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Bill Nye Disses "Regular" Software Writers' Science Knowledge
conoviator writes Bill Nye, one of the foremost science educators in the United States states that only the upper crust members of American science and technology (with degrees from top tier schools) understand science, particularly climate change. He opines that "regular software writers" dwell in the realm of the semi-science-literate. Nye rates science education in the U.S. an F. ("But if it makes you feel any better, you can say a B-minus.")
He wasn't singling-out software writers (ie, programmers) in the interview. To summarize what he actually said:
"Scientists in America are really good, but average people need to understand science, too. Average people, including programmers."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The summary was deliberately provocative. What the TV personality actually said was far less elitist.
The problem is that he is right, but he would disagree about the evidence. E.g. the fact that the US has spent millions giving dietary advice which is alleged to be science based, and which the medical industry and many others have taken as gosphel, when in fact it is all antiscience, is a great example. They jumped repeatedly from hypothesis to conclusion. Cholesterol correlates with heart disease, food has cholesterol, let's spend a huge amount of money and credibility claiming everyone must reduce dietary cholesterol, that's faster than doing the fucking scientific thing and testing the hypothesis. And when some bastard does test the hypothesis, guess what? A whole bunch of MDs and the like are left looking like assholes who didn't know fuckall about what they were talking about. Salt, fat, why would a reasonable layperson assume climate change was any less half-cocked?
You reap what you sew.
Look at how many people think they're scientifically literate because they think --
... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. You don't have to talk to flat earthers and antivaxxers to see profound science illiteracy; usually, the people condemning the science illiteracy are just as wrong, but about different things.
Many of them don't even understand how computers actually work.
Now that's actually depressing. If you get through a CS program without learning how a computer works, then your CS program failed you.
It kind of depends on the goal of the program. If you are aiming to turn out academics and truly excellent researchers and thought-leaders in industry, then yes, you should know how the computer works. If you are aiming to turn out decent programmers, you might not need to know, for example, how to do VLSI design.
(Although it's fun.)
I doubt any one person has full knowledge of how a computer works. I have a reasonably good grasp of most of the software layers, and a fairly good idea of how the hardware abstraction works, but reading about the pentium division bug makes it clear that an undergraduate math degree is not enough to understand the inner workings of the CPU. I understand the performance difference between wifi B and N, but I don't know the protocol details. SSD drives are magic to me. I would guess that full knowledge of how a computer works would require advanced degrees in CS, a couple different maths, and electrical engineering, at the very least.
That's funny - I removed your Google Search's wsj.com requirement and the next several results were all rebuttals from much more trustworthy sources.
Let's summarize:
The abstract of the article you linked to ends with:
This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public's incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest: between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare.
FFS, how you can you interpret that in any other way than the failure of science education? The paper says the failure is not because people know too little science but because they don't believe in science because they are surrounded by people who don't believe in science.
How on earth can you interpret the abstract of that paper to be a vindication of science education and a justification of your disparaging comments about Bill Nye? If nearly half the population disbelieves in science and doesn't use science to form opinions on matters of vital importance and public welfare then how is that not a failure of science education? Did you even bother to read all of the abstract?
To make a car analogy, it's like you are saying an advertising campaign for car was a rip roaring success because it created a lot of brand recognition. But sales were dismal because even though many people knew the brand, they had very negative associations with it.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
"I doubt any one person has full knowledge of how a computer works. I have a reasonably good grasp of most of the software layers, and a fairly good idea of how the hardware abstraction works, but reading about the pentium division bug makes it clear that an undergraduate math degree is not enough to understand the inner workings of the CPU."
In my third year we had a 'digital computer architectures' course, which should be compulsory at every uni for every CS/IT student, regardless whether they just want to become coder monkeys or sw engineers, etc.
Actually my first M degree was called 'IT engineering', which was hard to explain to a lot of people, so I always told I had a CS degree. However, when I started to move more around internationally, and I learned what a CS degree in the U.S. means, I stopped doing that. My opinion is (and not just mine), that any degree that has CS or IT in its name has to include courses about computer architectures, electrical engineering, math&algorithms&numerical methods to some extent, simply to provide a basic background knowledge, so the graduates will have something to build upon later, having a better understanding of how things work.
In the extent of relevant background knowledge, U.S. CS/IT master level university programs still fall very much behind in what central/eastern European universities can provide (despite the huge financial differences), and with a strong background knowledge and understanding it's always easier to go forward professionally.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I recon, your hard earned knowledge is only valid for current breed of CPUs. I am fairly certain that with a new CPU design, even if you know the exact ins and outs you would not know what actually is optimal code for that machine.
The interesting part of CPU design is that it is a self reinforcing pattern. CPU designers saw common patterns and started to optimize these. Programmers learned that certain patterns are more performant and started using them more. CPU designers optimized the "common case" further.
The current state of CPUs is so complicated that you can't hardly know all the ramifications of the design. Small changes can bring the entire performance characteristics out of whack. (Like hyper-threading making certain numerical applications slower...)
I am fairly certain that you can not explain why a certain instruction stalls the pipeline. But then you don't need to know, the interesting information is that it does.