Wong's education and career

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Praeothmin
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Post by Praeothmin » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:28 pm

Feldercarb wrote:I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. ;)
Then you must be an intelligent person, because I am an intelligent person, and I too stayed at a Holiday Inn last night (as I will be all week, in France)... ;)
Reading the linked page, I really don't see anything in there that would pertain to either engineering or space science, it's not much more then the deconstruction of plays and novels we all did in high school English.
Yup, It does seem like it.
What Wong fails to note, though, is that while pointing that in TPM, the SW Galaxy is a Republic, what we notice in the EU, and the movies, is that people keep repeating, over and over, how the Republic is corrupted and doesn't work.
If you keep saying that a Democratic body doesn't work, there's a high possibility you're saying that democracy may not be the best...

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Post by ILikeDeathNote » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:31 pm

Feldercarb wrote:Reading the linked page, I really don't see anything in there that would pertain to either engineering or space science, it's not much more then the deconstruction of plays and novels we all did in high school English.
Are you talking about Brin's "hate mail" page that I linked to?

Yeah, pretty much. It's really nothing more but Wong responding to comments made by Brin in an essay, the arguments being based on the social and political status of Jedi and the state of democracy in the SW galaxy, rather than on physics, "space science" and anything truly philosophical.

Although I agree with Wong in regards to the Jedi, I disagree with him on the democracy part. If nothing else, electing a monarch just indicates that George Lucas is either highly politically ignorant or was purely driven by what sounds and looks cool on-screen (AS THE ENTIRE MOVIES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN, something that fails to sink into the minds of hardcore fanboys).

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:18 pm

Feldercarb wrote:Reading the linked page, I really don't see anything in there that would pertain to either engineering or space science, it's not much more then the deconstruction of plays and novels we all did in high school English.

Keep in mind that I'm neither an engineer, English major or hold a Ph.D but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. ;)
Right. The genre of the essay is strictly within the humanities - philosophy or political science, perhaps, or literature, or communications, i.e., the kinds of education Wong doesn't have much of and discounts as not really meaning anything.

We might count David Brin as an expert in science fiction literature, since he is a prolific and successful author and the science fiction community has given him multiple awards for his work; really, the mismatch in credentials to establish Brin as an expert is heavily in his favor in almost any field we might choose.

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Post by Feldercarb » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:41 pm

ILikeDeathNote wrote:
Are you talking about Brin's "hate mail" page that I linked to?
Yep.
Yeah, pretty much. It's really nothing more but Wong responding to comments made by Brin in an essay, the arguments being based on the social and political status of Jedi and the state of democracy in the SW galaxy, rather than on physics, "space science" and anything truly philosophical.

Although I agree with Wong in regards to the Jedi, I disagree with him on the democracy part. If nothing else, electing a monarch just indicates that George Lucas is either highly politically ignorant or was purely driven by what sounds and looks cool on-screen (AS THE ENTIRE MOVIES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN, something that fails to sink into the minds of hardcore fanboys).
I'm not sure that Amidala was anything more then Naboo's president with a fancier title. The political structure isn't well explained in the films and the fact that she could only serve a set number of terms and had to abide by a constitution doesn't really lead me to believe she was an absolute monarch in the style of the Europeans.
Right. The genre of the essay is strictly within the humanities - philosophy or political science, perhaps, or literature, or communications, i.e., the kinds of education Wong doesn't have much of and discounts as not really meaning anything.
We might count David Brin as an expert in science fiction literature, since he is a prolific and successful author and the science fiction community has given him multiple awards for his work; really, the mismatch in credentials to establish Brin as an expert is heavily in his favor in almost any field we might choose.
I haven't read any of his work (seen The Postman though) but I'm not sure his record as a sci-fi author tells us much, after all Tom Clancy is a very successful author but his work isn't what I would call high quality (his later work apparently becomes a soapbox). Rather I would think his Ph.D indicates more developed logical and analytical skills. Or I would hope, considering part of the process is defending your thesis in front of prospective peers.

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Post by ILikeDeathNote » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:56 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote: Right. The genre of the essay is strictly within the humanities - philosophy or political science, perhaps, or literature, or communications, i.e., the kinds of education Wong doesn't have much of and discounts as not really meaning anything.
Strictly speaking not true; an essay is a format, not a genre. Mike Wong could write an essay on the design of beryllium-copper plastic dye presses, an area in which he does have much expertise in. A strictly technical essay like this would not have anything pertaining to political science, literature, or communications (other than communicating design functions of a Be-Cu plastic dye press) but would still qualify as an essay.
Feldercarb wrote: I'm not sure that Amidala was anything more then Naboo's president with a fancier title. The political structure isn't well explained in the films and the fact that she could only serve a set number of terms and had to abide by a constitution doesn't really lead me to believe she was an absolute monarch in the style of the Europeans.
That's pretty much my point. A monarch cannot be elected by definition! If we are to take the "Star Wars is a documentary" route that Wong likes, then we have to chalk it up to a blatant and (general? :p) grievous translation error, almost on the scale of a Chinese knock-off.

