"Old things are more durable/reliable than new things": what kind of logical fallacy?

Factual Questions
41

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
But why would a modern school want to use a chalkboard at all? When I was in junior high in the mid-1980s, chalkboards were already coming into question in certain applications because of dust concerns. This is when I saw a whiteboard for the first time, and it was installed in the computer lab.

If I were putting together a school, the dust issues and the problems they cause for cleaning costs, students with respiratory problems and electronic equipment would bias me against installing a chalkboard anywhere in the building.

Newer isn’t always better, but older isn’t always better either.
[/QUOTE]

I was surprised to hear that chalkboards are still being made at all. If a modern school isn’t being fitted with interactive whiteboards, I’d be concerned.

42

[QUOTE=Rick]
:confused:
I in no way intended to slam you or be rude to you…
[/QUOTE]

That’s cool. I wasn’t terribly offended or anything. And maybe I do have rocks in my head. For what it’s worth (not a lot) I agree with what you wrote about old cars vs. modern cars.

43

There are things to be said about all of these things. I’m in the process of buying a forty year old Raleigh bicycle, and two of the reasons are that things on them seldom go wrong, and when they do I can usually fix them myself.

The problem, though, is that these monsters weigh a ton, and don’t have the range of gears I’m accustomed to. I’ll use it for short around town runs.

44

Time for me to learn something new:

I know what a whiteboard is … but what’s an “interactive whiteboard”?

45

[QUOTE=bordelond]
Time for me to learn something new:

I know what a whiteboard is … but what’s an “interactive whiteboard”?
[/QUOTE]

They allow you to save what you’ve written.

SmartBoard is one brand: http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Boards/default.htm

They’re $5-6K, so it’s a bit unrealistic to expect one in every classroom.

46

[QUOTE=Key Lime Guy]
They’re $5-6K, so it’s a bit unrealistic to expect one in every classroom.
[/QUOTE]

Smart Boards are at the top end of the market (cite), for one thing, and that’s a price for a single item rather than a bulk order. They’re now the norm in primary schools here, and their use is spreading in secondaries.

And their uses are far more than ‘save what you’ve written’ or than simply being a projector for a PC screen (although both are useful functions). Striking examples I’ve seen are a visual demonstration of the concept of congruent shapes, by dragging them into place, and real-time creation of graphs from raw data.

47

[QUOTE=Key Lime Guy]
They allow you to save what you’ve written.

SmartBoard is one brand: http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Boards/default.htm

They’re $5-6K, so it’s a bit unrealistic to expect one in every classroom.
[/QUOTE]

You know, we had a way to save what we wrote when I was in school in the dark ages. We called it an overhead projector.

48

Not to hijack the discussion excessively, but I taught from 1995-2002. I used a chalkboard and an overhead projector during lectures. Both were superior, IMHO, to their alternatives, a whiteboard and a computer projection system, respectively.

With chalkboards, you can leave something written on the board for a week or a year, and be guaranteed that it will still erase. Also, no worries about getting high from the whiteboard pens or eraser solvent. And chalkboards virtually never wear out. Whiteboards need to be replaced every five years or so as they get more and more difficult to erase. On the other hand, chalkboards have to be washed daily with sponges and buckets, and the chalk itself is dusty.

While my lecture rooms had chalkboards, I did keep a whiteboard in my office. My office whiteboard got only light use; it brightened up the room; and I didn’t have to worry about dust in my office.

With computer projection systems, you’re always worried about whether the computer will be up for your lesson. If you share a lecture room, you may not have time to get into the room before your class in order to verify that the computer is working and booted up. Use of a computer system also requires that all of your lessons be converted into Powerpoint or equivalent. The computer may hang up or crash during your lesson as well.

With overhead projector and transparencies, there’s very little to go wrong. I kept a spare bulb in my briefcase, and there was a spare projector down the hall. I could replace a bulb in less than 30 seconds, and replace the whole projector in about two minutes. Anything produced in Powerpoint can be printed onto a transparency, and is no longer dependent on having a working computer. Overhead projectors also allow the use of other teaching aids such as textbook figure transparencies, not to mention handwritten notes on transparencies.

