Off The Beaten Track

OZANVAROL.COM -- When I first started teaching it struck me as odd that students were required to take Criminal Procedure in their first year. I was told "We've always done it this way." In other words, decades ago, someone had made a decision and since then, no one asked, "Why this?" or "Why not that?" Our school system was designed to churn out compliant industrial workers, not inspire individuals to dream big and challenge the way things are. You can't get ahead if you're simply following. Remember: The status quo was created by people no smarter than you. What could you become if you weren't afraid of change? ...

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QUILLETTE.COM -- Sunstein, a Harvard professor and alumnus of the Obama Administration, discusses the dangers of conformity and ideological groupthink in structuring a society and its various institutions. Deliberation among the likeminded creates an ideological echo chamber where moderately held beliefs become dogma. Indeed, orthodoxies form when there is no pushback. The dissenter challenges the status quo, introducing new ideas that may aid his group by improving an ailing system. The conformist is reticent, choosing to live in comfort as his group blunders. Viewpoint diversity can serve as a bulwark against institutional rot. Any organization, system, or society which does not incentivize freedom of expression and public dissent is one that is doomed to fail. ...

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NYTIMES.COM -- The ideological bent of those overseeing collegiate life is having the biggest impact on campus culture. The 12-to-1 ratio of liberal to conservative college administrators makes them the most left-leaning group on campus. In previous research, I found that academic faculty report a 6-to-1 ratio of liberal to conservative professors. It appears that a fairly liberal student body is being taught by a very liberal professoriate -- and socialized by an incredibly liberal group of administrators. This warped ideological distribution should give our students and their families pause. To students who are in their first semester at school, I urge you not to accept unthinkingly what your campus administrators are telling you. ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- Tom Nichols writes in The Atlantic about how student totalitarianism is destroying campuses and higher education in the West. The idea is so obvious that it barely needs mentioning. The Western higher education system has been in a death spiral for at least a decade now. I hesitate to accuse Nichols of being half right. I also teach at a university and therefore observe the rot from within. It is increasingly a fashion to harrumph against the students for everything. It is not the students who are the cause. It is a certain section of professors, academics, and departments that act as Soviet political commissars within campuses. The students are simply pawns in a greater power play. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG -- Does the brain house personality, intellect, totally, so that the inescapable "I" is reducible to three pounds of flesh? "Yes" say atheists and mind deniers Coyne, Dennett, and Harris, and college students and media consumers are similarly instructed. The denial of free will, of the soul, require the brain to be just that. If Harris et al. were right, then research should not show that thought can change the brain (mind over matter), as it can. If materialists were right, Benjamin Libet's experiments demonstrating "free won't" should have had different results. But they never tell you that, do they? "Materialists understand that materialism cannot explain the mind. Rather than abandoning materialism, they abandon the mind," says Dr. Egnor. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: The video is linked in the article.] ARTICLE: What if the way the culture directs us to think about our own biological origins is based on a vast, highly influential myth? The myth is materialism. The idea that only material stuff actually exists, and immaterial or spiritual realities -- the mind, free will, the soul -- aren't real at all but are just fobbed off on us by our brains. The culture that propagates the myth works through the media, popular science spokesmen like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins, education, and more than a few genuine scientists. If true, it means the things we care about most, including love, passion, meaning, a sense of right and wrong, and so much else, are illusions. ...

