Creationism growing in European schools - Page 4

socralynnek · 07-10-2007, 00:06

sz_matyas, for me (personal opinion), ID is also not scientific. It is pseudo scientific.

As it is not based on what has been observed or what was tested in experiments (it merely contradicts the logic there)...

Or, saving time, here is a part of the wikipedia...

----
For a theory to qualify as scientific,[156][157][158] it is expected to be:

* Consistent
* Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor)
* Useful (describes, explains and predicts observable phenomena)
* Empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability)
* Based on multiple observations, often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments
* Correctable and dynamic (changes are made as new data are discovered)
* Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)
* Provisional or tentative (admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, but ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,[159] violates the principle of parsimony,[160] is not scientifically useful,[161] is not falsifiable,[162] is not empirically testable,[163] and is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive.[164]
----

Although I don't see the point of the criterion "is scientifical useful" that pretty much sums up my doubts on it being taught in biology.

Beorn · 07-10-2007, 01:23

If I may play devil's advocate against myself here, the bashing from 159 to 161 is arguable in both ways - probably in favor of ID. Still, 162-164 I'm all for, which definitely does make it fall into pseudo scientific status IMHO as well.

If we go back a while, a long while, there were no scientific methods and no empirical sense of things, no written traditions, no records, well there were sentient beings yet and existential questions already. I completely adhere to the principle of God as an answer (a good one at that) to make sure people don't go massively hysterical. I do believe in whoever is the cordial bearded dude in the clouds if he helps the society I live in to be more moral, have stronger fellowship values and make people smile, laugh and feel good as a way of life. But I can't help to think that by-the-book religion grew to be the greatest sociopathological nutcase in history.

Anyone seen Zeitgeist (it's in english, don't mind the name), the documentary?

sz_matyas · 07-10-2007, 01:52

Thank you for actually responding to the issue at hand. I find it interesting how strongly people are willing to Karl Popper's ideas on what constitutes a theory, without applying his ideas on how theories should be built and tested (nothing to do with you and I actually follow many of his ideas myself).

Perhaps the most important thing we can do is to look at what is under debate. A key necessity is defining evolution, which is the generation of new species through random mutations and spontaneous generation of life from random chemical mixing. It does not involve natural selection/death of the unfit which was accepted as true even before evolution came along. It also does not include age of the earth questions (though this is an area of falsifiability for evolution).

Using this idea, the main differences between ID and evolution according to your list regard being dynamic, tentative, progressive and useful. Dynamic is largely a function of ID not being allowed into the public forum and cannot be judged until this happens. Tentative also requires public debate on the side of ID, though the current atmosphere almost suggests that evolution fails on this account (not letting ID even be discussed, because it must be wrong). Progressive goes hand in hand with usefulness which should definitely be discussed.

Many of the theories that adopt the term evolution, such as social evolution, are built upon natural selection. Where evolution has been claimed to be useful is in the concept of naturalism. If there is nothing beyond nature everything must be testable and fit into scientific theory, otherwise it's usefulness lies primarily in that it gives prominent place to other theories that are useful. ID claims that there is an intelligence behind life and therefore we should expect to find examples of this intelligence elsewhere. Both of these are important and used in science for both sides and assumed to be implicitly true. Both of these are essential and if you remove either of them, the concept of science as we know it falls apart. But neither can claim the other's basic concept from its own building assumptions.

Since there are major falsifiability issues with evolution, it is necessary to present them in a science class. The reason that I feel ID should be taught, is that an opposing viewpoint is necessary and ID is the closest to fitting the idea of scientific theory that there is. If it is lacking (my view) hopefully this will be exposed and either evolution will be stronger to the point of proof or a new theory will replace ID in the classrooms.

akots · 07-10-2007, 06:46

@SM: That is a load of BS, I mean you just plain get it wrong here. It is not meant to be an insult it is that just you lack the expertise and hereby present a household view of the problem. Especially the two things which you somehow confuse to be a part of ToE. First one is random mutations as a part of generation of new species and second is generation of life from random chemical mixing.

