Re:IMSA: Drugging the Gifted (Score 1)

In the context of your justification for it, which was "your second paragraph then goes on to do nothing other than present two pieces of anecdotal evidence, only one of which has any detail." there are multiple logical fallacies here, but the most glaring one is called "false dilemma". I could have had an interest in an objective evaluation of the school as well as "a desire to say something bad".

Yes. You could have. I apologize if the conclusion I jumped to was incorrect. That conclusion (that the tone of your posting indicated hostility and that such hostility would preclude objective and rational discussion), though, was one that you should expect when using certain terms and tactics in an informal conversation. And that is what this is: an informal conversation, a mode of interaction in which formal logic is not the best or only tool. My perceptions of your postings have had more to do with tone than with formally stated or logically deducible conclusions.

Now that I've opened that can of worms, I had better be specific about the terms and tactics that set your tone and led me to think that you had an axe to grind.

You referred to the "abysmal ethics of educators". In fact, you questioned whether IMSA's ethics were even up to such an "abysmal" level. This is inflammatory not just to people close to the institution under discussion, but to all educators.

You strongly praise a person and compare him to a second in a way that is quite unflattering to the second. You call one "stellar" and the other "typical". While this praise and comparison may be true, it leads people (or maybe just me) to think that you have a _personal_ stake in the matter. It makes you sound like someone emotionally defending a friend, not someone rationally critiquing a system of education.

If this is the sort of logic they teach at IMSA, perhaps I should have been motivated "to say something bad".

You later defend your use of this personal insult against me by saying (correctly) that it was on-topic in that I am an IMSAn and, therefore, my behavior and abilities are relevant to the discussion. This is true. But I am not just a datapoint. I am also your conversational partner. I could have made myself clearer or stated my position with more of the logical steps filled in. You could have criticized this shortcoming in a way that was not as flip and offensive.

Your questioning of my "motives" for doing so was rhetorical nonsense...

The term 'nonsense' is harsh. [An aside: To me, your motives are actually the most interesting aspect of this conversation.]

In general, your use of strong adjectives indicates a strong feeling on the topic. Strong feelings are correlated with leaps of judgment and departures from objective, rational thinking. Many readers of this thread would assume that the tone of your postings indicates a lack of objectivity. This was my response. This is not a logical fallacy; I did not assume that emotion like yours prohibits rational thought. I only made use of the conversational heuristic that if a person is ranting, then he is _probably_ not thinking clearly.

I recognize that by using the word 'ranting' I am inviting people to judge my rationality down a notch as well. I have been guilty of all of the misdeeds of which I am accusing you. This is a sign that I should exit this conversation soon; lingering would likely waste more time and energy for us and other readers.

Before I go...

You posted the following account:

IMSA conducted an experiment to illuminate the question of whether females would learn math better if segregated from males. However, in this experiment, the teaching methodologies employed in the female-only class were quite different from those employed outside of that class. If the experiment had been properly conducted, the methodologies would have been the same. Students exposed to this idea of "experimentation" by their own educators, as were IMSA students, are prone to becoming confused about reasoning in natural science if they take seriously the examples set by their educational authorities.

I don't know anything about such an experiment conducted in the math department. I do know of a similar experiment done in the physics department by Dr. David Workman. I recall that Pat Lamaster(sp?) may have been involved as well. The experiment was not quite as badly flawed as described. There were female students in traditional class settings (both sexes, separate desks for each person, students facing the teacher, lectures, individually done problem sets, etc.) and female students in "experimental" settings (females only, several students to a table, facing center of the table, teacher wandering the room, group problem sets, etc.). I don't recall what the other groups were, if there were any. The point is that there _was_ a control group of girls in the traditional setting. Granted, this experiment does not allow one to separate out the variables, but it is a worthwhile first pass. The experiment allowed educators to see if a new technique worked any differently than an old technique. As I recall --- and I hope one of my classmates chimes in to confirm or correct this --- the "new" system worked quite well: female students in the test population reported higher satisfaction and scored higher on tests than their counterparts in the control.

An important detail: While a student, I talked to Dr. Workman about this test (which was not implemented until the year after I graduated) and he admitted that the experimental design was flawed but, as he put it, he had to be sure to give everyone the best education possible during the test period while still trying to learn something that would make education better in the long run. The woes of human studies, eh? His ethics were not abysmal. He cares about his students and is well-liked and respected by them. I would bet that he discussed the problems with the methodology with all the students involved.

Finally: I'm still curious about this person who was supposedly dismissed for not taking his meds. What were the details? Why are you not criticizing his parents or doctor who put him on the meds? Do you really think the school had anything to do with it, other than perhaps washing their hands of the responsibility of getting in the middle of such a situation? How does this one person matter for a discussion of what success IMSA has had? He is not really a control, since he was at IMSA for some period of time. He is not a good test case since he did not graduate. If you are trying to be a stickler about methodology, why bring up a point that would be discarded from any well done analysis of the experiment?

A good control would be someone who met the standards of admittance but chose to not attend. There are plenty of such people. I intend to ask around and see what studies have been done comparing this population to that of magnet school graduates. I think it would be prudent for me to conserve my energy until I find some interesting results from this.