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QUILLETTE.COM -- In the main, religion is a force for good in the families we examined in this report -- from 11 countries ranging from Mexico to Canada, from the United States to Ireland. Partners who attend religious services together tend to do better than their secular peers and their peers in nominally religious, or religiously mixed, relationships. They are more likely to report higher-quality relationships marked by greater satisfaction, commitment, attachment, and stability, for instance. Men and women who share a faith are also significantly more likely to say they are "strongly satisfied" with their sexual relationship. The effects are especially large for women here ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- LIBERATIONIST.ORG -- GM's workplace dress code was 10-pages long, until GM's new head of HR shrank it to two words: "Dress appropriately." The beauty of a simple rule is that it defines the criteria and lets people use their best judgment. Here are 5 ways to enable your people by using rules appropriately. #2. Don't Punish 97% of Your Employees. Most organizations design rules with the wrongdoers in mind. Quoting former Chaparral Steel CEO, "they are managing for the 3%." #4. Trust People and They Will Trust You Back. Control is the opposite of trust. Netflix's travel policy treats people like adults: "Do what's best for Netflix." ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- HBR.ORG -- HARVARD -- Here are [some of] our initial takeaways: Bureaucracy is growing not shrinking. Nearly 2/3 of respondents felt their organization had become more bureaucratic -- more centralized, more rule-bound and more conservative. Bureaucracy is the enemy of speed. Bureaucracy undermines empowerment. Bureaucracy frustrates innovation. Only 20% of respondents said that unconventional ideas were greeted with interest or enthusiasm. 80% said new ideas were likely to encounter indifference, skepticism, or outright resistance. Bureaucracies are petty and political. When asked to identify the most significant barriers to down-sizing bureaucracy, nearly two-thirds of front-line associates viewed power lust as a barrier, only a third of CEOs shared that view. ...

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NEWSWISE.COM -- Previous research suggests that sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is an innate trait associated with greater sensitivity, or responsiveness, to environmental and social stimuli. Highly sensitive people (HSP), those high in SPS, encompass roughly 20% of the population. Humans characterized as HSPs tend to show heightened awareness to subtle stimuli, process information more thoroughly, and be more reactive to both positive and negative stimuli. In contrast, the majority of people have comparatively low SPS and pay less attention to subtle stimuli, approach situations more quickly and are not as emotionally reactive. ...

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FS.BLOG -- The passive mindset is defined by an attitude, an assumption that life happens to you and you're not responsible. People with this mindset also say things like, "Why does this always happen to me?" When the language you use about things going on in your life is passive, you slowly convince yourself that nothing is your responsibility. This makes you feel good because it absolves you from responsibility. It means you don't have to look inside yourself and change anything. It means you're not in control. An active attitude means ownership. You own your failures. An active mindset means you are responsible for things you control. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- ARTOFMANLINESS.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Ismaili Digest provides outstanding RSS feeds and, personally, we also use RSS to browse the internet for all the reasons explained.] ARTICLE: To keep up on the things that interest me, I've wandered back to 2008 technology: RSS and email. My information consumption has escaped the algorithm [telling me what I'd be interested in reading] and let me tell you, it feels amazing. Since ceasing to use social media to get my content my life has improved significantly in several ways: I see the content I want to see. I spend less time online. I'm happier because I'm spending less time online I have more time to do things I enjoy in real life and because I don't see the opinions of the masses, I don't expose myself to all the negativity that plagues social media. I've noticed I'm less pissy the less I'm exposed to the low-grade fever of anger that constantly brews online. ...

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NYTIMES.COM -- A new book, "Uncharitable," seethes with indignation at public expectations that charities be prudent, nonprofit and saintly. Dan Pallotta argues powerfully that the aid world is stunted because groups are discouraged from using such standard business tools as advertising, risk-taking, competitive salaries and profits to lure capital. Yet there's a broad recognition in much of the aid community that a major rethink is necessary, that groups would be more effective if they borrowed more tools from the business world ... It's notable that leaders of Oxfam and Save the Children have publicly endorsed the book, and it's certainly becoming more socially acceptable to note that businesses can also play a powerful role in fighting poverty. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- THEFEDERALIST.COM -- In college, I voraciously ingested all the great anti-theist scribes, from Christopher Hitchens to Richard Dawkins to Sam Harris. It enabled me to roll my eyes at anything religious with the best of them. My once-rabid atheism evolved not into belief, but into a calm acceptance of the more faithful people I met, as I gradually came to understand what many non-believers fail to: You're not smarter or stronger than religious people, and you don't know something that they fail to grasp. The notion that you've finally cracked the multi-millennium religious instinct because you angrily read a New York Times bestseller is unlikely. [Consider] Francis Collins, the decoder of the human genome who converted from atheism to Christianity, or Georges Lemaître, the Catholic priest who first theorized an expanding universe. Can you confidently look down on them as deluded? ...

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THEGUARDIAN.COM -- It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google - and it was created by one of Britain's most notorious tycoons. It is as if the New Yorker or the Economist demanded that journalists write and edit each other's work for free, and asked the government to foot the bill. A 2005 Deutsche Bank report referred to it as a "bizarre" "triple-pay" system, in which "the state funds most research, pays the salaries of most of those checking the quality of research, and then buys most of the published product." ...