I must admit, they do still teach that kind of crap in high school similar to how they teach you organic chemistry and nuclear or quantum physics basics. Not only it is oversimplified, it is at times completely wrong. However, to get things right, you've got to go to a decent university not just any university and the complexity of the problems is plain astonishing. For example, regarding diversity and random point mutations. The impact of random point mutation is actually absolutely negligible compared to the power of recombination during sexual reproduction. Another is generation of life due to some random mixing of chemicals and this is excruciatingly complex phenomenon which requires essentially impossible solution of all millions and millions of system states from the point of quantum chemistry. Alas, this is not possible and not meaningful. What is important is a creation of a steady state system with minimal energy and near zero entropy. Etc. and etc. and the list can be continued ad nauseum.

The point is that most of the people just lack a qualification to talk about things while they do still talk and make their opinions public.

sz_matyas · 07-10-2007, 08:07

I freely admit that I oversimplified my point and that I am not the most qualified to talk on this discussion. On the other hand, I am not completely unqualified as I have taken multiple courses each in physical chemistry, organic chemistry, thermodynamics (including state based), stochastic processes and Markov chains (propagation of state based random events) as well as a fair number of biology classes. In addition a portion of my research has been on optimizing growth of viruses under different gene ordering combinations (check the research of Yin, J. and Rawlings, J from UW regarding the subject, I am co-advised by Rawlings and do stochastic optimization for chemical plants. I believe that there is a recent paper between them and Hansel, S. regarding the work on the subject if you are interested, but it's rather boring to be honest)

You are correct that the power of recombination is the driving force for evolution, but the problem is that if you start with a limited data set, while the number of recombinations can be incredible, it is still limited. Essentially there is required at least a random point mutation required for every protein that is produced (and given the mathematics, you are required many more for mutations that didn't get passed along and identical proteins across species developing after the evolutionary split). Only after the random point mutation occurs does the recombination come into play at which point natural selection/death of the unfit takes over, which is not ToE.

As far as the mixing of chemicals to produce initial life, this is excruciating and more so because the current base proteins are not true steady state minimums, but in fact one of millions of local minima. Granted I am not intimately familiar with the quantum chemistry approach, but protein formation/folding is a classic test for non-linear optimizers, simply because there are so many local minima allowing for great tests on convergence of algorithm and how "good" of a local minimum they find relative to the global minimum. Little is known about the atmosphere at the time life was formed, but free proteins don't form well in conditions exposed to current atmospheric conditions (no longer a minimum, especially thanks to oxygen). This is still a stochastic process involving chemicals, so I feel I wasn't wrong though it was misleading and I shouldn't have written it as I did.

The purpose of simplifying the debate is that this will be taught in high schools where no one will have the necessary background (it took me until junior in undergrad to get the very basics needed for this level of discussion and a couple years of grad school before I begin to not feel like a complete idiot at terminology, though I am still a novice by all means). The biggest challenge I feel is teasing out what is at stake. Most of what is being taught as evolution simply isn't/shouldn't be questioned. It gets put into the discussion because it is necessary, but not sufficient to prove evolution. Most of what people have a problem with in ID is expansions, for which ID is necessary but not sufficient to explain.

So called micro-evolution, such as starting with a common ancestor and breeding both Great Danes and Toy Poodles, I don't have a problem with. This involves optimizing existing elements through breeding for a better survival rate (or in this case forced breeding with potential eugenics). While this is wildly popular as support of evolution it is support of natural selection and has been misnamed primarily because Darwinian supporters have chosen to call it evolution either out of ignorance or malice (I suspect ignorance as it is an essential concept and the idea was not popular in England in the mid 19th century, once it had been called such by enough prominent scientists it stuck). This is where the combinatorial power of reproduction comes into play and is not doubted at all. While I feel this should be renamed, it won't for reasons of tradition, but it should in no way be involved in the discussion.

As stated in previous posts, ID is necessary for, but does not entail, creationism. Creationism doesn't belong in the discussion. Even if some of the strongest supporters of the ID movement are creationists, that shouldn't affect the arguments presented for ID and only if ID is accepted into the curriculum should there be discussions on whether to allow creationism to piggyback its way in.

Out of curiosity, did you go to UT and if so did you take a course from Rawlings (it would likely have been on reaction kinetics if you did I would think as I can't think of any other courses he would have taught in the chemistry department).

