Teaching Philosophy

From Scientific American: Selmer Bringsjord at RPI (who made news last spring with an artificially intelligent agent in second life) has created a ‘purely sinister person’:
Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked

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Douglas Todd at the Vancouver Sun has an interesting blog post about a new book The Book of Dead Philosophers that covers what some famous philosophers said about death: Bravest philosophers faced death to learn how to live . I could be used as backbone for an interesting First Year Seminar, Jan Term, or even intro class.

Really? The organization that awarded Darwin the Copley medal in 1864 (albeit, famously *not* for the Origin, at least, that is what General Sabine claimed. Huxley had a different view) now thinks that creationism should be taught in schools?

Well, this story: Leading scientist urges teaching of creationism in schools in the Times makes that claim. Actually, the story glosses over a number of details. The teaser claims that the claim was made ‘according to the royal society’, but if you read further, the claim was made by Rev Michael Reiss, who is the current director of education. The society could confirm that “Professor Reiss’s views did represent that of its president, Lord Rees of Ludlow, and the society”, but there is no mention of a resolution being passed by the membership or any such general consensus.

Moreover, the article hasn’t clearly distinguished between teaching creationism as a scientific theory (whatever that may mean) and teaching it merely “as a world view.” After all, one could teach astrology “as a world view” without making claims to its veracity.

Later in the article, Reiss is quoted as saying “Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson.” Again, the problem here is what we mean by ‘lesson’. Sure, I can (and do) include Bill O’Reilly’s tirade on Katrina in my lessons on Critical Thinking, and his views lack support (any, not just scientific). But I make no claims as to the veracity of his assertions, just the structure of his reasoning.

All of this ambiguity in the article appears to have caused a stir over in Carlton House. The Royal society issued this retraction earlier today (9/16):

Some of Professor Michael Reiss’s recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society’s Director of Education, were open to misinterpretation. While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the Society’s reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as Director of Education a part time post he held on secondment. He is to return, full time, to his position as Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education.

The Royal Society’s position is that creationism has no scientific basis and should not be part of the science curriculum. However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific.

The Royal Society greatly appreciates Professor Reiss’s efforts in furthering the Society’s work in the important field of science education over the past two years. The Society wishes him well for the future.

The issue has also been blogged over at Pharyngula: Royal Society statement regarding Michael Reiss (original post here: Michael Reiss’s big mistake)

From the Wall Street Journal horoscope!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You may feel defensive about some philosophic position or a particular concept but you can generally support yourself well. Separate your ego from the beliefs that you hold.

And notice, it might be a good time to assign a paper to Cancers:

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You are able to express yourself succinctly and accurately.

[From: Your Daily Horoscope - UPI.com]

York University in Toronto apparently nixed a debate on abortion because of the rhetorical tactics used by one of the speakers. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve found the polarization of the topic so great as to almost preclude meaningful discussion in the classroom, so I’m sympathetic to the argument from those nixing the debate - but I do worry about squashing dissent of any kind on a college campus. It is, however, almost certainly a teachable moment:
Is abortion too hot a topic for campuses?

Con Houlihan, a columnist for the Irish Independent, has an op-ed arguing for increased emphasis on philosophy in education, because journalists and - worse yet - ordinary people are not questioning our leaders. Specifically Bush. But he does call out journalists in Ireland who were complicit with (or silent about) the Provisional IRA. He’s probably right about the phenomenon, and hey, who am I to argue against more philosophy in schools?

Many journalists of this generation have not distinguished themselves

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A student of mine lent me Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar a few weeks ago. Forbes has reviewed (kindly) the sequel: Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes. As I frequently use political ads as demonstration ‘arguments’ in my CT class, usually to illustrate Aristotle’s rhetoric, I am quite anxious to get my hands on a copy.

The review is here: Lies My President Told Me.

There is an interesting article in Drury University’s student paper about approaches to teaching abortion. When I taught contemporary issues in ethics, I did. But I hated it. I sincerely hope that Dr. Teresa Hornsby, who is mentioned herein, will develop some useful techniques.
Learning to teach abortion
Grant to help study abortion discussions in classrooms

I won’t be able to make it to Seoul for the world congress, but it is a fascinating structure for a conference.

Below is an article I found promoting it in the ‘Korean Times’. Of particular interest is this idea of showcasing the developing ‘Korean philosophy’. I am reminded in many ways of the old controversy on whether or not there is an ‘African Philosophy’ (one answer is ‘yes, but it is primarily people concerned with whether or not there is an African philosophy’). At the very least, it could be used as a launching point for the issue of nationalphilosophy or ethnophilosophy.

Anyway, here’s the link:
Korean Philosophy to Get Global Spotlight

Every year, Merriam-Webster publishes their list of the 10 top words of the year. I usually take the opportunity to reinforce that old language-as-social endeavor point. This year’s entries are:

1. w00t (interjection): expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay”
2. facebook
3. conundrum
4. quixotic
5. blamestorm
6. sardoodledom
7. apathetic
8. Pecksniffian
9. hypocrite
10. charlatan

While I’ve always loved ‘quixotic’, my personal favorite this year has to be ’sardoodledom’. I will make a concerted effort to use it in class in the next week. I am teaching PhilArt at the moment, so opportunities abound!

The last few years have witnessed the great ‘truthiness’ in 2006 and somewhat more mundane ‘integrity’ in 2005. See Merriam-Webster.com for more.

A few years ago (Fall ‘05, to be precise), I had students in my Minds and Language course compile a McDaniel Dictionary. They could only add entries that they heard in use, not words they sought to invent, etc. The results, if you’re interested, are here: http://philosophyclubmcd.blogspot.com/.

The same class decided to invent a word and tried to get it introduced to common language. They settled on ‘wuznuggle’, which ultimately came to mean (after a few suggestions) ‘dirty snuggling’. I introduced it to various classes over the next few years with little success. This past fall, however, I struck on the brilliant idea of introducing it as a facebook app (http://apps.facebook.com/wuznuggle/). This time, it seems to have stuck. Feel free to introduce the app on your campus - just don’t wuznuggle your student yourself. You might get fired