dumb cits - followup

This a brief update to a post I wrote not long ago complaining about reporters' handling of press releases that give survey data (dumb cits?). Today's online Washington Post contains a similar critique -- Making Sense of Science Reporting. It's by a Post columnist, Deborah Howell, who tells how data should be reported and how, as readers, we should exercise skepticism when reading science-sensational news items. The Post's OpEd page also contains an article that's critical of a recent work of data-regurgitating, axe-grinding polemicism. The article is The Kids Are Alright. But Their Parents ..., by Neil Howe, who's identified as co-author of Millennials Rising and other books on generational issues. The book that Howe criticizes is Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation. In gist, that book tells us "the technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their minds had the opposite effect." Howe handles Bauerlein's claims not by criticizing methodology, handling of data, or interpretation of results, but simply by pointing to another generation as the dumbest (and quoting an array of sources to convince us he's right). This is clearly a bit self-promotional on his part. His own book has been slammed for its outrageous generalizations and abuse of evidence. This puts us in the position of viewers of the public tv news shows in which talking heads confront an issue from opposite sides without engaging each others' positions but simply using sound-bite argumentation.

Alas.

I'm sure not to read either author's books.

A brief internet search shows that Blauerlein has not attracted much press attention. The LA Times reviewer described and gave modest praise, nothing more. A more interesting reaction came from Mike Gruss, a columnist on the Virginian-Pilot, who wrote the following pair of short items:

'The Dumbest Generation'? Hold on there, Mr. Einstein!
extracts: Bauerlein will speak Thursday at Old Dominion University as part of American Education Week. I asked why anyone on a college campus, most of whom are under 30, would want to show up and listen to the degradation of their peers. After all, most of The Dumbest Generation doesn't like to read books (or newspapers), he says. Most don't even like to read online. According to his book, a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds couldn't identify Vice President Dick Cheney. Bauerlein tried reverse psychology by saying that those young people who attend his lectures help prove him wrong. He likes provoking students.

The idea that this generation is stupid is, um, what's another word for stupid?

More than a decade ago, half as many high school students in Virginia passed Algebra I as today. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows scores for young students in math and reading have improved significantly since 1973.

When it comes to news, The Dumbest Generation watches MSNBC as regularly as the 65 and older group, listens to radio news at nearly an identical rate and reads more news online than any age group 50 and over.

And then there was that whole election thing earlier this month, when, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, turnout for voters under 30 increased 11 percent over that of the 2000 contest.

I saw the best minds of my generation judged prematurely.

I'm 31. You can trust me.

So if students don't show up for Bauerlein's lecture Thursday, it won't be because they were fooled by the hyperbole (or as the author says, humor) in his book's title or because they're indifferent to the label.

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Not so dumb afterall So Wednesday I wrote about Mark Bauerlein. He's the author of the provocatively titled book "The Dumbest Generation." I argue, not so fast. But more evidence came out this week to counter his claim:

From the New York Times:

“It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on MySpace or sending instant messages,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study, “Living and Learning With New Media.” “But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.”

Altogether and in sum, I'm happy to have the Howell piece and think Gruss' attempt at humorous put-down, tho' weak, was the most appropriate response.

some Alabaman mill boys

These photos come from the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division in the Library of Congress. They were all taken by Lewis Hine about whose work I've written before. Hine took them in 1910 at clothing mills in Huntsville, Alabama. I find them fascinating & have put at bottom some enlarged detail images showing subjects that particularly interest me. As usual, click images to view full size. The captions are Hine's own.

Group of young workers in Merrimack Mill (not the youngest).

Group of boys, Merrimac Mills, noon-hour. They would not tell me the truth about their ages.

Closing hour, Saturday noon, at Dallas Mill. Every child in photos, so far as I was able to ascertain, works in that mill. When I questioned some of the youngest boys, they said they were 12, and then other boys said they were lying. (Which sentiment I agreed with.)

Closing hour, Saturday noon, at Dallas Mill. Every child in photos, so far as I was able to ascertain, works in that mill. When I questioned some of the youngest boys as to their ages, they said they were 12, and then other boys said they were lying. (Which sentiment I agreed with.)

