Random Readings

Dr. Dobb's Journal July 1997

In the Spring 1997 issue of The American Scholar, historian and social observer Gertrude Himmelfarb bemoans the convergence of education, learning, and the Internet. In an essay entitled "Revolution in the Library," Himmelfarb, a professor emeritus at the City University of New York and author of The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values, notes that, while computers and the Internet are providing unparalleled access to information, they are also changing the very nature of learning and education. From Himmelfarb's perch, what the electronic revolution is fostering, teachers are allowing, and students are flocking to is a cut-and-paste approach to learning, where students glue together ideas and concepts without thinking things through.

Borrowing from the jargon of software development, the phenomena Himmelfarb describes could easily be dubbed "component-based learning." With this model, information -- whether it be GUI controls or demographic surveys -- is grabbed off the Internet and plugged into a framework of one kind or another. Among other advantages, component-based assembly requires less time and skill. Consequently, everything from automobiles to houses are assembled with premanufactured parts. Of course, applying this model to the assembly line is one thing; using it to mold young minds is quite another.

Himmelfarb does admit she is of two minds about this electronic revolution. On the one hand, she applauds the "democratization of access to knowledge," as does anyone who's accessed a major research library without leaving home. Himmelfarb is quick to note, however, that this should not be confused with "democratization of knowledge itself." She goes on to say that, unfortunately, "this is where the Internet...may be misleading and even pernicious, [because] in cyberspace, every source seems as authoritative as every other."

Therein lies the rub: The problem isn't with students having access to 11 billion words and 22 million web pages, but with their ability to weigh the value of the information they encounter. Lacking the intellectual tools for critically evaluating information, too many people -- students and otherwise -- end up assigning value to the quantity of amassed facts, rather than their quality.

This is neither a problem that technology causes, nor one it can solve. Although marketers would have you believe otherwise, fundamental knowledge and skills are required for component-based anything. Just as programmers need to know about data structures and algorithms before building apps using tools such as Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, or Delphi, students need to know how to think critically before they can effectively use the Internet as a research tool.

Fundamental skills in critical thinking eventually led Borge Nodland and John Ralston to publish a paper entitled "Indication of Anisotropy in Electromagnetic Propagation over Cosmological Distances" in Physical Review Letters (April 21, 1997). In their paper, Nodland and Ralston brought into question Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which assumes a constant speed of light and a centerless, directionless universe.

When working on his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas, Nodland discovered that radio waves apparently rotate through space in a corkscrew pattern. In conjunction with Ralston (his advisor), Nodland (now at the University of Rochester) further found that radio waves traveling along the axis between the constellations Sextans and Aquila travel faster than those traveling at right angles to the axis. What this suggested is that the universe, like the Earth, may have its own axis -- a notion contrary to Einstein's relativity theory. The research also brought into question Einstein's theories concerning the constant speed of light in a vacuum.

Both researchers emphasize that there are a number of other possible interpretations of the data, and that the effect of this universal axis is so small that their findings do not necessarily contradict previous findings. And you can bet fellow researchers will apply the same critical evaluations to Nodland and Ralston's theories that they applied to Einstein's.

Critical thinking skills must have been on hold when, according to the New York Times (April 28, 1997), the U.S. Patent Office granted patent 5,600,836, a "System and Method for Processing Date-Dependent Information which Spans One or Two Centuries" -- the Year 2000 problem, in other words.

Rather than changing millions of lines of program code, the technique Harvey Alter "invented," and for which he was granted a patent, focuses on the data. "My idea is not to change the programs at all, but just subtract 20 or more years from all the dates in the data files," says Alter. "Then the relationship between the dates remains the same." All you really have to do, according to Alter, is turn back the system clock -- and then pay him a royalty, of course.

A thumbs-up to Alter for creative thinking. Two thumbs-down to the Patent Office for the lack of critical thinking.

--Jonathan Erickson