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THEATLANTIC.COM -- The Social Sciences Replication Project attempted to replicate 21 social-science studies published between 2010 and 2015 in Nature and Science. They ran much bigger versions of the original studies, recruiting around five times as many volunteers, did all their work in the open, and ran their plans past the teams behind the original experiments. Ultimately, they only reproduced 62% of the 21. As it turned out, that finding was entirely predictable. The SSRP team also ran a "prediction market" ... Overall, the traders thought the studies would replicate 63% of the time. Ledgerwood notes that the prediction markets worked because they relied on a crowd of people making judgements as a collective. ...

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THEDAILYBEAST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: In 1999, Hazar Imam said he watches other (non-Ismaili) communities to learn how they retain their heritage, identity, and traditions.] ARTICLE: Mainstream sects are shifting away from the strictures, rituals and teachings of religion to embrace the new spirituality of redemption through social justice activism. There are at least two big problems ... First, almost all the religious institutions most committed to this course are also those in the most serious decline ... Ultimately, the new religions, seeking to fill the void left behind by traditional faiths, offer little to families in search of moral instruction ... A world without the old faiths may still be spiritually engaged, even hysterically so, but we may lose the lessons of community, sacrifice, discipline and faith that the old religions taught to bind our societies together. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- LIBERATIONIST.ORG -- Think of any innovation that changed how any organization [or institution] operates. I'm willing to bet the driving force behind it wasn't conformity, but curiosity. Curiosity  -- someone asked a question no one else dared before. If conformity is the enemy of innovation, why are rebels so scarce then? Maybe leaders don't know how to deal with troublemakers -- they feel threatened. Nonconformism is painful but essential. It stimulates us to think more broadly, deeply, and honestly. It requires courage to speak against groupthink. Organizations misunderstand the power of rebellious people -- they see the trouble, not the possibilities. True rebels are not crazy or out of control. Their actions are not meant to defeat the current regime, but to improve it. ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- As time passed, the link between religion and health care has slowly fallen to the wayside in favor of strict clinical practices and medical protocols. Despite multiple studies over the last several decades concluding that those who are religiously involved live longer. For example, researchers at the Mayo Clinic concluded, "Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide. Several studies have shown that addressing the spiritual needs of the patient may enhance recovery from illness." ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: In 1999, Hazar Imam said he watches other (non-Ismaili) communities to learn how they retain their heritage, identity, and traditions.] ARTICLE: Greg Smith, the director of research at the Pew Research Center, confidently explains that while the more liberal mainline churches have been tanking dramatically, things are completely different for evangelical and non-denominational churches.... Harvard/Indiana University sociologists wanted to test whether the "secularization thesis" was indeed true for America. Their findings were clear and remarkably counterintuitive: "We show that rather than religion fading into irrelevance as the secularization thesis would suggest, intense religion (strong affiliation, very frequent practice) is persistent, and in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States." Get that? "Only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States," which is precisely what Stark and Pew found. ...

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BRANDMAN.EDU -- BRANDMAN UNIVERSITY -- Many universities, such as Stanford and UC Riverside, are actively recruiting homeschool graduates. MIT claims that they have long accepted homeschooled students, who become "successful and vibrant members of our community." Jonathan Reider, a Stanford admissions counselor who helped the institution realize the potential of homeschooled applicants, explains: "The distinguishing factor is intellectual vitality. These kids have it, and everything they do is responding to it." If the point of an education is to foster the kind of "intellectual vitality", [then] why wouldn't we take what we've learned from homeschooling successes and apply it to the education of all our students? Forget iPads. Students need what homeschooling offers: autonomy, versatility, and freedom -- in other words, jet skis. ...

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BUSINESSINSIDER.COM -- "Homeschooling really cultivates a trait of open-mindedness and [being] open to new experiences," says Claire Dickson, a Harvard sophomore who was homeschooled from kindergarten through her senior year of high school. A small but growing body of research suggests homeschoolers, compared to kids in traditional schools, grow up with stronger friendships with other kids, better relationships with their parents and adults, greater empathy, and, at least as adolescents, a greater sense of social responsibility. "They're doing just as well or better," Brian Ray, a homeschooling researcher at the National Home Education Research Institute, tells Business Insider. ...

