Socrates in Jeopardyland
EmailGet a hard seat, a bright light, and ponder these questions:
13. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that:
a. all moral and political truth is relative to one’s time and place
b. moral ideas are best explained as material accidents or byproducts of evolution
c. values originating in one’s conscience cannot be judged by others
d. Christianity is the only true religion and should rule the state
e. certain permanent moral and political truths are accessible to human reason
27. Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government’s centralized planning because:
a. the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends
b. markets rely upon coercion, whereas government relies upon voluntary compliance with the law
c. more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise
d. property rights and contracts are best enforced by the market system
e. government planners are too cautious in spending taxpayers’ money
29. A flood-control levee (or national defense) is considered a public good because:
a. citizens value it as much as bread and medicine
b. a resident can benefit from it without directly paying for it
c. government construction contracts increase employment
d. insurance companies cannot afford to replace all houses after a flood
e. government pays for its construction, not citizens
OK, these are from:
a. The latest SAT exam
b. Barack Obama’s vetting packet for prospective Cabinet members
c. A new poll purporting to tell us that Americans are bozos
The answer is “c,” and if your head’s spinning, join the club.
This little beauty comes from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an outfit that today is releasing its annual survey on “American Civic Literacy.” Its purported result: “The majority of Americans – including elected officials – failed a test of basic knowledge about American history and economics.”
The reality is that the ISI itself has failed a test of basic knowledge about the definition and measurement of just what knowledge is. I’ve blogged about this before – see it here – but the key point is that these folks are confusing knowledge (the ability to draw on information to make considered judgments) with recall (the ability to recite disassociated facts); and then doubling down by using an inappropriate method of measurement.
The headline result in this report says "many Americans thought the phrase ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ came from the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence and not its actual source – Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.” It does not tell us why being able to recite the precise source of this (or any) historical quote is important. The logic, it seems, is that more recall is better than less recall – the Jeopardy school of "knowledge."
Leaving aside that concept – or whether being able to spit back a comparative assessment of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas constitutes “basic knowledge” – just imagine trying to answer these questions in a telephone survey. You have to comprehend the root question, then keep each response option in your head so you can compare and choose. On the phone.
Two thousand five hundred and eight Americans took this survey, answering – I am not kidding – 118 questions. What they got for their trouble was to be excoriated as dumbos. Me, I’d give ’em medals for sheer fortitude. And the booby prize to the perpetrators of this so-called research.
Newt Gingrich's Full Speech at CPAC 2012 
USS Gabrielle Giffords Honors Courage
Yahoo!
Is it (a) a sacred chant
(b) a search engine
(c) a boneheaded mistake
(d) a company
(e) a surprise
(f) a Barack H. 0bama slogan for being elected.
Posted by: fat cat | November 20, 2008, 11:55 am 11:55 am
I don’t understand your conclusions. Perhaps you need the logic and patience that it would take to properly answer these questions.
Certainly the headline part of the story you cite is the typical bane of tests – only being able to measure recall, here remembering the source. But really if it were a multiple choice with the Address as well as Constitution and Declaration that should prompt a good guess if not exact recall as you should be able to drop the Constitution as “by the people” etc sounds like rhetoric more than law. If reciting the words in your head doesn’t bring up Lincoln perhaps you did miss something in school!!
Now as to the questions, they yield I think very easy to logic and not recall.
13 should be e – NOT b,d – evolution and Christianity were not ideas for the first 3 Greeks, a would certainly not be a main argument for the Christian Aquinas, and probably not c and the others would have, well, been in Socratic dialogue on it. But all being rational philosphers would agree on e, elsewise they wouldn’t philosophize would they??
27 should be “a”. The main thrust of free enterprise is that the knowledge of the millions of the market exceeds that of govt. All the rest about taxes, coercion, and property may or may not apply but there beside the point.
29 should be b and certainly cannot be deduced from recall. a,c and d lists value and benefit from government projects but the specifics are not the issue of a definition, or shouldn’t be. E really isn’t true as citizens do pay for it, while B includes the general idea of benefit, and that many do pay for it but indirectly making it a common good.
