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The DeSantis gambit

shemp said:
I doubt it. These are state-run universities, nobody is forced to enroll there. It will mostly affect students who are pursuing a degree in sociology or a related field. They can transfer to other universities, but it will be a pain in the ass for them. Being a pain in the ass is what Rhonda Santis excels at.
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There is a wrinkle... A lot of parents contribute to funds that pre-pay their children's college tuition. The one backed by the state of Florida pays for tuition at a state school. If the schools lose accreditation or value because of these boneheaded decisions, the parents may have a reasonable case against the state. But, of course, if the plan doesn't already have some fine print preventing lawsuits the state government can always change the laws to make sueing difficult or impossible. But, here in Florida, it is okay if our schools offer subpar education as long as we have the best football stadiums and training facilities.
 
shemp said:
I doubt it. These are state-run universities, nobody is forced to enroll there. It will mostly affect students who are pursuing a degree in sociology or a related field. They can transfer to other universities, but it will be a pain in the ass for them. Being a pain in the ass is what Rhonda Santis excels at.
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All 12 FL State U's are affected by this latest stupidity. Students who are pursuing a degree in sociology or a related field would have to transfer to a private college or go out of state as non-resident students, both of which are more expensive.
 
Stacyhs said:
All 12 FL State U's are affected by this latest stupidity. Students who are pursuing a degree in sociology or a related field would have to transfer to a private college or go out of state as non-resident students, both of which are more expensive.
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I interpret this story is that he is eliminating a basic sociology class from the general education requirements for non-majors, not that he is eliminating sociology departments or removing the ability to major in sociology.
 
TellyKNeasuss said:
I interpret this story is that he is eliminating a basic sociology class from the general education requirements for non-majors, not that he is eliminating sociology departments or removing the ability to major in sociology.
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Yes. From an article in the Tampa Bay Times:

The Board of Governors removed sociology as an option for students when they choose from a menu of introductory courses to fulfill state graduation requirements. The decision followed a vote last week by the State Board of Education to do the same at Florida’s 28 state colleges.

...

The move to downgrade sociology started in November, when Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. proposed striking it from a list of potential core or general education courses. The list had been reviewed by a group of faculty commissioned as part of a new state law that prohibits “curriculum based on unproven, speculative, or exploratory content.”

Diaz gave his reasoning at last week’s State Board meeting, saying in reference to sociology: “Students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideology.”
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TellyKNeasuss said:
I interpret this story is that he is eliminating a basic sociology class from the general education requirements for non-majors, not that he is eliminating sociology departments or removing the ability to major in sociology.
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You mean that people once again assumed something terrible and massive was going on because they didn’t like who was doing it, even though the truth was fairly mundane and not that big a deal?

I shan’t believe it. I simply shan’t.
 
jrhowell said:
Yes. From an article in the Tampa Bay Times:
The Board of Governors removed sociology as an option for students when they choose from a menu of introductory courses to fulfill state graduation requirements. The decision followed a vote last week by the State Board of Education to do the same at Florida’s 28 state colleges.

...

The move to downgrade sociology started in November, when Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. proposed striking it from a list of potential core or general education courses. The list had been reviewed by a group of faculty commissioned as part of a new state law that prohibits “curriculum based on unproven, speculative, or exploratory content.”

Diaz gave his reasoning at last week’s State Board meeting, saying in reference to sociology: “Students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideology.”
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Shouldn't the last bit mean that everything Brave Sir Ron Da introduced has to be removed from the curriculum?
 
Ziggurat said:
You mean that people once again assumed something terrible and massive was going on because they didn’t like who was doing it, even though the truth was fairly mundane and not that big a deal?

I shan’t believe it. I simply shan’t.
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Whether or not it's a big deal depends on what will no longer be taught and what will be taught instead.
 
TellyKNeasuss said:
Whether or not it's a big deal depends on what will no longer be taught and what will be taught instead.
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This doesn't actually make any changes at all to what courses are taught. The only change is that some non-sociology students won't take sociology courses in order to fulfill general ed requirements. And general ed requirements are, to a large extent, simply make-work programs anyways. They aren't really for the benefit of students, they're for the benefit of the institutions.
 
Ziggurat said:
You mean that people once again assumed something terrible and massive was going on because they didn’t like who was doing it, even though the truth was fairly mundane and not that big a deal?

I shan’t believe it. I simply shan’t.
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I don't think removing a core sociology class because a right wing De Santis handpicked State Board of Education Commissioner thinks it's “been hijacked by leftwing activists” and “Students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideology,” and replacing it with the Board's "own US History Curriculum" is "mundane". What their "truth" is included that "slaves benefitted from slavery by learning useful skills."

I wonder just how many slaves felt they'd "benefited" from their enslavement?

This is just another example of the manufactured culture war by DeSantis and his sycophants. But you shan't, just shan't, believe it.
 