Darkness · 07-10-2007, 15:40

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by grahamiam

Creationism and ID are not science, so they should not be taught in science class. I have no problem having them taught in a Philosophy class, though.

Totally, 100% agree with this. Teach ID if you want, but not as science.

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by grahamiam

Also, I disagree with the article that creationism is an American creed. It existed long before the USA existed.

In essence creationism is not an American creed (Hell, even Plato, in his work "Timaeus", wrote down thoughts on a "demiurge of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos"), but you can not deny that the most vocal people in recent and current debates on Intelligent Design have been American. People like Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley and Roger Olsen are all American and they are the most notable voices promoting Intelligent Design.
Now I am not saying that this makes ID a purely American creed, but it does shift the balance of the ID "movement" towards the USA.

When I was in the US in june, I attended a lecture by Dr. Eugenie Scott (Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education) and she had a great presentation on the dangers of teaching ID as a science in school.
Interesting link: http://www.meta-library.net/bio/eugenie-body.html

akots · 07-10-2007, 16:16

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by sz_matyas
...
Out of curiosity, did you go to UT and if so did you take a course from Rawlings (it would likely have been on reaction kinetics if you did I would think as I can't think of any other courses he would have taught in the chemistry department).

No, I got all my education from Moscow University. I've attended course by N.Semenov back then although the guy was already very senile and barely walking. Who is the Rawlings guy, I have no idea TBH but he should be rather good since Madison is a nice place.

I must admit I'm reading things only casually now (just some papers in Nature and Science which deem to be of interest) and might be out of loop on active topics of evolution and origin of life. Apart from that I have a deep hatred of paleontology since high school and undergrad.

Your project does sound very good and interesting while being complex.

sz_matyas · 07-10-2007, 22:51

Rawlings is the top researcher in a field called model predictive control, which is used for predicting based on a stochastic molecule based formula for smaller scale reactions (that collapses to the standard derivatives at large scales). For developing this field he gained a fair bit of notoriety in the field and used to work extensively in Texas and teach at UT Austin. Wisconsin payed him a bunch of money to come up here after Bird (of BSL transport phenomena fame) retired. Essentially UW is trying to buy itself the top chemistry/chemical engineering faculty in the country and honestly in some ways it's working (my official adviser isn't, but it's tough to get into one of the truly top groups).

As far as origin of life, I don't do much direct work with it, but need to keep a basic understanding of some key concepts due to my research. I have also never taken a paleontology or college level geology course, so most of my knowledge on the subject is limited to theory of growth and other stochastic processes (protein folding, gene recombination,etc.). I'm sure there are a dozen people more qualified people in these areas on this forum, but in such a highly charged discussion, the best thing is to limit it to the issues, which are usually less controversial than their baggage.

romeothemonk · 08-10-2007, 01:09

My area of expertise is now shifting over to the business mode, where at least one of the principles can be applied to this debate. So I will list some assumptions and perhaps a conclusive compromise that will piss everyone off.
1) All people in this forum believe that the history of human origin is very complicated and involves large quantities of high level science.
2) The history of where we came from is a basic philosophical question.
3) Science is an attempt to answer philosophical questions through a systematic universal type approach.
4) Most science taught in the basic school levels is completely erroneous or taught by fools.

Based on these points, would it not be best off to teach something of a pure science that isn't erroneous such as mathematics, while leaving the larger philosophical questions only for those who are willing to put forth the effort of independant study?

In my current job, I have an interesting dichotomy: Half of my time is spent interacting with highly intelligent, highly educated engineers and busisness people (almost all who hold a M.S. or better) and half the time with a population of people who may or may not have graduated from really lax rural high schools, and think a good job pays $9.50/hr. Trying to explain science from one group to the other is a great challenge, and for the most part, they are quite happy being ignorant. Their only care is that they get paid, don't get fired, and they keep the supervisor happy. (The supervisor is a B.A. in mathematics and I really question how much math she truely has, because science doesn't work on her either).

One of the truely great things about CDZ is the people, almost all of whom, for various reasons, in various ways are trying to better their position and their world. This is truely a crowning example of the human spirit. Plus vigorous debate is healthy for both sides of an arguement, as a dissenting person increases group output by up to 50% in various management studies. If anyone is interested, I'll try and dig out the exact citations of that.

socralynnek · 08-10-2007, 10:08

@romeo: Good points.

