-
Recent Posts
- Creating the conditions for a successful FE system April 29, 2018
- 2017 sees further increase in sixth form student research. March 19, 2018
- Pathologically wrong: Humours and Miasma. March 18, 2018
- My islands – by Line Mariani Playfair March 11, 2018
- Sixth form hopes for 2018. January 1, 2018
- Top posts of 2017. January 1, 2018
- The narrative of the ‘poor bright child’. December 30, 2017
- Education is a human right December 10, 2017
- ‘What if?’ – dystopias in fiction. December 3, 2017
- Learning through conflict. November 19, 2017
- The East End’s ‘engine of progression’. November 5, 2017
- Being honoured November 4, 2017
- NewVIc class of 2017 progress to university. October 29, 2017
- L’innovation pedagogique October 28, 2017
- Oxbridge admissions – time for action. October 24, 2017
Recent Comments
Zerahiah on 20 questions to ask about a bo… Michael Pye on 2017 sees further increase in… Michael Pye on Pathologically wrong: Humours… Michael Pye on Pathologically wrong: Humours… Eddie Playfair on Pathologically wrong: Humours… Archives
Categories
Categories
Meta
Tag Archives: reductionism
Challenging IQ.
Behavioural genetics; the clue to the difficulty is in the name. As with Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology before it, the squashing together of two very different levels of understanding into a single discipline creates a real problem. Genetics and psychology … Continue reading
Edgar Morin on ‘Thinking Global’.
How do we understand the difference between the behaviour of an individual and that of a society, between a small group of like-minded people and a political movement or between the ecosystem of a few acres and that of a … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Politics
Tagged complexity, Edgar Morin, emergence, global citizenship, Hegel, Penser Global, reductionism, thinking, Thinking Global
Leave a comment
Challenging Neurosexism
In her brilliant Royal Institution lecture last week, Professor Gina Rippon from Aston University comprehensively trashed ‘neurotrash’ and the harmful gender stereotypes which it perpetuates. The term ‘neurotrash’ refers to the inappropriate application of neuroscientific findings to everyday life. Gina … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Science
Tagged brain science, determinism, discrimination, Equality, Gina Rippon, inequality, neuroscience, neurosexism, neurotrash, Raymond Tallis, reductionism, Science, sexism
Leave a comment
Reducing culture to memes
The economy of ideas #2 Human culture is such a complex and fluid assemblage of shared knowledge, ideas, beliefs, attitudes, perspectives and practices. How can we even begin to analyse and usefully study it? One way is to break it down into … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Philosophy
Tagged cultural education, culture, emergence, ideas, Mary Midgley, memes, reductionism, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
Leave a comment
Gulliver’s levels
Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, first published in 1726, mocks the travel journals of its day with their increasingly fantastical adventures. It is also brilliant social satire, mercilessly tearing through contemporary conventions and pretentions. It can also be read as a thought … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Philosophy, Reviews
Tagged Dialectic, emergence, Gulliver's travels, Jonathan Swift, learning, philosophy, reductionism
Leave a comment
Blob and anti-blob
‘Lump and label’ name-calling is a poor substitute for real debate in education as elsewhere. The use of the term ‘blob’ is a classic example of ‘lump and label’ thinking or inappropriate use of agglomeration and reification. A wide and … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy, Politics, Science
Tagged agglomeration, blob, Critical thinking, Education, lump and label, reductionism, reification
3 Comments
