Philosophy truely sucks.

[CraigD]

I AM A STATISTICIAN!! Scientists come to us with already conducted poorly designed experiments ALL THE TIME and tell us to at least make it at least look statistically signifigant! If we try and tell them they screwed up, guess what? they go somewhere else!

I’ve had similar experiences, though in the medical field – for a couple of years, I made some small consulting $$s providing post-study “cleanup” survey design and statistics for Nursing and Public Health graduate students, who hated nothing more than to be told that the effect they’d spent the last year working to show simply didn’t exists, or, in a couple of cases, that a significant effect opposite their thesis did. Unfortunately, though in an ideal scientific world one’s thesis panel should accept a well disproven thesis as readily as a well proven one, every student I’ve know who attempted this was give the ultimatum of proving their thesis, even with bogus statistics, or not having it accepted.

 

I’m very curious, Kriminal, about your experience as a statistician quite younger than me (born 1984 vs. 1960). At the advice of a teacher, I passed the Society of Actuaries and Casualty Actuarial Society exams, with the understanding that I’d not be legally employable as a statistician by many insurance and health care enterprises without it, and they’re easiest to pass just out of school, when your classwork is freshest in your mind. Despite doing statistics for both commercial for-profit and not-for-profit companies, my SOA and CAS memberships were never mentioned as other than nice resume-padding. Most people who read my resume had never heard of them

 

I’ve since guessed that the statistician credentialing fell into disuse no later than the 1970s, that my teacher was remembering the bygone day of his own non-academic career, and that the role of government (some states offer(ed?) similar credentialing, often called an “Actuary Public”) and professional organizations in regulating statistical analysis is now as irrelevant as the Comics Code and post-cable-TV FCC.

 

Kriminal, or anyone else who’s worked as a statistician, are you a member of a statistics-related professional society or similar organization? Are you aware they exist? Are you aware of other efforts to enhance the quality of statistics in private or public publications?

[Kriminal99]

The actuarial exams are very much alive, but they are used for a relatively different profession, namely actuaries. I was born in 1982 (24), and have internships and work experience doing experimental design / analysis, but coincidently I am really working towards becoming an actuary now and studying for an exam right now.

 

I guess the difference is that a statistician is a little bit more applied than an actuary, who basically uses mathematical reasoning to make and reinforce theories that coincide with statistical data. They also tend to get paid a lot more. There are 8 actuarial exams and passing all of them will get you pay up to 420 thousand a year. (with a range of 300k for fully tested actuaries due to differences in amount of responsibility)http://www.dwsimpson.com/salary.html

 

Looking at the requirements for statistician jobs there seems to be more need for statistical programming experience (SAS) and paper (masters, phd) then exams. They also seem to be institutions more geared towards scholarly pursuits, whereas actuaries work for commercial entities (although I saw you said you were employed by for profit companies as well) For some needs I guess a full blown actuary is considered overkill... If you've passed some exams I would wager that you may have been selling yourself short.

 

Other helpful sites are http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/

 

and www.beanactuary.org

 

My grandfather founded an actuarial firm in NJ that was responsible for inventing the cash balance pension plan and provided financial consulting (doing things like pension plan implementation) services for many large companies like bank of america etc and was eventually bought out by PWC. This is where I found out about it.

 

I guess they focus more on determining the likelihood of experiencing loss or costs.

[Michaelangelica]

You may be interested in this article/interview

Historically, philosophy has been something people do together, in public places or in gatherings. It's not really something that people typically have productively done by themselves.

. . .

 

I think it's true that European philosophers tend to work much more against and with the classic texts of the history of philosophy,

whereas in the Anglo-American world generally, it is more of a professionalised and academic discipline where it's more immediate and more current discussions, journal articles, books, that are the context of one's thinking and writing.

 

The American philosopher, Richard Rorty, at one point described this in terms of the different ways that people are taught, the different structure of curricula, and it's certainly true that in Europe, philosophy curricula are very historical.

. . .

there are good, rigorous historians of philosophy from both analytic and Continental traditions and similarly there are any number of Continental philosophers who take a very present-centred or problem-centred approach to the earlier figures in the history of philosophy

. . .

Caroline, what about the actual physical activity of philosophising?

What are you doing when you're doing it?

Lots more at

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2006/1782956.htm#transcript

[sebbysteiny]

Thanks for your post MichaelAngelica,

 

I think it was a discussion about the two different paths philosphy has gone in Europe and in Angalo-America. I could not find anything that discussed practical utility. Perhaps you could explain this.