But 1) Finding out the history needs a lot of science. The overall solution might be easier in the end.

4) Yes. But, I think it is better to teach a simplified system that explains a lot and tell the pupils that it is not totally correct than to teach nothing at all.

E.g. if everyone knows the main principle of how a microwave works then one wouldn't need to write in the manual that one mustn't dry pets in it.
(was this Anti-American bashing? Maybe. Sorry.)

07-10-2007, 00:06	#31
socralynnek Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: USS Defiant Posts: 3,827	sz_matyas, for me (personal opinion), ID is also not scientific. It is pseudo scientific. As it is not based on what has been observed or what was tested in experiments (it merely contradicts the logic there)... Or, saving time, here is a part of the wikipedia... ---- For a theory to qualify as scientific,[156][157][158] it is expected to be: * Consistent * Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor) * Useful (describes, explains and predicts observable phenomena) * Empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability) * Based on multiple observations, often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments * Correctable and dynamic (changes are made as new data are discovered) * Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more) * Provisional or tentative (admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty) For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, but ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,[159] violates the principle of parsimony,[160] is not scientifically useful,[161] is not falsifiable,[162] is not empirically testable,[163] and is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive.[164] ---- Although I don't see the point of the criterion "is scientifical useful" that pretty much sums up my doubts on it being taught in biology. __________________ Being without a signature since November 2004.

07-10-2007, 01:23	#32
Beorn Disabled Vet Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: RAWR! Posts: 1,555	If I may play devil's advocate against myself here, the bashing from 159 to 161 is arguable in both ways - probably in favor of ID. Still, 162-164 I'm all for, which definitely does make it fall into pseudo scientific status IMHO as well. If we go back a while, a long while, there were no scientific methods and no empirical sense of things, no written traditions, no records, well there were sentient beings yet and existential questions already. I completely adhere to the principle of God as an answer (a good one at that) to make sure people don't go massively hysterical. I do believe in whoever is the cordial bearded dude in the clouds if he helps the society I live in to be more moral, have stronger fellowship values and make people smile, laugh and feel good as a way of life. But I can't help to think that by-the-book religion grew to be the greatest sociopathological nutcase in history. Anyone seen Zeitgeist (it's in english, don't mind the name), the documentary? __________________ Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harrass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize or ruffle the animals. San Diego Wild Animal Park

07-10-2007, 01:52	#33
sz_matyas Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Madison, WI. Posts: 555	Thank you for actually responding to the issue at hand. I find it interesting how strongly people are willing to Karl Popper's ideas on what constitutes a theory, without applying his ideas on how theories should be built and tested (nothing to do with you and I actually follow many of his ideas myself). Perhaps the most important thing we can do is to look at what is under debate. A key necessity is defining evolution, which is the generation of new species through random mutations and spontaneous generation of life from random chemical mixing. It does not involve natural selection/death of the unfit which was accepted as true even before evolution came along. It also does not include age of the earth questions (though this is an area of falsifiability for evolution). Using this idea, the main differences between ID and evolution according to your list regard being dynamic, tentative, progressive and useful. Dynamic is largely a function of ID not being allowed into the public forum and cannot be judged until this happens. Tentative also requires public debate on the side of ID, though the current atmosphere almost suggests that evolution fails on this account (not letting ID even be discussed, because it must be wrong). Progressive goes hand in hand with usefulness which should definitely be discussed. Many of the theories that adopt the term evolution, such as social evolution, are built upon natural selection. Where evolution has been claimed to be useful is in the concept of naturalism. If there is nothing beyond nature everything must be testable and fit into scientific theory, otherwise it's usefulness lies primarily in that it gives prominent place to other theories that are useful. ID claims that there is an intelligence behind life and therefore we should expect to find examples of this intelligence elsewhere. Both of these are important and used in science for both sides and assumed to be implicitly true. Both of these are essential and if you remove either of them, the concept of science as we know it falls apart. But neither can claim the other's basic concept from its own building assumptions. Since there are major falsifiability issues with evolution, it is necessary to present them in a science class. The reason that I feel ID should be taught, is that an opposing viewpoint is necessary and ID is the closest to fitting the idea of scientific theory that there is. If it is lacking (my view) hopefully this will be exposed and either evolution will be stronger to the point of proof or a new theory will replace ID in the classrooms. __________________ \"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it\" H. L. Mencken