Posted by: robert b | November 20, 2008, 12:38 pm 12:38 pm
For many years, I have known about the differences between “knowledge” and “recall”. Gary Langer has wrote about this in his June 25, 2007 “If the Dunce Cap Fits, Wear it” article.
But, robert b posted on this day of November 20, 2008 and “ME” don’t seem to understand the “conclusions”!
Posted by: Papa | November 20, 2008, 1:35 pm 1:35 pm
32 out of 33 – should I run for Prez??? Gary, Papa what did you get?
Posted by: robert b | November 20, 2008, 1:59 pm 1:59 pm
“Recall” is not “knowledge” but “Information” is not “knowledge either. The issue with our educational system now is a preference for rewarding the memorization of information, but not rewarding original thought or creativity.
Debate has devolved to talking heads yelling over each other on television. And you’re seen as weak if you try for consensus or compromise.
Help us all.
Posted by: Cynthia McMillon | November 20, 2008, 2:36 pm 2:36 pm
I don’t understand your distinction on recall and information. It would be information you would be recalling.
I would say we don’t do enough recall and certainly not enough logic usually commonly defined terms. What we concentrate on is analysis of data, such as the polls topical of this blog or economic statistics etc. We also discuss “ideas”.
But the reason that “Debate has devolved to talking heads yelling over each other” is that common terms and common heritage of ideas is not defined or is misunderstood. Therefore getting to conclusions is impossible and any compromises reached are not based on anything commonly understood, except of course on data, which is seen as concrete but also easily manipulable and often incomplete not really measuring needs and not often thinking thru consequences.
Posted by: robert b | November 20, 2008, 2:51 pm 2:51 pm
If you want to understand and argue current issues by means of ideas properly defined, I recommend Dennis Prager (who I generally agree with) and Christopher Hitchens (who I generally disagree with).
In fact my ideal debate would be between those two, moderated perhaps by someone like Alan Derschowitz.
Posted by: robert b | November 20, 2008, 3:20 pm 3:20 pm
I find the Authors themselves to be rather arrogant in their research and findings…I disagree with the majority of there answers and maybe that is why more than one Professor asked me to leave his/her (especially her’s) class because his ego could not take the disagreement…and therefore took me as disruptor.. Yes I have brain and I think how terrible of me… SO this entire article is wasted time and just garbage…In other words get a real job man!
Posted by: eddie s | November 21, 2008, 4:51 pm 4:51 pm
I couldn’t agree with you more Gary. Such studies I think teach us more about the arrogance of those who run them than the American populace.
Another criticism to add to the list is the lack of reported statistics on their website. Without any standard deviations, ranges or at least medians, you can’t tell how all of those scores were distributed over the sample. It’s quite possible that most people scored pretty well, and then the overall averages were dragged down by a few extremely low scores. That info might be available in the full downloadable report, but no way I’m going those guys my address for it.
Regardless of those other stats, it’s clear that they designed a study intended to rag on our knowledge, and they used the results to further rag on our knowledge, rather than digging deeper and attempting to describe their already tainted data.
Posted by: kerrjac | November 21, 2008, 6:53 pm 6:53 pm
Gee, no one wants to say the Emperor (that is our education system) has no clothes. That shouldn’t be too hard of a cultural reference for all, they just made a cartoon on it.
Posted by: robert b | November 21, 2008, 7:07 pm 7:07 pm
No. 29 is very silly. The term “public good” as used here has a technical meaning in economics that even a well-educated and intelligent person might not be familiar with.
There is nothing particularly wrong about thinking the right answer is e if one has not run into this specific definition.
Posted by: toad | November 22, 2008, 6:26 pm 6:26 pm
Well it (Q 29) really is a matter of deduction and logical principles and not recall, as I took Econ 101 30 years ago and could not readily remember any technical terms.
But let us parse B and E shall we
e. government pays for its construction, not citizens
In modern politics, government = citizens so this does not compute. Now in fact not all citizens might pay for its construction but since it doesn’t say “All citizens” we cannot make anything of it syllogistically.
b. a resident can benefit from it without directly paying for it.
