Re: Racial Differences in Intelligence

From: Doug McDonald (mcdonald_at_SnPoAM_scs.uiuc.edu)
Date: 01/25/05 

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:52:02 -0600

Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:

> in the class work.
>
> NB that recall is not correlated with ability to analyse a story,
> especially when under stress (as in an exam.) I always detested those
> instructors who refused to give even a hint of clue as to what facts of
> the story they had in mind when the framed their discussion questions.
> (Even you can't remember certain details about To Build A Fire. Neither
> can I, for that matter, and I dealt with it at for at least a dozen years.)

The whole idea in Humanities studies it to inculcate arcana. (Note:
those words chosen carefully!) Humanities at least when I was in college
was a basically closed system of arcana. You were expected to know
all the background of everything, without ever being told or taught it.
Nothing in my literature classes was EVER taught. We were just supposed
to read books and know everything about them without reading
any commentary, or even having a textbook that discussed and exposited
the rules which govern such stuff. The idea apparently was to guarantee
that non-majors made bad grades. It succeeded.

Doug McDonald