Friday Sprog Blogging: trust and the internet.

Wow, that is a really cool conversation to have with children about trust relationships on the internet. And quite a few adults, as well.

I need to link to this post somewhere else now, so I'll be moseying on over there for the moment. ;)

What a neat family. I'm envious. :)

unless... you made it all up and you're lying!?!?!
Cause it IS the internet. :)

Thanks.

Fantastic post.

You know, I don't know that I would do much better in that conversation. I'd like to think that I have a pretty good judge of what is and is not trustworthy on the Internet, but it's basically just an instinctual thing.

Tragically, I'm forced to concede that a lot of times it centers around the fact that I'm willing to trust people that are within a certain degree of variance from my own opinion, which is NOT a good metric! This, of course, fails when I try to point out to some of my coworkers why some of the sites they rely on for news are likely to not be trustworthy. I'll point out things like poor website design (suggesting they aren't "serious" enough to put forward a good face), tone, lack of links to "credible" sites, etc. But when the whole point of these sites is "bringing you the news the media is too scared to!" or something like that, well, such arguments tend to fall on deaf ears anyway. You ought to do a post dedicated just to this sometime!

Have you had any experience with eBay? There you send money to some unknown person in the hopes that they will send you an article which is exactly as they described it.

Wow. It sounds almost as if you invented that entire conversation to add credence to a tenuous former position using the extent to which people (incorrectly) attribute virtue to children and veracity to motherhood (again incorrectly) as a means of emotionally manipulating your audience.

Nyaaa.

You couldn't possibly do such a thing.

Ethicist.

Check.

Prometheus - this isn't the first time that Janet has posted conversations with her kids, on a variety of topics, some similar.  This one seems in character with the rest.  I don't really understand what the basis for your comment is.

My objection is not about how to discuss science or ethics with children and that really isn't what her post was about.

In this particular instance she is using an established popular device to support her previously challenged position on conflicts-of-interest.

I have however read the others and they too have a rather tin ring.

Dear Professor Janetâ

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, âIf you see it on Dr. Free-Ride's blog, itâs so.â Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia OâHewlett-Packard

*to be read with adorable speech defect*

Even if she is faithfully chronicling these astoundingly unlikely conversations they are designed to illicit iconographic emotional responses in support of positions that should stand alone without the appeal-to-emotion fallacy.

This is particularly true when asserted by someone who represents herself to be an ethicist.

It's exploitative.

Did she defend her own dissertation or did she hire a very fluffy foundling bunny with abnormally large eyes?

Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but I don't find the gratuitous attribution of mental states, or reading of ulterior motivation and intent into statements that can stand on their own - presumably on the basis of Janet's perceived integrity, given her stance on a particular issue (or whatever) - to be appropriate. Personally, I really wish that people on both sides of the Pepsi debacle would stick to the facts.

Had to think about this one, thought provoking, not like the bunny posts. Where do these attitudes come from? I can only speculate. I do remember one saying one time, "because I live with you." So one is not in the darkling wood.

But reality for other children and adults is starker. Most adults live a lie all day long, all their life. Their job is about puffery and flattery and at times direct fraud, by which we can conclude that these children are not from such a family. The reality therefore is that most adults in the U.S. have given up their moral integrity long ago and found reasons for doing so, such as the kids need cereal for breakfast, go ahead, lie, claw, crawl, fit in at all costs, get ahead. In the US these persons are by far the majority. Deceit, their own and others, is a way of life. Not good, death of a salesman.

So from what different environment could these attitudes come? A secure life leaning on an institution, no need to lie, hm. Historically, western, such an institution has been the church, or church connected, or a pension from the state and nobility structure. Hold it, not so fast. No need to lie? Really? You have your answer.

Anybody get a job with PepsiCo and your attitude would change, and the children's along with you. Somebody at PepsiCo was zapped here, we don't know who, perhaps wrongly.

The implications are far-reaching. For example, the children won't be hooking up with the children of used car salesmen whose integrity is compromised. They may hesitate to take a job except in a secure area, government, institution, church.

Then again, maybe not. Concerns about conflict of interest may be found quite charming, appealing, and quaint on Broadway, where the assumption is that everyone is on the make. Children can surprise us.

