motivating persons to seek true knowledge
Knowledge is power, even if it’s not true and viciously used. True knowledge provides the right power for building a good society.
Tagged: knowledge
social reality of scholarly peer review
Peer-reviewed publications are currently the main currency for academic advancement. Like fiat currencies in general economic use, the value of editorial peer review appears to be largely in its value for economic transactions. Consider, for example, a scholarly study published in 1982. The authors created fictitious authors for twelve articles published in twelve highly regarded [...]
Tagged: knowledge
social constraints of social media
Getting persons to coalesce around a bigger project is not as simple as describing a bigger project. An expressed desire to be like Wikipedia (but better) isn’t enough to get persons to contribute knowledge like they do for Wikipedia. Humans pursue their self-interests socially and create complex social dynamics. Because social relations involve complicated social [...]
Tagged: knowledge, Quora
the value of college in the Internet era
Students, families, and societies are making large investments in college education. In the U.S., about 41% of persons ages 25 to 34 years old have completed a two-year or four-year college degree. Another 19% of persons in those age groups have taken some college courses but have not received a degree.[1] These statistics indicate that [...]
Tagged: knowledge
so much for the Enlightenment
Jay Rosen on Wikileaks’ Afghanistan War Logs: 8. … “We tend to think: big revelations mean big reactions. But if the story is too big and crashes too many illusions, the exact opposite occurs.” My fear is that this will happen with the Afghanistan logs. Reaction will be unbearably lighter than we have a right [...]
Tagged: knowledge
varieties of knowledge-access regimes
Groups with greater social investment tend to favor more restrictive access to knowledge. Greater social investment means more connections with socially credible and authoritative persons and groups, and greater material interests in maintaining those connections. Social investment supports credibility and authority. So too does knowledge (“knowledge is power”). However, persons who are neither credible nor [...]
Tagged: knowledge
email and telephone policy
My thinking and creativity here, as valuable or invaluable as it is, I offer freely to everyone. If you have a question regarding some topics that this blog addresses, please ask the question as a comment to the relevant blog post. I will respond with a comment or blog post in accordance with my interest, [...]
Tagged: knowledge
sensory possiblities in factual disputes
Jacob of Serugh recounted a story about some youths from Ephesus in a homily early in the sixth century. That story spread widely by early in the seventh century. Themes of the story are shunning false gods, faithfulness despite persecution and hardships, God’s care for believers, resurrection of the dead, and the future godly world. [...]
Tagged: Falnama, knowledge
monkeying all around
Based in Media Arts study, a group from the University of Plymouth put a keyboard and computer in a monkey enclosure. They also set up a webcam so that everyone could see what the monkeys were doing with the keyboard. They thus exploited the popular value of the infinite monkey theorem. This project provides insight [...]
Tagged: knowledge
communicative calculus in science
The brilliant Michael Nielsen observes: The contrast between the science comment sites and the success of the amazon.com reviews is stark. To pick just one example, you’ll find approximately 1500 reviews of Pokemon products at amazon.com, more than the total number of reviews on all the scientific comment sites I described above. The disincentives facing [...]
Tagged: knowledge