thanks,
ricardo,
for making this point and distributing the article.

today's new york times (2004.1.4, science section, f3) featured the (short)
answers by a dozen notable scientists to the question
"what do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

their answers deal with belief in god, love, consciousness. one by richard
dawkins, evolutionary biologists and author of the selfish gene, which
created the discipline of memetics, concerns design. he said:

"i believe, but cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all
creativity and all "design" (his quotation marks) anywhere in the universe,
is the direct or indirect product of darwinian natural selection. it
follows that design comes later in the universe, after a period of darvinian
evolution. design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie
the universe."

note that he does not use the concept of causation. the producer-product
relationship, which he invokes, is a explanatory structure that does not fit
into causal explanations (which is why many scientists sold to causal
explanations, physicists, for example, have little use for theories of
evolution). to me the point of interest is that design cannot be explained
by evolutionary processes either.

klaus

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Ricardo
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Nature and nurture in education [was Re: talent]


Here is an interesting report from London University that illustrates the
interaction between innate characteristics and situational factors.
Apparently gender is an innate determinant of disciplinary performance, but
not ethnicity. And poverty is a situational determinant but not teacher's
experience or group size... It would be interesting to unveil the main
determinants of design.

Causation in human behaviour can't be seen as it is attributed in nature.
You can say that an earthquake caused a Tsunami that had the effect of
killing people. The chain of events is more or less clear there (although
one can go on analysing what caused the earthquake, etc). But when it comes
to humans, as some have mentioned, it is not all that clear what is a cause
or a consequence. And all analogies between laws of nature and laws of
human actions need to be careful of this fundamental difference. Is the war
in Iraq a cause or a consequence of increasing insecurity? One can say it
is both. It is urgent to replace linear-causation thinking with a view of
interconnected systems of interactions in which components are both
'products and producers'.

Is it possible to say that most designers fail to see themselves and their
practice as both products and producers of the environment?

The article:

-------quote-------
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4146977.stm
Last Updated: Wednesday, 5 January, 2005, 00:02 GMT

There is no evidence that children in smaller primary classes do better in
maths or English, researchers say. And factors such as teachers' age and
level of experience have no influence on pupils' attainments in any subject.

A team at London University's Institute of Education studied thousands of
pupils in their fourth, fifth and sixth years of schooling in England.
Pupils in larger classes made more progress in literacy in Year 6. Poorer
children did less well throughout.

The study was set up because "despite the vigorous debate" on the subject,
research to date had not given a clear picture. A summary of the findings
has been published on the Department for Education and Skills website. It
said statistical analysis pointed to "a clear conclusion": there was not
found to be any evidence that the size of class had any impact on progress
in maths or literacy in Year 4 or Year 5. Nor was there any apparent effect
on progress in maths or science in Year 6. There was "a positive
relationship" between class size and Year 6 literacy: pupils in larger
classes made more progress.

"There was no evidence that any of the characteristics of teachers, such as
their age, level of experience, length of time in the current school had
any influence upon pupil attainment in any discipline," the report also
said.

Pupils eligible for free school meals - an indicator of family poverty -
began with lower scores and fell further behind. So did those with special
educational needs. Girls did better in literacy; boys in maths. Ethnic
grouping was not found to influence children's progress. The team
identified complex relationships between class size and what they call
classroom processes.

For example, larger classes tended to have more groups with more children
in them - so some might "freewheel" and miss out on the teachers' attention.

------endquote------

--Ricardo