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Stacyhs said:
I don't think removing a core sociology class because a right wing De Santis handpicked State Board of Education Commissioner thinks it's “been hijacked by leftwing activists” and “Students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideology,” and replacing it with the Board's "own US History Curriculum" in "mundane". What their "truth" is included that "slaves benefitted from slavery by learning useful skills."

I wonder just how many slaves felt they'd "benefited" from their enslavement?

This is just another example of the manufactured culture war by DeSantis and his sycophants. But you shan't, just shan't, believe it.
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No classes have actually been removed, all those classes can still be offered. And you're a textbook example of what I'm talking about: you've got to hype up everything to be a bigger deal than it actually is, because god forbid you NOT take offense to everything.
 
Ziggurat said:
This doesn't actually make any changes at all to what courses are taught. The only change is that some non-sociology students won't take sociology courses in order to fulfill general ed requirements. And general ed requirements are, to a large extent, simply make-work programs anyways. They aren't really for the benefit of students, they're for the benefit of the institutions.
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Bull. There's more to getting a college degree than just learning about your major; it's about getting a rounded education that includes expanding your general knowledge of the world. But who needs "the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers." I mean, who needs to understand any of that, right? Bunch of woke liberal radicals!
 
Stacyhs said:
Bull. There's more to getting a college degree than just learning about your major; it's about getting a rounded education that includes expanding your general knowledge of the world.
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Nice idea in principle. Not what generally happens in practice.

But who needs "the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers."
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Again, nice idea in principle. But frequently not how sociology operates in practice. Ever hear the term "autoethnography"?
 
Stacyhs said:
And your evidence of this is? I'd put that in the category of an "arsefact".
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Having been to college. Having seen who can graduate.

Again, your evidence of this is? I'm going to have to open up a file just for arsefacts.
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Oh, gee, I wonder why I might think the quality of sociology research isn't always up to snuff.

Yep. And?
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And it's not scientific.
 
Stacyhs said:
That's your evidence? A 'retracted article' from a Florida college Dept. of History? I'm going to need a bigger file.:lol2:
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That paper isn't just any retracted paper, it has a history behind it. You can figure it out if you want to, I'm done. You're already not trying to defend the initial panic mongering that sociology courses were being banned when they aren't.
 
Stacyhs said:
That's your evidence?

[qimg]https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/7166965b768e6be43a.jpg[/qimg]



That's your evidence? A 'retracted article' from a Florida college Dept. of History? I'm going to need a bigger file.:lol2:
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Ziggurat said:
That paper isn't just any retracted paper, it has a history behind it. You can figure it out if you want to, I'm done. You're already not trying to defend the initial panic mongering that sociology courses were being banned when they aren't.
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I’m not particularly interested in the debate over sociology being a core subject or not, as it is not in most countries so it would not make Florida particularly unusual, but I don’t think it says much about sociology that Boghossian, Lindsay and Pluckrose managed to get a hoax paper submitted to a gender studies journal called “Sex Roles” about the objectification of women by male customers at Hooters. Most fields of study, not just the social sciences get papers retracted all the time for various reasons such as data fraud, plagiarism, over-hyped findings, ethical breaches, etc…

We can’t assume that cancer research, radiography, anaesethiology, physics, chemistry and psychology are useless subjects just because papers in each discipline are being retracted daily.

In particular, if your particular hoax is committed to the act then it is quite simple to pass off a paper with fake data. It’s obviously less time-consuming to write a fake paper than to actually conduct a genuine one and collect genuine data. Peer-reviewers, for the most part, have to trust that if you say you collected data then you did, unless there seems to be no plausible way in which the study could have been conducted.

During the Covid pandemic, we even saw people who cheered on the Sokal Squared hoax apparently very easily hoodwinked by studies that purported to show efficacy for ivermectin, for example. And some of those papers had very obvious and glaring problems with the purported data.

Anyway, people unfamiliar with the extent to which papers get retracted for all sorts of things and assume that a few hoax papers bring down sociology should at least have a look through retraction watch: https://retractionwatch.com/

Or Data Colada, whose are dedicated to looking at data that they suspect is not right: http://datacolada.org/

Or Stuart Ritchie’s book, Science Fictions: https://www.sciencefictions.org/
 
Ziggurat said:
That paper isn't just any retracted paper, it has a history behind it. You can figure it out if you want to, I'm done.
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Let me get this straight: I ask for evidence of a claim you made and your evidence is a link to some retracted paper, the relevancy of which you fail to explain and then you tell me that I'M supposed to go figure out its relevancy? Uh-huh. Yeah, if I were you, I'd be "done", too.



Ziggurat said:
You're already not trying to defend the initial panic mongering that sociology courses were being banned when they aren't.
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Why should I defend it? I never claimed all sociology classes were being banned.
 
Trebuchet said:
They're both from Florida, which is a constitutional problem. Electors are constitutionally prohibited from voting for both a President and Vice President from their own state.
That means in a very close election, you could wind up with President Trump and Vice President Harris.
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Trump is from New York. He's only residing in Floridah.
 
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