Closing hour, Saturday noon, at Dallas Mill. Every child in photos, so far as I was able to ascertain, works in that mill. When I questioned some of the youngest boys as to their ages, they said they were 12, and then other boys said they were lying. (Which sentiment I agreed with.)

Group of workers. Boy on left refused to pose. Merrimac Mills. Location: Huntsville, Alabama. November 1910

Young girls going to work noon-hour Merrimac Mills.

Young Girls going to work noon-hour Merrimac Mills.

Two of the workers in Merrimack Mills. See Hine report.

Gracie Clark, 268 A Street (with a white dress) has been a spinner in the filling room of Merrimack Mill for three years. Her Life Insurance Policy gives her age thirteen years now, so she began working at ten years.

The collection note P&P's curator says:

Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Lewis Hine (1874-1940) documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924. The NCLC photos are useful for the study of labor, reform movements, children, working class families, education, public health, urban and rural housing conditions, industrial and agricultural sites, and other aspects of urban and rural life in America in the early twentieth century.

The collection consists of more than 5,100 photographic prints and 355 glass negatives, given to the Library of Congress, along with the NCLC records, in 1954 by Mrs. Gertrude Folks Zimand, acting for the NCLC in her capacity as chief executive.

P&P ONLINE CATALOG - NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE COLLECTION

soup

I joined soup.io when it was first introduced last year. Haven't used my account, but keep finding others who are doing good stuff with theirs. The ambiance is refreshingly Mitteleuropa and iconoclastic.

Hair in my soup has a been a favorite for a while now. I just added pogus'ka to my Bloglines aggregation.

These come from its current posts:

what to read

I collect book recommendations from friends, blogs, and reviews. They end up in my librarything catalog marked toberead. I add another tag for the ones I can borrow locally and mark ones that I can mooch on Bookmooch. Naturally, quite a few have no interest when I finally get around to them, or turn out to have been misrepresented to me.

And then there are the books that catch my eye in the best-of-the-year lists. I've learned to restrain myself with them. Too often I feel I ought to read rather than want to read them and, when brought to hand, disappoint. That said, Ralph Luker writes that history books dominate both the NY Times nonfiction list and the TLS list this year, so maybe, for a change, I'll find fewer ought-to's and more want-to's.

Here are the best-of lists I've found so far.

- Guardian: Season's readings
- Times (UK): The Times Books Christmas Special
- TLS: TLS Books of the Year 2008
- ALA YA:Best Books for Young Adults 2008
- NY Times: 100 Notable Books of 2008
- NY Times: Notable Children’s Books of 2008
- Telegraph (UK):Chistmas books
- Telegraph (UK):Christmas books: history
- NY Times blog post: Picking the Notable Books of the Year

{Source: Guardian. Caption: Detail from the Madonna Della Rondine by Carlo Crivelli. Image: The Art Archive}

{Source: Telegraph. Caption: Christmas past: Anothy Fletcher's 'Growing up in England' is highly recommended}

distraction

I watch the tube while I do my thirty-minute jog each day. Months past it would be bike races on dvd or video, occasionally a cricket test match, sometimes golf. It's not all sports. I ran through all the first series of Zatôichi at one point and have made an eBay purchase of the whole Pallisers series. Mostly I buy second hand, but I've bought some dvds on sale new and sometimes rent.

My current exercise distraction is the full series of Planet Earth dvds. I bought a used set of the BBC version narrated by Richard Attenborough at a ridiculous price on eBay. As others have observed, there's lots of icky insectile stuff, lots of dominance competition and territory protecting, parched deserts, frozen tundra, and the like which can be off-putting when absorbed just before dinner, my usual time on the treadmill. But not off-putting enough to detract from the magnificent whole of this amazing adventure.

