Dumbing down in UK education

[jackdawdle]

sounds like a job only a general of the army can tackle -- mobilizing people to one common goal. no wonder blair pulled the brits out from the middle east. and yet...

[Sybarite]

sounds like a job only a general of the army can tackle -- mobilizing people to one common goal. no wonder blair pulled the brits out from the middle east. and yet...

Unfortunately, he wasn't intelligent enough to understand that it's not a good idea to send people into an illegal war in the first place.

[Eric]

I'll weigh in later on the babies, humans, monkeys and contraceptives issue. Although not literature, it examines very fundamental and important issues. Taking a nap now. And a lot of postings to read before I reply. But it's a serious issue.

[jackdawdle]

sybarite:

can any war be sanctioned without doubts and misgivings? i doubt it. a calculated risk is the best we can hope for and failing that admit our mistakes and learn from them.

but this is getting waaaay too serious for a general chat thread. did i tell you i've killed 2 more mice?

[lionel]

Have you heard or read anything about the language experiments with other primates? They can learn sign language and communicate with it, amongst themselves (mother chimps who know sign language have been observed teaching their infants sign language) and with humans. They have expressed emotions, memory and an the ability to deceive, to lie. It's an absolutely fascinating area – and it's proper scientific study that is involved, not an anthropomorphic response to a pet.

I've already dealt with other primates in my previous response. For other animals, I'd say that, over a number of years, I've seen cats and dogs work out ways of getting what they want – no, it's not writing a poem, but it's beyond any reflex.[/

The postman delivered this week's TLS today, and you can tell it's getting near Christmas because it's 'Books of the Year' time. Clive James's favourite book is one that he says 'isn't about rocket science – it's a lot more complicated'. Initially, his clich? made me wince for him, until I discovered he was just talking about photosynthesis. How many times do you have to multiply the complexity before you're talking about, say, the house fly, which can 'anticipate' the speed at which someone tries to swat it?

And what did I say there? 'Anticipate'. A fly can no more anticipate anything than pilot a spaceship to the moon. It's due to an unimaginably elaborate system of reflexes that the fly can perform this anticipatory task, Sybarite, so in a sense it is 'beyond any reflex', as you put it, so let's call it a system of mega-reflexes if you like, but they're still reflexes. As, in a much more elaborate system of reflexes, or 'conditioned reponses' – call 'em what you like – we have with Pavlov's dogs, for instance.

I accept that Chomsky had to back down on the chimp issue, and I've already called it a grey area, but what I find far less easy to accept is the use of expressions like 'intelligence', 'memory', 'deceive' or 'lie' (both of the last two, of course, being very similar) for lesser beings. Why can't I accept this? Sorry, but these are anthropomorphic terms: they are unacceptable for use in the way that we apply such expressions to humans. (Words such as 'intelligence' or 'memory' with computers are worse to me, but nevertheless all part of the general disease.)

...the interest area that has drawn us to this forum, literature...

All disciplines – or subjects, if you will – are interdisciplinary (there can never be any positive joins), but Literature (which of course encompasses all languages) must without doubt be the most interdisciplinary of them all – what doesn't it cover, after all ? (Careful though, because if no one disagrees with me I may well try to lay any load of shit on you.)

[Sybarite]

... I accept that Chomsky had to back down on the chimp issue, and I've already called it a grey area, but what I find far less easy to accept is the use of expressions like 'intelligence', 'memory', 'deceive' or 'lie' (both of the last two, of course, being very similar) for lesser beings. Why can't I accept this? Sorry, but these are anthropomorphic terms: they are unacceptable for use in the way that we apply such expressions to humans. (Words such as 'intelligence' or 'memory' with computers are worse to me, but nevertheless all part of the general disease.)

In one particular case, scientists were doing language work with a gorilla. It wanted a pet. They gave it a kitten. However, the gorilla's cage was in a room that had one side open to the elements. The kitten got out and was run over. Even some years later, the gorilla still signed that it remembered the kitten and missed it.

In another case, a chimp pinched a pencil and hid it in its bed. It was asked if it had the pencil. It signed 'no', including when the question was repeated.

That's just two that I remember that illustrate exactly what I was referring to.

[Beth]

''In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.'' - George Eliot, Silas Marner

[titania7]

What a beautiful quote, Beth. Isn't George Eliot magnificent?