49

Favorite example of the overall logical-fallacy phenomenon: the research claim that left-handed people have shorter lifespans. Which turned out to be based on life expectancy tables in which the older population had come of age in an era when kids were strongly pressured to “be” right-handed whether they were or were not. Oddly enough, people born a long time ago are more likely to have reached a nice old age before dying than people born more recently…
Some examples of older things that really are more solidly built (usually “overbuilt” as discussed, but were or still are providing useful service to their owners):

• I’d really really hate to replace my 1995-vintage Umax UC 630 3-pass flatbed SCSI color scanner. I suppose at some point I may have to: no OSX drivers for this elderly rig. I have to hook up the WallStreet PowerBook in order to scan with it. But it shows every sign of hanging on and continuing to work for as long as I want to use it. My Macs that are old enough to run OS 9 are solid (albeit increasingly obsolete) but I have less faith that they will still be in working order in 15-20 years. I bet the scanner will be, though.

• In 1979 or 1980 my grandmother finally replaced her refrigerator. The model she replaced had nice rounded streamline-contour corners and edges, a style that reappeared in cars, computers, and whatnot in the 90s, but the fridge dated back to the previous iteration thereof which was in the late 1950s. The door, when you closed it, snapped shut with an actual latching mechanism, such that a hypothetical child finding an abandoned one and climbing inside and closing the door would not be able to get back out. (Anyone remember when fridge doors started being held closed by magnetism alone? Link I found suggests 1958). I think it was a Frigidaire but it might’ve been a Westinghouse.

• The oldest of my folks’ White Mountain ice cream churns is a 6-quart model from 1964. I don’t think they (or, rather, the folks who bought them out) still make manual crank models. The electrics are most definitely not designed for 50 years of service or more. It’s not just the electric motors, lots of the parts formerly made of wood or metal are in plastic. In the interests of full disclosure I’ll note that they had an older churn that did die: the metal hoops around the wooden basket rusted through and the hand crank mechanism rusted tight, after it was left unrinsed post-use a few too many times. They take better care of the “new” one and the even newer ones they bought in the years to follow.

50

You know, having brought up the chalk boards originally, I would like to repeat, I only mentioned them because the op asked about durable, and reliable. When I graduated from high school, there were chalk boards in the class room that were forty years old. They are still there, in fact, and are now seventy years old.

I don’t deny that white boards are cool, and probably more desirable in all other ways, but I have a fairly strong suspicion that none of them will ever be used at seventy years of age.

I also once had a “slate” from a child’s school kit that was over a hundred years old. I lost it. It was find when I lost it, though.

OK? Durable. Reliable. Dusty, and needs washing. (Don’t you have to wash a whiteboard, now and then?)

Tris

51

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
You know, we had a way to save what we wrote when I was in school in the dark ages. We called it an overhead projector.
[/QUOTE]

Overhead projectors in your day were interactive?

52

[QUOTE=AHunter3]

• The oldest of my folks’ White Mountain ice cream churns is a 6-quart model from 1964. I don’t think they (or, rather, the folks who bought them out) still make manual crank models. The electrics are most definitely not designed for 50 years of service or more. It’s not just the electric motors, lots of the parts formerly made of wood or metal are in plastic. In the interests of full disclosure I’ll note that they had an older churn that did die: the metal hoops around the wooden basket rusted through and the hand crank mechanism rusted tight, after it was left unrinsed post-use a few too many times. They take better care of the “new” one and the even newer ones they bought in the years to follow.
[/QUOTE]

These guys sell good old fashioned hand cranker ice cream makers, and I’d be willing to bet that this model will last a good long time.

53

AHunter3 I think by the early seventies most of the older latching refrigerators were being replaced. We had a latch one in the 60’s and so did other households we went to visit. I can remember occasional children death reports too.

