Argument for b comes?

So just to play devil's advocate, if you were to make the allowance only for undergrad, you would potentially disincentivise people from doing tertiary study,?

There is a much more important and damaging effect.

The really bright kids and I'm talking here about that fraction of our population who really are exceptional ... think Jonah Lomu exceptional but instead?

Anti-social engineering?

They would still?

Your understanding is mistaken. This is a major reason why one might conclude a student loan isn't really a?

Unless it's changed, no. If you die, any remaining student debt becomes a grant.

Well?you can imagine a situation where the spouse or children of a former student were otherwise saddled with that person?s student debt if they died. And with many student debts being 50 or even 100,000 (eg. medicine or dentistry), that?s a very big deal.

When?

And here's me thinking that we fund tertiary education because well-educated people can make the most of their talents for the betterment of themselves, their families and society as a whole.?

This I disagree with, the reason for which you answer yourself:

Collecting revenue earlier means they don?t have to cover interest on it.

Not everything is political – some things just?

This policy makes my skin crawl – it disadvantages many – it is narrow in many ways including the perspective that people after completing their initial qual will need at sometime in their ?adult? working life retrain and gain further quals in a likely different field.

It also overlooks?

I would say that 10% of all income over a level that's not even 2/3 of full-time minimum wage is a reasonable clip, personally.?

How many examples of ?socialism for the rich? are there that Prostetnic Vogon Joyce et al hold sacred, that Labour could safely take a chainsaw to?

Off the?

Or simply powerless, as they were when I was a student. We were never able to stop anything. Students actually enrolled aren't a very big voting bloc, and?

Which neatly ties in to my post before. Sadly, appeal to sour grapes is one of the most effective forms of divide-and-rule ? it?

On that point I agree with Lucy.

Bart mentions:
They can work out that?

Back, when I were lad...

I was doing PhD following on from BE (Hons). I used up one year of allowance as a undergrad, followed by 3 years of (interest bearing) loans. Postgrad funding?

James and Lucy. Sorry I gave the impression I was theorizing.

It wasn't just me guessing what their behaviour might be but instead me passing on the upshot from several?

The reason that won't?

I have?

I'd just like to suggest that it is perfectly possible to want to study Law, Economics or Civil Engineering for idealistic reasons. Commerce (and its?

Backing ourselves would be truly ambitious, yes. Now who's pointing that out?

Aye. Really. Minimum wage is $13.50/hour. $13.5*40*52=$28,080 (which is a fucking pittance in itself). Repayment threshold is $19,084 according to the IRD. So it's slightly over 2/3 of full-time minimum wage ($18,701), but only slightly.?

Either that, or declare en masse bankruptcy. It'd be very messy – as in Greek or Spanish messy – but the message would be stark.

Even for med students?

Medicine isn't science, at least not the way we mean it. Mostly talking about research level science, where you try and discover something new or figure out how to apply a discovery to a new situation.

In fact medicine is a perfect example of the problem?

From the perspective of trying to hire post-docs, nope. But bear in mind we pay crap. Really good post-docs go overseas where they can both do better research and get paid?

I know James. Some of my best friends are ... really I have a friend who has a PhD in international conflict law. To be fair it is?

Unless, like one of the younger members of my whanau, they have a parent who is a GP!
That person has an excellent intellect,?

I do wonder if half of the problem is because one's chances of making a significant breakthrough in science these days are pretty small.?

As I understand it, foreign courts will enforce debts and contracts, but they won't enable a country to impose arbitrary taxes on its former residents. (So if the UK decided it wanted to make me?

Yes and no. There are a few?

This is something that is always tricky to talk about because it treads on people's sensitivities. But nobody has a problem with the idea that Dan Carter is special, genuinely gifted. It doesn't matter how many hours a club rugby player practices they will never be able?

I have no doubt of that. Charles Darwin rated himself as?

Also you are factually wrong, lawyers and engineers get roughly comparable pay, and training engineers gets a far larger government subsidy than training lawyers.?

It really worries me sometimes when I get comments from people who are impressed because I can do well in a (microbiology) genetics class while?

Not saying that the B graders aren't valuable. I'm one myself so I bloody well hope I'm valuable.

But I am saying that genuine A graders are special. I've worked next to a couple of A graders. And they make connections and leaps that no?

The current student allowance system has merely played catch-up from its first incarnation in 1992 – for years it wasn't inflation adjusted, and the Clark Govt did address that somewhat. Also, students are far less likely to resist means-testing than pensioners.

And I can?

It is consistent with the current govt's ideology to make sure most resource of any kind goes to those who already have more of it. The theory is that it's more effective for society to invest in the already-successful. These folk?

Doesn't work like that. If you're getting the student allowance you're not allowed to draw down living costs on your student loan.

That's still rather high given his pedigree:

"Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too?

