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Scandal at America's top science fair

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Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#161

Post by dagw »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #158
dagw wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are genuinely smart you will do well enough on qualify for top schools just by studying at school and on your own and relying on your own ability. And even the best and most expensive tutors cannot do that much to improve your scores if you just don't have the aptitude and discipline. The system now is far more geared towards sending only rich kids to college than any national testing and admissions system wou…

There's a diminishing return on the value invested in tutoring where innate ability plays a bigger part.

I've witnessed this first hand via a friend of the family. Their kid didn't have the grades or entrance exam test scores to study what they wanted at university. So the kid got to take a year off after high school and focus entirely on studying for the entrance exams with regular tutoring from various private tutors. And while their test scores absolutely did improve quite a bit by doing this, they didn't improve enough, and they still ended up having to study at a secondary choice anyway.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#162

Post by paulcole »

jmercouris wrote: post #8
paulcole wrote: post #2

When I was 16 I did a project on whether plants could be used to remove heavy metals from soil. I don’t know why I did this but I did a nitrate test on the plants (because I had been putting lead nitrate into the soil) and drew the conclusion that it must’ve worked. About 2 weeks before the city science fair I realized my error (none of my teachers had said anything). So in an attempt to lose, I made my backboard as…

why would you try to lose instead of just writing about the null hypothesis? why even make a submission?

I was 16 and didn’t want to do any more work. My school was making me submit my project.

In hindsight, obviously there was a lot I could’ve done differently.

Also, I didn’t know what a null hypothesis was then. TBH I still don’t!

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#163

Post by paulcole »

tocs3 wrote: post #20
paulcole wrote: post #2

When I was 16 I did a project on whether plants could be used to remove heavy metals from soil. I don’t know why I did this but I did a nitrate test on the plants (because I had been putting lead nitrate into the soil) and drew the conclusion that it must’ve worked. About 2 weeks before the city science fair I realized my error (none of my teachers had said anything). So in an attempt to lose, I made my backboard as…

Did you tell the judge or could you get a sense of what they thought?

I probably talked to 3 or 4 judges and explained to all of them exactly what I did and never lied. But I also wasn’t forthcoming about the error. I just explained the experiment and the result. None of them asked any questions that I couldn’t answer.

I remember I was sitting next to a girl who had an amazing project. At the end of the day they called her name for 2nd place and I remember thinking, “Wow, who beat her?!” And then they call my name…

I thought it was either all a mistake or that maybe the judges thought I was mentally challenged on account of my backboard and it was a pity situation? In hindsight, perhaps an emperor has no clothes situation where everybody sees the error but nobody wants to be the first one to call it out?

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#164

Post by UncleMeat »

EvgeniyZh wrote: post #80
WillPostForFood wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need lottery based admissions. Let schools set a minimum test score, and anyone over that goes into lottery for admissions. Kill off essays, extra curriculars, club sports, summer programs, AP tests, Legacy admits, early applications, and let kids have some life again.

Just make tests hard enough so that you wouldn't need lottery

At some point a test stops becoming a general aptitude test and starts becoming a "how good are you at taking this test" situation. You get specific prep courses designed just around that one specific test and strategies optimized for that specific test. You start selecting for "elite" rather than "smart."

A merit lottery also keeps everybody from having to waste shitloads of time studying for this one test.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#165

Post by Cheer2171 »

rerdavies wrote: post #146
fransje26 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dutch youth is spending an average (!) of 5 hours and 45 minutes per day on digital media. I was wondering if something like that was at play. Well, here are some hard statistics. Thank you for that. > That's some serious amount of time It's a worrying and disturbing amount of time. Now, the question is: is more time wasted on digital media than was wasted on TV in the past? And secondly: does the current TV time c…

And thirdly: would anyone complain if children were spending 5 hours and 45 minutes a day reading books? Watching television was much more toxic than digital media. Network television spoon fed content targeted at a lowest common denominator to everyone, that content was consumed passively. It was horrible. Digital media allows active selection of content, and provides access to much higher quality information, if yo…

Come off it. These kids aren't spending that time reading Wikipedia, they're on social media platforms that optimize for engagement and gambling apps disguised as video games.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#166

Post by actionfromafar »

fransje26 wrote: post #123
phreeza wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it more likely comes from archaic "freien", which still is used for "to marry" but used to mean something slightly different ;)

They still use a variant of that word in Dutch: vrijen. With the old meaning.. ;)

The even older meaning is "courter".

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#167

Post by Xelbair »

thriftwy wrote: post #72
pstrateman wrote: post #16

That's not only scientific fraud, it's real felony fraud. Maybe community service equivalent to 50,000.00 at federal minimum wage would sort him out.

The child is nothing to be blamed for, it is a 100% problem of the organizers. For a 17 years old, even throwing together such work is already an worthwhile result. Teens is a golden age of compilation and remixing.

>The child is nothing to be blamed for, it is a 100% problem of the organizers.

If I,as a child, stole 50k USD, surely i would get thrown into the jail, or juvie.

>For a 17 years old, even throwing together such work is already an worthwhile result. Teens is a golden age of compilation and remixing.

There's difference between remixing and outright stealing with intent to deceive, for monetary gain.

Even more so when one's under university tutelage, and comes from well off family - where 50k USD matters way less.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#169

Post by strikelaserclaw »

tomcam wrote: post #54
uneekname wrote: post #10

I was a finalist at the 2017 ISEF and it was quite an experience. A lot of super smart kids there and we all had fun living it up in Los Angeles. There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. No hate to high schoolers getting valuable STEM experience at local universities, but Regeneron should do more to diffe…

> There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. Said with kindness and discretion. Parental "help", e.g. doing most or all of the work for a science fair entry, is an open secret among Asian communities. It has been for decades. I know firsthand that many Chinese-born parents don't even view it as at all wrong…

due to growing up in cut throat dog eat dog culture, a lot of people from asia don't really teach their kids about ethics and morality even whilst living in western societies, many times they encourage the opposite.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#170

Post by ToucanLoucan »

neilv wrote: post #76
vsnf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parental "help", e.g. doing most or all of the work for a science fair entry, is an open secret among Asian communities. This has been a meme/running gag in countless sitcoms and Sunday morning newspaper comic strips for as long as I can remember. Not the Asian community part, just the 'parents actually doing the work' part. The joke is typically about overly competitive middle class suburban fathers juxtaposed aga…

The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby that I saw -- in which the kid is to carve a model car out of a block of wood at home, to race at an event -- they had wisely issued extra kits ahead of time, for those parents who would get a little too enthusiastic about helping Junior, and had separate races among the parents' cars. Of course, the stakes were much smaller than an award or school admission that potentially makes/breaks…

Do you need to have a child to get in on the parents segment of your cub scout's pinewood derby race? Asking for a friend.
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