This is it. Even if the only persons in the flood control district to be directly in the flood basin were school children of illegal aliens or Tibetan Buddhists in a monastery (i.e, neither citizens nor taxpayers) they would be residents benefiting from a public project without directly paying for it – I suppose the higher costs of doing business in the flood control district might affect the price of the candy bars and saffron robes so that is what is meant by indirect.
Simple logic and common sense from everyday life. Not rote recall. Of course the point may be that knowledge recall might be easier than pondering each questions but not all the 33 were this intense and I got a 32 of 33 score and took less than 15 minutes I’m sure.
Posted by: robert b | November 23, 2008, 10:49 pm 10:49 pm
I was able to answer those questions, although my memory is terrible, just by eliminating options that don’t make sense. So I agree with the commentators who say these questions are answerable based on “understanding” rather than “recall”.
However, I would almost certainly not have gotten these correct on a phone poll. First off, as soon as they told me they wanted to ask me 118 questions I would have hung up on them. It’s entirely possible that all they proved with this poll is that smart Americans are too busy to take polls.
If they happened to call when I was stuck in an airport waiting for flight, I’d have been going “Can you repeat the question?” and “Can you repeat option C” so that I could parse them all sufficiently to figure them out. But after 20 or so, I’d get tired of asking for repeats and would just wing it. It’s not like passing the test would make my plane arrive any sooner, so why should I give a darn? So they may have further proved that even people with a lot of time on their hands get careless if you annoy them with enough pointless questions.
Posted by: janc | November 24, 2008, 8:24 pm 8:24 pm
A note of clarification – just 33 questions are the backbone of the civics quiz. The other questions are 1) standard opinion questions on civics and education, 2) standard demographics questions, 3) extended personal questions on civic activities. I assume that many of these questions as are typical of surveys would be in some way nested, that is if answered no or not applicable some following questions would be omitted.
Posted by: robert b | November 25, 2008, 2:20 pm 2:20 pm
Sadly ignorance is celebrated in this day and age — see Bush and Palin as fine examples of that mentality. I took the test and scored 31 of 33. I do think that any high school grad ought to be able to at least score better than 20 of 33.
Those who do not understand history or value knowledge neither deserve or nor have they earned their voice in the community of citizens. Yes that is an elitist opinion, but I tire of the ignorant thinking that an Idiocracy is acceptable. Simply reading 2-3 books a year on the history of this nation or the world would do wonders to expand peoples understanding of society and how we arrived at this point in time.
Just to dust off one point, even though I am an elitist I find the French insufferable. Name the last war the French won? Outside of Napoleon (and he lost in the end in typical French over-reach) the last war they won was the 100 Years War. The food is good and there is now better wine outside of France. French Opera is a shadow of German and Italian Opera. Otherwise French Fries and French Toast are simply amazing (note sarcasm).
:) Have a nice day!
Posted by: Neroon | December 4, 2008, 1:55 pm 1:55 pm
Someone on Capital Hill NEEDS to LOOK BRIEFLY at FLA.BRIGHT FUTURES PROGRAM< which in my mind has been an asset to the HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS DROP OUT RATE DECREASE in recent years. WELL, now they want to change the rules so they the Fla.Lawmakers can justify the missing money from future prospective students to not be accepted because of NO FUNDS for them. Which will be a travisty to their FUTURE not ot mention this Country.
Posted by: Yvonne Ray | December 5, 2008, 4:22 pm 4:22 pm
People NEED MONEY like they NEED another HOLE in their HEAD when they already have 7 NOW ( EYES, NOSE, EARS and MOUTH) After All the INDIANS(my ANCESTORS)did not rely on money but a persons word, honest WORK and Trade. It only got bad because of the Dutch, English and others who came over to this Country with thier so called Civilization Ideas of GREED etc. did the HUMAN RACE cease to EXIST. So until people learn to be HONEST, WORK and be what GOD intentended for MAN and WOMAN to be this PLANET.ALL Life On It Will Suffer til JUDGEMENT DAY.
Posted by: Yvonne Ray | December 5, 2008, 4:46 pm 4:46 pm