07-10-2007, 06:46	#34
akots Nebuchadnezzar II Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Glover Park Posts: 4,459	@SM: That is a load of BS, I mean you just plain get it wrong here. It is not meant to be an insult it is that just you lack the expertise and hereby present a household view of the problem. Especially the two things which you somehow confuse to be a part of ToE. First one is random mutations as a part of generation of new species and second is generation of life from random chemical mixing. I must admit, they do still teach that kind of crap in high school similar to how they teach you organic chemistry and nuclear or quantum physics basics. Not only it is oversimplified, it is at times completely wrong. However, to get things right, you've got to go to a decent university not just any university and the complexity of the problems is plain astonishing. For example, regarding diversity and random point mutations. The impact of random point mutation is actually absolutely negligible compared to the power of recombination during sexual reproduction. Another is generation of life due to some random mixing of chemicals and this is excruciatingly complex phenomenon which requires essentially impossible solution of all millions and millions of system states from the point of quantum chemistry. Alas, this is not possible and not meaningful. What is important is a creation of a steady state system with minimal energy and near zero entropy. Etc. and etc. and the list can be continued ad nauseum. The point is that most of the people just lack a qualification to talk about things while they do still talk and make their opinions public. __________________ Cujusvis hominis est errare; nullius, nisi insipientis in errore perseverare Ciceron (Marcus Tullius)

07-10-2007, 08:07	#35
sz_matyas Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Madison, WI. Posts: 555	I freely admit that I oversimplified my point and that I am not the most qualified to talk on this discussion. On the other hand, I am not completely unqualified as I have taken multiple courses each in physical chemistry, organic chemistry, thermodynamics (including state based), stochastic processes and Markov chains (propagation of state based random events) as well as a fair number of biology classes. In addition a portion of my research has been on optimizing growth of viruses under different gene ordering combinations (check the research of Yin, J. and Rawlings, J from UW regarding the subject, I am co-advised by Rawlings and do stochastic optimization for chemical plants. I believe that there is a recent paper between them and Hansel, S. regarding the work on the subject if you are interested, but it's rather boring to be honest) You are correct that the power of recombination is the driving force for evolution, but the problem is that if you start with a limited data set, while the number of recombinations can be incredible, it is still limited. Essentially there is required at least a random point mutation required for every protein that is produced (and given the mathematics, you are required many more for mutations that didn't get passed along and identical proteins across species developing after the evolutionary split). Only after the random point mutation occurs does the recombination come into play at which point natural selection/death of the unfit takes over, which is not ToE. As far as the mixing of chemicals to produce initial life, this is excruciating and more so because the current base proteins are not true steady state minimums, but in fact one of millions of local minima. Granted I am not intimately familiar with the quantum chemistry approach, but protein formation/folding is a classic test for non-linear optimizers, simply because there are so many local minima allowing for great tests on convergence of algorithm and how "good" of a local minimum they find relative to the global minimum. Little is known about the atmosphere at the time life was formed, but free proteins don't form well in conditions exposed to current atmospheric conditions (no longer a minimum, especially thanks to oxygen). This is still a stochastic process involving chemicals, so I feel I wasn't wrong though it was misleading and I shouldn't have written it as I did. The purpose of simplifying the debate is that this will be taught in high schools where no one will have the necessary background (it took me until junior in undergrad to get the very basics needed for this level of discussion and a couple years of grad school before I begin to not feel like a complete idiot at terminology, though I am still a novice by all means). The biggest challenge I feel is teasing out what is at stake. Most of what is being taught as evolution simply isn't/shouldn't be questioned. It gets put into the discussion because it is necessary, but not sufficient to prove evolution. Most of what people have a problem with in ID is expansions, for which ID is necessary but not sufficient to explain. So called micro-evolution, such as starting with a common ancestor and breeding both Great Danes and Toy Poodles, I don't have a problem with. This involves optimizing existing elements through breeding for a better survival rate (or in this case forced breeding with potential eugenics). While this is wildly popular as support of evolution it is support of natural selection and has been misnamed primarily because Darwinian supporters have chosen to call it evolution either out of ignorance or malice (I suspect ignorance as it is an essential concept and the idea was not popular in England in the mid 19th century, once it had been called such by enough prominent scientists it stuck). This is where the combinatorial power of reproduction comes into play and is not doubted at all. While I feel this should be renamed, it won't for reasons of tradition, but it should in no way be involved in the discussion. As stated in previous posts, ID is necessary for, but does not entail, creationism. Creationism doesn't belong in the discussion. Even if some of the strongest supporters of the ID movement are creationists, that shouldn't affect the arguments presented for ID and only if ID is accepted into the curriculum should there be discussions on whether to allow creationism to piggyback its way in. Out of curiosity, did you go to UT and if so did you take a course from Rawlings (it would likely have been on reaction kinetics if you did I would think as I can't think of any other courses he would have taught in the chemistry department). __________________ \"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it\" H. L. Mencken

