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On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic.
We could go on about point C ad infinitum, but to drive some consensus, I believe that A and B are already by and large already happening. The main difference, is at the end of the day, I don't believe in moral relativism. I expose my children to different topics and opinions, but I also teach them which one is correct. Which by the way, makes me no different than any other teacher or professor. I have encountered a value very close to zero amount of teachers and professors that do not espouse a correct view point, or at least a certain view point that one should natural adopt should you be a "learned and educated" person.
I don't view children as property, but they are my responsibility. I, and many others, firmly believe that the overwhelming responsibility for their upbringing is mine as a parent, not some third-party that tries to claim to know what is best. It doesn't take a village, it takes two responsible adults.
As for the very last sentence of your post, I think there is more there than you realize. You see, we are not s different. We are just on opposite sides. You accuse me of teaching my children to blindly accept what I say (a concept, which those of you that have children of your own will understand, doesn't usually work past the age of 10 btw), but in the meantime, you swallow hook, line, and sinker, whatever comes out of the "scientific" community. Science is an ever changing, evolving if you will, field, so to blindly put your trust in teachings that routinely become outdated seems rather silly to me. Even more so, if you want to start basing political or economic policy on such things. All ideas should be questioned and challenged, even more so when they are presented as "consensus" truths. Nothing usually precedes an idea being discovered as incorrect as the phrase "no reasonable person/scientist/educated individual doubts this to be true".
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On February 01 2015 03:30 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 03:23 Millitron wrote:On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic. But public schools fail pretty hard at that too. History classes tend to push progressive, enlightenment ideas as the end-all be-all of political thought and that anything else is some combination of stupid and immoral. There's absolutely no mention of any opposing thought. They don't really teach how things like evolution or Newton's Laws were supported so well that they're basically accepted as fact. I wasn't taught how they showed that heavy and light objects fall at the same rate until university, I was only taught that they do. I wasn't really taught how they proved anything, except perhaps the structure of the atom. I think the issue public schools have is that their curriculum tries to work for everyone, when clearly every student is different and could benefit from a custom-made curriculum just for them. Some students need more time in certain subjects, or need to be taught them in a particular fashion. For instance, I'm pretty much unable to learn from a textbook, I got practically all of my university education from lectures and labwork. Surely there are students who are the opposite, and only learn well out of the book. There's also gotta be students somewhere in the middle, who need a mixture of textbook reading and lectures. Certainly many parents who home-school aren't doing it in the hope of propagandizing their kid. They're doing it to try to do better than the public school system. Sure, there probably are some who only home-school their kid to brainwash them, but likewise the public schools end up doing that too. Public schools don't brainwash kids. Because unlike home schooling, if your teacher says something you still have your parent to call bullshit and give you their view. Public schools are a lot of things but good at brain washing they are not.
When it comes to political or historical topics, they only ever teach one side. According to the public school system, the Protestant Reformation was the charitable and wise Martin Luther versus the greedy and corrupt Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was the compassionate and egalitarian Locke and Rousseau versus all the tyrannical monarchs of the world. The foundation of the Federal Reserve, if its mentioned at all, was absolutely necessary to maintain economic growth and has had no negative effects. The Vietnam War was totally pointless and only fought to make the military-industrial complex a lot of money.
I agree the science curriculum is not brainwashing. It's not taught well, but its pretty fair.
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On February 01 2015 03:26 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Oh, I love it when people see people on the other side of the political spectrum as the enemy and their values as "harmful". This is an example of people lacking any real exposure to a diversity of ideas.What a joke.
No, it's just a sign that some people can think rationally and reject an idea on the merits. Being exposed to ideas doesn't mean you have to accept them as valid, value them as equals, or even believe them.
