7 ms·

You have to be educated to be educated (1997)

24 points by rzk 3y ago

randcraw 3y ago
In other words... you become educated by the other people who populate your world -- family, friends, coworkers. Thus its their words and opinions that form the basis for your beliefs and your world view. You don't shape your world view as much as your familiars do. No doubt in today's world where so much info/opinion can be self-selected (you tune into media of your own choosing), each of us do shape our own world more than in olden times. But I suspect we surround ourselves with media that resonates positively with the people we share our lives with. Otherwise if you adopt perspective arising from those 'foreign' ideas, you run the risk of clashing with the ideas of friends & family, thereby making you unpopular, dismissed, and even shunned. Thus we adopt the ideas that reward us most, socially.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Or to say it another way "Nerd life is hard", especially while growing up and being judged by your peer group.
n4r9 3y ago
I found the prose here a little too flowery to draw out much meaning. The intro did strike me as pretty questionable though: > For the great majority of people, believing in the truths of science is unavoidably an act of faith. I get the point that most people do not and will never fully understand the basis of most scientific facts. Only a very small percentage of the world has a complete grasp on the evidence for natural selection, climate change, the big bang, etc... . It reminds me of Mac's presentation in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia where he asks whether Dennis has ever seen the fossil records, and follows up with > Let me get this straight Mr Reynolds. You get your information from a book written by men you've never met. And you take their words as truth, based on a willingness to believe. A desire to accept. A leap of... dare I say it... faith? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjg0XlZ0Uv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjg0XlZ0Uv4 But there's a subtle difference between this and acts of faith: if science is conducted properly, it lays out in public the available objective evidence for its truths and invite anyone to come and investigate, and falsify the claims if they have sufficient evidence to the contrary. I could understand the basis for climate change if I took enough time out of work and family and did my research. With religious truths, on the other hand, investigations reach a dead end with "this is simply a matter of faith" or "you just have to feel this to believe it".
- eutectic 3y ago
  Also, the parts of science that affect our everyday lives come together to form a coherent picture which explains many different observations. Religions don't have anything like that.
- Manfred 3y ago
  People will gladly accept bad proofs if it furthers their beliefs or identify politics. They will also argue wrongfully against correct proofs. And they will influence others. I assume that's the point of the article; people who are not educated to identify nonsense will accept nonsense or decide to trust nothing. This is obviously very ham-fisted, but I believe that's the idea.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    This brings to mind the saying "Anything is possible when you don't know what you're talking about."
- reactordev 3y ago
  It really comes down to one side saying “Trust me” and the other saying “Don’t believe me? Try it yourself”.
  - biohacker85 3y ago
    Even this one isn’t clear. Do you mean “trust me” as in “trust the science” and “try it yourself” as in “trust Jesus and see for yourself”. Or “trust me” as in the Catholic Church “don’t read the Bible I’ll tell you what it says” and “try it yourself” as in “verify my results”.
    - reactordev 3y ago
      Exactly. Now you know why we’ve been arguing over it for a millennia. To be completely transparent. I was referring to religion “Trust me” and science “Don’t believe me, try it yourself”. Because humans have bias, and depending on what side of the fence they are on, they will read it how they want to read it. One could make an argument for both. The statement is true though. One is about loyalty and faith through blind trust, and the other is faith through trust that they followed the scientific method. Both have “published papers”. Both have some sort of verified results. Only one is real science of hypothesis, experiment, observation, conclusion. If it fails that test, it’s lumped in with Scientology.
QuadmasterXLII 3y ago
There’s a reason high school science classes need hands on experiments to verify the lessons- you can extract the dna from a strawberry and poke it. You can sit there with a stopwatch and a ramp and learn about gravity- it’s not actually arbitrary or a class signal or gossip, the wheel just takes that amount of time to roll
- someuser2345 3y ago
  > you can extract the dna from a strawberry and poke it You can extract some sort of goo from strawberries that your teacher claims is DNA, but I don't think there's any actual way for a high schooler to verify that it is DNA.
- sfink 3y ago
  80% of my high school physics experiments disproved accepted physical laws, like the law of conservation of energy. Or they would have, if any of us had trusted my measurements. In high school, you're not actually doing what they claim you're doing. You are performing a procedure, and then evaluating your results against the "right" answer that you and the teacher are accepting on faith. If your experiment does not match the accepted answer, then one of three things is true: (1) the physical law is actually wrong; (2) you flubbed the procedure; or (3) your measurements were accurate and the physical law is correct, but it is an incomplete description of everything that affects what you are measuring. Cows are not spherical, they do not float in a vacuum for very long without changing in unpleasant ways, friction exists, and your ability to press the buttons on a stopwatch is not very precise. Little-s science always involves faith, and big-s Science really does not want you to think about that. The replication crisis is real, but it's not new. (I guess that's my tl;dr of the article.)
fungiblecog 3y ago
Science isn't about truth. it's about the best explanation of the way the world works. the best explanation tomorrow may be better than today but that doesn't make today's explanation false. newton's laws are still used even though einstein gave us a better explanation
mcguire 3y ago
Catarina Dutilh Novaes makes the point that logic was originally a branch of rhetoric: the idea behind it is to convince someone of what you are saying. https://youtu.be/gcwSwkQySw4?si=uQwSmmhKsVpv8_a8 https://youtu.be/gcwSwkQySw4?si=uQwSmmhKsVpv8_a8 A lot of what we think we know is based on social interactions. That's how humanity works.