It's the gingerbread man again, isn't it? But if you have taken one towel from a hotel and they know it, you are dealing with the Pearl Poet's Green Knight, about ethics and an adventure.

It's just my opinion, considered, but after thought I don't see anything wrong with taking on PepsiCo, just make them reveal. And with a little digging and cross-examination I think I could find a conflict of interest for most if not all science bloggers, which they have not revealed and which often they are not honest enough to recognize as a conflict so they don't call it that.

Hope you and your readers find these thoughts provoking in return.

My university teaches how to evaluate the quality of information on the Internet in several of its courses. I think they've made some of that available for free, here: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=397577&section=1…

I'm not sure if it compares well with the fairly rigorous and field specific case studies we had to do, but it might actually be quite good for older kids and people with a general interest.

This is a good conversation about trust in the internet, it's good think tough, sometimes i just send money without veryfying wetherthe seller trustworthy or not

Prometheus -

I am intrigued (much as I am intrigued by the motives vandals) as to exactly what would indicate to you that Dr. Free-Ride is making things up. We can go into your assertion that chronicling such "alleged" conversations is exploitative in a moment.

You seem to believe that these discussions with her children are highly unlikely. Why? Do you simply have no experience with particularly clever children? Such as the children of parents who are particularly focused on teaching their children critical thinking skills and who thus talk about things like this on a regular basis?

Just because your own experience with children may be limited to the children of parents who are either incapable of having such discussions with their kids, or just can't be bothered to, doesn't mean that experience can be generalized. My own experience is that when you take the time to talk to children - very clearly and with the willingness to spend as long as it takes to make sure they get it, they are capable of learning a lot of relatively complex abstractions at a very early age.

My eight year old, for example, understood how whales evolved when he was four. Not because understanding this is intuitive to a four year old, nor because of the picture book. Rather because I spent nearly two hours right then, and many hours over the following few weeks discussing it. Looking it up online also brought the accuracy of books and the changing nature of evidence in science into the mix, because the picture book was mistaken by virtue of being out of date. Rather than trying to avoid it, I dove headlong into it because though that made the discussion far more complicated than I was prepared for, it was a great opportunity.

Yes, trying to discuss that sort of thing to very young children is difficult. It sometimes means several hours of conversation that wanders all around it, but ultimately focuses on the central theme of a concept you're trying to get across. It also means taking all the opportunities you can to reinforce those ideas - sometimes taking a given opportunity (read - example) to discuss more than one idea that can reasonably be applied to it.

So no, conversations like the one Janet describes here is not the least bit unlikely. Not when you're talking about children who have a parent who is willing and able to talk to their children like this on a regular basis.

Given that it is not unlikely, just what has Janet said or done previously, to indicate that she is as dishonest as you seem to believe she is? Note I am not suggesting that she has proven herself entirely trustworthy, as such things go. I would just like to see some evidence to support your very serious, implied accusation that she is making shit up. You are implying she is a liar and that is something that I take rather seriously.

As for being exploitative, you are totally grasping here. Normal people have conversations with other people, including their children, about things that they are thinking about at a given moment. It is especially likely they will talk to their children about things that involve abstractions they believe are important for their children to understand.

When to trust people with whom your only contact is through the written word, is extremely important for kids. Whether one might like it or not, we are living in an increasingly digital world. My own experience is nothing compared to what my children will face - do face. I believe that as a parent I have a profound responsibility to ensure that my kids understand that, for many reasons, you can't always trust what you hear. I press that home at every opportunity - most especially when it was me who passed along erroneous information.

So when something happens that makes such conversations relevant, those conversations happen - whether I talk about what sparked the thinking on it or not. Choosing to write about it on the blog isn't exploitation, it is of interest to other parents. For my part, it is interesting because I like knowing that I'm not alone in having interesting discussions with my kids - and of course because sometimes there are interesting ideas on how to present certain concepts to my own children.

Of course it is likely you will simply decide that I too am a liar, sans any evidence to indicate this is actually true. But I really loathe letting accusations such as yours float about without challenging them.