Cheers,
Titania

[lionel]

Unfortunately, [Blair] wasn't intelligent enough to understand that it's not a good idea to send people into an illegal war in the first place.

Quite! But can't this somehow be related back to the title of this thread? Not guilty, by the way: I don't vote, and on 1 May 1997 I was celebrating the Conservative party losing, not the Labour party winning.

[Eric]

I must say that I'm horrified by suggestions that mankind is no more than a bundle of bio-socially determined nerve endings, totally without free will, and merely acting to fulfil impulses to do with survival, eating and reproduction.

In the light of phenomena such as art, love, and compassion, this can surely not be true.

Language experiments on primates don't tackle the mystery, a considerable mystery, why mankind has a level of consciousness, communication and self-awareness, that far outstrips anything you can teach a chimp.

I quite agree that what George Eliot, translator of theology and later novelist, says is beautiful. Once again, ?sthetics are something you cannot begin to explain by laboratory experiments on primates.

Behaviourists live in such a bleak world. Dumbing down is when education and culture are reduced to simple reflex actions. Novels must be instantly readable to gratify. Paintings must be understood by all "the masses". No effort made, no inkling that mankind is more than Pavlovian impulses.

So I think that behaviourism is something that should be debated in the light of the dumbing down of a pragmatic form of education that moves in the direction of putting "Brave New World" categories of human beings into employment slots to achieve a utopian society on this Earth.

There's more to Heaven and Earth than monkeys.

[Sybarite]

I must say that I'm horrified by suggestions that mankind is no more than a bundle of bio-socially determined nerve endings, totally without free will, and merely acting to fulfil impulses to do with survival, eating and reproduction...

What a pity that nobody actually said that, eh?

Mind, if you feel really clever, perhaps you can show us all how the science of genes, of evolution etc is wrong.

And phrases such as: "There's more to Heaven and Earth than monkeys" sounds like a Victorian scream of anguish over Darwin's discoveries – the desperate call of someone whose life needs more meaning than it actually has.

To begin with, why? Why must there be "more to Heaven and Earth than monkeys" (evolution)?

We have evolved to the extent that we can make many choices for ourselves – in Western society, more of us can make even more choices because we have more opportunities than most people in the developing world. Those choices include deciding what gives our lives meaning. We choose what gives our lives meaning. Some people choose to find meaning in art and music and literature, for instance. Some people choose not to find value in their own lives, but to believe in the ability of assorted myths and superstitions to give their lives meaning with promises of jam tomorrow. Either way, people choose. But for many people, even in our own society, they do not use that capacity to choose over many issues: that includes making a choice, for instance, not to marry or not to have children. They simply follow the cultural norms that are, by and large, expected of them without giving the matter much thought. I suspect that, if you asked most people why they married or why they had children, a large proportion would be surprised at the question and would simply respond along the lines of it being the 'normal' thing to do.

It is no surprise that people living in poverty in the developing world often find their own meaning – their own purpose – in religion or nationalism, including taking those things to extremes.

But ultimately it's about choice. If you feel panic, Eric, at the idea that 'this is all there is', then that's your choice.

sybarite:

can any war be sanctioned without doubts and misgivings? i doubt it. a calculated risk is the best we can hope for and failing that admit our mistakes and learn from them...

You can go to war without breaking laws. It might be start. International law is made up of the treaties that nations sign up to. We (and the US) decided to ignore those in invading Iraq. The UK and the US decided to lie to their electorates about the reasons about going to war (where are all those WMD, one wonders?). Perhaps Dubya and his cronies really were dumb enough to believe that Saddam was buddies with al-Queada and helping them – or perhaps it was just another in a long line of convenient lies to spout to the electorate at the time. Still, Halliburton and the likes have done well out of it all, haven't they?

[lionel]

Why must there be "more to Heaven and Earth than monkeys" (evolution)?

Without necessarlily disagreeing with anythng else Sybarite says, surely Eric intended this as a variation of a quotation from Hamlet?

[Sybarite]

Without necessarlily disagreeing with anythng else Sybarite says, surely Eric intended this as a variation of a quotation from Hamlet?

Entirely possible ? but it still doesn't change the essential plea that it expresses, and it doesn't change the question that it provokes.

