Remedial teaching at universities
Can universities do anything to bring students up to a tertiary standard without compromising on intellectual standards, and – more crucially – is doing so their job at all? Because as much as national government might appreciate the fact that universities have a social conscience, the fact remains that by the time students get to university, much of the harm has already been done.
Elitism and the university
What are the goals of university educations, and therefore the point of universities existing at all? There is certainly more than one, but alongside goals such as social transformation, one of those goals is surely academic excellence – the sort that allows or encourages the best research, often informing the best policy, or the most creative innovation.
Cilla Webster takes issue
In the Sunday Times letters page today (not available online, sorry), Cilla Webster takes issue with Ben Trovato’s open letter to Errol Naidoo regarding E-Tv’s screening the Naked News. That’s fine – she can have her view, as can Naidoo, regardless of how stupid those views might be. But Webster’s letter does allow for a quick and easy demonstration of the ‘false cause’, or ‘correlation, not cause’ fallacy
Carry on (mocking) Camping
Now that another prophesy regarding the end of the world has been confirmed as lunatic raving, is it appropriate for us to mock Harold Camping and his followers? While there are certainly some innocent victims in these situations, who we would not want to mock, it’s legitimate to ask whether mockery and ridicule might dissuade others from taking these sorts of predictions seriously in the first place.
On respect, and whether Errol Naidoo is a fool
When someone presents themselves to you as having near-universally foolish views, are we entitled to call that person a fool? Or does “respect” always entail only addressing their arguments, while refraining from applying such labels to them? Errol Naidoo’s call for a boycott on e-TV recently led to a brief debate on this issue.
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