Going back to "the real world," we have the two conclusions I originally put fourth - that either George Lucas is highly ignorant of the political process, or, far more likely, he just went with whatever sounded and looked cool onscreen. The latter is most likely because there are several statements and other forms of evidence suggesting that the entire driving creative force behind the entire Star Wars franchise is to "do whatever looks and sounds cool."

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Post by Feldercarb » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:04 pm

ILikeDeathNote wrote:
That's pretty much my point. A monarch cannot be elected by definition! If we are to take the "Star Wars is a documentary" route that Wong likes, then we have to chalk it up to a blatant and (general? :p) grievous translation error, almost on the scale of a Chinese knock-off.
*shrug* Maybe it's a traditional title going back to when the head of state was an actual Queen.
Going back to "the real world," we have the two conclusions I originally put fourth - that either George Lucas is highly ignorant of the political process, or, far more likely, he just went with whatever sounded and looked cool onscreen. The latter is most likely because there are several statements and other forms of evidence suggesting that the entire driving creative force behind the entire Star Wars franchise is to "do whatever looks and sounds cool."
Well GL has mentioned the Flash Gordon series as an inspiration, so it's safe to say that the "rule of cool" is the order of the day.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:17 pm

ILikeDeathNote wrote:Strictly speaking not true; an essay is a format, not a genre. Mike Wong could write an essay on the design of beryllium-copper plastic dye presses, an area in which he does have much expertise in. A strictly technical essay like this would not have anything pertaining to political science, literature, or communications (other than communicating design functions of a Be-Cu plastic dye press) but would still qualify as an essay.
Perhaps my phrasing was ambiguous; I didn't mean that essays were a genre, but that the genre of that particular essay - a social literary critique examining the lessons that a science fiction franchise teaches - is well outside of Wong's field of expertise, and in fact an area in which he may have no formal training in beyond a high school English literature class.

Wong tends to exhibit (as seen, say, here) outright contempt for the humanities and social sciences, which make his frequent forays into humanities topics - such as ethics, literary critique, et cetera - a little more understandable.

Since he thinks that the experts in the field are "idiots," that means that he, as someone who isn't an idiot, is at least as qualified as anybody else to make claims about them despite his lack of education.

And that's a claim that deserves critical examination, because it's one he makes anecdotally, rather than supporting with empirical evidence. Here we see a list of IQ estimates derived from incoming SAT scores by intended major. We see prospective engineers ranked below prospective social scientists, prospective philosophers, prospective economists, and prospective english lit majors.

Here is a table of prospective graduate students by field, with similar IQ calculations. Aside from the always high-scoring philosophers and economists, let's look down on the table. Average estimated IQ for students planning on graduate school in psychology (which he claims to be a pseudoscience): 113. Average IQ of a working "materials or design" engineer: 110.

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Post by Feldercarb » Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:39 pm

From what I recall of his statements on "soft science" fields (I usually skip over them, I find him woefully ignorant of mental illnesses) they revolve around the fields not being tested to the same standard as engineering. How one could test psychological "theories" in such a manner is quite beyond me, going by the ethical code they use and the potential results of such testing I doubt that any reputable Dr. would agree to conducting them.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:51 am

Feldercarb wrote:From what I recall of his statements on "soft science" fields (I usually skip over them, I find him woefully ignorant of mental illnesses) they revolve around the fields not being tested to the same standard as engineering. How one could test psychological "theories" in such a manner is quite beyond me, going by the ethical code they use and the potential results of such testing I doubt that any reputable Dr. would agree to conducting them.
You test psychological results the exact same way you test biological, astronomical, and all other scientific results: Statistically. Psychology is by and large a statistically rigorous empirical field of study. I'm of the opinion Wong is probably completely ignorant of what psychology research looks like in the modern age.

A number of people who are ignorant of pretty much the whole of modern psychology think of Freudian psychoanalysis - which, as just about any psych prof will make sure to tell his intro students, is pseudoscientific claptrap.

But most of the stuff that the VS debate is about has nothing to do with science at all - and he's also quite ignorant of most of those other subjects. The "liberal arts" and "humanities" crowd he disparages as idiots:
Wong, from the thread I linked to above wrote:Actually, that one is easy to explain. There are lots of people out there who take liberal arts, because the admissions criteria are low and any idiot with half a brain can get in.
This, in spite of the fact that prospective english lit majors beat prospective engineering majors on the SAT-IQ correlation curve? Despite the fact that outgoing philosophy students' GRE scores are among the highest of all, leading some to estimate that philosophy graduate students have an average IQ about one standard deviation above the average for graduate students - when a working engineer is only two thirds of a deviation above the norm of the population? (See links in post above.)

