Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (163866)	6/8/2005 2:24:09 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 281500

>> What's changed is the amount of knowledge that we, as a species, have accumulated. Yes, I agree. And progress of knowledge requires experimentation and creativity, neither of which are possible if you have to mandate the methods and life styles. So I do believe my argument for freedom holds. >> This isn't about ideology, it's about asking the daisychain of questions about a subject: yes, but... Yes it is indeed ideology. Your ideology is imbedded in the questions you ask in what you see as the purpose of education. Again, I repeat myself and hope that I can reach you better this time. You seem to believe that a scientific approach to the universe is best and that the purpose of school is to teach pure "objective" science. You further believe in the separation of "church" and school. This is an ideology. That it is as clear to you to be the "right" thing as some people's belief in God's grand plan on earth is to them is simply an article of faith and cannot be settled by objective debate. What can somewhat settle this argument is freedom and time. Freedom for anyone to believe and act in whatever way seems fit to them. And time so it can be shown how each approach provides a solution for every case. The job of the government then is to assure freedom for all, open access to information, and protection from fraud. That is all the government has to do (ok I can buy into some national defence and general governance, but only a little). Now I am going to provide you with two examples related to education and scientific approach. My conclusions are very clear to me but your mileage may vary. (1) James Rogers (the famous hedge fund manager who is now teaching in Columbia Business School) tells a story of how one of his friends sent him her daughter so Rogers could convince the girl to go to business school. Instead Rogers told the kid that she should use the $100k she'd spend on college tuition to start a business. The business would either do well, which so much the better, or it'll fail. But either way she'd learn more about business than the fancy education. CONCLUSION: not everyone believes formal education is a must or even the best way to learn, not even highly acclaimed professors. (2) A few years ago a pair of scientists experimented on mice to see how environment effects preferences. They got their mice (presumably identical) and kept them in controlled conditions in different cages and monitored their health and behaviour. In the end they could find no reason for the different preferences (like preferring a chocolate pudding over vanilla). So they published their paper claiming that small differences in environment, such as how long a mouse is held on the palm before being placed on the weight scale, leads to substantial differences in behaviour!! CONCLUSION: The product of rigid objective indcotrination/education is to create dumb scientists who objectify everything and cannot possibly accept that living beings may not be just bio-chemical automata.