Even in Japan, where people tend to be very insular about everything Japanese, almost all professionals read English; technicians, scientists, doctors. They recognize that their own language is ill-suited for discussion of logical topics, more suited to matters of deference (how low should I bow) than science.
Even in Japan, where people tend to be very insular about everything Japanese, almost all professionals read English; technicians, scientists, doctors. They recognize that their own language is ill-suited for discussion of logical topics, more suited to matters of deference (how low should I bow) than science.
Speaking of science, "The Missmeasure of Man" has shown me that I have been overly generous in my thoughts on scientists. I've thought that non-scientists who chant the word science are typically talking about their opinions on the meaning of data without much science where the opinion conforms to their world view. It turns out that scientists can be just as guilty. The crap that has been considered to be legitimate science is amazing, leading to the thought that it is not just a thing of the past as if we are a finished product. Thanks again for mentioning that book.
I have always been skeptical of a single number (IQ) saying too much about someone. Even in my youth when test results included breakouts of things like abstract reasoning, spatial relations, etc. seemed more useful in determining my strengths and weaknesses that I needed to work on, rather than something damning. That does not mean that I think IQ is completely meaningless, but the world is full of people who do just fine without high IQs.
"The Bell Curve" fished me in a bit in that they seemed to use sound methods (multiple regression) but I am not a statistician and the correlation factors they gave don't exactly relate to how I judged the quality of testing (Cp or Cpk) where 3 sigma (99.7% confidence) was required for flight critical functions. Obviously, "things" can have tight enough standard deviations for that where highly variable "humans" have a much broader bell curve. Until I read the book, I didn't realize what a low standard they used to draw their conclusions. Noise that would get you thrown out of an engineering review if you presented something that weak. "Science."
One of the biggest disappointments of my life was learning that intelligent people are every bit as prejudiced and bigoted as anyone else. If anything they have greater capacity to rationalize their prejudices.
Even in Japan, where people tend to be very insular about everything Japanese, almost all professionals read English; technicians, scientists, doctors. They recognize that their own language is ill-suited for discussion of logical topics, more suited to matters of deference (how low should I bow) than science.
Speaking of science, "The Missmeasure of Man" has shown me that I have been overly generous in my thoughts on scientists. I've thought that non-scientists who chant the word science are typically talking about their opinions on the meaning of data without much science where the opinion conforms to their world view. It turns out that scientists can be just as guilty. The crap that has been considered to be legitimate science is amazing, leading to the thought that it is not just a thing of the past as if we are a finished product. Thanks again for mentioning that book.
I have always been skeptical of a single number (IQ) saying too much about someone. Even in my youth when test results included breakouts of things like abstract reasoning, spatial relations, etc. seemed more useful in determining my strengths and weaknesses that I needed to work on, rather than something damning. That does not mean that I think IQ is completely meaningless, but the world is full of people who do just fine without high IQs.
"The Bell Curve" fished me in a bit in that they seemed to use sound methods (multiple regression) but I am not a statistician and the correlation factors they gave don't exactly relate to how I judged the quality of testing (Cp or Cpk) where 3 sigma (99.7% confidence) was required for flight critical functions. Obviously, "things" can have tight enough standard deviations for that where highly variable "humans" have a much broader bell curve. Until I read the book, I didn't realize what a low standard they used to draw their conclusions. Noise that would get you thrown out of an engineering review if you presented something that weak. "Science."
One of the biggest disappointments of my life was learning that intelligent people are every bit as prejudiced and bigoted as anyone else. If anything they have greater capacity to rationalize their prejudices.