[Galatea92]

And what did I say there? 'Anticipate'. A fly can no more anticipate anything than pilot a spaceship to the moon. It's due to an unimaginably elaborate system of reflexes that the fly can perform this anticipatory task, Sybarite, so in a sense it is 'beyond any reflex', as you put it, so let's call it a system of mega-reflexes if you like, but they're still reflexes. As, in a much more elaborate system of reflexes, or 'conditioned reponses' – call 'em what you like – we have with Pavlov's dogs, for instance.

I accept that Chomsky had to back down on the chimp issue, and I've already called it a grey area, but what I find far less easy to accept is the use of expressions like 'intelligence', 'memory', 'deceive' or 'lie' (both of the last two, of course, being very similar) for lesser beings. Why can't I accept this? Sorry, but these are anthropomorphic terms: they are unacceptable for use in the way that we apply such expressions to humans. (Words such as 'intelligence' or 'memory' with computers are worse to me, but nevertheless all part of the general disease.)

Be careful here, Lionel. If human beings are animals, then why isn't our behaviour just an elaborate system of reflexes? Conversely, if human beings are the only kind of animal capable of properly autonomous behaviour, then what is it that gives us this unique ability? A soul? Are you suggesting a supernatural origin for this unique ability?

My own opinion on this subject is that our behaviour isn't just an elaborate system of reflexes. What gives us autonomy is the brain. The brain is an elaborate organ that takes in sensory information, and processes that information using feedback from previous experience, memory, abstract thought, emotion, and so on. This feedback is what creates our relative autonomy from simple stimulus/response mechanisms.

In humans, the brain has extra levels of feedback that you don't get in other animals, which explains our extra degrees of freedom, but we're not the only animals with brains. Of the list of attributes you believe should only ever be applied to humans, none is really unique to humans.

'Memory' is a pretty basic property of brains. Even snails have memory.

'Deceit' is a more advanced property. It requires the ability to imagine what others might be thinking. As far as I'm aware, only primates have been observed regularly attempting to deceive others (although it might be possible that dolphins and elephants display this behaviour too). Anyone who owns a dog or a cat might suspect they would deceive if they could ever hide what they're thinking .

'Intelligence' is a bit more difficult. You could define intelligence as something only humans were capable of exhibiting, if you wanted to prove your point. But when scientists use this term they tend to mean 'problem-solving ability', i.e. the ability to find a solution to a problem without having an instinctive ability. As Sybarite has mentioned, dogs do have this ability (although they're pretty rubbish), and primates, crows, dolphins, elephants (I'm sure there must be others) are really very good at it.

Even language isn't necessarily unique to humans, although again it depends on what you define 'language' to mean.

I'm sorry if you are upset by scientists (and computer programmers) taking the words 'intelligence' and 'memory' in vain, but that's how language evolves. Words expand and contract in meaning as people find new uses for them. They never have a single, clearly-defined meaning for long. Isn't that why poetry is possible? Doesn't it depend on the messy ambiguity of words, the ability for a single word to have a whole world of emotional associations rather than a single, rationally-defined meaning?

[Mirabell]

I like you. welcome to the board.

and well said, by the way.

[Eric]

Quite true, Sybarite (#91), no one actually said that about behaviourists. But you have to ask yourself why people do experiments to prove that monkeys have a series of traits common to them and human beings. It seems to me that this is simply to prove that Darwin was right, evolution and ultimate self-interest are all, and while we may have got to a further stage than monkeys, whence we came, there is nothing spiritual about it all, simply advanced powers of perception and reaction.

Western science, when used properly, can still leave room for God, spirituality, love, creation, etc. So you can be religious and a scientist.

Sybarite, you seem to want me to feel panic at the "all there is" dimension of potential athe?sm, and to agonise about mortality and death. Life's too short, as it is. We know we're all going to die from this Earth. Some of us put hope in a life beyond. That doesn't mean we must be self-abnegating all the time down here.

I think that some people choose, out of sheer cussedness, to go against the norms. They feel it their existential duty to fly in the face of the norm. So far, it's acceptable. But once they start proselytising for freedom to always do the opposite of the majority, then they become as whimsical as adolescents. I grant you that some people just drift into getting married and having children, but such activities do ensure the survival of humankind. If we all dropped out of such activities, the monkeys would take over the Earth again. There is no intrinsic merit in being different for different's sake.

