Exposure 2007 Final Gala
posted by Skyler at 10/11/2007 01:47:00 pm
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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12 Comments:
I hope the losers got pissed and stomped the VCs car.
At least the disgusting Ann Hutchison's racist paper didn't win.
Thanks for the constructive criticism!
It's not a perfect event and needs fine tuning but a lot of effort went into it by participants and the PGSA. Everyone seemed to gain something positive from it - even if it was just the free food and drink last night! It was a great chance to see over 100 postgrad students present their research and they all good constructive feedback on their research and a chance to showcase it. anyway, I'm too tired to debate the merits of the event now.
I'll give a bottle of wine to the person who gives the best caption for the photo of Olivia & Brett!
Skyler and the PGSA peeps (and the PGSA isn't a political organisation in competition with AUSA, as John Hood its evil founder intended it to be - these days it's effectively just a service org funded by the uni, an outlier of the Graduate Centre) did a splendid job of humanising an event which was bound to be subject to the philistinism and commercialism of the corporate suits who infect various layers of uni administration (look at the ongoing explosions in the Fine Arts and Architecture Depts if you want to know what I mean).
I wouldn't enter Exposure, because I think the thing is a circus, but the PGSAers aren't to blame for that. I think they deserve gold stars for placating contestants who were defeated by bizarre criteria and demented judges, supplying vast amounts of free booze for students, giving work to Muzzlehatch, and giving away Titus Books as spot prizes.
(Maps)
Brett: I dunno, Liv, how can we break the Ross-Direen-Taylor axis of evil that controls NZlit? They're so damn tight it's painful. It's like they think with one mind. With Richard Taylor's mind.
Olivia: I know! Bill Direen hates cats! What we have to do is...
Brett: ...tell Bill that Jack Ross is secretly a cat!
Olivia: In the weekends.
Brett: Part-time, like.
Olivia: Brilliant!
Brett: Let's go get some more free beer. Jack has always been a cat...
Brett tells Olivia that the beer she's drinking was actually "recycled" by the PGSA to cut costs.
"At least the disgusting Ann Hutchison's racist paper didn't win."
This seems bit bitter and could be quite hurtful to the author of that paper.
I have only read through the abstract on here - I cant see why you describe it as "racist" and "disgusting".
If the paper is so controversial or "racist" - you should expand on what you mean here and or perhaps take he issues or difficulties you have with it with take it up with the author.
Richard:
All attempts to divide people into types based on psychological testing and IQ results and then argue that some types are suited to be leaders and others followers are destined to be prejudicial to people who do not belong to the culture that invented the tests - eg, in this case, the culture of the US and Britain, as mediated through academics in psychology, management, and business studies departments.
The same methodology that Ann Hutchison uses is employed by racists like Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve and numerous other books arguing that African Americans and also the white 'underclass' of America are incapable of equalling the achievements of middle and upper class whites.
Hutchison made no bones about the aim of her research: to identify an elite caste that can run Western corporations and governments. In reality, research like hers is used, not to select a new elite from across all of society, but to justify the existing elite.
There is booze and meta-booze
"All attempts to divide people into types based on psychological testing and IQ results and then argue that some types are suited to be leaders and others followers are destined to be prejudicial to people who do not belong to the culture that invented the tests.."
I know this argument. This doesn't impugn (as much as your first statement) the character of Hutchinson. Many people have been "wrong"
- if, I mean if Hutchinson is "wrong" - in certain areas of research who have later gone into other areas and achieved well.
Also if you attack someone's work without giving a detailed analysis of the entire work - that isn't helpful - even your latest response is dubious - how do you know it is "destined" to be?
I know the dispute about Bell curves and IQ test. Such curves are important in mathematics, engineering and other sciences - they are also called Gaussian curves and give a probability density distribution. They are good and valid tools.
The problem is, of course, that all human learning can be misused, as you imply. See my EYELIGHT Blog (link on this page) and that part dealing with Jacob Bronowski and Gauss etc and the Holocaust.
(The notion of IQ and the way IQ tests are used is problematic - I agree.)
If you are onto this subject - am I talking to Maps? Whoever - here is a good book co-written by Walter Bodmer on genetics on biological science etc -
One of Bodmer's main points in the book I read was that "The difference (genetic of the genome) between the so called races (for example)of Africa and those of Europe are less than the differences between people of a particular race - that is if we define race as European (say) then the differences between those who are European are as wide as those between (another so-called race) black Africans and Europeans."
(My summary of Bodmer and his co-writer. he writes very well and is a leading geneticist and molecular biologist who works or worked on the Genome Project)
The genetic picture (as he outlines it is that we are all virtually the same (genetically) (given differences of individuals) - this completely debunks any racial view - in fact it is a complete refutation of the idea of race.
But not of cultures, nations, language groups of course.
There are obvious differences in skin colour of course.
But you are best to give and analysis of this person's paper than to attack her person.
Not having read her paper completely I cant say if it is racist or not
If it is: the best way is to debate openly with the person who holds these views.
"Hutchison made no bones about the aim of her research: to identify an elite caste that can run Western corporations and governments. In reality, research like hers is used, not to select a new elite from across all of society, but to justify the existing elite."
Did she say as much?
If so it is up to people to read her research and see if it can be "disproved" or invalidated and how -or if not -she may be provably right - after all Plato argued for an elite - was he right or not? That is: to keep a dialogue open.
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