I recently viewed the program on grass plains which featured a segment on the Kiang, Tibet's wild asses. This you can view for yourself on Youtube (2 min, 35 sec):



One of the more unsettling segments is one about two large communities of chimpanzees which occupy neighboring territory. Quite recently I read a book about the behavior of human hunter-gathering societies. The chimps and humans behave with startlingly similar tactics: not just defending territory by warning off potential invaders -- as do many species -- but sending out warrior patrols for organized attacks within the territory controlled by a competing group.

The segment shows a chimp patrol moving silently up to the border and then stealthily into the territory of their neighbors. They initiate a surprise attack on the community, cooperate in killing one member of it, and then -- unpleasantly -- cannibalize him. Having done this they return home. It can't be known exactly what they achieve by this. They don't attempt to rule their neighbors as a conquered people and the attack is likely to fit into a complicated pattern by which they demonstrate their power, hone their ability to cooperate with each other, develop specialized roles for carrying out responsibilities, and keep up their hunting and fighting skills.

I couldn't find a Youtube of this segment, but there's one showing a wildlife cameraman discussing a similar attack by chimps on a group of monkeys (4 min). There are some shots from the same segment in this Discovery Channel video, but not ones of the patrol in action.

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More on Kiang:








More on Chimps:

Chimp Warfare and Predators

Planet Earth part two - press pack

In the Ngogo forest in Uganda Planet Earth captures a natural history first when the largest chimpanzee group in the world – 150 strong – defends its territory from neighbouring chimp groups. On one patrol a youngster from a rival group is killed and eaten.

being grateful

From Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, On Friendship (1841):

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is Nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations ; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I, but the Deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts.

Images from the Library of Congress; click to view full size.

dumb cits?

The newspapers are giving coverage to a civics survey that purports to show, as one commentator says, that most Americans are too ignorant to vote. The research is by a group called the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which (surprise!) has an agenda. The organization celebrates free markets, civil society, the American Experience, and the achievement of national security. It aims to "further in successive generations of college youth a better understanding of the values and institutions that sustain a free and humane society." And in "educating for liberty" it hopes

to identify the best and the brightest college students and to nurture in these future leaders the American ideal of ordered liberty. To accomplish this goal, ISI seeks to enhance the rising generation's knowledge of our nation's founding principles — limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, market economy, and moral norms.

It's also no surprise that news coverage focuses on the ISI's press release (pdf) and gives little or no context. I didn't find any articles that gave useful background info on ISI or its aims. This is discouraging. Biased research is unavoidable, of course, but (I believe) reporters should help readers understand how it might have entered into survey summary that comes their way via eye-catching press release. Unlike (admittedly harassed and dead-line besieged) reporters, Bloggers do often give background about and criticize what they consider to be biased surveys, and (often-enough) their own argument-skewing biases are both obvious and discountable. (A recent example: New EDF poll statistically invalid due to biased questions, posted on Scholars and Rogues, November 14, 2008, by Brian Angliss.)

Given the time constraints on reporters, wouldn't it be nice to have an online database of research reports like the consumer databases of organizations such as Consumers Checkbook or the myth-busting of the Urban Legends Reference Pages? I searched, but couldn't locate anything of that nature. (Again, I'm not trying to maintain that such organizations are themselves free of bias, but accounting for bias in them is not difficult and, since they are numerous, comparisons are possible.)

At the very least, it would be nice if some reporters, anyway, would give urls for the organizations that carry out studies they report, for the survey methodologies, and for the survey questionnaires themselves.

It's not too hard to find the ISI home page. Go there and you'll find the release of course (pdf, as I said) and a full page on the survey itself, along with the questionnaire, which you can take on the spot.

You'll see the bias without difficulty. The questions focus on the organization's agenda and carry a strong flavor of Adam Smith and the US Founding Fathers. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, so long as it's obvious (as it is). Although it needs to be taken into account, I wouldn't say the bias invalidates conclusions that are being drawn from the published results, although it's a bit excessive to say that Americans are too ignorant to vote.