24 points by rzk 3y ago

In other words... you become educated by the other people who populate your world -- family, friends, coworkers. Thus its their words and opinions that form the basis for your beliefs and your world view. You don't shape your world view as much as your familiars do. No doubt in today's world where so much info/opinion can be self-selected (you tune into media of your own choosing), each of us do shape our own world more than in olden times. But I suspect we surround ourselves with media that resonates positively with the people we share our lives with. Otherwise if you adopt perspective arising from those 'foreign' ideas, you run the risk of clashing with the ideas of friends & family, thereby making you unpopular, dismissed, and even shunned. Thus we adopt the ideas that reward us most, socially.

pixl97 3y ago
Or to say it another way "Nerd life is hard", especially while growing up and being judged by your peer group.

n4r9 3y ago

I found the prose here a little too flowery to draw out much meaning. The intro did strike me as pretty questionable though: > For the great majority of people, believing in the truths of science is unavoidably an act of faith. I get the point that most people do not and will never fully understand the basis of most scientific facts. Only a very small percentage of the world has a complete grasp on the evidence for natural selection, climate change, the big bang, etc... . It reminds me of Mac's presentation in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia where he asks whether Dennis has ever seen the fossil records, and follows up with > Let me get this straight Mr Reynolds. You get your information from a book written by men you've never met. And you take their words as truth, based on a willingness to believe. A desire to accept. A leap of... dare I say it... faith? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjg0XlZ0Uv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjg0XlZ0Uv4 But there's a subtle difference between this and acts of faith: if science is conducted properly, it lays out in public the available objective evidence for its truths and invite anyone to come and investigate, and falsify the claims if they have sufficient evidence to the contrary. I could understand the basis for climate change if I took enough time out of work and family and did my research. With religious truths, on the other hand, investigations reach a dead end with "this is simply a matter of faith" or "you just have to feel this to believe it".

eutectic 3y ago
Also, the parts of science that affect our everyday lives come together to form a coherent picture which explains many different observations. Religions don't have anything like that.
Manfred 3y ago
People will gladly accept bad proofs if it furthers their beliefs or identify politics. They will also argue wrongfully against correct proofs. And they will influence others. I assume that's the point of the article; people who are not educated to identify nonsense will accept nonsense or decide to trust nothing. This is obviously very ham-fisted, but I believe that's the idea.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  This brings to mind the saying "Anything is possible when you don't know what you're talking about."
reactordev 3y ago
It really comes down to one side saying “Trust me” and the other saying “Don’t believe me? Try it yourself”.
- biohacker85 3y ago
  Even this one isn’t clear. Do you mean “trust me” as in “trust the science” and “try it yourself” as in “trust Jesus and see for yourself”. Or “trust me” as in the Catholic Church “don’t read the Bible I’ll tell you what it says” and “try it yourself” as in “verify my results”.
  - reactordev 3y ago
    Exactly. Now you know why we’ve been arguing over it for a millennia. To be completely transparent. I was referring to religion “Trust me” and science “Don’t believe me, try it yourself”. Because humans have bias, and depending on what side of the fence they are on, they will read it how they want to read it. One could make an argument for both. The statement is true though. One is about loyalty and faith through blind trust, and the other is faith through trust that they followed the scientific method. Both have “published papers”. Both have some sort of verified results. Only one is real science of hypothesis, experiment, observation, conclusion. If it fails that test, it’s lumped in with Scientology.

QuadmasterXLII 3y ago

There’s a reason high school science classes need hands on experiments to verify the lessons- you can extract the dna from a strawberry and poke it. You can sit there with a stopwatch and a ramp and learn about gravity- it’s not actually arbitrary or a class signal or gossip, the wheel just takes that amount of time to roll

someuser2345 3y ago
> you can extract the dna from a strawberry and poke it You can extract some sort of goo from strawberries that your teacher claims is DNA, but I don't think there's any actual way for a high schooler to verify that it is DNA.
sfink 3y ago
80% of my high school physics experiments disproved accepted physical laws, like the law of conservation of energy. Or they would have, if any of us had trusted my measurements. In high school, you're not actually doing what they claim you're doing. You are performing a procedure, and then evaluating your results against the "right" answer that you and the teacher are accepting on faith. If your experiment does not match the accepted answer, then one of three things is true: (1) the physical law is actually wrong; (2) you flubbed the procedure; or (3) your measurements were accurate and the physical law is correct, but it is an incomplete description of everything that affects what you are measuring. Cows are not spherical, they do not float in a vacuum for very long without changing in unpleasant ways, friction exists, and your ability to press the buttons on a stopwatch is not very precise. Little-s science always involves faith, and big-s Science really does not want you to think about that. The replication crisis is real, but it's not new. (I guess that's my tl;dr of the article.)

fungiblecog 3y ago

Science isn't about truth. it's about the best explanation of the way the world works. the best explanation tomorrow may be better than today but that doesn't make today's explanation false. newton's laws are still used even though einstein gave us a better explanation

mcguire 3y ago

Catarina Dutilh Novaes makes the point that logic was originally a branch of rhetoric: the idea behind it is to convince someone of what you are saying. https://youtu.be/gcwSwkQySw4?si=uQwSmmhKsVpv8_a8 https://youtu.be/gcwSwkQySw4?si=uQwSmmhKsVpv8_a8 A lot of what we think we know is based on social interactions. That's how humanity works.