07-10-2007, 22:51	#38
sz_matyas Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Madison, WI. Posts: 555	Rawlings is the top researcher in a field called model predictive control, which is used for predicting based on a stochastic molecule based formula for smaller scale reactions (that collapses to the standard derivatives at large scales). For developing this field he gained a fair bit of notoriety in the field and used to work extensively in Texas and teach at UT Austin. Wisconsin payed him a bunch of money to come up here after Bird (of BSL transport phenomena fame) retired. Essentially UW is trying to buy itself the top chemistry/chemical engineering faculty in the country and honestly in some ways it's working (my official adviser isn't, but it's tough to get into one of the truly top groups). As far as origin of life, I don't do much direct work with it, but need to keep a basic understanding of some key concepts due to my research. I have also never taken a paleontology or college level geology course, so most of my knowledge on the subject is limited to theory of growth and other stochastic processes (protein folding, gene recombination,etc.). I'm sure there are a dozen people more qualified people in these areas on this forum, but in such a highly charged discussion, the best thing is to limit it to the issues, which are usually less controversial than their baggage. __________________ \"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it\" H. L. Mencken

08-10-2007, 01:09	#39
romeothemonk King Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Yankton, SD. Posts: 1,310	My area of expertise is now shifting over to the business mode, where at least one of the principles can be applied to this debate. So I will list some assumptions and perhaps a conclusive compromise that will piss everyone off. 1) All people in this forum believe that the history of human origin is very complicated and involves large quantities of high level science. 2) The history of where we came from is a basic philosophical question. 3) Science is an attempt to answer philosophical questions through a systematic universal type approach. 4) Most science taught in the basic school levels is completely erroneous or taught by fools. Based on these points, would it not be best off to teach something of a pure science that isn't erroneous such as mathematics, while leaving the larger philosophical questions only for those who are willing to put forth the effort of independant study? In my current job, I have an interesting dichotomy: Half of my time is spent interacting with highly intelligent, highly educated engineers and busisness people (almost all who hold a M.S. or better) and half the time with a population of people who may or may not have graduated from really lax rural high schools, and think a good job pays $9.50/hr. Trying to explain science from one group to the other is a great challenge, and for the most part, they are quite happy being ignorant. Their only care is that they get paid, don't get fired, and they keep the supervisor happy. (The supervisor is a B.A. in mathematics and I really question how much math she truely has, because science doesn't work on her either). One of the truely great things about CDZ is the people, almost all of whom, for various reasons, in various ways are trying to better their position and their world. This is truely a crowning example of the human spirit. Plus vigorous debate is healthy for both sides of an arguement, as a dissenting person increases group output by up to 50% in various management studies. If anyone is interested, I'll try and dig out the exact citations of that. __________________ I am not crazy cause I take the right pills..................................... Everyday

08-10-2007, 10:08	#40
socralynnek Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: USS Defiant Posts: 3,827	@romeo: Good points. But 1) Finding out the history needs a lot of science. The overall solution might be easier in the end. 4) Yes. But, I think it is better to teach a simplified system that explains a lot and tell the pupils that it is not totally correct than to teach nothing at all. E.g. if everyone knows the main principle of how a microwave works then one wouldn't need to write in the manual that one mustn't dry pets in it. (was this Anti-American bashing? Maybe. Sorry.) __________________ Being without a signature since November 2004.