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Well journals are out to make a buck so I'm not too surprised. But yeah, they are expensive. Not exactly a high-margin business though is my understanding. It'll take a few thousand dollars to get your work published, and they'll have firm restrictions on any number of things. Paying extra for other things isn't uncommon either. An extra figure may be $1500, some will let you go a page over for an extra fee, but all that adds up fast.

It's funny because I'm downloading and printing .pdf files anyway, and several journals are online-only these days. I'd probably stop gripping if there was a 'download' everything button for some of these. But I'll download a pdf, print it out and try and read it on the bus on the way home. Then come across something like "details are in supp. file 1a" and .

The class I remember actually was required for both computer science and philosophy degrees, an interesting overlap for me (hence the hook that got me to take it). It was so useful it wasn't funny. The only other class I think I got as much from looking back was the one we had to take for the biology degree which covered project planning, paper-writing, and basic statistics in a biological context.

But yeah, these things get really overlooked. Just having the skill set to critically analyze something, and formulate an argument. Rare skills these days I tells ya.

If you're going to teach logic, the first lesson better be that logic is highly subjective to personal bias, and should never be used in place of facts. A lot of people seem to believe that what they think is logical, and therefore correct, simply because they allow their personal world views color the data they're using to come to their conclusion.

It would be less complicated to count the number of potentially valid arguments in a political debate.

And I took both Intro to Logic, which was ridiculously useful. Focused on modal logic and first-order logic. The stuff that doesn't get much harder than modus ponens. My favorite rule, of course, is psuedo-scotus.

Then I took intermediate logic, which was confusing as hell and not useful at all for day to day stuff. Intro classes are about how formulas work, how to make a well-formed formula, what's logically invalid, valid, and sound. Etc.

Intermediate logic was using logic to prove stuff... about logic. It was ridiculously hard to do, but so ludicrously simple to understand when you watched the professor go through a proof (which were usually 40-80 premises long--it was hell).

Fortunately, a basic understanding of first-order and modal logic will be useful for everyone, and it's relatively simple (if you are able of thinking at all rational, meaning you aren't certain posters we will not name for fear of their return). The higher stuff is only useful if you actually want to work with higher order systems and such, and so it can go f*** itself.

[EDIT]


Yeah, logic is just about the form of arguments.

Edited, Apr 23rd 2012 5:07pm by idiggory

Or that.

You have a scantly clad female servant who finds beer for you to consume?

Yes, yes, I see possibilities here.

Your black magic won't work on me. I've been listening to pony songs for the past six hours straight.

Singing it's the only thing blocking out the exit interview I had to do for my government loans, atm. It's an odd feeling, knowing that I'm going to spend the rest of my life in debt.

Honestly, a first-year college level understanding of logic, rhetoric, and philosophy should be required by the time you enter into the workplace. I'm constantly baffled by how irritatingly stupid some of my peers (and some of my bosses) are.

The main problem is that people just don't give a **** about themselves; they are about being spoon-fed the best way to do everything and have the easy road all the time, the entire time not worrying about themselves as humans. They don't worry about their health unless there's something negative impacting their life or their ability to get laid, they don't worry about their ignorance in the world around them unless it impacts their ability to make money, and they don't worry about their lack of culture because all of their friends are just as uncouth as they are.

I told someone at work the other day that I enjoyed going to the symphony and opera, and they asked if I was gay; apparently being intelligent, well-dressed, and interested in classical works makes a guy gay.

I apologized and asked if his girlfriend wanted to go to the symphony as my date, because obviously if I'm gay there's no risk in me getting involved with her.

Seriously Theo!? You live in Seattle right? And someone figured you were gay because you like the symphony and opera? Seattle is like the US capital for those things isn't it?

That explains it with the age range...