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Vladimir_M comments on A Rational Education - Less Wrong
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I just graduated from undergrad in mathematics, so perhaps I have less perspective, or perhaps I have a "fresher" perspective! I don't know.
A few classes that I enjoyed without expecting it:
-a class called "Feminism and Science." I would be very surprised if there were classes in feminist science studies at your school, but they have a perspective on rationality and science studies that is unique and valuable.
--relatedly, I wish that I had taken courses in feminism. It wasn't until the last year that I realized how much of feminism deals with things like resolving hidden inferences (first link NSFW!)
--also, science studies classes will almost certainly benefit from having someone from LessWrong in them. So will feminism classes!
-"Politics and Religion," a class about the stale religious metaphors that get used in modern politics. Again you may not have a perfect analog, but a cursory class or two in politics or religion could give a lot of insight about how other people operate, and also expose them to how you operate, if you care about other people's rationality as well. (whereas math classes will be much more homogenous.)
-a topical course from the linguistics department. Linguistics is very, very interesting. When I say a "topical course" I mean I took a course for non-majors which was more of a class in "why people study linguistics" and less in "how people study linguistics." I learned a lot about what makes questions of linguistics important in questions of rationality (again, see hidden inferences above!)
-language classes. I took Japanese, and it was enjoyable, stretched my mind a bit (for reasons detailed in the above class!) and kept my work ethic going. Also let me interact with people from various backgrounds, instead of only math majors.
-Playwriting. I actually expected to enjoy this. Whether it's good for rationality... well there are some applications of behavioral psych, and some ability to learn about how much of the theory of writing actually has a foundation.
classes I wish I had taken but didn't:
-any psychology classes, especially evolutionary psych!
-more linguistics
-more than one computer science course (though I wouldn't want to major in it)
-evolution and ecology
-science fiction-themed literature classes
-I mentioned feminism and science studies earlier
-lots of different languages. Having a designated place and time to speak different languages (at least in my experience) makes it a lot easier to learn, and college is a great opportunity for that that won't come back.
-bioethics, legal studies
-game theory
classes I didn't enjoy as much as I expected:
-real analysis. But that's because I like algebra.
-economics. I once had a TA tell me, when I asked about a question on a test, "well I was grading that problem, and I thought what you had was okay, but the answer key said it was (c) so I marked it off."(sic). I never took another econ class again. Not sure if that would be a problem in other places.
-history. Too much reading and not enough real knowledge.
Repeating stuff I think is important
I think that both feminist studies and linguistics have a lot more potential for carving reality at the joints than, say, mathematical physics. Of course, the background that mathematical physicists have is better for actively doing this, and you might have to fight some cultural battles in feminist studies classes. But rationalists and feminists have a lot in common and I think more crossover is important there.
magfrump:
That's interesting. In my experience, when one attempts to study human mating behavior -- and the human behavioral sexual dimorphism in general -- in a completely detached manner, as if one were a space alien without any agenda or preconceptions, the resulting insights tend to sound shockingly evil from a feminist perspective, and regularly elicit instinctive condemnation with little actual understanding from feminist authors.
Of course, it could be that my view of what constitutes neutral and detached observations is skewed by various biases, or that I am oblivious of more intellectually competent and honest feminist authors. Therefore, I think it would be interesting to see a top-level post, or at least an open thread comment, elaborating on your insights in this area. This with all the usual caveats that apply to politically and ideologically charged topics, of course.
The thing is, "space alien" thought experiments are very hard to do, given that we're not space aliens, and they have come out both ways -- read Joanna Russ for speculative, "alien's-eye" fiction about gender that comes out very feminist.
The closest thing to a genuine "alien's-eye" view of gender and society would have to come from people who perceive both gender and society very differently: perhaps autistics or the transgendered or intersex. Even there it's shaky.
The transgendered or intersex have more reason to be biased, not less. The very core of their identity is at stake!
Biased, yes. I thought of that. But I don't think "bias" is really the issue here.
If you want to know what the corpus callosum does, find some people who don't have one. If you want to know what gender does, find some people whose gender is different than the rest of us. Natural experiments.
Are we investigating the guy without the corpus callosum here or are we taking on faith what he says about the population at large?
I don't think you take anyone's word on faith -- we don't have genuine "space aliens," neutral and unbiased. But, because these are social questions, you "investigate" different kinds of people not by cutting their brains open but by listening to them tell their side of the story.
That is a good start and we must take care not to stop there. The risk with social questions is the temptation to give social answers. To look at 'sides of a story'. As well as absorbing social perspectives it is necessary to look at the raw science. To look at the behaviors of mammals in general and in particular those of the apes that have mating patterns similar to ours. To compare and contrast the expected outcome of game theoretic models with our observations of human behaviour. The answers those investigations give are not always popular. They also don't always match the stories that we like to tell ourselves!
SarahC:
That is undoubtedly true. I certainly don't claim that my views on these matters are entirely free of bias and emotional investment. However, a claim that I would be ready to defend is that there are particular conclusions that would be made, or at least considered plausible, by an ideal detached observer, but whose mere mention provokes virtually unanimous hostility from feminists. At least in principle, one doesn't have to be an ideal detached observer across the board to form correct judgments of this sort in particular cases.
I am curious about this. Which particular works would you recommend?
The Female Man as a novel, "When it Changed" gets roughly the same idea across in short story form.
Basically the great insight of feminism is that when you charge into a politically and ideologically charged topic and try to study it like a space alien in a totally detached manner, you loose all sorts of relevant information.
For example, when you try to ask in quantum physics, is this a particle or a wave, it stops making any sense because your question is bad. The experience I have, which may not be everywhere because I took a feminism class where the professor was a quantum physicist, is that asking questions like "are women less intelligent than men" or "are women more vengeful than men" carry implicit value judgments which lead to generally bad decisions among politicians.
So while being "detached" from your context may help when doing math problems, it gives you a certain perspective on, say, affirmative action. If you're supposed to forget about context...
Anyway I'm rambling. I have been meaning to write a top-level post about it all, but it's a bit intimidating given the high quality of posts in general and I've been really busy. Probably in a couple of weeks I will have more time and hopefully get around to it.
How sure are you that you have a handle on human mating behavior in general, rather than a subset which is relatively easy to hack?
Feminism isn't just about mating behavior.