Could you give me an example? Some breakthrough that you have personally actually witnessed happening at the hands of a real live genius that you couldn't imagine having been stumbled across by?

The theory of evolution was synthesised from a growing body of evidence and ideas, and someone was going to come up with it sooner or later – modern biology is impossible without it. This is evidenced by the fact that, in fact, two?

But it's not usually "a little more time", it's "a?

We don't all have it, but suggesting it can't be more widely learned is, IMHO, false. There are a lot?

1) Yes. 2) Yes. That's....really not in dispute. There is a lot of very fine work qualitatively testing evolution. Lemski's E. coli stuff is one of the more beautiful examples, or the?

The problem with the government picking winners is that the government just doesn't have that much knowledge about the skills required in the economy. So it is all very well to say we need more tradespeople, but (a) the market should correct that?

I always love the quote:?

Cool. What experiment could potentially disprove evolution?

Let me be clear. I'm not disputing evolution is true. I'm disputing whether it is a scientific theory. To many appearances, it is a tautology. Which means it is certainly true, but immune to disproof?

Certainly, and speaking the lingua franca also helps, if Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had only been British....

Anyway you want to make things scientific by popperian falsification-ism, and that's a rubbish game, so let's not play it.

No, it's not. That would just mean that the human species is older than we think. Maybe it came from another planet. That does not refute evolution. Nor is that?

To steal a phrase from our host, Duh! The student allowance's existence is entirely predicated on paying your living costs. It's?

In particular, war-driven advances in technology are one of the worst advertisements for government investment in technology ever.

Of course, space is not a particularly non-commercial environment, and (hardly surprisingly) there are a crazy number of crazy US space fanatic?

I referred to deifying the A-grade scientists, as if they brought something that couldn't be?

Only if you believe that market is functioning properly. Where's the return on our broader public interest from having truckloads of BCom and LLB grads?

If economics can't take public interest into account when talking about state-subsidised education, then it doesn't seem all that useful.

A functioning economy and society needs both lawyers and software engineers, sure.

The way you are using this public interest thing seems amorphous and ill-defined. I would like a lot more definition before I relied on it for any policy decisions.

Considering the magnitude of the examples, they're part of the argument. Especially since you made the blanket claim that they couldn't pick winners. That's tosh, admit it. The information revolution is based on massive government investment. One possible future of?

Ben, whether you intended it or not, that is *so* fucking patronising mate- a humble?

I don't see why. Bart wants what he does to have the best chances it can get and that's admirable. My question about the true necessity of extreme talent is genuine, but I do not question that?

Of course,?

How to disprove evolution: find a situation where a trait is clearly advantageous but is not selected for (c.f. the Galapagos finches, if beak distribution did not change during droughts even though?

You'll use the fact that it was not selected for as evidence that it was not clearly advantageous, so that's not going to work. No matter what advantage I could think of that has occurred occasionally?

Yup all those people at NASA are crackpots...

Of course, it is very easy to point to examples of misguided government investment. Think Big, for instance.

Which gave us?

Think Big, of course, was a major cause of?

One interesting aspect of the Motunui synthetic fuels plant, part of Think Big, is that when they turned it on in 1985 or so, it immediately halved NZ's balance of payments deficit due?

That's the kind of flawed thinking behind the myth of the man-hour -?

I never at any point said that there should be no markets. By the "refuted economic theory"?

Just a couple of points.
(1) If you're going to go down a Popperian / falsificationism route, then famously, evolution could be disproved by fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.
(2) You?

And you dismissed it as ?cherry-picking? when Ben cited the internet!

And that is solely in New Zealand, a traditionally free market economy.

Anything but. New Zealand in the?

I don't know if the presence of phylogeneticists in 1912 would disprove evolution, but I imagine it might cause physicists some concerns.

Citing the internet is hardly cherry-picking. It's so important that it counterbalances any number of losing bets.

Interestingly, TCP/IP caught on it part because Cerf, Postel, etc were able to force adoption via their control of public research funding. If?

And they sent huge numbers of them to be trained *in* those Western systems – notably, US?

hmmm two days late. I wouldn't normally bother arguing this with you Ben but to me it's one of the serious flaws in kiwi culture. You say we overate talent, I say we overate the mediocre and call it egalitarianism. You're right?

And when we present you with examples you dismiss them as luck or sexism. Sorry Ben but that isn't productive.

Here's an example you should read Barabr McClintock discovered transposable elements. Bits of DNA that could move within the genome and change?

The other thing that the Chinese system (for all its many faults) is beginning to get really right is devoting resources to ameliorating the threat of climate change. Indeed, climate change is?

more like angrily deny :)

Ah so that's the problem. OK?

Are you sure about that. If scientists in the DSIR had listened to market signals there would have been no kiwifruit industry in NZ.

Markets forces can only tell you?

And for the ultimate in irony, remember the much-touted Wall Street of the South Pacific? Treasury and MED have called bullshit because?