[Michaelangelica]

I could not find anything that discussed practical utility.

Perhaps you could explain this.

No, not really sorry :)

When was philosophy ever practical?:smart:

 

Would this be of interest? :eek:

I haven't listened yet

THE PHILOSOPHER'S ZONE - Philosophy 101

Saturday December 30, 1.30pm & Wednesday January 3, 9.05pm

Yes, but what is it that philosophers do exactly? Do they ask hard

questions or come up with hard answers or both? Does what they do differ

from what scientists do, and why don't scientists care about philosophy?

This week, we ask three philosophers what they do and why they do it.

Philosopher's Zone

[Kriminal99]

Of infinite use to people who understand it

 

In summary, philosophy is of infinite usefulness and practicality to those who understand it.

 

It seems philosophy can not be taught to some

 

But for some reason exposure to philosophy does not seem to be the limiting factor in understanding of philsophy.

 

It seems you can expose many people to the teachings of philosophy over and over and over again using all manner of sophisticated means to try and communicate and yet they still fail to comprehend, and often ignorantly proclaim it's uselessness and develop a deepseated hatred of it.

 

Lack of fear of the unknown may impede understanding

 

The best understanding of this I can offer is that for people that lead sheltered lives in the sense that they are rarely exposed to different groups, ideas different from their own, and different situations simply lack the life experience to (regardless of their age) motivate their primitive human subconsious to attribute a realistic fear to the unknown, or respect for means to understand it. Mind you this is not the same fear of the unknown that a child has that I am talking about, which deals with such things as the boogy monster and fear of the dark. But rather fear that things might not always be as they seem and that problems can occur when least expected.

 

Killing the messenger

 

Rather when someone attempts to explain philosophy to such a person, they instead choose to believe that the philosopher is creating artificial problems. Since they do not have to deal with the problems of the unknown themselves, and never had to in the past, they demonize philosophers as if they themselves were the source of the problems.

 

This is something we seem to do often - as kids (or some adults do this as well unfortunately) when our parents tell us they can't give us the new super expensive toy or gift we want for christmas, we blame our parents. When as a teenager our parents don't let us go out with strange people or stay out too late we get mad at our parents. Hopefully by the time we are adults we realize that financial responsibilities and physical danger are the TRUE source of the need for such practices and simply adapt to them.

 

People most likely to understand philsophy

 

On the other hand, those people most likely to understand the teachings of philosophy quite quickly are those with stronger fear of the unknown. The greatest example I can think of is someone who is often abused at a young age (not necessarily physically). Such exposure to random punishment would require someone to quickly develop an understanding of potential sources of such random punishment (so they could be avoided or at least expected and attributed to something other than punishment for one's own existence), and the feeling that such was necessary would stick with them throughout life.

 

After that, anyone given signifigant responsibility in life would quickly learn the need for philosophy. Military, political, and other kinds of leaders face philisophical issues all the time. The success of pioneer's of any kind is dependent on their ability to gain understanding of things from the previously unknown.

 

The scientific method, while sometimes a useful prodcut of philsophy, is not enough on it's own to match a mastery of philosophy. To use a metaphor to better make my suggestion, to compare science to philosophy is to compare a computer program of limited usefulness in some situations to the programmer who made it and who could make many more for many different situations.

 

Perhaps it is not of use to average people living average lives on well trodden paths

 

One could argue that if and when the unknown causes signifigant problems for them then and only then they will have gained an understanding of the usefulness of philosophy, and if it doesn't happen then it is not necessary to have such an understanding.

 

Two responses to this are

 

A) This only applies to average people living average lives on well trodden paths who rarely dare to improve their surroundings. The latter of these conditions being necessary since even a person in the most humble of occupations can attempt to understand previously undiscovered ways their surroundings might be improved.

 

:) The people described in category A may still experience problems that could be avoided by understanding which philosophy could give them, but they are not frequent or severe enough to motivate a search for understanding in place of simply ignoring them. For example if a guy is insulted by someone else or a group of people for his behavior he might be affected by it but just call the guy stupid and attempt to forget about it rather than try and understand the cause.

[sebbysteiny]

In summary, philosophy is of infinite usefulness and practicality to those who understand it.

 

Hmmm. I'm not sure intorducing a rather ambiguous and obviously meaningless concept of 'infinite utility' is really a replacement for a real and concrete utility.

