QuagmireMcGuire
Kinder and Gentler
Oh wow. That guy.
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A NY Times Reporter Tries to Understand OCS...
- Thread starter Morgan81
- Start date
Eh? Care to elaborate?
Minor Threadjack: It's interesting that Levitt seriously screwed up with his data, and his conclusions about abortion are unsupported:
"'Freakonomics' Abortion Research Is Faulted by a Pair of Economists"
http://online.wsj.com/public/articl...P0pDWul8rc_20061127.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
QuagmireMcGuire
Kinder and Gentler
Absolutely, sir!
That guy wrote this article: http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgiarticle=1009&context=blewp
Which led to this guy saying:
"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." The former US education secretary William J. Bennet.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
The link didn't work for me (probably NMCI), but wasn't he using that statement as an example of how people misuse statistics? I think that the idea was something along the lines of "Given that x% of crimes is committed by black people, then aborting all black babies would reduce crime by x%".
Taken out of context this is a horribly offensive remark, but if that context is true (and I'm not sure that was the context, just what I remember about it) then it was just an illustration of faulty logic. It would have meant the same thing if you substituted "white/hispanic/men/women/whatever".
QuagmireMcGuire
Kinder and Gentler
Here's a link for a Washington Post article written at the time the statement was made.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092902126.html
Bennett stated that he didn't agree with the argument brought forth by Levitt. But then he followed his disagreeing statement with his comments about Black babies and crime.
He could have said: "You could reduce crime if you abort every baby in this country" and easily conveyed his argument about extrapolating but that's not the case. Sorry but this guy got my gander up back when it happened and I'm still pretty annoyed about it, now.
Anyway, I apologize for my contribution to this threadjack.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092902126.html
Bennett stated that he didn't agree with the argument brought forth by Levitt. But then he followed his disagreeing statement with his comments about Black babies and crime.
He could have said: "You could reduce crime if you abort every baby in this country" and easily conveyed his argument about extrapolating but that's not the case. Sorry but this guy got my gander up back when it happened and I'm still pretty annoyed about it, now.
Anyway, I apologize for my contribution to this threadjack.
He wasn't advocating eugenics, he wasn't pushing racially charged doctrine, and more importantly the statement is true... He was demonstrating how somebody can take an idea too far, and his statement proves that point far more convincingly than your suggested replacement. And to censor any sort of academic discussion for fear it may be offensive is a true thought crime.
I agree completely with his following remarks...
QuagmireMcGuire
Kinder and Gentler
I am not convinced with his follow-up remarks. I see them as an attempt to offset the backlash experienced from his comments.
I'm thinking this conversation is best left off this forum so I'll just end with that.
Its interesting to note that in the book, neither Levitt nor Dubner in Freakonomics espouse a political ideology, merely point out what their findings were. They advocated neither for nor against abortion, just laying out their observations. And as the WSJ article points out, the research pissed off both the left and right. it may ultimately be wrong, but the numbers are intriguing nonetheless
After reading the NYT blog piece, the tone of the article -- like many of them -- seemed to be that of pure inquisition rather than criticism. Heck, every day I question the military's methods and try to determine what use they have, and if they could be improved. Sometimes I realize my initial disgruntlement was wrong, and indeed there is a method to the madness -- like going through flight school!
Its not bad to question things, just a matter of how you go about doing it. Case in point: this forum has had somewhat unfruitful discussion about Academy vs. ROTC officers. The methods used to train each are vastly different, yet the end product, for the most part, seems to pretty much be the same. Neither way is necessarily "bad," just different. But as we should always desire to improve whatever organization we belong to, sometimes that means asking tough questions and upsetting long standing shibboleths, even if the conventional wisdom frowns upon rocking the boat. Gen. Patton, Col. Boyd, Lt Col. Yingling, Adm Halsey, etc were/are all men who challenged the status quo to get something accomplished. They ruffled a lot of feather, alienated more than a few people, and upended long held rules. But that is how progress is made.
And even if Levitt was ultimately criticizing military training techniques, why do we have a (military) cultural aversion to dismiss those questions without evaluating their validity? We were quick to criticize the recent changes in Annapolis with the arrival of the new Commandant (which I think was a very valid criticism), but when challenges come from outside our fraternity we circle the wagons and automatically get very defensive.
I guess my point is, observe and orient in relation to all your life experiences, then decide and act based on everything you have accumulated. This includes things that challenge your comfort zone.
After reading the NYT blog piece, the tone of the article -- like many of them -- seemed to be that of pure inquisition rather than criticism. Heck, every day I question the military's methods and try to determine what use they have, and if they could be improved. Sometimes I realize my initial disgruntlement was wrong, and indeed there is a method to the madness -- like going through flight school!
Its not bad to question things, just a matter of how you go about doing it. Case in point: this forum has had somewhat unfruitful discussion about Academy vs. ROTC officers. The methods used to train each are vastly different, yet the end product, for the most part, seems to pretty much be the same. Neither way is necessarily "bad," just different. But as we should always desire to improve whatever organization we belong to, sometimes that means asking tough questions and upsetting long standing shibboleths, even if the conventional wisdom frowns upon rocking the boat. Gen. Patton, Col. Boyd, Lt Col. Yingling, Adm Halsey, etc were/are all men who challenged the status quo to get something accomplished. They ruffled a lot of feather, alienated more than a few people, and upended long held rules. But that is how progress is made.
And even if Levitt was ultimately criticizing military training techniques, why do we have a (military) cultural aversion to dismiss those questions without evaluating their validity? We were quick to criticize the recent changes in Annapolis with the arrival of the new Commandant (which I think was a very valid criticism), but when challenges come from outside our fraternity we circle the wagons and automatically get very defensive.
I guess my point is, observe and orient in relation to all your life experiences, then decide and act based on everything you have accumulated. This includes things that challenge your comfort zone.
Whether he's a reporter or not is pretty much irrelevant, IMO. He's a writer. His post was equivalent to someone coming on here, posting a link to a news article, and then saying, "So what do you guys think?"
Big difference between a reporter and an opinion columnist/blogger. That was my only point......
The short answer is, the military is traditional and resistant to change, so some grumbling is to be expected. It's hard NOT to grumble when someone makes a judgment based on having no idea what the purposes are of these exercises.
That applies to civilians too, if I had to respond directly to them I would challenge them to step outside their comfort zone and consider how something a little bit humiliating and homogenizing might turn out to be positive.
Not by much.