Four on Education

Brad DeLong offers his thoughts on economics education:

Rethinking, I conclude that there is something subtle wrong with the undergraduate curriculum after all. What is taught in the classroom seems, largely, not bad. But what is retained after college seems to me, at least, to be horrible. What fraction of college-educated Americans have taken Econ 1? And what do they remember from it well enough to use? Tracking little--much less than I would hope or expect.

DeLong also offers Grant Gilmore's thoughts on the strange duty of academics:

We do something called teaching. But we all know from bitter personal experience that nothing is, or can be, taught once we get beyond the communication to small children of the basic mysteries on which civilization depends - how to read, how to write, how to count. [...] It may be that we can stimulate, or irritate, an occasional student into undertaking this arduous task - but, if we do so, it will be much more by accident than by our own design.

Scott Adams recommends hands on entrepreneurial training for most of us:

One day the managers of The Coffee House [a student-run, college-subsidized bar where Adams worked] had a meeting to discuss two topics. First, our Minister of Employment was recommending that we fire a bartender, who happened to be one of my best friends. Second, we needed to choose a leader for our group. On the first question, there was a general consensus that my friend lacked both the will and the potential to master the bartending arts. I reluctantly voted with the majority to fire him.

But when it came to discussing who should be our new leader, I pointed out that my friend—the soon-to-be-fired bartender—was tall, good-looking and so gifted at b.s. that he'd be the perfect leader. By the end of the meeting I had persuaded the group to fire the worst bartender that any of us had ever seen…and ask him if he would consider being our leader. My friend nailed the interview and became our Commissioner. He went on to do a terrific job. That was the year I learned everything I know about management.

Finally, Edge.org offers a massive list of possible answers to the question 'What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?' A few examples:

Thanks to Karl Popper, we have a simple and powerful tool: the phrase "How Would You Disprove Your Viewpoint?!"- Howard Gardner

There is a widely used notion that does plenty of damage: the notion of "scientifically proven". Nearly an oxymoron. The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt. Precisely because we keep questioning everything, especially our own premises, we are always ready to improve our knowledge. Therefore a good scientist is never 'certain'. Lack of certainty is precisely what makes conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain: because the good scientist will be ready to shift to a different point of view if better elements of evidence, or novel arguments emerge. Therefore certainty is not only something of no use, but is in fact damaging, if we value reliability.  - Carlo Rovelli

It is not hard to identify the discipline in which to look for the scientific concept that would most improve everybody's cognitive toolkit; it has to be economics. No other field of study contains so many ideas ignored by so many people at such great cost to themselves and the world. The hard task is picking just one of the many such ideas that economists have developed.  - Dylan Evans, whose check is in the mail

The media cast about for the proximate causes of life's windfalls and disasters. The public demands blocks against the bad and pipelines to the good. Legislators propose new regulations, fruitlessly dousing last year's fires, forever betting on yesterday's winning horses. A little-known truth: Every aspect of the world is fundamentally unpredictable. - Rudy Rucker

The phrase "correlation is not a cause" (CINAC) may be familiar to every scientist but has not found its way into everyday language, even though critical thinking and scientific understanding would improve if more people had this simple reminder in their mental toolkit.  - Sue Blackmore

(I could go on, but just take a look at the links)

UPDATE: Fourth link did not post. It should be working now.