 

It seems you can expose many people to the teachings of philosophy over and over and over again using all manner of sophisticated means to try and communicate and yet they still fail to comprehend, and often ignorantly proclaim it's uselessness and develop a deepseated hatred of it.

 

I assume this is a not so subtle attack on me and deserves no response other than pointing out the people who very much love philosophy have conceded I made a valid point.

 

 

And now for the main thesis of your post. You have equated all efforts to 'deal with the unknown' as philosophy. You never justified this. I think almost every accademic subject has at least a rudamentary grasp of unknown factors with many going into it in extensive detail.

 

I see no reason to suppose that the philosophical method of dealing with unknown factors is superior to that of any other discipline. This especially rings true when we are focusing entirely on practical utility.

 

Would this be of interest?

It most certainly would. QP to you .

 

Sadly, I'm not sure if I can listen to it as I'm on holiday. Perhaps someone can provide the highlights?

[Kriminal99]

Hmmm. I'm not sure intorducing a rather ambiguous and obviously meaningless concept of 'infinite utility' is really a replacement for a real and concrete utility.

 

I assume this is a not so subtle attack on me and deserves no response other than pointing out the people who very much love philosophy have conceded I made a valid point.

 

And now for the main thesis of your post. You have equated all efforts to 'deal with the unknown' as philosophy. You never justified this. I think almost every accademic subject has at least a rudamentary grasp of unknown factors with many going into it in extensive detail.

 

I see no reason to suppose that the philosophical method of dealing with unknown factors is superior to that of any other discipline. This especially rings true when we are focusing entirely on practical utility.

 

Here the utility of philosophy is no longer directly being argued for, but rather the idea that only people that understand philosophy (who are far and few between) are capable of seeing its utility.

 

Most people lack self skepticism

 

It is not an attack on you, because you are one of many many people that have reacted to philosophy and explanations of it in exactly the same manner in my personal experience. Probably the vast majority of people fall into this category.

 

The main issue with these people can be simplified into the idea that these people think they know something, and therefore refuse to consider evidence which contradicts what they beleive, and also believe that they are justified in trying to force other people to act according to their views (IE insult others for not agreeing, or imply that they are stupid etc)

 

What these people need to learn is that IN REALITY they have NO FREAKING CLUE WHAT THE HECK THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. Hence the lack of self skepticism- they just need to be smacked around a bit in response for their lack of respect for the true nature of their surroundings.

 

Irony

 

Referring to social support in a debate only serves to further demonstrate that you do not understand philosophy....

 

As is typical of a non philosopher, you gloss over my justification of the claim that philosophy has a monopoly on "expecting the unexpected" and then immediately proclaim that I have not justified my claim. Oh the irony...

 

One example of what philosophy does would be to allow someone to extract that justification where you have failed to. Failing to see counter arguments in other people's posts because you believe it is impossible for such counter arguments to exist (and therefore don't look for them and ignore any potential ones) is exactly the kind of generally ignorant behavior that can be remedied by an understanding of philosophy.

 

I am left with no choice but to take this attitude towards you in order to progress this debate - your overconfidence has blinded you. The whole point of the above post is that people like you will never be able to understand philosophy until life slaps you in the face with the fact that "you have no clue what the heck you are talking about" which will never happen if you live a sheltered life and never challenge yourself to do anything out of the ordinary.

 

Dangers of Overspecialization

 

Other disciplines are much more narrow products of philosophy. Following them will never allow you to be more capable than a master of philosophy, and it very rarely would allow you to be as capable as a master of philosophy and only then in a very specific area.

 

Other disciplines were created by philosophers. Philosophy deals with reasoning and knowledge in general therefore its conclusions can be applied to any and every discipline.

 

This alone gives it great utility. If you are a scientist who understands ideas relevant to science that others might learn through philosophy by memorizing and following scientific ideals (which of course were created by philosophy) you are still much less than a master of philosophy who would be much better at communication and gaining inspiration from unscientific experiences and ideas and everything else for that matter. Anotherwords for the same amount of effort put into understanding science and understanding philosophy, you get much more for your time from philosophy.

 

Overspecializing keeps you from adapting to changes in your field

 

And even when you limit your evaluation to someone's ability in a very specific discipline, the philospher is better off. Consider the following simplified example. Suppose I, a tribal oracle, share the profound conclusion with my tribe that to climb a tree is good because you often find food up there. My wisdom is passed on for generations after I am long gone, and there are disciples of treedom who are not capable of coming to that conclusion on their own due to lack of generalized knowledge but know backwards and forwards that climbing trees for food is a good thing. Eventually the tribe migrates to an area where the trees bear no fruit, and perhaps additionally contain extreme danger of some form. Said disciples of treedom are useless, and what is needed once again is someone with the knowledge that allowed the original oracle to come to that conclusion.

