(Stimulated by a discussion of Sonia Sotomayor...)
I suggest that we retire the term "affirmative action" due to its extreme amorphousness. Does "affirmative action" mean a strict quota system for Supreme Court justices, or hiring preferences for members of historically disadvantaged groups, or aggressive recruiting by law schools at historically black colleges? I guarantee that each of these (among others) is the meaning of "affirmative action" to at least some. A favorite tactic of dishonest argument is to let the meaning slide back and forth in the course of a single discussion.
The test scores and certificates that proponents of strict meritocracy would have us base decisions on give an illusion of precise measurement. Does anyone seriously think we should choose Supreme Court justices based on the highest SAT score? SAT scores are a crude predictor for some things but an exact predictor of nothing, not even an individual's performance on the next SAT.
My personal view on the issue: All the measurements and data in the world provide only a rough estimate of an individual's likely performance in any job or academic program. In reality there is no "best candidate", only a pool of candidates who are all the "best qualified" given the imperfect state of our knowledge. History shows that predictions of future performance for Supreme Court justices are especially imprecise. Acknowledging the level of our ignorance in such matters yields freedom. Given that there is no uniquely determined "best candidate" why should we not choose from among the best with some secondary goal (such as diversity) in mind? This does not unfairly disadvantage anyone, and I think an honest assessment of our level of ignorance leaves lots of room for encouraging diversity and remedying past injustice. If this is what is meant by "affirmative action", then I'm all in favor.
I couldn't resist. I like quirky things. Besides I remembered watching this when I was a kid (funny how the memory and the reality can be so different).
Forthwith the review I posted to Amazon:
If you have always had the urge to see Pinocchio incinerated by an atomic mushroom cloud, then this is the movie for you. It starts out as a rather lame remake of the Disney story, complete with second-rate songs (Geppetto in particular looks suspiciously similar to the Disney version) except that Pinocchio is for some reason now living in contemporary New Jersey. Once Pinocchio makes it to outer space, though, they junk the musical stuff and the story turns into a fairly decent kid-level space opera. The underground scenes seem inspired by Forbidden Planet with some overtones of The Jetsons. Although the story is a fantasy, various serious science facts are scattered throughout. It's the kind of movie with dialog such as, "They've been feeding the animals radioactive food to stimulate mutations!" followed by an explanation of what mutations are. According to the producer's commentary it seems the outer-space part came first, and it was later decided to make Pinocchio the main character because he is the one fairy-tale character who ponders moral issues. You have to admire the audacity of the concept. The ending seems to promise a sequel, but so far as I know this was never made. What would have come next? Pinocchio versus Frankenstein? Beverly Hills Pinocchio?
This is fun when you are interviewing job candidates, preferably for something in the coporate universe:
Greet the candidate warmly and guide him or her to a small office. The office door should have a small peephole suitable for observation--the more obvious the better. Invite the candidate to have a seat while you make some preparations. Close the door of the room, leaving the candidate to sit by himself/herself.
Slide a ceiling tile to the side and lower a banana on a string--just out of reach. Then go to the peephole and watch the candidate's reaction.
Isn't it interesting that a lot of the same politicians who find it impossible to believe order can arise from chaos in the context of evolution have an unshakable faith in the ability of uncontrolled markets to solve any economic problem?
Fantasized about while watching ads on the TV news...
Patient in eye doctor's office: Gee, Doc, I don't know what to do. My eyes are itchy and irritated all the time because they don't make enough natural tears.
Doctor [who manages simultaneously to exude reassurance and competence while being extremely good looking]: Your problem is not unusual. Fortunately medical science has discovered a simple treatment.
The doctor forms the index and middle fingers of his/her right hand into a V and pokes the patient in both eyes. BOINK!
Fade out as the doctor runs circles around the examining chair.
Polymath and Renaissance guy Sir Francis Galton published an article in the journal Nature by the title of "Visualized Numerals."
The year in which he did so was 1880.
Now, hold it right there. When you read that last sentence, what image formed in your mind to represent that piece of information? "The year in which he did so was 1880." I suppose one could visualize a copy of the journal with the article in it and at the same time a calendar on the wall that says "1880." That would be quite logical, but it's not how I see it. I see rather a sort of chart of the centuries laid out, and in a certain spot late in the 1800's is a little image of Sir Francis Galton writing his article.
(If you need to know what he looks like in order to form such an image, there is a very nice picture of him at http://www.galton.org/, but take my word for it--he looks exactly like someone named "Sir Francis Galton" ought to look.)
Here's my point: you might expect that my mental chart of the centuries simply consists of one after the other, but it isn't quite like that. It has a few peculiarities. All the centuries from antiquity to the 20th century are laid out in a series running from right to left. Each is a rectangle something like a page of a book. Within each century, the years run from bottom to top (with a few zigs and zags of their own). But, for no particular reason that I can tell, the 21st century sits on top of the 20th century rather than to the right, and the 22nd and successive centuries are then laid out to the left of the 21st. So, for example, when I read the end of The Time Machine, when the Earth in the far future is inhabited by giant crabs, I picture this happening way out to the left of the diagram.
In the distant past, somewhere beyond the beginning of history, the pages blur into a time line. Somewhere around the emergence of Homo Sapiens, the line makes a bend so that one is heading upwards in order to go back in time. The line is populated with images of the animals that existed in any given era. During the Age of Dinosaurs, the primitive mammals are running along a smaller timeline to the left of the main time line.
The line extends up until about 4 billion years ago and then takes another bend so that again one is heading rightwards in order to go back in time. This part of the line is populated with vague images of galaxies and nebulae until it runs up against a hemispherical cul-de-sac, which is my mental image of the Big Bang (the universe closing down [as time runs backwards] to a point).
This image has been my mental map for the flow of time since a very young age. I'm quite sure no one else's is quite the same. But does everybody else even have a map? From time to time I have tried asking others how they visualize the flow of time, but usually can't get much of an answer. I've never been sure whether this is because they have some fundamentally different mental mechanism at work, or they are just not good enough at introspective thinking.
That's why I was so fascinated to find this article. It concerns the visualization of numbers rather than the flow of time (I use a different mental map for numbers, still another for the months of the year), but the essential concept is the same. The article includes several interesting diagrams of the mental number maps of various individuals. One is above. Here are a couple more:
This has the same fascination as those idle thoughts you have: "I wonder if everyone else sees the same color red as I do?" Well, maybe not you--I find that certain people never think about such things. Here is a similar issue, except in this case you can find that what different people "see" is very different.
These diagrams are called "number forms." For some reason they are often discussed in connection with synaesthesia, which is a cross-linkage between different senses--experiencing colors as sounds, for example. (See, for example, the Wikipedia article on "Number forms.") I have no such tendencies that I am aware of.
Galton pursued an introspective, subjective type of psychology that seems to have gone out of style. His interests extended far beyond this: "geographer, meteorologist, tropical explorer, founder of differential psychology, inventor of fingerprint identification, pioneer of statistical correlation and regression, convinced hereditarian, eugenicist, proto-geneticist, half-cousin of Charles Darwin and best-selling author", according to http://www.galton.org/. I recommend perusing their publication list.
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