tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3116442395849122822.post3638908248642755295..comments2024-03-12T14:31:50.264-07:00Comments on Bits and Pieces: Kronman's "Assault on American Excellence"Harry Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17088418333536732728noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3116442395849122822.post-31416672018657907152019-10-06T09:15:54.612-07:002019-10-06T09:15:54.612-07:001) Yes.
2) I suppose every age was a golden age fo...1) Yes.<br />2) I suppose every age was a golden age for somebody. But really we should recognize that this is a multidimensional optimization problem, so defining the meaning of optimal (or "golden") has to come before deciding whether any period was golden.<br />3) Cf. my response to #2. There is nothing wrong, IMHO, with having "interesting" be part of your objective function. But that is arguable.Harry Lewishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17088418333536732728noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3116442395849122822.post-40239379627191882942019-10-05T09:48:54.761-07:002019-10-05T09:48:54.761-07:00Odd to comment on a book review, rather than to re...Odd to comment on a book review, rather than to read the book. Maybe there should be a book about the cliff-noting of America.<br /><br />1) Does DIB stand for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging? I Googled the DIB and got nothing relevent to the topic, so you or Kronman may have just come up with a new word!<br /><br />2) Books and articles about the problems with academia currently seem to implicitly indicate that there was a prior golden age. Was there? Legacy admissions, doing what they could to cut down on the number of Jews in a school, a rather homogenous WASP viewpoint (were Catholics also discriminated against? I honestly don't know). In short, perhaps we should not idealize a past age that never existed. OR I am wrong and there was a brief time (e.g., 1951-1959) where there was an optimum.<br /><br />3) I have noticed (and blogged about:<br /><br />https://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2019/09/applicants-to-grad-school-are-too-good.html<br />)<br />a diff sort of diversity issue: with students with awesome backgrounds applying to grad school (this prob also applies to ugrad) its harder to take an INTERESTING case: returning students, veterans, people with work experience.<br />GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03615736448441925334noreply@blogger.com