bluefugue

Some of them are magnificent! Even if Christianity were worth nothing else, it still would have given us Notre Dame Cathedral...

Valentine Pontifex

That is a false statement.

I agree.

I agree also.

But you do realize that putting people though critical thinking courses usually does not turn them into what we would call critical thinkers? That is simple reality. One you can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Two, irrational beliefs are usually very resilent to education whether to subject matter or to critical thinking skills.
Furthermore in all the areas that you might point to for having a good education still have many of their own brands of stupidity.

While ignorance is an extremely important factor, it is not the real reason why creationism thrives in the USA. The social and historical reasons for fundamentalism in the USA as well has high amounts of religious belief in general are more responsible.

People are rejecting evolution simply because they emotionally do not want to accept it. If that emotional stake was not present the rejection of evolution in the United States would go away even if we did not improve our poor science education system.

Of course education is the best (only) direct weapon in the end that we have. But lets not kid ourselves of what we are facing. We are facing far more than a lack of education. And merely educating people will not end the controversy. The social factors that contribute to the problem will also need changing. They are slowly changing so there is hope.

Devilnaut

Overall socialization is far far more important than education itself, IMO.

Starboy

galiel, I too am a great believer in the positive effects of possessing as much knowledge as possible and understanding its limits and origins. I think you confuse this with education as it is practiced in this country and in most other countries for that matter. Ask yourself: For what reasons would a government pour vast amounts of money and resources into the enterprise of public education? I suspect that a good many of these reasons have nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge. It makes me wonder if in the long run separating education and the state would not be beneficial to both. Perhaps there should be a law that required that children must be educated but with a prohibition on the state as a provider. If this were to happen and education is as important as I think it is I suspect that over time the quality of education would improve. It is funny to think that atheists and the religious may have a common desire to support school vouchers. I would love to see a world where the religious were sending their kids to excellent atheist schools because that was where they would get a good education.

Starboy

galiel

These is a critical distinction between information and understanding.

True education is not about cramming information, and true understanding is much more than knowledge about knowledge as you define it above.

The purpose of education should be to provide the independent tools to:

a) Acquire new information;
b) Critically evaluate new information;
c) Integrate validated new information (aka "knowledge") into existing models of reality;
d) Derive universal operating principles (aka "understanding") from those knowledge-based models.
e) Repeat. Forever.

I have said nothing about education as it is practiced in this country or about government motives to provide education. You seem to be creating a fictitious assertion out of thin air in order to refute it. I have talked about what should be, not what is.

galiel

Can you explain this statement further? Do you mean that getting along is more important than understanding the world? Or do you mean that changing the way society works is more important than education.

If the former, I have no intelligent reply to such a statement.

If the latter, I would argue that you are putting the cart before the horse, that education molds attitudes which in turn shape society.

If you mean something else entirely, then I apologize and will await your clarification.

galiel

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Valentine Pontifex:
<strong>

But you do realize that putting people though critical thinking courses usually does not turn them into what we would call critical thinkers?</strong>[quote]
Nowhere did I use the phrase "putting people through critical thinking courses". Repeatedly, I have referred to teaching people to think critically. Clearly, if people do not learn what you intend them to learn, you are not teaching them effectively.

Second point: you assert that people reject evolution for emotional reasons. The evidence refutes your claim. Most people surveyed in the US do not have the most basic understanding of evolution, or even of the most basic scientific principles. And even the best "educated" and affluent have not been equipped with sound critical thinking tools with which to evaluate the world around them and acquire and evaluate new information.

As for the rest of your post, I will only point out that this is the umpteenth time you have stated that people are just stupid and can't learn any better, and you blame this for most of the ills of the world. I assume you exclude yourself from this innately stupid human population (although, unless you are not human, I question your basis for that assumption). Thus, your basic premise is that the world sucks because people are not as innately smart as you think you are.

Since a vast mountain of educational research and empirical study has indicated that you are wrong, and that anyone with a functional IQ has the capacity to master the basic learning tools I advocate teaching them, I would challenge you to prove your assertion that "people" (please define who exactly you mean) are just too stupid to learn.

galiel

I agree with the first part of your post, which I did not quote here. And I don't disagree with your observation about the outcome of the movie-making process. I just want to correct one thing. It is not "artists", meaning the genuine creative forces in the film industry, who largely set out to "pander" to the audience. The movie industry, like most entertainment industries in the US, is controlled largely by moneymen, not creative people. If you need empirical evidence, just look at the kind of movies very successful directors make, once they have the clout to dictate the projects they wish to work on, as opposed to being forced to do as the studio wants in order to make money.

The truth is that in most forms of art today in the US, it is the distributor who represents the trollish gatekeeper that keeps creative minds at bay.

Thankfully, the advent of inexpensive production technology coupled with accessible distribution and promotion channels such as the Internet and cheap performance platforms such as digital video players, MP3 portables and on-demand book-binding, are feeding an explosive growth in independent cultural projects, which are concieved, produced, promoted and distributed outside the mainstream studio system.

In short, don't blame the artists. Blame the publishers, distributors and promoters for the lowest-common-denominator pandering.

Devilnaut

Hey galiel.

It is indeed more or less the latter thing you mentioned that I was referring to. What I meant was that people are a product of their upbringing, and I think often success in school and life has less to do with the education itself (as long as it's not completely rotten) as it does their lust for knowledge that is brought up into them.

Although, education (most importantly early education) is certainly a very important part of socialization and it is also something we have the ability to work on. We can't very well legislate proper parenting procedures. One other thing we can do, however, is look at what things other than schooling and parenting are large contributers to socialization.


I agree fully. I really should have put artists in quotation marks in my posts. Anyone who spends more time pandering than expressing themselves as they are does not fall under the category of "artist" in my book.

That is a wonderful thing, and I often wonder what society will look like from an artistic perspective in 25 years. Unless something drastic happens that seriously inhibits the sharing of information through information technology (and I suppose it very well could), I have pretty high hopes.

scigirl

Um, galiel,

Don't you think it's possible for the cause of creationism to be multifactorial? In other words, more than one person could be right about this topic?

scigirl