The definition of "irony"

[theweaselking]

Offended by the content, high school student's father is attempting to make the school board ban Fahrenheit 451

I'm reminded of the Jehovah's Witness student in one of my mother's high school classes who insisted that The Crucible was totally unacceptable material, and got assigned Oedipus Rex instead. Further proof that JWs can't read: the student and his parents found nothing wrong or objectionable in Oedipus Rex.

Comments

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

People should be legally prohibited (perhaps on pain of death) from whining about books they have not read.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Don't you understand? Reading books that involve bad things means you have to THINK about bad things, and the sin is in the thought, not the deed! God doesn't WANT us to read about sin, and things that glorify sin!

(See also: First Amendment, etc.)

The problem is that you can't legally fail people out of public school for saying that their religion prohibits them from doing the required class work. I'd much rather be able to say "Okay, you don't have to take science if you don't 'believe in' evolution. You can't graduate from high school without science credits, though, because a high school diploma is supposed to prove that you meet minimum standards of education and critical thinking ability. If you haven't passed science, you don't meet the minimum education standard. If you take science and you think evolution is unsupported or a trick or a lie, then you don't meet the minimum critical thinking ability. Next!"

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

Actually, to most high school students evolution is just another random creation myth and it makes no difference to their critical thinking ability which one they are force fed. If people were not able to graduate high school without critical thinking, the pickings would be slim indeed. I am pretty sure I was the only student in my high school who had done any thinking about evolution over and above "dinosaurs are cool". For instance, I could find no answer to how a species with a different number of chromosomes could emerge by small gradual changes. My teacher had no idea either. Obviously it had happened, but somehow it never happens while we are looking: Almost no species have a variable chromosome count. (This was before punctuated equilibrium was "invented".)

I am slightly disturbed by your seeming belief that some idiots are less idiotic than others because they have had the good fortune to be force fed the current truth instead of an older one. I think it takes more.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Is this a problem with how students think, or with how they are taught? It seems to be a sort of chicken and egg question: you need to be able to think critically, but you also need something to think critically about. Some research assignments try to get students to do both at once, and the results are what one researcher called the "anxiety stage" of information seeking.

Also, it's easier to teach a basic skill or a set of facts than to teach analytical reasoning, and you can cover more material in less time that way. (Not that I approve of this state of affairs, but since my teaching consists almost entirely of 50-minute one-shot introductions to library research, I end up squeezing in the critical evaluation part when and how I can.)

Also, how many high school science teachers are scientists themselves? Not many, from what I understand.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

The way our society has developed, I'm afraid high school is more close to grade school than to college. It is a kind of belated remedy to try to get facts and basic skills into the heads of kids (not to mention keeping them from doing mischief during the workday). While some introduction to actual thinking would be nice, the fact that high school is pretty much compulsory means you have to go for a kind of lowest common denominator.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Actually, to most high school students evolution is just another random creation myth and it makes no difference to their critical thinking ability which one they are force fed.

You appear to have gone to really bad schools.

Mine tended to say "These are the facts. Here are the conclusions we draw from the facts. Here's where you can look for more facts[1]. Any questions?" and address is from there.

I am slightly disturbed by your seeming belief that some idiots are less idiotic than others because they have had the good fortune to be force fed the current truth instead of an older one.

It's not a matter of being "force-fed the current truth". It's a much simpler statement: If you think evolution is a "creation myth", then you're either uneducated or incapable of critical thinking. Period. There is no third option. Whichever it is, you shouldn't have a diploma stating that you know the useful basics, because you don't.

[1]: which nobody ever did. This was high-school. That's not the point.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

Evolution is certainly not a myth in the sense of "myth" as a generic synonym for "lie". But the thing is, a myth is never meant to be a lie. It is always the closest approximation to the truth that still gives meaning. Right now, evolution is that.

Evolution as popularly taught in school and popular science is not the truth. It still retains rampant anthropomorphism ("Evolution gave us..., evolution solved this problem by...") not to mention anthropocentrism. Notice how humans (usually a caucasian male) is frequently portrayed at the right end of the evolution mural, rather than as just another twig on the overly bushy tree of life, where some twigs became airborne, some blue, some intelligent and some hard and thorny; each according to what was useful in their environment. This is closer to the truth, but we forsake a little bit of truth in order to gain a lot of meaning. Most humans cannot bear the idea that we were not Meant to Be.

[faeriemuriel.livejournal.com]

But we do vary chromosomes in mutations. Autism and Down's Syndrome can be linked to more or less chromosomes than you're supposed to have--and sometimes having more or less chromosomes doesn't affect you at all.But say one day,someone had a different number of chromosomes that somehow made them better in some way?They'd breed and spread it around.That's part of the theory.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

That's actually the problem, adding even one chromosome tends to have drastic effects in humans. Down's syndrome is the best known, but even adding an extra Y chromosome, the smallest of them all, causes mental retardation. (Of course, some my argue that so does the first Y chromosome, but you see the point.) I also know of one plant, though the English name escapes me, it is popularly referred to as "the twelve apostles" because there are twelve divergent forms of it caused by varying chromosome numbers. Most species, animal or plant, however, do not seem to be in such a state of chromosomal flux. And yet close relatives like sheep and goats, not to mention humans and chimpanzees, must have had a variable chromosome count in the geologically recent past with no ill effects. Actually with so few effects at all that they were recognized as members of the herd long enough to breed.

This is hardly a proof that Jehovah occasionally comes back to the workshop to make new species, but it shows that evolution is a more fractal process than kids learned when I was in high school, and micromutation (like the color-changing moth) were the only known.

[faeriemuriel.livejournal.com]

Well ya,it has to be an astronomical ratio of when a mutation like that isn't harmful.But when it's harmful,it doesn't really breed out and such as that.Or maybe the body recognizes it as not good and fixes it back to normal in the next generation.

But ya.The way I see it,science is what's taught at school. Whether you believe in it or not,you still need to know about it for one reason or another. I don't believe in a lot of Bible stuff,but I've still read the Bible and know the stories because I'd look like an uneducated dolt if I didn't. = P

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

Very good point. If we did not lie to children, they would never learn the truth. Of course electrons don't circle the atomic nucleus like small blue planets. But when I was in grade school, I loved those pictures. If my teachers had tried to teach me about quantum fluctuations and the uncertainty principle, I would have run home crying. We need to learn approximate truths before we can learn more refined truths. And so did our civilization.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

What if they could study physics or chemistry?

Actually, I think our schools should teach informal reasoning and have readings which stimulate discussions of ethics for children as young as possible.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

In my school, you needed all three. Even then, if you don't 'believe in' elements or inertia, you're still an ignoramus.

And biology is not only the easiest acid test for idiocy, but it's also the one in the most need of improvement.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Ow. My head. The stupid, it hurts.