Why radicals can't recognize when they're wrong

Of course a person should have numerical literacy and so forth but even critical thinking skills without wisdom are insufficient.

I think very highly of skilled engineers but you have to be careful they don’t go Frederick Taylor on you.

Like Bill Gates did:

Bill Gates spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve teaching. New report says it was a bust.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pumped nearly $215 million into the project while the partnering school organizations supplied their own money, for a total cost of $575 million. The aim was to create teacher evaluation systems that depended on student standardized test scores and observations by “peer evaluators.” These systems, it was conjectured, could identify the teachers who were most effective in improving student academic performance.

To measure is to know but you got to measure the right things. It’s a
big old goofy world as John Prine says.

You both make valid points. Critical thinking itself is a skill that can be taught.

My observation is that people who choose and stick with the study of science, economics, philosophy, medicine, or law tend to be smart people with a good work ethic in the first place. These are also rigorous disciplines that teach good methodical critical thinking skills.

Liberal arts have great value, but they are often taught in a much less rigorous way. Too often, but not always, this attracts more average people with less work ethic.

Critical thinking is much enhanced by associating with and being challenged by other smart people with a good critical thinking skills and a good work ethic. This is true at school, at work, and throughout life. Critical thinking skills tend to atrophy if they are not being exercised.

No. You just claimed that I argued something which I did not in fact argue. Clearly I wasn’t talking about fine arts, or I wouldn’t have used the example of reading history. But your straw man does point up your bias. Why would you exclude fine arts from your little ivory tower of higher perspectives? If an fine artist doesn’t have some kind of interesting point to make, some sort of authentic perspective (likely not a predigested opinion that they have read somewhere) why do we honour them for hundreds of years after they die?

My answer would be: because we value their perspective and identify with it at a level that’s deeper than newspaper article.

Sure. But let’s not ignore that part of the picture. Without any numbers your argument is a poorly supported opinion.

Speaking of people who study politics: From the Journal of World Politics WHO BECOMES A TERRORIST? Poverty, Education, and the Origins of Political Violence , the author looked at police reports of violent and nonviolent political agitators in Bengal to get data about their background. He found that educated people of all kinds are more likely to be politically involved than the uneducated. Of the educated and politically involved subset of the population, those who became violent were not as wealthy as those who remained peaceful.

The original study (as reported here) sees a link between engineering degrees and jihadism, and importantly for our conversation, an anticorrelation between science degrees and jihadism. They also note that leftist terrorism is dominated by liberal arts degrees. Regardless of what you think about the relative critical thinking ability of a technical versus liberal arts education, its not supported by these data.

And why are engineers under-represented in Saudi extremist groups? You’d think they’d be right at the top of the bell curve, wouldn’t you? Its more complicated than we are making it out to be.

In fairness, you did say “arts”. In US usage I do not think that would normally be interpreted as liberal arts.

Yup. You say “arts school” and I’m thinking nose rings and eyeliner. “Liberal arts” I’m thinking French cries and whaamburgers with a keg of whineken.

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Nobody here has made any claims about engineers and extremist groups. The article I posted (and I shouldn’t have because it side-tracked the discussion) was intended to rebut the claim that members of extremist groups were unintelligent.

A friend of mine often makes Maritime hiring choices based upon musical ability.

I once observed that his green new hand was a good worker, but he had absolutely no experience. Experienced guys were available. I asked: how come you hired that kid? He responded: he plays the fiddle. I responded: what does that have to do with anything? He responded: I like the fiddle. He went on to explain his theory that people with musical talent and the discipline and work ethic to develop it were better employees. (By the way, that kid went on to become a good captain.)

Now when I’m hiring, I often ask about musical ability. Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks.

I also ask about sports played, what do the parents do, travel experiences, etc. I think guys who excel at team sports make good employees. The genetics and nurture that the parents provide is a factor. I like kids who have had some exposure to reality.

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Musical ability is also strongly correlated with mathematical ability and programming/system design skills.

Arguably one of greatest cryptologists who ever lived, Lambros Callimahos, was a world class flute player.

Cheers,

Earl

Another thing I look for is kids who are bilingual.

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Then you should hire Singaporeans. It is compulsory to learn at least two languages, English and the “mother tongue”, which is seen as Mandarin for those of Chinese ethnicity, Bahasa Melayu for Malays and Tamil for those of Indian decent.
Many Singaporean also know at least one more language, and/or one or more of the Chinese dialects commonly used by older people.

Most younger NW Europeans knows at least English and their mother tongue, with many knowing more, especially the Swiss and Dutch.

Right at the end the threads came together. Bilingual and being able to play a musical instrument. Some of the great minds of history have shown that a well rounded education is far more important than a narrow concentration on a subject.
Life experience generally results in a young person moving from a liberal outlook on life to a conservative as they age.

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Yup. They realize that all those pie in the sky ideas have to be paid for using their taxes. “Free shit for all” sounds great until you realize there is no such thing as free shit.

I don’t think anybody living and working in a Social Democracy think that things come for free, but they are more willing to pay taxes when it give them social security in return.

To know that you will not be bankrupted if you get sick and need hospital treatment, or out of work for a period, is worth something to most people.
To know that you will be taken care of if disable and in your old age is worth a lot as well.

That a few unscrupulous individual take advantage of the system may be annoying, but so is knowing that somebody becomes billionaires from the misfortune of others:

If you add up all the things that is paid for over tax bill in a Social Democracy system and what you in the US pay on top of your taxes, for health insurance and education, (to mention just the most obvious) your burden is probably as heavy, if not more than that the average Scandinavian, or others in NW Europe.

PS> Yes I know that The Daily Show is a comedy show, but sometimes they make more sense than the mainstream media. (I’m not talking about Fox News only)

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Link that works in the US: https://youtu.be/oUR1GGeFN1Y

unfortunately no longer true, the young can bearly speak singlish and thats it
yes older folks can speak english, malay, their own dialect and madarin in most cases.

You mean that things have changed so drastically in the two years since I was there last??

no it changed years ago when they had the speak mandarin campaign in the late 80’s it killed mother tongue and then singlish started.
I have nearly 20 niece and nephews only the older ones ( over 30yrs) can speak 3 languages and engrish properly.
All the parents can speak 3 or more like my wife
No business in Singapore will put a Singaporean on the reception phone any more, its one of the biggest complaints from employers here the lack of good English from supposed educated people.

Haven’t read it yet, but looks interesting: “Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason.”

Review of “Nervous States”

Cheers,

Earl

I wonder how many “radicals” are drawn from seafarers?.. leisure or commercial oil or deck?

As a breed, I find seafarers (apart from eejits who buy a powerboat and treat it like a car) are very practical. We understand you can’t cross the bar at low water and no amount of “interpreting or looking at things in a different way” will make the tide rise. The Engine must run and we look afer it. We do things that work, because the alternative is a high possibility of drowning.

Management and ship owners are another breed more willing to ignore reality.

I have run into a surprising number of mariners who are conspiracy theorists.