How to be a practical Bayesian
This is what college is for
Note: this piece does not represent the views of Duke University, but instead are my views offered under academic freedom.
*******************************
William Miller has a great piece, that provides a frame of our time that is shaped by his relative ‘off-lineness’ of late that is useful, and it caught my attention for how clearly he stated what I think R1 delivered higher education should entail. (all of my experience as a professor is in an R1, so I don’t have much to say how a teaching college operates because I don’t know).
Several assertions and points to time-stamp for later return.
It is not obvious why a research university would be, could be, or is a good place to be an undergraduate. The logic must have something to do with the faculty at the university whose research informs their teaching.
Miller’s description of the United States as “post persuasion” fits my recent (this semester, after a year’s sabbatical) reframing of how I teach undergrads, framed by the question “how much evidence is enough to change your mind?” I suggest this as a near-universal starting point of an undergraduate degree.
Before each class this semester, I have provided the students with an example when, how and why I changed my mind in my research and public policy analysis career. The class does not really matter, nor does what my research area is, but the point is showing students that faculty change our minds in what we care most about (our research) and where we are experts is the point.
For the laments about the status of reduced discourse on campus there exists a paradox that may not be widely understood: faculty participate in robust dialogue within our domains of research expertise, precisely because we have disciplinary guidelines and rules for how to fight in an intellectual sense. And we do, robustly.
I have embedded assessment of sources of information into my class this semester and plan same regardless of the class. The point being that if we humans are interested in persuading, then we need to remain persuadable, and the primary means of changing one’s mind is evidence. (such a system is the opposite of Miller’s very reasonable prior that everyone is full of shit).
A student who receives a liberal arts degree from a research university could (I think should) get exposed to faculty research experts across the disciplines, who take some care to elevate when, how and why the faculty have changed their minds based on evidence in their field of expertise.
Faculty should self-regulate, especially with undergraduate students, and be cautious the further we move away from our (typically very narrow) research and domain expertise.
The faculty are the only comparative advantage of an R1. Education reform has to go through them/us, and be based on our research expertise and how that influences teaching. If not, why be an undergrad at an R1?
We faculty need to maintain a broad ‘catholic’ understanding of how divergent disciplines seek the truth; the impulse to say “I am a scholar but others are not because of their discipline, topic or method” is unhelpful. These types of conclusions are determined over long periods of time and won’t be sorted in the short run.
"We faculty need to maintain a broad ‘catholic’ understanding of how divergent disciplines seek the truth; the impulse to say “I am a scholar but others are not because of their discipline, topic or method” is unhelpful. These types of conclusions are determined over long periods of time and won’t be sorted in the short run"....but, can we faculty, as Jack Nicholson said "...handle the truth." In the context of discussions and arguments over accepting the "form" of arguments, we are likely letting "truth" slip away. There are, indeed, "ugly truths" about beliefs and explanations for how people are to behave and think. The question "...what is true now?" is fodder for AI responses, that pile up the many theories of "truth" and prominent in those discussions is the acceptability of plurality in truth(s). A better question might be what is "right"? Nicholson's answer applies a "calculus of situation" that weighs alternative futures.
"faculty participate in robust dialogue within our domains of research expertise, precisely because we have disciplinary guidelines and rules for how to fight in an intellectual sense ..."
I think this is broadly true, with the understanding that academics are not debating flat earth, a general understanding of evolution, or that andropogenic climate change exists to some serious degree. That we "gatekeep," as critics at both ends of the horseshoe put it.
Yet to my ongoing frustration, this robust dialogue enabled by procedural norms is not always found in fields / subfields that use advocacy commitments rather than the norms of our profession to define specific stances and what discussion is permitted about them.