http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html

"Cargo Cult Science", by Richard Feynman

But then I began to think, what else is there that we believe? (And I thought then about the witch doctors, and how easy it would have been to check on them by noticing that nothing really worked.) So I found things that even more people believe, such as that we have some knowledge of how to educate. There are big schools of reading methods and mathematics methods, and so forth, but if you notice, you'll see the reading scores keep going down -- or hardly going up -- in spite of the fact that we continually use these same people to improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that doesn't work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their method should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We obviously have made no progress -- lots of theory, but no progress -- in decreasing the amount of crime by the method that we use to handle criminals.

Schools say they know how to educate people. Feynman says they don't! They are like witch doctors who claim powers they can never demonstrate if you investigate it carefully.

-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/

There *is* a single correct parenting strategy, and anyone who says otherwise is denying that truth exists.

The right way to parent works something like this:

def how_to_parent(situation)

it can't return an answer unless you give a situation as input.

the situation includes the location, the details of the problem, a list of the people involved, etc

the people are complex data structures, including physical characteristics, their history, and their minds.

their minds are complex data structures with all their ideas.

if you change any of the people, or even change one idea in one person's mind, then you are calling how_to_parent with a different input, so you might not get the same answer.

when we say "there is one right way to parent" we mean that for one input, there is one correct output.

what does the how_to_parent function do with its input? it looks at the input and then calls a sub-module depending on what type of problem it is. it has lots of sub-modules that are specialized for different sorts of problems, and it just directs the question to the right one.


it's the same with morality. if we say "there is one moral truth" we mean for a given input situation, including every last detail, there is an answer, and it doesn't change if you ask the exact same question again, with the exact same inputs.



this explanation has a problem. people think it's so trivial and obvious that they get bored and tune out. it seems pedantic, and unnecessarily precise.

however, those same people constantly make mistakes about the exact issues i just covered.

then there is also the legitimate issue that the same situation never happens twice. so what use is it that there is one truth, one right way, if it's not re-usable? if i find a truth, and use it, why would you want to know it, since you'll never face exactly the same problem?

the answer to that has to do with the reach of knowledge. but that is advanced epistemology that people don't know about.

Schools used to hit people who got an answer wrong.

Hitting people for being wrong is very un-Popperian!

A) it doesn't help them create knowledge
B) mistakes are common (among everyone, adults too)
C) finding mistakes is good! they should celebrate. why connect it to pain?
D) they see the problem like this:

we KNOW the answer. the difficulty is how to suppress disagreement (which must be bad, because it's mistaken, b/c it contradicts the KNOWN TRUTH). in other words, we know what ideas should rule, and the only thing left is to enforce their rule.

of course Popper would prefer this problem: we have some ideas about the answer, and they may be mistaken, and by discussion with people who disagree, and culture clash, and self-reflection, and criticism, and by a serious effort, we may learn something about our mistakes, and come nearer to the truth.

Everyone knows a major goal of parenting is that children end up independent. TCS wants to have that goal in mind from the very start. In general, TCS is disposed to consider it good when people have control over their own lives.

Conventional parents think the way to make a child independent is to decide what the components of a person ready for independence are, make a list, and then instill each item on the list into the child, no matter what he thinks of them.

Conventional parents all defend this attitude, and everyones' right to parent this way, even though their lists of what makes a person ready for independence are very different. They disagree about what parents should do, but agree that each parent should decide for himself what's needed and do that.

This is indefensible to Popperians. We know that errors need finding and correcting, and devising a master plan, way in advance, and ignoring the child's ideas, is a recipe for mistakes not to get found or fixed. People will reply saying they do listen to their children, and take into account that feedback, and then make a final and fair decision themselves.

What's the difference between not listening to someone, and listening only to the parts you find agreeable? If the issue is changing your mind and finding ways you are mistaken, then there's no difference at all. Taking under advisement only the stuff you find reasonable is a recipe for not finding out about any of your mistakes. It will catch the very easy mistakes, like if someone points out you made a typo you'll fix it and thank them. But the hard mistakes to correct are the ones where you have a blindness, and don't see that you're wrong. In those cases, anything that contradicts you seems unreasonable, so only listening to "reasonable" stuff means never fixing those mistakes.

Mind-forg'd manacles are created by people. They are common. Blake's sensitivity to people being hurt is great. That people hurt each other, and their own children, is awful :(

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=172929

London
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

No.

Here is a theory of how kids are "spoiled":

1) Parents deny kids stuff the parents could easily provide.
2) Kids quite reasonably complain about this.
3) Parents feel guilty and eventually give in.
4) Parents don't know how to help kids, but do know they are messing up, so buy lots of stuff to try to make up for it.
5) Throughout it all, parents are on the neglectful side.
6) Otherwise, parents act normally.

TCS recommends doing none of these, so of course it doesn't spoil kids. There are other theories of how children are "spoiled", such as "not enough boundaries". That particular one is vague and incoherent. The theory behind it is something like, "If you get some things you want, you'll be really demanding and arrogant, so the solution is to make sure you rarely get anything you want, and then you'll be content". What?

The theory that not hurting kids spoils them, in particular, goes something like this: "Real life hurts kids. Not hurting them will give them unrealistic expectations. It creates an overly nice environment, and they get used to it, and then the real world comes along and they can't handle it."

The idea is to say to your kids, "You will be hurt later. You better get ready for it now. So just hold still while I hurt you." And parents wonder why kids don't listen!

TCS has a better attitude. Life can hurt us, but also we can try to live well and make not being hurt a goal we strive towards. This is known as "the pursuit of happiness" where you try not to be hurt all the time. The other attitude is like making kids sad all the time so when they are sad later they'll don't care anymore. That's not trying to pursue happiness; it's just giving up.

By the way, most objections to the idea of not hurting kids go something like this: if you don't hurt them, something bad will happen, which will hurt them and you.

In other words, they say "if you try a way of not hurting your kids, AND IT FAILS, that will be bad!" Well, duh. We know that. But that shouldn't stop us looking for ways of not hurting anyone that will actually work.

Here are some studies about how children are bad at making decisions:

http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Social-sciences/Are-young-children-adaptive-decision-makers-A-study-of-age-differences-in-information-search-behavio.html

http://ideas.repec.org/a/jdm/journl/v2y2007ip225-233.html

I'm not sure what their purpose can be in a debate about TCS (where they were brought up). None of the children in the studies were raised in a TCS fashion.

People think if you did raise kids in a TCS way, it wouldn't change these things, because they are genetic. But how do they know that?

The reason they think it must be genetic is they think that's the only explanation. Their argument goes like this:

- my kid is like this
- i didn't do anything wrong
- therefore something outside of my control, like genes, must have done it
- and therefore changing things under my control, like how i parent, wouldn't work

That argument uncritically assumes that most parents don't make any mistakes. It assumes there is nothing they could do better.

TCS can point out a lot of things that they might be able to improve on. Would it work well? We have good reason to think it would, in theory. Why won't they try it? They are the ones saying interventions based on changing parenting behavior are powerless, so what harm could be done? Oh, yeah, interventions are only powerless to help, but can hurt! Why? Because they are already parenting perfectly, so any change must make things worse. It's so arrogant to think you couldn't do any better than you have done!

The fact is that very young children have already faced the following:

- gotten some bad advice from their parents
- seen their parents set a bad example about how to handle some situations
- seen their parents get angry
- been intentionally thwarted by their parents
- been made to cry by their parents
- not being allowed to make a lot of decisions in their life (how are they gonna improve without getting to practice? and why are they going to try to learn about decision making if they have no decisions to make?)
- being intentionally indoctrinated with some dogmas the parents have accepted uncritically (and if child resists accepting it, his parent gets angry and hurts him)

Parents do a lot of things that cause their children to be bad at making decisions. Then they use that badness to justify doing it more.

Hacker News doesn't like Taking Children Seriously (TCS). My thoughts follow quotes.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=416432

If you substitute in someone with the same level of rationality and decision making skills as a young child.. let's say.. a meth addict, does it [TCS] still work?

Logical appeals on a young child would work as well as on a dog.

How ignorant children are, and how unable to make decisions, and how to deal with that, are perfectly legitimate and interesting subjects. But comparing children to dogs and meth addicts is not a way of delving into them.

Parents are meant to make decisions for their children and children are meant to do things they don't want ... That people think otherwise scares the bejesus out of me, but perhaps explains why kids are so pampered and spoiled nowadays.

Wow, is that [TCS] creepy.

thanks qqq [aka curi]. thanks for inflicting yet another monster on society, who thinks the world needs to justify itself to her. Hopefully the creature's teenage years will be a punishment enough for you.

TCS is unnatural, scary, and creepy, they say. And causes children to become stereotypical "spoiled" kids. "Spoiled" kids are commonly created by conventional parenting. TCS is different. Why expect it to have the same kind of results as parenting within the conventional spectrum? And if it would have conventional results, why is it especially creepy or scary or weird or anything?

Notice the hatred. The main theme of my comments was that I didn't want anyone to be hurt. In return someone hopes that I be punished.

Dr. Foster: Would you please tell your son to stop?
Ned's Dad: We can't do it, man! That's discipline! That's like tellin' Gene Krupa not to go [starts banging on the desk] "boom boom bam bam bam, boom boom bam bam bam, boom boom boom bam ba ba ba ba, da boo boo tss!"
Ned's Dad: We don't believe in rules, like, we gave them up when we started livin' like freaky beatniks!
Dr. Foster: You don't believe in rules, yet you want to control Ned's anger.
Ned's Mom: Yeah. You gotta help us, Doc. We've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas.

This person hasn't made any attempt to understand what TCS does advocate.

My daughter is 7 and she will take your eyes out before she lets you poke her with a needle --- and that's after the inevitable well-reasoned, polite, non-patronizing conversation about why vaccinations are important, which she of course understands and appreciates.

Based on the outcome, we can conclude the daughter did not gain the necessary knowledge of how to get through a vaccination from the conversation. That means either the conversation didn't contain the knowledge, or the daughter didn't understand it. Either he has made the mistake of thinking his daughter understood his explanations, when she didn't, or he has not given good enough explanations. So from his own story, we see the parent was wrong about something. Somehow he concludes that children are irrational and must be controlled by their parents who are better at life, and also that children finding vaccinations distressing could not be avoided.

Please stop guys.
- Paul Graham (site owner)

Apparently there's a limit to how much discussion is allowed. I think the limit only applies in cases where not everyone agrees. I think it's sad how pessimistic people are about creating agreement. It's not just children they think can't be persuaded of anything. It's also adult forum posters.