http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article199440204.html
A project that itself shows a shocking lack of emotional IQ and judgment…
The hypothesis can be formulated any way one wants, it is all about whether the data supports it or not.
Can’t read beyond the paywall to see whether the kids were allowed to proceed. They would have learned a few things…
@BunsenBurner can you read this link?
http://www.newsweek.com/science-fair-project-leads-backlash-802667?amp=1
It looks like the project was up for judging for 2 days before it was removed due to parents complaints. The school is ‘investigating.’
Controversy aside, it would lack merits on its own. It’s not very scientific and it’s rehashing an old claim. If the fair was for an original idea, it would disqualify from the get go. Another, it lacks logic. It would first have to prove IQ is a right qualification. Is it used in the admission to the program? Or is it proven that IQ is a right measure to sort out ability across diverse cultural and racial background? People could win the case without resorting to racism, sensitivity stuff. It is not much of a science project. It lacks originality, logic, methodology.
This seems like a classic teachable moment. Are the students deliberately challenging unspoken assumptions of the school and parents? And that’s what the elite school wants to hush? Are the students deliberately being mean and racist? What do other students think, and do you get them all in a room and discuss the reasons this is offensive? Do you, in fact, examine admissions policies and all that?
Or do you just let uncomfortable moments disappear with no comment? Clearly this is an abhorrent “project” on the face of it. No place in a science based, fact based setting. Just taking it away seems like the cowards’ way out.
This is what happens when we pretend that Charles Murray and his ilk are respectable academics who deserve attention.
I agree that it’s a teaching moment. Break down everything wrong in that hypothesis. Use it to demonstrate how racism permeates even the so-called apolitical world of science. (Hint: science can never be apolitical since it is driven by humans who are political beings. Data isn’t value neutral since a human sets the parameters of what is gathered and how to interpret it. )
Mathematics offer certainties but not effectiveness.
Engineering offers effectiveness but not certainties.
Social Science offers neither certainties nor effectiveness.
Hence the issue will be eternal.
And this is the type of response people make when they do not differentiate between the shoddy project and over-reaching conclusions of the high school student, compared with the careful research and limited conclusions of Charles Murray.
“People” make me sad.
Finally got to read the article. (Wasn’t opening on my phone for some reason.)
At the very least, he deserves a 0 on the assignment. Let’s assume this is a legitimate question. It was a poorly articulated hypothesis, he used a 100 year old book in his lit review, a terrible research question, and unacceptable sampling methods. This wouldn’t have been acceptable in my regular high school bio class let alone a supposedly advanced program.
Regardless of the results, it was a very, very poorly designed project. I’m shocked that any science fair project involving human participants didn’t have to go through review before the project was initiated. A mentor surely would have pointed out the numerous problems from a methodological standpoint. Shoddy, shoddy work.
There is a reason that contributes to this, and it is related to the type of people that are attracted to social sciences such as sociology, and those driven away from it.
With the hard sciences, there is a search for truth. While egos are undoubtedly involved in terms of promoting one theory (in say physics) vs. another, over the long-term this search for truth means we become better at understanding the world around us. Fundamentally, the hard sciences are merit-based, and this merit-based nature attracts some of the brightest minds in the world.
While some of the people entering fields such as sociology are searching for the truth, others are attracted to it because it provides them with a platform for advocacy. To them, the correcting of perceived injustices is more important than truth. It is due to these advocates that we get commonly accepted fallacies such as women making 77 cents for every dollar relative to men, or that all groups are somehow magically equal despite natural selection pressures and evidence to the contrary. These sociologists are so afraid of the truth being mis-used (and it no doubt will be by racists), that they attack anyone daring to state it out loud. It is for reasons such as this that studying race properly, (i.e. not like the HS student), has become a third rail. And this is unfortunate because we cannot properly attack racial problems without first fully understanding them.
As a result, many bright people with the interest and ability (social scientists need rigorous statistical analysis skills) to become effective social scientists, are turned away from the field. They don’t need the drama, particularly when people with data analysis skills are such a hot commodity these days.
Let’s be honest here: no matter what the methodology, this is a topic that would lead to dire controversy no matter how it was to be studied. It would be taboo even if the hypothesis were that there are no significant differences among racial groups in IQ.
I read the Bell Curve many years ago, and thought the most interesting point was equal mean IQ of blacks and whites in Germany.
This is my daughter’s high school who is in the “elite” program. To say that this has caused a major uproar would be an understatement.
The comments after the article are further evidence that our society is sick.
If this was a teacher approved project (which it likely has to be), then it’s an epic fail.
Separate from the question itself, some of the criticisms seem overblown. Just about all high school science projects, unless you’re talking about the likes of the top levels of the ISEF, aren’t that original and rehash ideas that have been pursued before with slight variations.
This is just ridiculous. What do you expect the HS kid to do, hire Pew to conduct a random poll?