You probably realize there's nothing new in complaints about the low level of civic knowledge in democracies. Still, the results of this survey seem to suggest things are worse than they were. The student reporters for a collegiate paper give some reasons: academic curricula have broadened. There's much less emphasis on what used to be core subjects, like American History, Political Economy, and civics in general. And, you have to ask yourself, (a) is this wrong, (b) is the survey respondents' ignorance a real danger to the US, and (c) are things truly worse than they used to be? In giving my answers to these questions I acknowledge that as a student of history and enthusiast of the Enlightenment & 18th c. history, I'm myself biased.

If you put your quiz score in the comments and I'll tell you mine. OK? (If you're not in the target audience for the survey -- US cits -- you're off the hook of course, but responses welcome all the same.)

Addendum:

I've been particularly concerned about the shortcomings of news reports on survey results since the first appearance of the NEA wolf-crying on the decline in recreational reading in America.

Here are some links on this topic.

Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline, According to National Endowment for the Arts Survey

A brilliant critique of the NEA Reading report

More Responses to NEA Reading Report

Joost off-season, Lance in training

I haven't done a Joost post for a while. You'll recall that he won this year's Three Days of De Panne and the Tour of Luxembourg last spring. Since then he's been injured a couple of times. He recovered after the first crash and, at the end of August, took a good second place in the Dutch time trial championship race. Since the second crash, in October at the Tour of Poland, he has mainly devoted himself to helping other team members achieve their best. Rabobank itself hasn't done all that well. Óscar Freire, Denis Menchov, and Juan Antonio Flecha have come close but haven't achieved podium finishes in major races lately. He ended his season a bit earlier than usual to work on recovering from the second crash. Since then he has renewed his contract with the team for a couple more years and has moved from his home in Belgium back to a city in eastern Netherlands close to his birthplace. He says he's happy to be back in his home country in the Tukkerland province.

Joost came to mind when I read yet one more piece on Lance's comeback in Pez this morning. Pez was able to place a reporter in a support vehicle that followed LA on a training ride in the countryside near Austin. The article helped me remember why I'm not fond of the man. He lives in a gated estate, trains with only one fellow cyclist, has the support vehicle with him all the time, and, in general, seems to use his wealth to make things as close to perfect for himself as he can. It's the celebrity culture I dislike. That and the aloofness that he used to keep from other professional cyclists. I can't imagine him palling with Joost at any time in his career. All the same, his devotion to cancer projects and healthy living is wholly admirable. One shot of him reminds me of another reason I temper my dislike: he looks a lot like my friend Joel.

Here's a video (to which the Pez article points) on Lance and one of his cars:

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Here's a little Joost gallery. Click images to view full size.

In the recent Tour of Mexico:


At Three Days of De Panne







Map showing Hengelo near Enschede.

Tukkerland seems to be a relatively rural area in which there's an annual youth festival:

quest for meaning

Saw this Banksy this morning and searched til I came up with the companion that follows.




The artist has a web site - or at least one that seems to be authentic. And a manifesto.

Quite a few bloggers proliferate Banksy as I've just done. Some collect other interesting images.

Such as this.


And this.

Sources: http://web.soup.io/, http://ffffound.com/, Michaela on MySpace, http://pixdaus.com/, http://pixdaus.com/

the way one buys one's horses—and one's husbands

Are the novels of Anthony Trollope an acquired taste? I suppose he seems wordy and I suppose it can seem tedious that he so often explains what he's telling you while he tells it. But his command of language, his power of description, and his feeling for human interaction are so wonderful. The apparent (and I think real) ease with which he writes; the fluidity of his line, his paragraph, his chapter; all these are masterful. It may be eccentric to appreciate his restraint, but I am truly fond of authors such as he who bend over backwards to avoid sensationalism. He's particularly fine when read late evenings, before bedtime, or during periods of sleeplessness -- a calming influence, full of gentle humor and possessing a pleasant way of letting his characters reveal themselves while conversing - actually holding extended conversations in which they listen, react, interrogate, persuade; pretty much always in full sentences; pretty much always with a transparent clarity.

Over lunch I read two chapters of Phineas Finn that stand on their own and that could be a good introduction to the author's skill and freedom of expression.

They are CHAPTER X, Violet Effingham and CHAPTER XI, Lord Chiltern.

I recommend them.