*

Galatea92: one shouldn't read too many popular science books about the cortex, lobes, etc. If you shift the essence of humanity from reflexes to the brain, you are still within this obsessive realm of science that seeks to point out that it's all chemistry and physics, and little electrical impulses. Of course it is for the motor functions of the body, but the brain also encapsulates the results of more complex things, such as compassion, conscience, feelings, etc., which only the behaviourists want to turn into a long and dry list of brain functions.

The way we learn language is a mystery. It is not simply hearing the word often enough that we store it in the brain, plus a way of making analogies of sentence patterns. There is also the aspect of meanings and associations. This could maybe all be boiled down to chemistry & physics, but I feel there are more subtle linkeages. Neither of us can prove our case fully, but I still feel this brain-centred explanation for everything a human being thinks and does, is as lifeless and robotic as the way behaviourists think.

So schools should be teaching children that there is life beyond the brain.

[Mirabell]

Galatea92: one shouldn't read too many popular science books about the cortex, lobes, etc. If you shift the essence of humanity from reflexes to the brain, you are still within this obsessive realm of science that seeks to point out that it's all chemistry and physics, and little electrical impulses. Of course it is for the motor functions of the body, but the brain also encapsualtes the results of more complex things, such as compassion, conscience, feelings, etc., which only the behaviourists want to turn into a long and dry list of brain functions.

The way we learn language is a mystery. It is not simply hearing the word often enough that we store it in the brain, plus a way of making analogies of sentence patterns. There is also the aspect of meanings and associations. This could maybe all be boiled down to chemistry & physics, but I feel there are more subtle linkeages. Neither of us can prove our case fully, but I still feel this brain-centred explanation for everything a human being thinks and does, is as lifeless and robotic as the way behaviourists think.

So schools should be teaching children that there is life beyond the brain.

Proclaiming that something is "a mystery" of course doesn't lead anywhere. There are oodles of suggestions out there. Naturally, proof is hard to come by and there are many many points still unexplained yet that does not make the process a mystery in a nontrivial sense.

I think we need to differentiate. galatea explicity talked about brain functions in his/her criticism of lionel's statement. She did not draw conclusions beyond that criticism. This is the point. Physicalism is complex and few sane physicalists would seek to draw conclusions from neurology and apply them to the realm of human behavior. Although the two may be, as I think, directly, causally, connected, we are not advanced enough yet to say that because X happens in the brain, Y happens in the world. Currently we do well to hang on to our models of explanation that explain Y on 'it's own terms'. They serve us well and are actually illuminating, often enough.

To call something a mystery and suggest "more subtle linkages" is intellectual escapism, obscurantism and smacks more of religion than of sound thinking (not that I wanted to imply that there cannot be sound thinking within religion, as a fan of maimonides and pascal I would not dare claim so)

[Galatea92]

I like you. welcome to the board.

and well said, by the way.

Thank you. That's very kind. (I assume you were replying to my message )

[Galatea92]

One shouldn't read too many popular science books about the cortex, lobes, etc. If you shift the essence of humanity from reflexes to the brain, you are still within this obsessive realm of science that seeks to point out that it's all chemistry and physics, and little electrical impulses. Of course it is for the motor functions of the body, but the brain also encapsualtes the results of more complex things, such as compassion, conscience, feelings, etc., which only the behaviourists want to turn into a long and dry list of brain functions.

I spend a lot of my time arguing against determinists and behaviourists, because I think they have too simplistic a notion of what the physical is. They try too hard to be scientific, believing that reducing human behaviour to a few simple laws of cause and effect is enough for a scientific understanding of human behaviour.

But I do believe that we are physical beings. I'm not a dualist - I don't believe there's a body on one side and a mind on the other. I think our mind, our subjective experience of the world, is an emergent property of our physical existence. Note that I use the term 'emergent property' rather than 'is caused by'. I'm avoiding that deterministic terminology because I don't believe there is a simple causal relationship; our subjective experience isn't caused by the biochemistry of the brain, it is that biochemistry. Our thinking is impulses of electrons and flights of neurotransmitters, and it can be a cause as well as an effect of other physical events.

