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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35350 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The triumph of the blank slate

an article in the Atlantic recently made the case that separating sport by sex doesn’t make sense, because it ‘reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting — a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.’

On a similar theme, a few weeks back the New York Times ran a piece arguing that ‘maternal instinct is a myth that men created’. In the essay, published in the world’s most influential newspaper, it was stated that ‘The notion that the selflessness and tenderness babies require is uniquely ingrained in the biology of women, ready to go at the flip of a switch, is a relatively modern — and pernicious — one. It was constructed over decades by men selling an image of what a mother should be, diverting our attention from what she actually is and calling it science.’

Just recently, Scientific American stated that ‘Before the late 18th century, Western science recognized only one sex — the male — and considered the female body an inferior version of it. The shift historians call the “two-sex model” served mainly to reinforce gender and racial divisions by tying social status to the body.’

Yet what is strange is that such ideas are triumphant, even as the scientific evidence against them mounts up, with the expanding understanding of genetics and the role of inheritance. The tabula rasa should by all rights be dead, indeed it should have been killed twenty years ago with the publication of one of the most important books of the century so far, Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate.

Rather than blank slate-led ideas falling to mockery and obscurity, the opposite has happened — they’ve proliferated and spread. Pinker was obviously right, yet seems to have lost.

i recently was in a seminar discussing fixed versus growth mindsets, and it was argued that believing in any innate/genetic component of intelligence was connected to a 'fixed' mindset. we were discouraged from using the idea of 'talent' as it implied that some people were just naturally better at some things than others. it seems like a core part of the 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' mantra that is finding its way everywhere - the idea of innate difference is anathema to the principle behind caring about equity versus equality.

The growth mindset is so wrong yet it endures. There are probably a lot of financial interests--books, seminars, TED talks, careers--in keeping it alive. The replication crisis exists for this reason. Incorrect ideas in the physical sciences seem to be quickly buried but they can last forever in the social sciences. It's always possible to massage the data in a certain way or sample enough times to get the results you want.

Everything coming out of Education is about flooding and streamlining the process of sheering students and their families like sheep at the "Higher" Education gates. Anything that promotes enrollment and retention is good. Learning and even graduation are neutral or sometimes even negatives (especially the learning part since it leads some people to throw themselves on the gears of their machine). DEI, Administration Appartuses, "Woke" K-12 education, prestige/elite political and moral posturing, and absolute obedience to Federal government agencies, departments, and policies -- all of these increase and maintain the input of students each year who carry guaranteed funds in with them like giant bags of Monopoly money, regardless of their own personal situation.

What we are seeing is the inevitable, "late-stage" outcome of the structures established in the late 20th century around providing "college education" for everyone via State-backed programs, loans, etc. All of the incentives are topsy-turvy, and the algorithm has been allowed to run freely, out of control. The same could be said for US Health Care, the Military-Industrial Complex, etc.

The "growth mindset" is pure sugar in the mouths of Higher Ed admins, because it applies to literally everyone -- don't worry if you've never been able to master even basic algebra, you can still grow into it! Sign here on the dotted line for a 30k$ semester of Aerospace Engineering classes at your local State school (which you will inevitably fail, only to be "retained" and looped back for another round two or three more times).

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