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But were not talking about ourside the US were talking about the US, and unfortuinitly it is political. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that rough
by dkhenry 14y ago
But were not talking about ourside the US were talking about the US, and unfortuinitly it is political. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that roughly half the population won't disregard everything your working on to get two bullet points off your list is just stupid.
Also this idea that science is underpinned by evolution and cliement science is laughable. I guess chemestry and physics don't count ?
- Goronmon 14y agoSticking our heads in the sand and pretending that roughly half the population won't disregard everything your working on to get two bullet points off your list is just stupid. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending important topics like evolution and climate change don't exist seems worse.
- Retric 14y agoClimate science IS chemistry and physics. More specifically Climate science is mostly Spectroscopy and Thermodynamics and if it's off the table you can't really talk about them. Nor can you can't talk about convection currents which means you can talk about the gas laws which means you can talk about heat engines. PS: And no I am not kidding, if you actually understand why a mass spectrometer works then climate change is obvious.
- cglace 14y agoYou may not be able to teach climate science without Spectroscopy and Thermodynamics but the converse isn't true. We aren't going to produce better engineers and physicists because we threw in a few weeks on thermohaline circulation.
- Jabbles 14y agoif you actually understand why a mass spectrometer works then climate change is obvious Please elaborate.
- ef4 14y agoYou're overestimating the anti-science critics. You can teach all the spectroscopy and thermodynamics you want and they won't care, because they don't know what that stuff is. It's purely the words "climate change" that they'll attack. And picking that fight is not a winning solution. The winning solution is to show children how awesome science is, give them the fundamental tools to participate in it, and let them see for themselves the validity of conclusions like climate change. We're in the mess we're in because too many people's science education was purely focussed on the conclusions of science without the methods of science. When "science class" means memorizing facts it's no different than catechism, and truth becomes a question of one authority vs another. The conclusions of science are of secondary importance to the process of science.
- warfangle 14y agoHow can we expect to be competitive globally if we ignore two important pieces of science that every other globally competitive nation teaches?
- genwin 14y agoThe theory of evolution has pretty much zero value in competing globally, the way I see it (although it's good to know). Global competition is a major contributor to climate change.
- ktizo 14y agoThe theory of evolution has pretty much zero value in competing globally, the way I see it This is absurdly myopic. Evolution affects not just all the life-sciences, but also the mathematics of evolution is finding new applications in software and engineering all the time.
- genwin 14y agoI've done genetic algorithms. Yes they employ the concept of evolution but it's something that can be understood in under an hour, purely from a programming perspective. Knowing the theory of evolution isn't required for someone to be skilled at machine learning algorithms. That's not to say schools shouldn't teach the theory of evolution; they should, alongside relativity and other things that can open one's mind but have virtually zero value for competing globally.
- warfangle 14y agoGlobal competition - currently - is a major contributor to climate change. The societies that learn how to be competitive without contributing to climate change will leapfrog every single other society in technology and wellbeing.
- genwin 14y agoI get your point and agree. By politicizing the standard (even if that's laughable in other countries) it virtually guarantees that half the population will be against it. It becomes a waste of time. But except for the wastage I'm not concerned. I don't want my kids focusing too much on chemistry or physics in school anyway. There are few jobs in those types of science and plenty of competition for those jobs, so it's only entertainment value for my kids. I'd like the schools to focus on Python and web development first. That's not going to happen, of course, so it's Codecademy and similar sites to fill the gap.
- AkThhhpppt 14y agoAccepting "education is for a job" in the first place: you're lining your kids up to chase the biggest growth area of the last 20 years, when biotech is likely to be the most successful area in the next 20?
- genwin 14y agoI'd probably be disappointed if a kid of mine was in the biotech field. I don't support genetic modification of food, for example.
- AkThhhpppt 14y agoWhat about biological production of plastics? Or bioinfomatics or computational biology, where they're understanding current biology, not engineering new stuff? You've discarded all of fundamental science, in favour of teaching your kids programming. Programming's important, but a physics degree _definitely_ teaches programming along with _how the universe works_. And stats. Lots and lots of stats. ",) I'm just saying; you come across as a little short sighted, here.
- genwin 14y agoIt's certainly possible that biotech can be employed for the greater good. But I'm confident there will be a ton of competition for that relative sliver of jobs. I know several people with physics degrees. None of them do physics for a living. None could find a decent job doing it. Whereas programming is a very safe bet over the next 20 years, and is better taught by Python courses than physics. I'd like schools to favor programming over physics and chemistry, but not ignore physics and chemistry altogether.