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On February 01 2015 03:23 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic. But public schools fail pretty hard at that too. History classes tend to push progressive, enlightenment ideas as the end-all be-all of political thought and that anything else is some combination of stupid and immoral. There's absolutely no mention of any opposing thought. They don't really teach how things like evolution or Newton's Laws were supported so well that they're basically accepted as fact. I wasn't taught how they showed that heavy and light objects fall at the same rate until university, I was only taught that they do. I wasn't really taught how they proved anything, except perhaps the structure of the atom. I think the issue public schools have is that their curriculum tries to work for everyone, when clearly every student is different and could benefit from a custom-made curriculum just for them. Some students need more time in certain subjects, or need to be taught them in a particular fashion. For instance, I'm pretty much unable to learn from a textbook, I got practically all of my university education from lectures and labwork. Surely there are students who are the opposite, and only learn well out of the book. There's also gotta be students somewhere in the middle, who need a mixture of textbook reading and lectures. Certainly many parents who home-school aren't doing it in the hope of propagandizing their kid. They're doing it to try to do better than the public school system. Sure, there probably are some who only home-school their kid to brainwash them, but likewise the public schools end up doing that too.
Yeah, i think it is a well known fact that the US education system sucks in some major areas.
For example, i distinctly remember especially in sciences that we always got really good proof that things actually do what they do (In some cases the experiments were done at school (Like the falling stuff, or a lot of electricity or chemistry experiments, plus we did some awesome stuff with lasers to show wave-particle duality as a main phenomenon leading to a need for more complex physics), in other cases they were at least explained and we were told the results (When it is not possible to actually have the experiment in a school, like gold-film alpha radiation spread experiments showing that atoms are not uniform, but have a small positive core and a diffuse negative shell)
Maths is obviously easy here because a lot of important things can be proven in a school setting, too. And if you don't teach how to prove a mathematical statement, you are not teaching maths at all, you are teaching random dogmatic statements with no connection, which is utterly pointless.
Where information comes from was almost always at least as important as what the information actually is, because you need that information to judge plausibility.
History, and especially social sciences, are a lot harder to do reasonable. The best you can do for history is having lots of primary sources, you can't really go and dig for roman ruins with a school group. In Germany it's pretty easy because ~80% of history classes are Details on "Nazis are evil", and that is pretty much consensus everywhere anyways. A big part of politics should just be "This is how our countries system works, that is how other countries system work, which is not really judgemental either, but i also remember a pretty strong left-ish leaning of my politics teachers, though they never tried to push that onto us.
Religion can be taught as "This religion believes this, that religion believes that, etc... without actually judging, so it is more or less quite similar to a history class, and i find that a reasonable approach.
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On February 01 2015 03:37 hannahbelle wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic. We could go on about point C ad infinitum, but to drive some consensus, I believe that A and B are already by and large already happening. The main difference, is at the end of the day, I don't believe in moral relativism. I expose my children to different topics and opinions, but I also teach them which one is correct. Which by the way, makes me no different than any other teacher or professor. I have encountered a value very close to zero amount of teachers and professors that do not espouse a correct view point, or at least a certain view point that one should natural adopt should you be a "learned and educated" person. I don't view children as property, but they are my responsibility. I, and many others, firmly believe that the overwhelming responsibility for their upbringing is mine as a parent, not some third-party that tries to claim to know what is best. It doesn't take a village, it takes two responsible adults. As for the very last sentence of your post, I think there is more there than you realize. You see, we are not s different. We are just on opposite sides. You accuse me of teaching my children to blindly accept what I say (a concept, which those of you that have children of your own will understand, doesn't usually work past the age of 10 btw), but in the meantime, you swallow hook, line, and sinker, whatever comes out of the "scientific" community. Science is an ever changing, evolving if you will, field, so to blindly put your trust in teachings that routinely become outdated seems rather silly to me. Even more so, if you want to start basing political or economic policy on such things. All ideas should be questioned and challenged, even more so when they are presented as "consensus" truths. Nothing usually precedes an idea being discovered as incorrect as the phrase "no reasonable person/scientist/educated individual doubts this to be true".
You do realize that in science "blindly accepting" something is a no no right? Science teaches you to always question presented ideas. No one is "swallowing hook line and sinker" from science, thats not how it works. Its not the same as you teaching your kids.
You also are acting like schools universities are like 100% liberal or something and that teachers who are conservative do not exist, which is absurd.
Can't really say anything about moral relativism except *shrug* your ethnocentric.
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On February 01 2015 03:46 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 03:37 hannahbelle wrote:On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic. We could go on about point C ad infinitum, but to drive some consensus, I believe that A and B are already by and large already happening. The main difference, is at the end of the day, I don't believe in moral relativism. I expose my children to different topics and opinions, but I also teach them which one is correct. Which by the way, makes me no different than any other teacher or professor. I have encountered a value very close to zero amount of teachers and professors that do not espouse a correct view point, or at least a certain view point that one should natural adopt should you be a "learned and educated" person. I don't view children as property, but they are my responsibility. I, and many others, firmly believe that the overwhelming responsibility for their upbringing is mine as a parent, not some third-party that tries to claim to know what is best. It doesn't take a village, it takes two responsible adults. As for the very last sentence of your post, I think there is more there than you realize. You see, we are not s different. We are just on opposite sides. You accuse me of teaching my children to blindly accept what I say (a concept, which those of you that have children of your own will understand, doesn't usually work past the age of 10 btw), but in the meantime, you swallow hook, line, and sinker, whatever comes out of the "scientific" community. Science is an ever changing, evolving if you will, field, so to blindly put your trust in teachings that routinely become outdated seems rather silly to me. Even more so, if you want to start basing political or economic policy on such things. All ideas should be questioned and challenged, even more so when they are presented as "consensus" truths. Nothing usually precedes an idea being discovered as incorrect as the phrase "no reasonable person/scientist/educated individual doubts this to be true". You do realize that in science "blindly accepting" something is a no no right? Science teaches you to always question presented ideas. No one is "swallowing hook line and sinker" from science, thats not how it works. Its not the same as you teaching your kids. You also are acting like schools universities are like 100% liberal or something and that teachers who are conservative do not exist, which is absurd.
That's not how its supposed to work. Except when you get to topics like global warming. Then it's concensus fact. Don't question or you will be ostracized. You can't honestly believe it operates this way when many scientific journals refuse to publish studies from people that question global warming and here is the kicker so pay attention "regardless of how sound or peer reviewed the article may be". Doesn't sound like your fairy tale version of science to me.
As for colleges and universities being liberal, it's a well known fact.
Just one of many
EDIT:And here is a very good one.
Open minded, lol
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
scientific knowledge is always understood wihtin the context of evidence and current state of research.
and now we've entered the twilight zone abandon all hope
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On February 01 2015 03:53 oneofthem wrote:
scientific knowledge is always understood wihtin the context of evidence and current state of research.
and now we've entered the twilight zone abandon all hope
If this is true, why ever silence dissenters? You can't see the hypocrisy that you espouse...
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
because 'dissenters' are evaluated by the strength of their arguments and research. there is no 'silencing'
but yes, paradigms have inertia, but thisis not the same as saying science is le conspiracy
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On February 01 2015 03:37 hannahbelle wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic. We could go on about point C ad infinitum, but to drive some consensus, I believe that A and B are already by and large already happening. The main difference, is at the end of the day, I don't believe in moral relativism. I expose my children to different topics and opinions, but I also teach them which one is correct. Which by the way, makes me no different than any other teacher or professor. I have encountered a value very close to zero amount of teachers and professors that do not espouse a correct view point, or at least a certain view point that one should natural adopt should you be a "learned and educated" person. I don't view children as property, but they are my responsibility. I, and many others, firmly believe that the overwhelming responsibility for their upbringing is mine as a parent, not some third-party that tries to claim to know what is best. It doesn't take a village, it takes two responsible adults. As for the very last sentence of your post, I think there is more there than you realize. You see, we are not s different. We are just on opposite sides. You accuse me of teaching my children to blindly accept what I say (a concept, which those of you that have children of your own will understand, doesn't usually work past the age of 10 btw), but in the meantime, you swallow hook, line, and sinker, whatever comes out of the "scientific" community. Science is an ever changing, evolving if you will, field, so to blindly put your trust in teachings that routinely become outdated seems rather silly to me. Even more so, if you want to start basing political or economic policy on such things. All ideas should be questioned and challenged, even more so when they are presented as "consensus" truths. Nothing usually precedes an idea being discovered as incorrect as the phrase "no reasonable person/scientist/educated individual doubts this to be true".
I do not blindly trust science. That is the beautiful thing about science. You don't NEED to believe in it. You don't need to trust it. You need to understand how it works, and then it disseminates knowledge.
The wonderful fact is that rarely does a theory that is well accepted consensus just get thrown out. They get amended, or prove to be specific cases of larger theories. For example, take mechanics. You have a basic idea in Newtons mechanics, which works very well for day to day stuff, and thus was the main accepted theory for a long period of time. Then people noticed that it tends to not fit the observed facts when talking about very small or very fast things. Thus, new theories were needed to encompass those areas. So some very smart people thought about things like Quantum mechanics or relativity, which describe the observed facts better in those areas. But in edge cases, they yield exactly the same results as Newton's mechanics. If i use QM equations to describe someone kicking a ball, the results will be indistinguishable from those gathered in NM (which are a lot easier to calculate). Thus, because i understand how things work, i know that i can safely use NM to describe anything that is bigger than a molecule and slower than a percentage of the speed of light, because the equations for both QM and RM approach those of NM for these cases.
Established theories are established for a reason. They usually describe the data available very well. And they usually don't get completely overturned, because no matter what happens, they will still describe the data that was previously available very well, and thus they need to be an edge case of a larger theory.
The idea of science is to have observations, and theories that explain those observations. Then you make predictions based on those theories, and see if they come true. And i still don't need to accept them as Dogma. I accept things like the laws of newtonian mechanics because they fit my experiences very well, and i have not seen anything that conflicts with them (except for the problems that lead to QM, but as i said, those theories are easily compatible if you except NM as a simplified edge case of QM. If, tomorrow, things started to no longer obey those laws (my keys suddenly start levitating in the middle of the room), i would start questioning them, though i would first look for an explanation of the result within the established theory (Has my neighbour built a gigantic electromagnet in his room?)
That is the wonderful thing. If you understand how something works, you don't need to accept dogma. You can think for yourself.
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On February 01 2015 03:46 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 03:37 hannahbelle wrote:On February 01 2015 03:07 Simberto wrote:On February 01 2015 02:52 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 10:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On January 31 2015 04:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
I fail to see how stripping employees of the ability to functionally collectively negotiate helps those employees? It doesn't. Conservatives will just pretend it does because their entire economic ideology revolves around giving a select few people the most resources and power possible and relying on them to be incredibly altruistic. It's really hard to take your post seriously when it contains such nonsense as your quote of "Additionally, the vaccine eliminates any potential further complications and long-term consequences, and prevents an otherwise unpleasant disease". Shingles for starters.
Then your rant in the last paragraph which makes little sense. HPV vaccine is relatively new for starters, so to attribute any sort of positive outcome from it defies reason. Besides, you don't contract HPV like the flu. It's a virus that is spread by one way. Go get educated, and come back and talk. This is incredibly ironic considering the fact that pretty much everything you've said is 100% baseless and completely defies all education and science. Ignoring all of that - if I want to teach my kid that aliens are real and pork chops come from Satan (and will make you grow hair on your palms if you eat them), that's my own business, not the government's. No, it isn't only your business. Teaching them certain false claims isn't in-and-of-itself harmful, but it's incredibly harmful to teach someone racist, sexist, or discriminatory views, or that some random holy book written thousands of years ago trumps all science (or similar claims). Despite your selfish views, your child is not your property. He/she has the right to a basic level of education, and therefore deserves to be protected from a parent that wants to sabotage his/her education at a young age, which is incredibly harmful for the rest of their life. As a side note, I think we got fairly side-tracked when I brought up home schooling as an example. Home schooling isn't actually that much of a problem, since the people who are dedicated enough to home-school their children are usually good enough to give them a high-quality education. The problem is when these home-schooled children are taught things like "scientific facts are debatable opinions" or "our holy book trumps science" or things like this. As I mentioned before, it isn't just a problem in home schooling, but is actually even more of a problem in states in the Deep-South, where parents and random lawmakers are dictating what is taught in schools (e.g. not allowing evolution or climate change education, or forcing teachers to teach Creationism alongside evolution as an "alternative opinion"). I feel its incredibly harmful to teach children liberal, socialist values. You point doesn't address the root of the problem. Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't harmful to teach children? What value sets are better than others, and thus non-harmful to society, and by extension required for children? At the end of the day, all most homschoolers seek is the right and ability to decide this very question by ourselves, and not have it decided by liberal, big-government bureaucrats. Or heaven forbid, the educational establishment that has doe such a bang-up job with the authority it already has. Well, you make a slightly compelling argument there. On the other hand, you are also a shining example as to why that is a very bad idea with the amount of bad science you promoted in response to vaccines a few pages ago. Also, what you display is a major symptom of the american partisan politics problem. You don't want the evil democrats to teach your children, because that is obviously infectious, instead you need to teach them the good republican values so they can become good republicans too. A reasonable point of view would be to teach them: a) The necessary tools to critically evaluate varying positions (maths, reading, critical thinking, researching topics, how science actually works, etc...) b) A background framework to multiple political points of view on political and religious topics. Strictly seperate this from the science parts. No absolute truths here. c) A framework of things that are broad scientific consensus and really are not political topics anywhere except in the US. Things like Newtons laws, electrodynamics, evolution, basic chemistry. Especially don't only teach HOW things are, but also and especially the proof and reasonings leading to those results. With that kind of framework, you give the child the necessary tools to actually judge different positions on their own merits, since they know how the scientific method works and what kind of proof is necessary for a theory to be generally accepted. There is no need to colour any of this in specific politics, because now your child is capable of actually accessing the viability of new positions like "The earth is flat" or "Vaccines totally don't do anything at all" To me, that sounds like a good way to teach children. But of course, what you really want is for your children to believe exactly the same things as you, and for their children then once again also believe exactly the same thing, no matter if it is utter nonsense. Your children are not your property, they are people. Your job as a parent is not to form them into copies of yourself, but to give them the necessary tools to actually be individuals with their own opinions on topics, instead of just accepting the word of figures of authority on every topic. We could go on about point C ad infinitum, but to drive some consensus, I believe that A and B are already by and large already happening. The main difference, is at the end of the day, I don't believe in moral relativism. I expose my children to different topics and opinions, but I also teach them which one is correct. Which by the way, makes me no different than any other teacher or professor. I have encountered a value very close to zero amount of teachers and professors that do not espouse a correct view point, or at least a certain view point that one should natural adopt should you be a "learned and educated" person. I don't view children as property, but they are my responsibility. I, and many others, firmly believe that the overwhelming responsibility for their upbringing is mine as a parent, not some third-party that tries to claim to know what is best. It doesn't take a village, it takes two responsible adults. As for the very last sentence of your post, I think there is more there than you realize. You see, we are not s different. We are just on opposite sides. You accuse me of teaching my children to blindly accept what I say (a concept, which those of you that have children of your own will understand, doesn't usually work past the age of 10 btw), but in the meantime, you swallow hook, line, and sinker, whatever comes out of the "scientific" community. Science is an ever changing, evolving if you will, field, so to blindly put your trust in teachings that routinely become outdated seems rather silly to me. Even more so, if you want to start basing political or economic policy on such things. All ideas should be questioned and challenged, even more so when they are presented as "consensus" truths. Nothing usually precedes an idea being discovered as incorrect as the phrase "no reasonable person/scientist/educated individual doubts this to be true". You do realize that in science "blindly accepting" something is a no no right? Science teaches you to always question presented ideas. No one is "swallowing hook line and sinker" from science, thats not how it works. Its not the same as you teaching your kids. You also are acting like schools universities are like 100% liberal or something and that teachers who are conservative do not exist, which is absurd. Can't really say anything about moral relativism except *shrug* your ethnocentric.
In theory its a no no but in practise, actually that's the way a lot of science is taught in elementary schools and beyond, for the simple reason that kids & teens simply aren't capable at that level of understanding various higher level concepts, or of going out into the field themselves, or of reading the in-depth historical record (and proving that this record is accurate).
The periodic table of elements is taught, but do most kids have any real evidence that einsteinium or radium exists, or some of the other more exotic man-made elements with atomic numbers of 110? Because they read about it online, is this good enough? How is it functionally different from just believing what a preacher or free-market idealist says? They have to take on faith the structure of matter (protons, neutrons, electrons), they have to (for the time being) assume relativity is correct and that other scientists have done the experiments to fully test it. They have to believe that radiocarbon dating actually works even if they don't understand the physical principles behind it, and that underwrites macro-evolutionary evidence in terms of the fossil record showing changes over time. The entire field of quantum mechanics is utterly impenetrable unless you work in a high-level university lab - or you just believe that it works because people on the internet and your teachers say your computers work on quantum mechanics. Anyway that's enough examples  .
Thus a lot of the belief relies mostly on trust that the scientific community isn't in on a large conspiracy, and that if enough people believe it is true then it simply is true. I think you could make a probabilistic argument for this - but its becoming harder to do given how intertwined science is with the need to obtain grant money to fund certain projects. We know this has led to false claims in the past where private companies employed scientists to publish skewed perspectives on the health effects of tobacco, or more recently with climate change denial. At least for the big things (newton's law, einstein's theories) we can be reasonably confident.
Kids may rightfully wonder where else it occurs, and I think they can be forgiven for being a little skeptical. But anyway I agree that we can at least teach them how to be skeptical and think for themselves. But you would have to make some kind of probabilistic argument for a young person to reasonably believe that all these things taught in the sciences are in fact true, because there's no way the elementary principles of open inquiry and experiment are going to *rigorously* verify hundreds of years worth of scientific discoveries.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
even kids are taught basic evidence and history of ideas so they are not being asked to believe something on authority. why do you think guys like galileo, rutherford etc are always in elementary science textbooks?
some people, even within philosophy of science, take science to be 'current bundle of ideas scientists believe in.' but that's simply limited and incorrect. science is more than a body of knowledge, it is this body of knowledge located within a process of inquiry, including doubt and potential alternatives. this is not necessarily complete or anything but scientists do not simply declare stuff without going through the same basic process of scientific inquiry that any 'paradigm breaking' ideas that 'prove science wrong' also must go through.
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Canada11328 Posts
I support the idea of homeschool/ distance learning and independent schools, but mostly for pedagogical reasons. I think public education is awesome so that income is no barrier to becoming education. However, I don't think every student can fit within the framework of a classroom setting. Some students simply won't thrive in that setting. There are examples of success and failure within the homeschool model- some that are, shouldn't be and some that aren't, probably should be.
But even if you disagree with certain ideologies that occur outside of public education, I don't think that's a reason get rid of the alternatives to public education. I will admit that the anti-vaccination thing is more problematic because it can cause death, so I'm not sure what the solution to that is. However, I don't know if that particularly is the fault of home-schooling persay so much as trends can sweep through at lot easier. Bad ideas can also sweep through public education (see self-directed learning in the 70's in western Canada's education) it's just that public education is harder to shift because of it's size.
Hell, I had the misfortune to practicum teach in a public high school that refused to have wireless networks in the school and was distributing literature educating parents of the 'health risks' of wireless networks. The school had somehow bought into some pretty shoddy science.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
solution probably includes stopping demonizing vaccines.
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On February 01 2015 04:06 oneofthem wrote:
even kids are taught basic evidence and history of ideas so they are not being asked to believe something on authority. why do you think guys like galileo, rutherford etc are always in elementary science textbooks?
Well maybe they are to some extent. Of course they're taught how to use inclined planes and pullies, maybe they will dissect a frog. But my point is its nowhere near enough to actually cover the extent of things they're expected to know. How are you supposed to verify the existence of most elements in the periodic table - Do you just trust the chemistry teacher who shows you a big diagram? To discover the existence of atoms, maybe you get a little more rigorous and watch a video experiment where particles are fired at gold foil?
That wouldn't remotely qualify as a rigorous experiment for a real scientist, people have come to believe in these ideas over countless years and individual scientists testing them out for themselves and finding agreement. Kids have no way to follow that same line of rigorous, evidence based discovery they just have to take (most things) on faith.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
of course not everyone is taught the derivation of relativity equations etc in elementary school, but the point is that there is teaching of the scientific process and use of evidence in science. it's not simply recitation.
people who go into science are taught more rigorous methodology but even in the simplest lab experiments you are still dealing with an open ended, evidence based inquiry model of knowledge.
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I think the bigger problem of homeschooling is not the performance of the kids being homeschooled, but the lack of interaction with public life if parents keep their kids out of school for the sole reason of keeping them in their communities and pushing weird beliefs onto them.
People don't believe that vaccines cause autism because they just haven't gotten the right information yet, they believe it because they are constantly surrounded by people who tell them that it's true.
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On February 01 2015 04:14 oneofthem wrote:
of course not everyone is taught the derivation of relativity equations etc in elementary school, but the point is that there is teaching of the scientific process and use of evidence in science. it's not simply recitation.
Yeah there is the scientific process and that's great. But I was initially responding to someone above who was making the point that things aren't just taken "on faith" in science education, everything is a rigorous process. I'm just saying in practise this isn't how things are actually taught to kids, they pretty much have to take *most* theories on faith because there is no reasonable way for them to actually rigorously verify these theories to the same extent that real scientists can.
For the most part if feels like recitation, practically they will feel identical. The teacher can always say that there is a rigorous process behind it, but just trusting that because they told you is obviously not a very strong piece of reasoning. Which is why I think there needs to be a probabilistic argument made (thats the best you can do). Anyway I think my point is made, I'll let you continue talking about homeschooling.
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Canada11328 Posts
On February 01 2015 04:16 Nyxisto wrote:
I think the bigger problem of homeschooling is not the performance of the kids being homeschooled, but the lack of interaction with public life if parents keep their kids out of school for the sole reason of keeping them in their communities and pushing weird beliefs onto them.
People don't believe that vaccines cause autism because they just haven't gotten the right information yet, they believe it because they are constantly surrounded by people who tell them that it's true.
Only true if the homeschoolers are in particularly insular communities. The ones I was familiar with had large local network across the community with students coming in and out of the public schools and usually all in public high schools for grades 10-12. All came out perfectly fine- some are medical doctors who are as orthodox as you could wish, getting all sniffy about alternative medicine.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well yes and yes, but as far as 'current state of research' is an authority, it does go deeper than 'what most people believe.' it's more like 'there are some strongly supported principles that simply can't work with this other idea.'
in the case of denying global warming the proper level of discussion is not 'climatologists all believe ...' but 'simple physical model would confirm greenhouse effect as well as all this data we have.'
relying on authority is never perfect, but the situation here is more like an individual criticizing scientific consensus as simply a social consensus, and not dealing with the actual content of the science. this is a choice the individual is making and he or she can do better, by going into the research and thus going deeper than an appeal to authority.
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EPT
