Criminal Law: Yes to Level 2. Yes to teaching a layperson. It would take a while, for sure, but it’s doable. Some of the work requires an understanding of a different lifestyle; if you can’t see the potential issues with prosecuting a robbery by a prostitute and her armed male friend, or you can’t predict that a domestic violence victim will have a non-credible recantation, you’ll need some other education.
I’ve done a lot of instruction in this field. It is common for instruction not to take until there’s other experience in the field which helps things join up.
Bridge: Yes to Level 2. Possibly to teaching a layperson. The ability to play bridge well is correlated heavily to intelligence, but it also correlates to a certain zeal for winning. I have taught one person to play very well indeed, but that may not be replicable, and took years. (On an aside, I am very likely the world’s foremost expert on online bridge cheating; teaching cheating prevention would require teaching bridge first.)
Teaching requires more than reasonable intelligence on the part of the teachee. Some people who are very intelligent are ineducable. (Many of these are violators of my 40% rule: You are allowed to think you are 40% smarter/faster/stronger/better than you are. After that, it’s obnoxious.) Some people are not interested in learning a given subject. Some people will not overcome preset biases. Some people have high aptitudes in some areas and little aptitude in others (though intelligence strongly tends to spill over.)
Anyway, I’m interested in the article. My penultimate effort to explain something to many people—Bayes’ Theorem to lawyers—was a moderate failure; my last effort to explain something less mathy to a crowd was a substantial success. (My last experience in explaining something, with assistance, to 12 people was a complete failure.)
It’s non-arbitrary, but neither is it precise. 100% is clearly too high, and 10% is clearly too low.
And since I started calling it The 40% Rule fifteen years ago or thereabout, a number of my friends and acquaintances have embraced the rule in this incarnation. Obviously, some things are unquantifiable and the specific number has rather limited application. But people like it at this number. That counts for something—and it gets the message across in a way that other formulations don’t.
Some are nonplussed by the rule, but the vigor of support by some supporters gives me some thought that I picked a number people like. Since I never tried another number, I could be wrong—but I don’t think I am.
Some of the work requires an understanding of a different lifestyle; if you can’t see the potential issues with prosecuting a robbery by a prostitute and her armed male friend, or you can’t predict that a domestic violence victim will have a non-credible recantation, you’ll need some other education.
“The people who buy the services of a prostitute generally don’t want to go on record saying so, which they would have to do at some point to prosecute such a robbery. This is either because they’re married, or the shame associated with using one.”
“Victims of domestic violence have a lot invested in the relationship, and, no matter how much they feel hurt by the abuse, they will not want to tear apart the family and cripple their spouse with a felony conviction. This inner conflict will be present when the victim tries to recant their testimony.”
Did that really require passing the learner off for some other education? Or did I get the explanation wrong?
Anyway, I’m interested in the article. My penultimate effort to explain something to many people—Bayes’ Theorem to lawyers—was a moderate failure; my last effort to explain something less mathy to a crowd was a substantial success. (My last experience in explaining something, with assistance, to 12 people was a complete failure.)
I’d actually tried teaching information theory to my mom a week ago, which involved starting with the Bayes Theorem (my preferred phrasing [1]). She’s a professional engineer, and found it very interesting (to the point where she kept prodding me for the next lesson), saying that it made much more sense of statistics. In about 1.5-2 hours total, I covered the Theorem, application to a car alarm situation, aggregating independent pieces of evidence, the use of log-odds, and some stuff on Bayes nets and using dependent pieces of evidence.
[1] O(H|E) = O(H) * L(E|H) = O(H) * P(E|H) / P(E|~H) = “On observing evidence, amplify the odds you assign to a belief by the probability of seeing the evidence if the belief were true, relative to if it were false.”
Expansion on the explanation about domestic violence victims—the victim may also be afraid that the government will not protect them from the abuser, and the abuser will be angrier because of the attempt at prosecution.
Criminal Law: Yes to Level 2. Yes to teaching a layperson. It would take a while, for sure, but it’s doable. Some of the work requires an understanding of a different lifestyle; if you can’t see the potential issues with prosecuting a robbery by a prostitute and her armed male friend, or you can’t predict that a domestic violence victim will have a non-credible recantation, you’ll need some other education.
I’ve done a lot of instruction in this field. It is common for instruction not to take until there’s other experience in the field which helps things join up.
Bridge: Yes to Level 2. Possibly to teaching a layperson. The ability to play bridge well is correlated heavily to intelligence, but it also correlates to a certain zeal for winning. I have taught one person to play very well indeed, but that may not be replicable, and took years. (On an aside, I am very likely the world’s foremost expert on online bridge cheating; teaching cheating prevention would require teaching bridge first.)
Teaching requires more than reasonable intelligence on the part of the teachee. Some people who are very intelligent are ineducable. (Many of these are violators of my 40% rule: You are allowed to think you are 40% smarter/faster/stronger/better than you are. After that, it’s obnoxious.) Some people are not interested in learning a given subject. Some people will not overcome preset biases. Some people have high aptitudes in some areas and little aptitude in others (though intelligence strongly tends to spill over.)
Anyway, I’m interested in the article. My penultimate effort to explain something to many people—Bayes’ Theorem to lawyers—was a moderate failure; my last effort to explain something less mathy to a crowd was a substantial success. (My last experience in explaining something, with assistance, to 12 people was a complete failure.)
--JRM
I’m curious, why did you chose 40% for your “40% rule”?
It’s non-arbitrary, but neither is it precise. 100% is clearly too high, and 10% is clearly too low.
And since I started calling it The 40% Rule fifteen years ago or thereabout, a number of my friends and acquaintances have embraced the rule in this incarnation. Obviously, some things are unquantifiable and the specific number has rather limited application. But people like it at this number. That counts for something—and it gets the message across in a way that other formulations don’t.
Some are nonplussed by the rule, but the vigor of support by some supporters gives me some thought that I picked a number people like. Since I never tried another number, I could be wrong—but I don’t think I am.
--JRM
“The people who buy the services of a prostitute generally don’t want to go on record saying so, which they would have to do at some point to prosecute such a robbery. This is either because they’re married, or the shame associated with using one.”
“Victims of domestic violence have a lot invested in the relationship, and, no matter how much they feel hurt by the abuse, they will not want to tear apart the family and cripple their spouse with a felony conviction. This inner conflict will be present when the victim tries to recant their testimony.”
Did that really require passing the learner off for some other education? Or did I get the explanation wrong?
I’d actually tried teaching information theory to my mom a week ago, which involved starting with the Bayes Theorem (my preferred phrasing [1]). She’s a professional engineer, and found it very interesting (to the point where she kept prodding me for the next lesson), saying that it made much more sense of statistics. In about 1.5-2 hours total, I covered the Theorem, application to a car alarm situation, aggregating independent pieces of evidence, the use of log-odds, and some stuff on Bayes nets and using dependent pieces of evidence.
[1] O(H|E) = O(H) * L(E|H) = O(H) * P(E|H) / P(E|~H) = “On observing evidence, amplify the odds you assign to a belief by the probability of seeing the evidence if the belief were true, relative to if it were false.”
Expansion on the explanation about domestic violence victims—the victim may also be afraid that the government will not protect them from the abuser, and the abuser will be angrier because of the attempt at prosecution.