54

[QUOTE=Rick]
Anybody that says that cars were better back in the day has rose colored glasses on, and rocks in their head.
Let’s see back in the day:
Oil change every 2,000 miles.
Most cars would use at least one quart between oil changes, often a lot more.
Tune up every 10-12,000 miles
A 1 year / 12,000 mile warranty on a new car.
You could expect to need a valve job at between 50 and 75 thousand miles.
If you made it past 100,000 miles you really took good car of your car.
No undercoating / rustproofing from the factory.
A very high performance car back then produced about 1 HP / cubic inch. (50s & 60s)

Now:
Oil change intervals can go as high as 15,000 miles
Many cars do not need oil to be added between oil changes (Best I ever did was a car that used about 3/4 of a quart in 10,000 miles)
Cars no longer need tune ups, spark plugs may last up to 100,000 miles, air filters and fuel filters 60,000 miles.
3 , 4 and even 5 year warranties are very common. 50,000 mile warranties are very common. 10 year /100,000 mile power train warranties are not unheard of, and Chrysler just announced a lifetime power train warranty.
You can expect not to ever have to open the engine
100,000 miles is just a number now, not a milestone.
Extensive undercoating and rustproofing from the factory.
A moderate performance car now produces 2 HP / cubic inch, get better gas mileage, and meets current smog regs, something the old engines never could.
Then we can start talking about all the stuff that the old cars never had, climate control, ABS, CD players, crash safety, airbags, HID lights, cruise control, self dimming mirrors, anti-whiplash devices built into the seats and all the rest.

I love my old cars, but I am smart enough to realize that they are not superior to what is being built today.
[/QUOTE]

As ralph124c pointed out , there was a time in the 1970s and 80s when cars actually were better “back in the day”, at least where the domestic brands were concerned. The fact that this was the case then accounts for the existence of the idea. I hardly think anyone thinks cars of the 60s are better than cars of today… just better than those that came next. Anyone who thinks cars of the 70s and 80s are better than cars of today has crack for brains.

55

[QUOTE=Epimetheus]
Overhead projectors in your day were interactive?
[/QUOTE]

Sure. You wrote on the slides with markers, or underlined and highlighted the text that was there.

Plus, there were never version problems, and no BSODs.

56

Old cameras seems to last a long time. I don’t know that they last longer than the new ones, but the new ones go technologically obsolete so fast, that I think the old cameras will still outlast them. Of course this is anecdotal, but there are a lot of Canon A-1’s and AE-1’s out there still.

57

I’ve gotten sick recently, and consequently I’m reminded of an area where the new stuff is most definitely inferior to the old stuff: cold medicine. The new psuedoephedrine-free fomulas just don’t work. I’ve yet to meet anyone who thinks that the new formulas work as well as the old ones.

58

[QUOTE=SmackFu]
Old cameras seems to last a long time. I don’t know that they last longer than the new ones, but the new ones go technologically obsolete so fast, that I think the old cameras will still outlast them. Of course this is anecdotal, but there are a lot of Canon A-1’s and AE-1’s out there still.
[/QUOTE]

My Dad’s primary camera, in uninterrupted use since his purchase of it a couple years before I was born, is an Argus C3.

I’m telling my Canon PowerShot it has to last until 2057. I dunno, though.

59

Cracker Jack prizes were unquestionably better back when I was a kid. They were made out of real plastic and sometimes metal (albeit, very cheap aluminum). Still better than the compressed weeds they make them out of today. That is, if Cracker Jack even has prizes anymore.

60

[QUOTE=Epimetheus]
Overhead projectors in your day were interactive?
[/QUOTE]

Totally! We interacted with it by the “hands-up” protocol, after which we’d be activated by our instructor module. We’d approach the system, solve the problem, and if we wanted to change something we spat on it. You’d be amazed at how well it worked. If we wanted a total memory wipe, we engaged the “409” program.

Honestly, it pains me to see overheads out of use. (We don’t even have one at the library anymore, and since I do a lot of workshops for kids that bothers me - we used to have our presentations on overhead sheets as backups and now we don’t. You never know when the computer will fail you completely.) You could print to transparency or hand write, you could annotate, erase (line item erase with the spit on finger technique, pages with that “409” program, or even tap water), use different colors, anything you wanted and all that could possibly go wrong was that the bulb would die. It was intuitive, easily fixable, and really, really useful.

So, IMHO, were the real-deal blackboards, which I guess they tossed out on the scrap heap when they put in the whiteboards. Poor successors, indeed.