As seems usual, his claims don't stand up to the least bit of data.

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Post by Flectarn » Wed Apr 01, 2009 2:24 am

ILikeDeathNote wrote:
That's pretty much my point. A monarch cannot be elected by definition! If we are to take the "Star Wars is a documentary" route that Wong likes, then we have to chalk it up to a blatant and (general? :p) grievous translation error, almost on the scale of a Chinese knock-off.
*cough*Holy Roman Empire*cough*

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Post by ILikeDeathNote » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:43 am

Flectarn wrote: *cough*Holy Roman Empire*cough*
Well, I'll be damned

In regards to Wong, and the whole subject of Engineer IQ/SAT scores vs. others, I suspect it may have something to do with how the brain is "wired" and what kind of areas people are naturally predisposed towards. All of the engineers I've met (primarily through, and including my brother, who I will not divulge any further details about) tend to excel at math but tend to suck in other areas. I really suck at math, but I seem to excel in pretty much all other areas. I would wager that I probably excel at concepts best, since I excelled very strongly on the language portions of various high school and college-level tests, and why I excel at statistics, which is a very concept- and abstract- driven area of math.

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Post by GStone » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:38 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:Wong tends to exhibit (as seen, say, here) outright contempt for the humanities and social sciences, which make his frequent forays into humanities topics - such as ethics, literary critique, et cetera - a little more understandable.

Since he thinks that the experts in the field are "idiots," that means that he, as someone who isn't an idiot, is at least as qualified as anybody else to make claims about them despite his lack of education.
This is him running into nonoverlapping magisteria.
You're right. Psychologists, sociologists, and psychiatrists seem reluctant to employ the scientific method properly. Theories which throw Occam's Razor to the wind (eg- multiple personality disorder) become "chic" and easily accepted. The fact that psychology and sociology are typically found in the <I>ARTS</I> faculty of any given university explains it. I've read through sociology and psychology textbooks; their use of "scientific methods" is restricted to statistical analysis.
This is because these sciences are not strictly mechanical, as astrophysics and chemistry are. They are partially 'why' based. Mechanical observation and mechanical data recording doesn't have any authority over 'why'. This is where things, such as philosphy and the like enter into it. No amount of math is gonna explain things like this.

Such mechanicstic thinking is best ignored because of its outdatedness and limited nature.
It can be relied upon when they say something which is as obvious as the nose on your face. It cannot, however, be relied upon for, say, convicting someone of a crime (unlike other scientific fields; a mechanical engineer's testimony on the forensic analysis of the twisted wreckage of a car should hold far more weight than any "psychological profile" in the mind of a jury, but it does not).
This is par for the course when all you focus on in life is the mechanics of things. This example of twisted wreckage is a play at emotionality, something that is a part of the softer sciences, which he bashes, yet he feels it's fine, as long as he prefaces it with 'a mechanical engineer's testimony'.

And if that psychological profile of the driver that caused the accident shows a documented and accepted chemical imbalance that's genetics based? Well, that's just part of the psych profile. Psych profiles are part biology, part not. Discard it. It's what happened with the cars themselves that matters.
And it may or may not improve. I see two key problems with sociology and psychology:

Many practitioners are not trained in proper scientific methodology.
That's a pretty bold statement. I'd like to see his evidence that most schools that teach sociology and psychology don't teach proper scientific method usage. I'm sure he wouldn't make such an overarching statement about an entire field (and more than one at that) without evidence. That wouldn't be very scientific of him.
Human brains are a complex system. Complex systems incorporate a certain degree of unpredictability.

I think the key is not to imagine that we can someday predict human behaviour with equations, but to recognize that at best, it will become like meteorology: useful but no guarantees.
He also leaves out 'why'. The why aspects that creep up when one finds that people are more than the some of their parts, even outside the unpredictability aspect of them. I would like to see him explain why such rigorous methodology can be applicable to areas, like philosophy. The best he can do is explain the mechanics of a thing.