Is this reductive? I don't believe so. I don't believe understanding the chemistry and physics underlying our 'compassion, conscience, feelings' in any way explains or explains away our subjective experience. Our subjective experience is what it is, and it is as much a part of reality as the chemical and physical processes that underlie it.

The way we learn language is a mystery. It is not simply hearing the word often enough that we store it in the brain, plus a way of making analogies of sentence patterns. There is also the aspect of meanings and associations. This could maybe all be boiled down to chemistry & physics, but I feel there are more subtle linkeages. Neither of us can prove our case fully, but I still feel this brain-centred explanation for everything a human being thinks and does, is as lifeless and robotic as the way behaviourists think.

Some popular science books wouldn't go amiss, Eric (I recommend anything by Antonio Damasio). We understand quite a bit about the neuroscience of language these days (although we've still got a long way to go). It's precisely the way the brain is structured that makes these complex associations possible. The brain doesn't work like a computer, which stores a simple, unvarying representation of data that can be retrieved in exactly the same way it was stored. The brain is a massively complex associative map. Information there is stored as a complex network of relationships, so any memory, for example, is always connected to emotional responses, smells, stray thoughts, and whatever happened to be stored away at the same time. And when you retrieve the information through recall, you travel through this complex web of stuff that was laid down, and modify it with all the new experiences that led you to recall it. And so on, ad infinitum (or at least until death ).

So we never learn words in isolation. We always learn them in context. That's how we pick up grammatical patterns. We may learn grammar formally later in life, but when we first learn a language, we learn it like this, hearing words in a particular context repeatedly, slowly generalising about grammar and semantics. (Generalising is something that associative networks seem to do automatically by the way. Even very simple artificial networks learn to generalise and categorise without be programmed to do so).

[lionel]

Yes indeed, welcome to the forum, Galatea92!

Be careful here, Lionel. If human beings are animals, then why isn't our behaviour just an elaborate system of reflexes?

I didn't say our behaviour isn't an elaborate system of reflexes, did I? But with humans we're talking about something, which, as I said before, is unimaginable.

[I]f human beings are the only kind of animal capable of properly autonomous behaviour[...]

'[P]roperly autonomous behaviour'? Definition, please?

[...] then what is it that gives us this unique ability?

I don't know. Do you?

A soul?

That's certainly not a word I'd ever use, as it's meaningless.

Are you suggesting a supernatural origin for this unique ability?

See above.

My own opinion on this subject is that our behaviour isn't just an elaborate system of reflexes.

That expression again.

What gives us autonomy is the brain. The brain is an elaborate organ that takes in sensory information, and processes that information using feedback from previous experience, memory, abstract thought, emotion, and so on. This feedback is what creates our relative autonomy from simple stimulus/response mechanisms.

But where did this 'autonomy' come from, if not an unimaginably complex evolutionary system?

In humans, the brain has extra levels of feedback that you don't get in other animals, which explains our extra degrees of freedom, but we're not the only animals with brains.

It's these 'extras' I don't like. So what? We're more developed. What makes the 'extras'?

'Memory' is a pretty basic property of brains. Even snails have memory.

Again, are we talking about anything more than attributing to animals terms normally applied to humans? What does memory mean to humans? The memory of humans is infinitely more complex than anything you can apply to any animal: we can twist memory, tear it to pieces, deny it, do to it whatever 'extras' we choose.

'Deceit' is a more advanced property. It requires the ability to imagine what others might be thinking. As far as I'm aware, only primates have been observed regularly attempting to deceive others (although it might be possible that dolphins and elephants display this behaviour too). Anyone who owns a dog or a cat might suspect they would deceive if they could ever hide what they're thinking .

I don't think I see much of an argument here.

But I'll give intelligence a miss, as it's far too complicated an issue.

Even language isn't necessarily unique to humans, although again it depends on what you define 'language' to mean.

Ug.

I'm sorry if you are upset by scientists (and computer programmers) taking the words 'intelligence' and 'memory' in vain, but that's how language evolves.

Hell, don't bother about that: I was joking!

Words expand and contract in meaning as people find new uses for them. They never have a single, clearly-defined meaning for long. Isn't that why poetry is possible? Doesn't it depend on the messy ambiguity of words, the ability for a single word to have a whole world of emotional associations rather than a single, rationally-defined meaning?

Absolutely.