Tweet… is from page 390 of the 2016 second edition of Thomas Sowell’s excellent volume Wealth, Poverty and Politics (footnotes deleted; original emphases): People who seek to find blame, as distinct from causation, often also seek a localized source of evil to blame. Professor Paul Krugman, for example, refers to slavery as “America’s original sin.”…
Quotation of the Day…
Quotation of the Day…
04 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: Age of Enlightenment, economics of slavery, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
The gender gap that dare not speak its name
18 Oct 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, econometerics, economic history, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: gender wage gap, racial discrimination
An ideologically-based and misleading critique of how modern genetics is taught
11 Oct 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: academic bias, Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
Over at sapiens.org, an anthropology magazine, author Elaine Guevara (a lecturer in evolutionary anthropology at Duke) takes modern genetics education to task. Making a number of assertions about what students from high school to college learn in their genetics courses, Guevara claims that this type of education imparts “zombie ideas”: outdated but perpetually revived notions […]
An ideologically-based and misleading critique of how modern genetics is taught
Further evidence for the babysitting theory of education
08 Oct 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of education, economics of love and marriage, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics Tags: economics of fertility
Bryan Caplan will feel vindicated: This paper asks whether universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) raises parents’ earnings and how much these earnings effects matter for evaluating the economic returns to UPK programs. Using a randomized lottery design, we estimate the effects of enrolling in a full-day UPK program in New Haven, Connecticut on parents’ labor market outcomes […]
Further evidence for the babysitting theory of education
Māori academics finally admit that their way of knowing is not science, but asserts that it is better than science because the truth is “both factual and ethically value-laden”
05 Oct 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
The “Listener letter” appeared in 2021, signed by 7 professors at the University of Auckland (see it here) in New Zealand. It was a response to the drive (still going on) to teach indigenous “ways of knowing”, Mātauranga Māori (MM), as coequal with science in science classes. The letter argued that while MM was of […]
Māori academics finally admit that their way of knowing is not science, but asserts that it is better than science because the truth is “both factual and ethically value-laden”
A lot
04 Oct 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of media and culture Tags: economics of languages
Against personal definitions
02 Oct 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of information, economics of media and culture, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights Tags: economics of languages, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
An argument against the use of personal definitions of words can be framed around the concepts of communication efficacy, shared meaning, and societal cohesion. 1. Undermines Effective Communication The primary purpose of language is to facilitate clear communication between individuals. Personal definitions of words undermine this goal by distorting the shared meaning that allows people […]
Against personal definitions
Proof that 1+1=2
29 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education Tags: philosophy of science
There is no such thing as an empirical proof. Empirical observations and experiments are always open to doubt, even if to a miniscule extent. So the proof that 1+1=2 is not obtained by conducting a survey to observe all instances of 1 plus 1 objects, and seeing if they make 2. The proof that 1+1=2 […]
Proof that 1+1=2
The Santa Claus Election
15 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economic growth, economics of education, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, health and safety, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, unions Tags: 2024 presidential election, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
For libertarians, this is a very depressing election (a feeling we tend to have every four years, so a familiar experience). What basically happens is that two politicians try to bribe us with our own money. This year, we have Kamala Harris, who was even worse than Bernie Sanders in the big-spender contest. And we […]
The Santa Claus Election
Sixth Circuit Hands Down Major Free Speech Win for Professor Against the University of Louisville
13 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down a major victory of free speech this week in favor of professor challenging his treatment by the University of Louisville. In Josephson v. Ganzel, a unanimous panel ruled for Dr. Allan Josephson who was subject to adverse actions after he publicly expressed skepticism […]
Sixth Circuit Hands Down Major Free Speech Win for Professor Against the University of Louisville
Jim Crow and Black Economic Progress After Slavery
05 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economic history, economics of education, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: economics of slavery, racial discrimination
This paper studies the long-run effects of slavery and restrictive Jim Crow institutions on Black Americans’ economic outcomes. We track individual-level census records of each Black family from 1850 to 1940, and extend our analysis to neighborhood-level outcomes in 2000 and surname-based outcomes in 2023. We show that Black families whose ancestors were enslaved until […]
Jim Crow and Black Economic Progress After Slavery
The pro-Hamas protests resume big time at Columbia
05 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of education, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: free speech, Gaza Strip, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror
I am not being hyperbolic by saying the protestors are “pro-Hamas” rather than “pro-Palestinian,” as they themselves extol Hamas (see below). What kind of student would glorify muderous terroristic thugs? Columbia ones, of course. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict that pro-Palestinian protests which violate campus regulations, as well as the […]
The pro-Hamas protests resume big time at Columbia
Rowling Reportedly Sued by Olympic Boxer Over Gender Criticism
24 Aug 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of crime, economics of education, economics of media and culture, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights Tags: Age of Enlightenment, British politics, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
We have previously discussed the cancel campaigns targeting JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Rowling was not only the greatest selling author of all time but a wildly popular writer until she publicly opposed certain transgender policies as inimical to the advances in feminism. Now, she is the target of a lawsuit […]
Rowling Reportedly Sued by Olympic Boxer Over Gender Criticism
Promised debate at Auckland University on indigenous ways of knowing vs. science fails to materialize
22 Aug 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
In 2021, the Listener Letter fracas erupted in New Zealand when seven professors at Auckland University argued that the indigenous “way of knowing,” Mātauranga Māori (MM), while valuable in anthropology and sociology classes, should not be taught, as the government planned, as coequal with modern science. The seven signers were right: while MM does contain […]
Promised debate at Auckland University on indigenous ways of knowing vs. science fails to materialize
More on the decline and fall of science education in New Zealand
22 Aug 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, constitutional law, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
Skip this if you don’t care about science education in New Zealand, but plenty of scientists there are worried about it. And it’s a harbinger of what may happen to science education in the U.S. as science courses add requirements to teach indigenous “ways of knowing” and the curriculum itself pushes out traditional material to make […]
More on the decline and fall of science education in New Zealand
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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