IBM has a software platform known as SPSS which is designed for people who need to undertake statistical analysis. It’s a longstanding system, going back to version 1 in 1968 when the letters stood for “Statistical Package for Social Sciences”; it’s currently on version 30. IBM bought the company behind SPSS in 2009 and incorporated it into its own brand. I first saw the tool over 30 years ago, being used by undergraduates. As part of their course, they had to design and utilise questionnaires, and then statistically analyse the results, using SPSS, to come to some conclusions from their research. And one thing I remember about the whole process is this: most students had insufficient mathematical ability to understand what SPSS was up to. All they knew was that certain numerical results the system spat out were deemed to be ‘statistically significant’, and could, therefore, be used to draw conclusions from their results.
Now was that a problem? Do we have to know how a tool works in order to make use of it? Clearly not with some tools. You can drive a car without knowing how the brakes or engine work, though that knowledge could be useful if you break down or if a garage is telling you to expect a big bill. However, is it different when it comes to statistical maths? Shouldn’t a user of statistics at least have some conception about how the maths functions, even if it would take too long for them to process the results themselves? Shouldn’t they have some mathematical idea of what it means when we say that something is ‘statistically significant’?
This isn’t a new issue. Tools and technologies have often raised similar questions. Think about the arrival of calculators in the middle of the last century. The question was asked about whether it would damage children’s education to use them instead of using the mind, paper, a slide rule or books of tables. And, now, AI is causing the same concern. Is it acceptable for students to use ChatGPT (or similar models) to complete their homework/get a better grade? One American professor, Melkior Ornik, decided to investigate the issue and his conclusion was to ask questions of teaching itself: “… should [we] continue teaching the same stuff that we do now, even though it is solvable by AI, just because it is good for the students' cognitive health? Or … should [we] give up on some parts of this and … instead focus on … high-level questions that might not be immediately solvable using AI?”
Link: As ChatGPT scores B- in engineering, professors scramble to update courses
Reading this made me wonder if local churches have to deal with this issue in any way. I don’t mean should we worry if the treasurer uses a spreadsheet (no) or if the preacher uses an LLM (depends). My question was about the nature of Scripture. Our Bibles were originally produced in cultures where writing technology was still at an early stage. This means that the style of writing was geared to hearing the words read out and remembered, rather than handing out personal copies to every believer for them to read later. We have now switched across to using the technology of the printed word (whether ink or pixel) and think of the Bible, typically, as something to be read as needed, rather than heard and remembered. But in doing so, has our technology taken something valuable away from us? Should we ask people to put their Bibles away at times? Should some church services be the equivalent of the GCSE Mathematics non-calculator paper?
I’m not sure. Maybe we need some research done. We could even put out a questionnaire to see if the spiritual impact would be statistically significant. IBM has software to help with that.
Photo by Behnam Norouzi on Unsplash
All posts tagged under technology notebook
Introduction to this series of posts
Cover photo by Denley Photography on Unsplash
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.