Monday, September 12, 2005
!! September 12, 2005 link to the
Taos Discussion [36]
and strategy
for mathematics education renewal !!
Send comments to
psp**@ontologystream.com (remove the “*” to get a valid email
address)
educational renewal
Liberal
awareness of the impact from an information technology industry on society is
needed. This awareness can only come
from an understanding of the nature of formalism, such as arithmetic and common
mathematics.
One
has to be clear about what is a computer program and what is computer
hardware. Liberal arts mathematics,
taught right, would help graduating students to find an informed clarity.
College
algebra itself does very little to help establish clarity about this critical
issue. College algebra is very often
seen as not being relevant. Most
intelligent college freshman and graduating high school students agree. The knowledge that a computer program cannot
be “intelligence” is found in the foundations
and history of mathematics. (see [*] ) But many computer scientists will inform
“us”, without allowing principled objection, that “artificial intelligence”
should be supported as a concept. Their
funding depends on this support, they say.
An
“AI mythology” forms
part of the framework that removes clarity
about fundamental issues arising from the current failures of computer
programming. Our society is not being
provided with a liberal arts understanding of BOTH the positive and negative
impacts information technology has on human endeavors.
The
computer scientists’ arguments often stand as a polemic. Like other polemics, their argument is not
subject to objective analysis. The
argument is “won” through brute force using structural flaws in university
governance. The computer scientists at
NMHU have taking away control over mathematics curriculums and teaching. It is my impression that Dr Turner was fired
last year because he resisted the outsourcing of the freshman teaching
responsibilities to the community college and to low paid adjuncts. It is my impression that Dr Prueitt was not
hired, last year, because he supports a renewal of the mathematics curriculum
that would focus on foundations rather than rote memory. The notion that he is not qualified as a
computer scientist is not justified.
The only decision makers in both processes are the computer scientists
and certain members of the administration who have formed a political alliance
with the computer scientists.
Why
was Dr Turner not given tenure? Why was
Dr Prueitt not hired?
Why
is renewal of the mathematics curriculum important to society? Why do the institutions resist those who seek
to renew and reform?
Computers
are controlling more and more of actual human communication. Computers are also controlling the
non-response seen in the catastrophes our society is experiencing. The rise in costs of housing and
transportation needs a type of informational transparency. A system I designed for U S Customs would
provide this type of informational transparency, but was not implemented due to
the influence of the “AI mythology”. So information technology is shaping human
reality in ways that other disciplines and professions do not. How information technology is doing cannot
be examined if almost no one has clarity on what a computer program is. The liberal arts program at NMHU, and most
other universities, does not provide this clarity.
Society
needs to have a defense against a profession that is becoming more powerful
than the profession of lawyers.
(According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, over 2 Trillion
dollars was spent on hardware and software in the US alone in 2004. ) The confusion caused by poor program design
kills (many) and reduces the quality of life of all of us. But the typical computer programmer remains
ignorance of the consequences of poor design, often because some economic
advantage is created as a direct consequence of the poor design. Evidence for this “systems” property is
abundant.
A
liberal art education about computer science is simply not possible if the
current faculty feels threaten. Our
inquiry about events at NMHU suggests (has direct evidence for) a concern.
When
one has proper technical knowledge, it is possible to stand up and say that
software is (almost always) developed in a poor fashion. My experiences in research development and
deployment of advanced cyber security systems, and my experiences with
futuristic Internet operating environments like CoreTalk and Cubicon have
helped me have this technical knowledge.
Many computer scientists do not have the same depth of experience, and
most computer scientists do not have a background in mathematics (really!) or
in the life sciences.
The
faculty at NMHU can shape the national discussion based on scholarship and in
this way do what the New Mexico communities have expected from this university faculty
and administration. President’s Aragon’s mission
statement can be honored.
We
observe, along with others, that the software industry uses failure to generate
income for software engineers. The
faculty can ask, “How is this possible?”
It
is possible because there are few checks and balances to the possibility of
exploitation and dishonesty in the software industry. The issue does not need to be debated, because the debate becomes
the issue. The un-necessary debate
starts with “It is not kind to the software engineers to suggest that the
failures are by design”. So the debate
quickly becomes about the need to be kind to people, all people including
software engineers. This sidestep is
part of the polemics that disallow clarity about the nature of computer
programs.
Somehow
the evidence that computer science “has left the barn” can be easily set aside
and/or confused by a social need to be kind to people.
The
faculty at NMHU need clarity and needs to take action ! If the administration will not act, and it
might not; then the issue has to become political.
We
can observe in our current society that certain types of individuals do not
allow the issue of dysfunction in software design to be addressed carefully and
seriously. We conjecture that this is
a behavior seen in many computer science groups, both in the Academy and in
government/business. It is a conjecture
that the NMHU computer scientists are mimicking this behavior. But based on limited ability to talk with
the computer science, and mathematics, faculty on a peer-to-peer basis, the
conjecture seems at least reasonable as a working position. There needs to be an open and principled
discussion.
What
I would propose is departmental attention be motivated by a specific type of
service to the community. This service
would help students become prepared to understand the limitations of computer
science, rather than to try to push uncertain research agendas.
At
NMHU, what I have seen of the research agenda in the computer science group is
not promising, first because it is not clear what is proposed; and second because
there appears to be an avoidance of the fact that liberal education is not
being fully supported by the resources of the department.
So
in brief, the core power base in the Department of Computer Science and
Mathematics has used traditional difficulties in mathematics education and in
the growing dysfunction of computer software systems to remove mathematics from
the liberal arts components of education at NMHU. The core power base likely justifies this shift in attention with
promises to NMHU Board members (specific ones) that a new PhD program in
software design can be developed within a few years.
I
may not have the details of this situation down yet. But we feel that we are getting close.