manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (03/06/87)
Rob Aitken raises two points, in separate postings, to which I'd like
to reply.
1) Requiring a bachelor's degree for elementary teachers? I'd go for that.
An appropriate program would be a major in psychology, with emphasis on
developmental psychology, and a minor in another subject. Elementary
teaching is a very difficult task, and a good academic preparation would be
appropriate. (In general, educational psychology is a pale imitation of the
real thing.)
2) Military spending: Rob says that the military awards money because it
thinks it will get some long term advantage from it, and points out that
a better potato peeler will free up money which will be used for napalm.
There is some merit to this argument, but, I'm afraid, not enough.
First, the US (and even more, the USSR) has a highly militarised economy,
and therefore one should consider the military budget to be a part of (and
indeed a controlling factor in) the overall govt budget. Thus making
education more efficient (see? there *is* a connection between these two
points!) frees up money for napalm, too.
Second, the military spends money not so much because it wants to get
advantage out of it, but because it exists to spend money. Any aficionado of
"60 Minutes" knows that. Thus, a high-profile project to develop
psychokinetic powers of deflecting enemy missiles (SRI was actually funded
to do some of this, in the 1970's, I believe, back when they were playing
around with Uri Geller) consumes money that might otherwise go into
something more directly lethal.
The fact is that unbridled military spending is one of the worst curses you
can wish on an economy. (On the other hand, as a Canadian nationalist, I
support spending considerably more money than we presently do on our Forces,
provided that (1) the money is used in a constructive way, and (2) that the
Forces are compelled to follow the Charter of Rights in their recruitment
and assignment policies.) My point in my previous posting was to point out
that military funding of research has bad effects, even if you ignore the
moral issues.
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Vincent Manis {seismo,uw-beaver}!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!manis
Dept. of Computer Science manis@cs.ubc.cdn
Univ. of British Columbia manis%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5 manis@ubc.csnet
(604) 228-6770 or 228-3061
"BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of 'Scientific Creationism'."henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (03/11/87)
> ...On the other hand, as a Canadian nationalist, I > support spending considerably more money than we presently do on our Forces, > provided ... that the > Forces are compelled to follow the Charter of Rights in their recruitment > and assignment policies... Agreed, provided that "follow the Charter of Rights" means being fair rather than engaging in "affirmative action" types of reverse discrimination. If there is a shortage of Francophones qualified for pilot training, then the *wrong* thing to do is to lower the pilot-training qualifications for Francophones in particular. (Sadly, as I understand it this is *not* a hypothetical example.) The important thing is qualified pilots, not the percentage who happen to speak French when they're off duty. (Speaking French as a job requirement for work with Francophone units is a stickier issue, but that's not what I'm addressing.) -- "We must choose: the stars or Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology the dust. Which shall it be?" {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry