Where is balance? -- Re: Academic priorities
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From: Bernd Felsche on 1 May 2005 21:51 Steve Richfie1d <Steve(a)NOSPAM.smart-life.net> writes: >> [frustrated emoticon here] I've been trying to explain for a >> thousand posts but can't seem to manage. If a person is not >> aware of a piece of knowledge, then that person will never >> learn they need it when they could use it. >Less than 1% of such knowledge is ever taught in schools. Sure it >might be nice to have this particular 1%, but at what cost?! >Certainly at the cost of NOT learning SEVERAL percent (with plenty >of overlap) by other means. Schools exist for two main reasons; the primary one is to provide an "education" (which in reality only needs to be "how to learn stuff" training) and to teach conformity to societal norms. >I believe that either of my kids could diagram an atomic weapon, >and reasonably estimate blast and flash distance from yields. They That'd be really important when they join al qaeda. :-) >certainly understand special relativity as we have discussed how >ridiculous shows like Star Trek are in completely ignoring Lorentz >transformations and other aspects of relativity in their plots. Yet they don't understand the concept of "space warp"? That of distorting the universe in the vicinity of the craft so that it doesn't have to travel the actual distance between points in undistorted space? Maybe they need to begin to understand that there are other theories. And that theories don't control the real world. >In short, TV here is NOT an entirely passive exercise. >Have you watched the Discover and Science channels on TV? The Superficial stuff with often editorial comment embedded. >material there is generally MUCH better than I ever had in school, >and there is considerably more of it each day. There is generally a >better science education to be had on TV than there is in our >schools! Pretty much a condemnation of schools than laying laurels upon TV. We had some great science TV during my school daze and the decade preceding. Nowadays it's just "nice science". -- /"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia \ / ASCII ribbon campaign | I'm a .signature virus! X against HTML mail | Copy me into your ~/.signature / \ and postings | to help me spread!
From: Steve Richfie1d on 1 May 2005 22:21 Roland, et al, > It seems to me that the point of teaching kids a bit of rigorous mathematics > (with proofs and everything) has more to do with their intellectual > development than with practical applications. > > A person who understands what a proof from a set of axioms accomplishes has > a model of what unassailable reasoning and knowledge-to-a-certainty looks > likes -- or would look like, if we possessed anything like it in other > domains. In addition to being an aesthetic experience, this furnishes a > yardstick against which all other sorts of argument and demonstration can > be measured. It instills a capacity for healthy but measured skepticism > towards conclusions and claims put forward by anyone in the domains of the > natural and the social sciences, the humanities, theology, and the whole > rest of human thought and enterprise. > > Practical applications?: well, among other things, maybe they will be better > voters for being able recognize utter bullpucky when they see it and > knowing the difference between assertion and argument. I don't agree. Presently accepted "logic" is missing some *BIG* pieces, like more is missing than is now there. The two that instantly come to mind: 1. Reverse reductio ad absurdum. If presented with two reasonable but incongrous arguments, there MUST be at least one false underlying assumption. This shows the insanity of nearly all political arguments. However, NO ONE demands discussion of the requisite false underlying assumptions because that would trample on religious interests, which such arguments usually show to be illogical/insane. There is even a clear statement in the Bible disparaging logic! That conventional logic fails to stumble on this certainly shows the COMPLETE breakdown of conventional logical methods in the real world. In short, your belief here has short-circuited your ability to see how really screwed up the world is. 2. A while back I ran a contest among the kids and most people I knew, to propose the hypothetical worst evil imaginable. I allowed combining efforts, "stealing" ideas from each other, etc. The grand winner after several weeks was "any religious belief with many valuable and self-evident truths, but with subtle flaws guaranteed to ruin both the lives of its believers as well as the rest of the world". Far worse even than the holocaust, this would kill billions/trillions of people for millenia perhaps without end. Of course, this is indistinguishable from several religions including Christianity. While people now reject burning witches and other things as obvious flaws in the Bible, many people STILL accept the Bible as perfect and promote obviously destructive actions like supporting Israel in the Middle East. Then, we started asking ministers to either find any flaw in this or to propose an even worse evil. So for, no one has been able to either show a flaw or propose an even worse evil, but retreat to an apparent belief that we are just testing their blind faith. The bottom line here is that I believe that my kid's logical abilities probably exceed your own. This is NOT meant to be any sort of slam against you, as you almost certainly had a good but sadly conventional bottom-up education which put you at a considerable disadvantage in this comparison. I only learned these things as I sought to answer some very pointed questions posed by my kids. Amazingly, conventional educations have blinded an entire world to such issues, but we should not be surprised because any emergence of such ideas would have been quashed by religious interests. This level of education in logic is now ONLY available in a home schooled setting. Steve Richfie1d
From: CBFalconer on 2 May 2005 00:13 Andrew Swallow wrote: > > jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > > [snip] > > > People never use general relativity nor special relativity. > > Some people even believe that this is all nonsense and refuse > > to learn about it. However, their lives depend on people who, > > not only know about it, but use it in their "real life". If > > the principles and theories are never encountered by home school > > kids (and in some case they are not), then none of these kids > > will know that their geometric assumptions and knowledge are > > wrong. All their lives they have used Euclidean geometry > > without any problems. How are they going to know that their > > real life experiences are based on wrong assumptions? > [snip] > Euclidean geometry assumes a flat surfaces. Hill sides are not > flat so farmers ploughing and builders need to be able to use > triangles whose angles do not add up to 180 degrees. Also navigation on the earth in general. Even GSP systems include corrections for relativity effects. No ship or airliner can ever assume Euclidean geometry for any significant distance. -- "If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
From: Morten Reistad on 2 May 2005 03:01 In article <qldgk2xol7.ln2(a)innovative.iinet.net.au>, Bernd Felsche <bernie(a)innovative.iinet.net.au> wrote: >Steve Richfie1d <Steve(a)NOSPAM.smart-life.net> writes: > >>> [frustrated emoticon here] I've been trying to explain for a >>> thousand posts but can't seem to manage. If a person is not >>> aware of a piece of knowledge, then that person will never >>> learn they need it when they could use it. > >>Less than 1% of such knowledge is ever taught in schools. Sure it >>might be nice to have this particular 1%, but at what cost?! >>Certainly at the cost of NOT learning SEVERAL percent (with plenty >>of overlap) by other means. > >Schools exist for two main reasons; the primary one is to provide an >"education" (which in reality only needs to be "how to learn stuff" >training) and to teach conformity to societal norms. What I have been trying to show is that we are immersed in a world where mathematics and it's cousins are very important to understand what is going on. It is almost like growing another set of eyes. Likewise with language(s). Being able to absorb important, complex descriptions, and to communicate them in writing. And to order food in Paris, Athens, Djakarta or wherever. >>I believe that either of my kids could diagram an atomic weapon, >>and reasonably estimate blast and flash distance from yields. They > >That'd be really important when they join al qaeda. :-) The hard part is the enrichment of the uranium/plutonium, and the structural integrity of the bomb shell as it is set to detonate. >>certainly understand special relativity as we have discussed how >>ridiculous shows like Star Trek are in completely ignoring Lorentz >>transformations and other aspects of relativity in their plots. > >Yet they don't understand the concept of "space warp"? That of >distorting the universe in the vicinity of the craft so that it >doesn't have to travel the actual distance between points in >undistorted space? > >Maybe they need to begin to understand that there are other >theories. And that theories don't control the real world. > >>In short, TV here is NOT an entirely passive exercise. > >>Have you watched the Discover and Science channels on TV? The > >Superficial stuff with often editorial comment embedded. I just observe that the divers, climbers and captains would flunk the acceptance test for any advanced course on the spot. >>material there is generally MUCH better than I ever had in school, >>and there is considerably more of it each day. There is generally a >>better science education to be had on TV than there is in our >>schools! > >Pretty much a condemnation of schools than laying laurels upon TV. > >We had some great science TV during my school daze and the decade >preceding. Nowadays it's just "nice science". Perhaps, one day, we can have Math TV!. -- mrr
From: Morten Reistad on 2 May 2005 03:01
In article <TsCdnU9Hk-BJz-jfRVn-uw(a)comcast.com>, glen herrmannsfeldt <gah(a)ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > > > jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > > [snip] > >> People never use general relativity nor special relativity. >> Some people even believe that this is all nonsense and refuse >> to learn about it. However, their lives depend on people who, >> not only know about it, but use it in their "real life". > >They might use systems that depend in it, though. >GPS only works because, I believe, both special and general >relativity are taken into account. Formulas used are from general relativity. They have to account for the gravity well, the resultant time dilution, doppler effects, and bending of space. Without these the GPS receiver would have a best resolution of a few kilometers. Now it can be as good as a few meters. They also have to do advanced Maxwell and some resultant signal analysis to recover the signal. I believe it was Yagi that first formulated this theory. -- mrr |