 

All disciplines are proper subsets of philosophy

 

The disciples of the tree are meant to be analogous to people who follow a specific discipline. Now, a person who is very familiar with a discipline more specific than philosophy can be the oracle to an even more specialized discipline, and yet still be analogous to the tree disciple to a more general discipline. And Philosophy is the most general discipline, because it studies human knowledge and all other disciplines fall under the category of human knowledge.

[ughaibu]

Exactly, the entire contention is fallacious.

[Kriminal99]

Exactly, the entire contention is fallacious.

 

Ah, I suppose you are responding to the final section title in my last post, namely that

 

All disciplines are proper subsets of philosophy

 

Funny how this fact alone seems to immediately invalidate the OP's claim yet here we are on page 15....

[ughaibu]

One could equally ask "how will we discuss this?" or "how will we evaluate views expressed?", etc. Philosophy is an ongoing investigation into the reliability of the basis of all human intellectual endeavour.

[IDMclean]

And now for the main thesis of your post. You have equated all efforts to 'deal with the unknown' as philosophy. You never justified this. I think almost every accademic subject has at least a rudamentary grasp of unknown factors with many going into it in extensive detail.

 

Sebby, friend (if I maybe so familiar), this shows to exactly the extent that you do not understand the underpinnings of philosophical skepticism.

 

What you think you know might very well be wrong, the form that you follow might very well change, and really there is no way to prove this uncertainty one way or another. Very much like the sensation one gets that what one is not sensing might not be there.

 

How do you know that you know that you don't know what you don't know?

 

If you ask a computer to search infinitely for something that it doesn't contain, it will never find it, and it will not stop searching until it has: A) found it, :) been forced to stop, C) reprogrammed to stop if it reaches a given boundry condition.

 

The reason for this is, that the computer can not and does not consider the possibility that what it has been told might be wrong. A computer is incapable of considering the possibility that a given system or rule set it's been given is incompatible for it's objectives.

 

This compares nicely to thinkers-naive. Most thinkers that you run into are quick to tell you what they know, and quick to confusion (often delt with as an attack) when you introduce the possibility that what they really don't know what they think they know.

 

They fail completely to consider that the system that they opperate from might be objectively flawed. Science is powerful because it has a number of layers in which this admission of alternate possibility is absolutely conserved.

 

This is where Philosophy and Religion begin to converge, because in order to introduce deliberate chaos into the system where a person will be prompted to jump outside the system and evaluate as to whether the form of the system is wrong or not, certain kinds of questions are asked. Like Koans. (not content, see Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for definition.)

 

The way this is often done is to introduce an objective by means of a hypothesis. A famous example of this is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"; to which there is no answer, the answer then to the form of the question itself is Mu. It is not however the content of the question that interests us, only the form of it.

 

The reasoning for this is that the question will prompt us after sufficient examination to question not so much the content (sounds, hands and claping) but the form, can a hand make a clapping sound? Is it even possible given the constraints of the system?

 

Which prompts us further to consider the composition of the entirity of the question from axiom to theorem, each element and the whole system.

 

This is but only one of the utilities of the intellectual tool that is philosophy.

 

If you think you understand exactly what is and is not philosophy, then you obviously don't.

 

Exactly, the entire contention is fallacious.

 

That to me sounds like a claim, and would need evidence to back it. I would ask, how can the entire thing be fallacious? Would not elements of it be fallacious rather than the whole, or is it simply a form fault? In which case what portion of the form is at fault? That you use the word Contention seems to indicate that you hold some part of the content to be fallacious. Which part, and why?

 

Just something to consider in the whole of things.

[ughaibu]

This was answered early on this thread. The question itself is addressed by arguments that rely on the results of philosophy. The thread title claim is fallacious by virtue of being a member of the set that it decries.

[Michaelangelica]

Will this help? :hihi:

 

THE PHILOSOPHER'S ZONE - The examined life Saturday February 3, 1.30pm & Monday February 5, 1.35pm, RN This week we talk to Dr Vera Ranki, Founding Director of the Examined Life Institute, about the use of classical philosophy as a way of finding out how to live the good life. Ranki seeks to bring philosophy out of the ivory tower and directly into our lives, helping us with the dilemmas we face.

Philosopher's Zone