Nowhere can science offer an explanation to meaning. It'd be trying to explain cooking in terms of geometry. You can't. You have to learn cooking and talk of it in terms of cooking.
The proof is in the pudding. If a science is reliable, then it can be applied by engineers. Physics is applied by mechanical engineers, civil engineers, etc., and it works well. Chemistry is applied by chemical engineers, and it works well. Quantum physics is applied by computer engineers (the real ones who work in places like IBM labs, not those fucking MSCE's), and it works well. Relativistic physics is applied by aerospace engineers, and it works well. Now, let's turn to the so-called "social sciences"; they are applied in "social engineering". And how reliable is social engineering? I think the point is made.
Far from it. The softer sciences is called that because 'softer' is in reference to the areas that are not mechanical. This includes areas that science has no place. Philosophy, religion, spirituality. But, there are still some mechanics because the biology of people is also in question, it is partially based on mechanical science.
It's worth studying, but a psychology degree does not necessarily include any formal training in the scientific method. I know; many of my dormitory acquaintances were taking psychology, and I saw their textbooks and homework assignments. They don't learn jack shit about the scientific method. Deal with it.
Oh, here's his evidence. It's from what he 'observed' from his dormitory aquaintances who were taking psychology. That's very scientific.
The goal of psychology is just as worthwhile as the goal of natural science. Unfortunately, the result is near-worthless because it is so unreliable. The subject matter is difficult to study by nature, and psychologists only exacerbate the problem with their unrepentant refusal to employ the scientific method.
The only reason why one might find the subject difficult to learn is if the person has trouble with abstract thinking, as well as conceptualizing. This might explain his attitude.
I think the gist of what others have been saying is that those fields would be more useful if they did, in fact, conduct themselves like scientists. The results would still be limited by the inherent problems with the source data, but it wouldn't be as arbitrary as it is now.
But, if one were to be scientific, the method he's suggesting involves outright ignoring facts. Those facts are there are areas that science has no business in: meaning, philosophy. When one ignores that fact, you are not applying the scientific method appropriately. Thereby, you self-defeat the whole point of the attempt before you even begin. It'd be worse than partially arbitrary. It'd be totally worthless.
We also get irritated when people take the title "scientist" and apply it where it clearly does not belong.
I do marvel at the irony of this.
If a psychology degree required knowledge of scientific methods, it would be useful. Unfortunately, psychology is taught in a manner which closely resembles sociology, history, English literature, and every other field of the "humanities", which is to say that theories are judged on how convincingly you can argue for them or at best, produce shaky statistics to grant them false credibility, with no formal method of determining their objective usefulness or accuracy.
Of course, the idea of the actual application of logic versus the misuse of logic has no barring on his thinking, despite this is of paramount importance to the field.
Then prepare to be surprised. I've read psych textbooks, and their discussion of scientific methods is limited to proper use of statistics. In their minds, that is the scientific method. Argh.
Fact has been overridden by the books Wong has read. But, he never went through the program, so he can't really judge the cirriculum because he is not an authority in such a field. He does not have a degree to prove he has taken the tests and studied. :rolleyes:

Igot sidebar
Then what we have is a wrong educational system, which should teach the scientific method to the students in this area as a method to be followed, not some "side topic in the philosophy books".
This person needs a serious study in nonoverlapping magisteria. That way, he'd see how wrong this stance is.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:34 pm

GStone wrote:That wouldn't be very scientific of him.
Like claiming that liberal arts professors are idiots without a shred of empirical data?

The attitude that a lot of education "doesn't count" isn't limited to Wong, however. The idea that most college education is useless and meaningless is one I've seen on the opinion pages of the WSJ on occasion:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html

You might note specifically he exempts science and engineering degrees, much as Wong does.
GStone wrote:Of course, the idea of the actual application of logic versus the misuse of logic has no barring on his thinking, despite this is of paramount importance to the field.
Actually, here's a point worth talking about. Empirical science has absolutely nothing to do with the study of logic. This is why logicians generally come from pure mathematics, analytic philosophy, and theoretical computer science - the most abstract fields that have the least to do with actual data.

What part of Gödel's work involved subjecting a hypothesis to data? Clearly this is not scientific! However, I doubt you will find many working scientists willing to disrespect mathematics.

Of those three, of course, the ones concerned most with the use of logic in argumentation tend to be the ones in a "humanity" field of study, but it is again worth noting the line tends to be blurry. (Notice that Gödel is described as a philosopher in the Wikipedia article?)

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Post by Flectarn » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:00 pm

I will note, that at least at my school , and presumably elsewhere as well, there are two separate Psych degrees, a Bachelors of the Arts, and a Bachelors of Science, which involve differing amounts of work in the 'Hard sciences" the choice between the two would largely be dependent on what you want to do with it, for example counseling vs research.

anyway, Wong's opinions could be immensely colored by the kind of psych texts he saw + general cultural perceptions of psychoanalysis.

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Post by GStone » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:23 pm

The best he could do to explain areas science has no place in is talking of the scientific equivilent of why and meaning. The problem with that is that there is no math for that. A whole new math would need to be invented. The mechanism of meaning? It's weird to get your head around.

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