12:46 PM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org wrote: Its actually much worse than that. A retired friend of mine brought me a book on Human Health. It was dated around 1908. The student who read this book would require a much higher reading comprehension, larger vocabulary, and greater dedication than a student using the health book widely used for principles of health in modern college classes. The book had depth, provided specifics and generalities, and it very aptly provided positive guidance on the overview of how to live a healthy life based on the dogma of the time. Now here is the punchline, that book was mandated by the stated board of education in Texas for 8th grade. I almost fell over. I have seen some graduate level textbooks that are not as good as that 8th grade text. I suspect that this is more widepread than we might want to believe. Malcolm On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Abraham de Alba A. aalb...@yahoo.com wrote: Yes Mal, it is depresing to see that critical thinking is very seldom applyed even in educated persons, I myself think that it is a primary fault of our educational system. It is not until you are in your masters or even PhD that your mentor appreciates your thinking capabilities and not your knowledge. What can we expect after 20 years of indoctrination in school ? and that´s for the ones that manage to go to school. Abraham de Alba Avila Terrestrial Plant Ecology INIFAP-Ags Ap. postal 20, Pabellón Arteaga, 20660 Aguascalientes, MEXICO SKYPE: adealba55 Tel: (465) 95-801-67, 801-86 ext. 126, FAX ext 102 alternate: dealba.abra...@inifap.gob.mx cel: 449-157-7070 From: malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org To: ecolo...@listserv.umd..edu Sent: Fri, January 15, 2010 7:11:47 PM Subject: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all At what point does the scientific community realize that the current surge in patent medicines and nonsense medical devices are seriously eroding the nation's confidence in science? This is not directly related to ecology, but ecology is science and if people misuse science to sell products that are medically irrelevant it certainly must affect all science. For example, if the average person sees a supposed physician on TV parading products that absorb fat out of your body or send magnetic impulses into your joints or provide the healing effects of light, he/she does not necessarily recognize the difference between commercial claims and scientific ones. Further, if that person is suckered in to buy this sucker bait, he/she is certain to find, once any placebo affect passes, that it is shear snake oil. Consequently, these folks see these advertisements with supposed nutritionists, phds, MDs, etc. and learn not to believe what they say. Along comes a scientist claiming extraordinary changes such as climate change, ozone layer issues, problems with pollution, and endangered species...on TV, even in commercials. Why should they believe them? It looks and smells just like that snake oil aunt Martha bought off TV that did nothing but moisten her skin. Does anyone else see that a deeper problem exists here? These products are much more harmful that simply misleading people, they are more than simply false advertising, they really should not be allowed to make the extraordinary claims that they do. Some of the products are harmless, some are dangerous simply in the fact that folks choose to depend on these prior to seeking real medical advice, but all have a serious potential to erode the general public's view of the scientific community. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas AM University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: There's lots of good fish in the sea W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole
Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Yes, it would be interesting to see some scans of the book, although somebody who has actually taken a college-level health class would be better positioned than I am to compare the book to modern ones. Your points about vocabulary and reading comprehension are interesting and I have to thank you for inspiring me to read the whole of Orwell's Politics and the English Language. I'll quote some passages at length here, because it seems to me that similar advice is responsible for a large part of the changes you talk about. (Of course, pedagogical philosophies also played a role.) I don't want to place the blame entirely, or even largely, on Orwell, but he exemplifies a movement toward deliberate simplification of language. Here are two of Orwell's complaints. Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth. Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers.* The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness. *An interesting illustration of this is the way in which English flower names were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, Snapdragon becoming antirrhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning away from the more homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific. -- And here are Orwell's prescriptions: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut
[ECOLOG-L] Culture Against Society not to metion ecology Example Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
Honorable Forum: This thread* is an excellent example of what I am trying to get at in the endless essay I call Culture Against Society, so I thank Malcolm, Sarah, and Jane for their insights. In my umbrella work, also interminable, that I call Advancing Toward Eden, I argue that if culture is to advance beyond mere exploitation, the social/cooperative impulse must come into ascendency, that hype, hustling, and other forms of manipulation/deception run amok have to be identified for what they are--at ALL levels of social organization, not just within science or academia. But science and academia are not entirely pure themselves, and that is where the effort must begin if the continuous efforts of the general public to restore social order to cultural hierarchies is to gain any traction. The Academy, by its nature a holdover from guilds, needs to examine itself more than it needs a greater and greater emphasis on the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. It may be a cut above snake oil peddlers, but the burden of intellectual integrity is apparently carried by an increasingly an increasingly smaller percentage of the whole, the majority of which seems more an more focussed on jobs and other cultural trappings and traps. Comfort and security have long been the bait for luring the insecure from Eden, and the compounding irony of decling comfort and security derived from those delusions seems more lost on those who deign to know what is best than those who are relatively benighted. Along with bowing to the multiplicity of emperors, far too many scientists are less and less interested in testing for the null hypothesis by challenging their own sacred assumptions. This is the abandonment of intellectual integrity, not its celebration, and while I do not rest my entire case upon it, just one indication that this might be true is that few insititutions of higher learning actually teach it, much less have courses in it--philosophy notwithstanding (it has its own ironies). Thanks goodness I know some third-grade teachers who have their fingers in the dike! The reality is that most institutions (by their very nature?), and most academics, not to mention the lower influence-peddlers are demonstrably more interested in defending the status quo than in challenginge it. (As usual, there are notable exceptions among them who are exceptions, but they are not encouraged by the institutions which hold them captive or their colleagues who, seeing the guillotine poised, choose, sensibly not to rock the boat. WT *Perhaps it could become a fabric? - Original Message - From: Jane Shevtsov jane@gmail.com To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 2:19 PM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all Let me play devil's advocate on this one. Is a more difficult-to-read textbook better than an easier one that conveys the same information? My impression is that writers like George Orwell and E.B. White were largely responsible for the increased streamlining of modern prose compared to that of 100 years ago. (I am not saying that streamlined prose is necessarily better -- IMHO, Strunk and White are responsible for a great deal of mediocre writing.) BTW, what fraction of children in Texas completed the eight grade in 1908? The state did not have a compulsory education law until 1915. Jane On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 12:46 PM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org wrote: Its actually much worse than that. A retired friend of mine brought me a book on Human Health. It was dated around 1908. The student who read this book would require a much higher reading comprehension, larger vocabulary, and greater dedication than a student using the health book widely used for principles of health in modern college classes. The book had depth, provided specifics and generalities, and it very aptly provided positive guidance on the overview of how to live a healthy life based on the dogma of the time. Now here is the punchline, that book was mandated by the stated board of education in Texas for 8th grade. I almost fell over. I have seen some graduate level textbooks that are not as good as that 8th grade text. I suspect that this is more widepread than we might want to believe. Malcolm On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Abraham de Alba A. aalb...@yahoo.com wrote: Yes Mal, it is depresing to see that critical thinking is very seldom applyed even in educated persons, I myself think that it is a primary fault of our educational system. It is not until you are in your masters or even PhD that your mentor appreciates your thinking capabilities and not your knowledge. What can we expect after 20 years of indoctrination in school ? and that´s for the ones that manage to go to school. Abraham de Alba Avila Terrestrial Plant Ecology INIFAP-Ags Ap. postal 20, Pabellón Arteaga, 20660 Aguascalientes, MEXICO SKYPE: adealba55 Tel: (465) 95-801