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CHRONICLE.COM -- THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION -- For at least a generation, academics have elaborately and publicly denounced the ponderous pedantry of academic prose. So why haven't these ponderous pedants improved, already? The critics would say the ponderous pedants are doing it on purpose. Academics supposedly indulge in pettifogging to obscure their own muddled thinking. Or, in a more generous reading, professors write obscurely because they know obscurity is expected of them, and they fear for their jobs if they phrase their insights with populist clarity. ...

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THEATLANTIC.COM -- Harvard's Steven Pinker authored an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education in which he used adjectives like "turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand" to describe academic writing.... A disconnect between researchers and their audiences fuels the problem, according to Deborah S. Bosley, former University of North Carolina English professor. "Academics, in general, don't think about the public; they don't think about the average person, and they don't even think about their students when they write," she says. "Their intended audience is always their peers. That's who they have to impress to get tenure." ...

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QUIETREV.COM -- If you're an introvert, have you ever noticed that you tend to be good at asking questions? Do you ever feel that this is just a weakness of yours, something you fall back to when other conversational options seem exhausted? Have you ever wondered how to frame questions like the thoughtful and skilled conversation partner you are (or could be)? In this article written for the Quiet Revolution community, Warren Berger, author of The Book of Beautiful Questions, contributor to the New York Times, and "Questionologist" column writer, explains how and why questioning is the quiet person's "secret weapon." ...

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MAYOOSHIN.COM -- Professor Jerry Uelsmann stood in front of his film photography students, and announced that the class would be divided in two. The "quantity" group of students would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced. The greater the number of photos submitted, the higher the grade. The "quality" group of students would be graded solely on the quality of work produced. These students were only required to submit one nearly perfect image, to get an "A." At the end of the term, Uelsmann graded the students in both the "quantity" and "quality" group. The results were astonishing. The best photos were all produced by the first group being graded for quantity. ...

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FS.BLOG -- Inefficient does not mean ineffective, and it is certainly not the same as lazy. You get things done - just not in the most effective way possible. You're a bit sloppy, and use more energy. But don't feel bad about it. There is real value in not being the best. To understand how inefficiency can help you get ahead, let's start with a story. Imagine a tree that grows ...

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SCIENCEMAG.ORG -- AAAS -- Scientific progress, and scientific careers, depends on novel ideas. One might therefore expect the scientific community to welcome intellectual innovations as boons to advancement. Two recent studies, however, show just the opposite. One examines how the presence of a prominent, established leader in a research field discourages new people from entering it and presenting ideas considered unconventional. The other reveals a "bias against novelty" that often keeps innovative research from gaining the attention and recognition it deserves, at least initially. Together, these results imply career risks for scientists who put forward new theories or interpretations even though ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- QUILLETTE.COM -- Root causes are alluring for several reasons. They appear to simplify complex problems ... There is also the possibility of killing two or more birds with one stone, as multiple problems may have the same root cause. If only it were so simple. A well-trained mechanic can normally diagnose the root cause of why your car has broken down. But for complex social problems, the task of finding something that could be described as a root cause is far more difficult. Most social problems are multifaceted, with different causal layers and dimensions interacting in ways that are not reducible to a single phenomenon. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- AREOMAGAZINE.COM -- We pine for straightforward solutions to complicated political, cultural, [community] and economic challenges and analysts, academics, pundits and politicians respond with an abundance of ideological and policy solutions that appeal to our political preferences. But wicked problems, by their nature, elude definitive, universal answers. They even elude universal definition. Wicked problems are problems that don't just sit there and let you work on them ... Solving a wicked problems requires people who see it from multiple perspectives ... So how do we build a new culture of collaborative perspective-sharing that allows wicked problems to be solved? ...

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TED.COM -- Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we're wrong about that? "Wrongologist" Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility. Schulz: "This attachment to our own rightness keeps us from preventing mistakes when we absolutely need to and causes us to treat each other terribly. But to me, what's most baffling and most tragic about this is that it misses the whole point of being human." ...

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