True or False?: Multiple Choice Can Test Understanding

I've always been rather sceptical of the idea of multiple choice tests, because they're often administered badly and so merely test factual recall - e.g. what year was Hobbes' Leviathan published?: a) 1641, b) 1646, c) 1651, d) 1656. That's no way to test university students, who should be developing understanding rather than merely the ability to cram many facts into their heads.

Doug Portmore interactive quiz on hedonistic act-utilitarianism, however, strikes me as a fine example of how such testing can be done well. Granted the fact that it's binary (necessarily true or not necessarily true, rather than true/false) means you'd expect someone to get 50% just by guessing randomly, and maybe notably higher with a bit of luck and knowledge. Nonetheless, to get all the answers right - as I did - suggests that one is either very lucky or has a pretty good understanding of the implications of the stated theory.

Maybe there is a place for multiple choice tests, given their advantages (ease of marking being one) and I might even send this one to my students over the Easter vac...

They Called the Titanic 'Unsinkable'...

...and they called this phone 'unbreakable' (video).

Dilbert does REF

The RAE and its planned successor the REF have been big talking points amongst academics for a while - already touched on on this blog.

While PHD comics already exposed problems with using 'impact factor' (citation counts) as a proxy for research quality, I was surprised to see that such concerns are not confined to academia (though, perhaps on reflection, it should have been obvious that 'value indicators' and such like are simply being imported from the business world). Here's what Dilbert has to say about quantifying research value.

I Wonder Whether They'll Introduce Birth Control...

China famously introduced a one-child policy to curb population growth. I wonder if similar might be heading for the UK. This BBC story seems to have been updated throughout the day, the focus shifting from numbers to Carey's views on assimilation to British (read: Christian?) values. Nonetheless, it seems that "He is among a group of MPs and peers warning that the population should not be allowed to go beyond 70 million."

If that's the concern then, logically, it is relevant not only to immigration but also 'natural' (indigenous) population growth. Maybe if we near 70M there will have to be strict birth controls - or perhaps he favours mandatory euthanasia programmes instead...

(I recognize that it's slightly unfair to foist this false dichotomy on him. There's at least one other option: (forced?) emigration...)

An Unelected PM?

BBC politics blogger Nick Robinson is babbling on about the prospect of Gordon Brown being replaced by an unelected leader. Now, I'm only a theorist of democracy, and not an expert on the British electoral system, but it seems to me that this is always the case. For all the talk of Blair's 'presidential' style, we don't (yet) elect the PM the way that Americans elect their President.

It seems that a couple of commentators get things right. Firstly, assuming Brown were to be replaced by an MP, then that person would have been elected by his or her constituency (just like Blair, Brown, Cameron and any other MP). Secondly, what we - the public at large - do is simply choose our local representatives. The party with the most of these, in the aggregate, get to form a government, and they get to choose their leader/Prime Minister.

We may not have elected Brown PM, but there's no straightforward sense in which we elected Blair PM in 1997 either...

Ballots for Blair Seats

Tony Blair's appearance before the Iraq Inquiry is public but has generated such interest that seats will have to be balloted. Sir John Chilcot, chairing the inquiry, says "We believe the fairest way to do this is to allocate seats by ballot. Note that, actually, certain places are reserved for priority groups (e.g. relatives of servicemen), but those places will also be subject to a ballot among members of the priority group.

On the subject of random selection, Michael Cholbi is contemplating the merits of random selection to assign student groups over at ISW.

Departmental Lecturer in Philosophy

Those who have recently experienced frustration at the APA may like to know that the deadline for a departmental lecturership in philosophy, to replace Timothy Williamson, has been extended to 25th January. Postdoctoral experience required and AOS: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical logic, or philosophy of language.

Hard Times in Leeds?

Earlier this (academic) year, I applied for a lectureship in philosophy at Leeds (who'd actually advertised two positions). Some time after the closing date, I received an email informing me that, unfortunately, both positions had been cancelled pending a university-wide budgetary review. Always annoying, though not the first time this has happened to me.

This Times Higher article suggests the depth of the problems. It seems - from one of the comments - that the Faculties of Biological Sciences and Healthcare studies at Leeds seriously misjudged their RAE strategy, causing a significant budget shortfall. I'm not really privy to the necessary information to judge, but it seems like university-wide cuts are necessary to bail them out...

In A Different Voice...

Much has been made of differences between men and women, for instance the suggestion that women favour an 'ethic of care' as opposed to rational rules (a la Kant). Well now sources in China suggest that women have a "different sense of distance."

Hilary Term Lecture Lists

Call me sad for noticing, but lecture lists for next term are available here. My name is down on two of them...

Waldron to take Chichele Chair

I've just heard the confirmation, after months of rumours, via Leiter. More, presumably, to follow.

Now That's What I Call a Christmas Bonus...

Co-op worker paid £1.4m monthly salary - and is honest enough to pay it back (only to be rewarded with a crate of beer).

Civic Service

The Demos think-tank has just come out in support of a program of 'national civic service.' It's an idea that has enjoyed previous support.

I haven't, yet, had time to look at the details of their proposal, since it's admissions interview time (i.e. the busiest time of year for an Oxford tutor). I'm generally opposed to compulsion, but do think it sounds like it has many benefits for all involved, so much would depend on how it's implemented.

I dislike the idea of compulsory service or making students pay, but would cautiously welcome it if it was a way for the unemployed to gain skills/experience and do something useful in exchange for their benefits (i.e. if it was incentivized rather than strictly compulsory).

I note with interest that one of the authors is my former classmate Sonia Sodha, who has appeared on this blog before. She seems to be doing well in the policy world...

Tax Free Toll Bridge

I forget why, but this bridge came up in conversation last night. It recently changed hands for over £1m, but apparently the owner collects almost £200,000pa tax-free from the toll, thanks to an 18th century grant. Sounds like quite an investment.

The example seems relevant to a claim made by my friend Karl in his 2009 PPE paper: "Current titleholders do not hold full property rights, and they did not pay for full property rights when
they bought their rights from earlier holders. Those titleholders would have charged more for those titles if they constituted stronger rights of ownership, or perhaps they would have retained those incidents of ownership for themselves. That is, most current titleholders lose nothing to government taxation and regulation, because they never bought the right to be free of it" (p.58).

Ketchup Robbery

Beware ketchup-squirting thieves in Oxford...

Ethics of Eating Meat

I've always said that I think you could base a plausible (if not necessarily correct) argument for vegetarianism simply on our duties to fellow human beings, thus avoiding tricky questions about animal rights or suffering. In a world marked by over-crowding, food shortages, and global warming, it may be that the world's population could be better-supported if we were all (at least nearly) vegetarian.

It seems that Sir Paul McCartney is on board with the idea, suggesting that people give up meat on Mondays. (Though the cynic in me wonders whether he'd profit from increased sales of his ex-wife's vegetarian alternatives, I applaud the sentiment.)

Of course, though, another alternative would be if we could artificially grow our own substitutes, which might remove many of the ethical objections (though, as my girlfriend points out, artificial meat grown by cloning animal cells still wouldn't be vegan).

Theory/Philosophy Debate reaches Amazon

I've seen many a discussion get bogged down in the difference between 'political theory' and 'political philosophy' (most memorably here, though a moderator since seems to have deleted it all as unproductive). As far as I'm concerned, there's not really a difference, since what I do could be called either, though I accept that there are some - like the girlfriend - who would claim to do the first and not the second.

I raise this because it seems that the distinction has even reached Amazon shoppers, as seen from this forum thread. Since it concerns one of my supervisor's books, I felt compelled to weigh in (even though the issue seemed to have been resolved). I don't know why someone felt the need to try to distinguish political theory from political science, or why he chose to do so in such an inept way (not sure I should quote it here, since it wasn't put out in public, but it strikes me as quite funny).

Virtual Graduation

I finally graduated my D.Phil just over a month ago - after a wait of over a year (and my M.Phil at the same time, after somewhat longer). The University of Edinburgh, however, has come up with an interesting alternative: virtual graduations. I wonder what the photographs will be like...

Library Fines

An anonymous American (former) high school student returned two books that were 50 years overdue. The £600 doesn't really seem enough to cover realistic fines to me (whatever 4c/day was back then it isn't much now - and what about compound interest?), though I suppose in fairness the fine should probably have been capped at the replacement cost of the book.

Colleagues in the News

I've known about Toby's plans for a long time, but it's good to see it getting publicity - hopefully it will encourage others to do the same.
Eloise asks how long he's counting on living. He does hang out with the human enhancement crowd, so maybe to 150... (There's an interesting discussion with several philosophers on the issue in the latest Oxford Today.)