Also: countries with large financial?

Lucy, I have a postgraduate diploma in science myself,?

Disclosure /?

I'm not sure whether you're speaking of one or two argument lines in this thread, or just making a general comment. I didn't "dismiss" anything, I responded to an argument?

I still rate the guy extremely highly. For starters, his writing is highly accessible, and that's a sign of brilliance to me, when someone can explain a very sophisticated idea without very much jargon. Falsificationism?

Yes you did. Lucy and I have presented examples which you have simply dismissed as either luck or sexism. We presented the examples as instances where a person of exceptional ability made a change in the field that few were able to understand. And you ignore?

Well, what else do we have? And if someone found something better, that would just become the new thing we called science. It must be able to evolve, or it could go into a long?

No, I didn't and I've answered this criticism, whereas you're just reiterating your last post and now inventing positions for me. You're not engaging. Good day, sir.

LET US TURN NOW to the celebration of scientific rigor. Individual sciences develop rules and standards for appraising evidence?as they learn about aspects of nature, they learn more about how to learn. At any particular stage of inquiry, communities of scientists agree on the canons of good inference, so that?

Read your response to Lucy on page 4 Ben.

This is the bit that is causing difficulty. I, and I believe Lucy as well, am saying that there is more than just a quantitative difference at the top end, it's a qualitative difference in ability. In my experience those people can never be replaced by any?

teeworthy

Oh and BTW Darwin?s contribution wasn?t a Theory of evolution it was the Theory of natural selection.

Thank you Bart.

You think wrong. I'm arguing against something far more specific – your point about attracting?

Trying to define value only by what you can measure is the usual flaw?

But yes, the fees paid are roughly half of what the government contributes per student. But that?s a?

The labour market doesn't seem to work that?

(i) people who are able to ?think differently? enough to identify previously unrecognised false assumptions are able to act as catalysts, speeding up (unfortunately, to an unpredictable,?

Both I and Lucy have answered that to the best of our ability. You dismiss our examples as pointless anecdotes and then are offended when I object to you dismissing the examples. What I have described is my personal experience?

Applause

It strikes me that he's precisely the kind of brilliant individual who achieves what a building full of common-or-garden smart people could not.

Anyway, it's a great read:

The Oatmeal on Tesla.

Oddly enough, it leaves out the breakthrough I?

Made my day.

The Handsome Family – Tesla's Hotel Room:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPyil7_V0_M

And Tim Hazeldine of the UoA biz school makes the case for quality over quantity at NZ?s universities.?

Look. the thing is, I don't give a?

Now that, surprises me because it is all about measurement, no?
It reminds me why I found ?Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance? so annoying. It goes on about the qualities of the word quality without accepting that quality?

In UK they have an artificial 'points' system where universities are ranked by the grades of the students they attract, and the higher ranked ones are assumed to be 'better'. (Often,?

Maybe it does, but because it's Tim Hazeldine (who I rate highly as a lecturer) saying it I'm not prepared to just dismiss it as more of?

I may disagree with you about free markets, Keir, but on this, I agree with you. No matter what political system you're?

So we should only countenance the arguments of people who have no direct experience in the field in question? That?s an odd argument.

Presumably, then, we should ignore anything teachers?

I didn?t see the bit where he asked for more money. Could you point it out? Oh, he __doesn?t__?

Please remember there are actual people in this discussion who fit that categorisation, and are understandably likely to take such statements as personal attacks. Not helpful.

Sounds all too familiar.

And it?s not just teachers either – I wonder if they think water cannons would be a 'worthy investment'?

But surely we most need the views of people who actually work in a field to give us the benefit of their skills and experience?? You seem to assume that these brilliant and dedicated folk are?

In the late 1990s Lord Dearing posited that there was a quantum of population required to generate a world class university ? I think it was about 4 million people. On that basis New Zealand could perhaps have reasonable aspirations to have one world?

Ha!

University of Auckland
Domestic student fees for one year of a BA: $5666.40.
Government subsidy for one year of a BA: $6014.00
For an arts degree, the ratio's not 25:75, but 49:51.

LLB?

Seems related to agency theory, a core tenet of neololiberalism that public servants can't be trusted. Infested this country during the 1990s funder-provider pseudo-corporatisation of our public agencies.

Still needs to be properly replaced by a?

There could be, yes, but as I know you're someone who supports the "compact city" vision for Auckland you'll be familiar with the "agglomeration benefits"?

Not entirely, U-boats spent most of their time on the surface but because of their low profile, radar, particularly at the time, would have struggled.

Much the case in remote parts of NZ too. Many roads up north have no power. Unless one can afford solar, the cost to get power to the?

A "University of New Zealand" has been suggested several times. With campuses at various sites. The idea is that it would foster collaboration rather than competition.

The reverse?

It?s also through loans that National?