Re: Michael Thames school for dummies

On Apr 21, 3:27 pm, Miguel de Maria <elegantspanishgui...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Apr 21, 2:55 pm, Slogoin <la...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 21, 2:38 pm, Miguel de Maria <elegantspanishgui...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Interesting too.  One view of this passage is that the writer finds
that common folk have little knowledge of the jargon or foundational
concepts of his particular discipline.

    That would be the view of those who think math is simply another
discipline and not something as fundamental to education as language.

I think he was talking about science.  Math is the language used.



 Unstated, but possibly implied, is that one should be conversant in his discipline.

   Shouted in the deafening silence is more like it.

So it wasn't just me! :)



 The ability to verbally interact with others competently is at least as
important, I think.  Another equally important but even more neglected
discipline is that of history.

     What is history without art and science?

That's a throwaway question, right?  History is what happened, and
hopefully, why and how.  Art and science are two continuing
disciplines with histories of their own.  Larry, check out
"Civilisation", a video series showing glorious artwork paired the
music of each age... I checked mine out of the library.  You won't be
sorry.  The history of science is one reason I think the unbridled
advocacy of scientific viewpoints should be tempered.

It was only a century ago that many of the leading men of science were
phrenologists who wanted to organize schools on head-bumps.  Shortly
thereafter, race science was all the rage; when we learned that
"intelligence" was correlated with the distance between one's penis
and one's navel.  Around the same time, skulls of differing races were
measured with shot and--lo and behold!--turned out that Germans were
the biggest brains and blacks the smallest (later on, these particular
skulls were measured again and the original measurements were terribly
awry!)  I think this was when it was scientifically determined that
the most beautiful facial angle is one where the forehead protrudes
slightly in a line down to a slightly recessed chin--the Greek
statuary look, and of course the opposite of mongoloid and African
faces.  Darwin's great theory was put to practical use in public
policy, inspiring Anglo-Saxon fear of the degenerate masses of
Italians and Slavs pouring into New York.  IQ tests were developed and
given to draftees, scientifically proving that Poles were the dumbest
of all whites (but better than Asiatics or blacks--of course).
Behaviorism swung into full force, bringing scientific rigor to
classrooms--and people got even dumber.  The scientific management of
societies from Italy (the trains ran on time, didn't they?) to the
USSR (a scientific state religion) to here, where we substituted the
scientific, maths-based market for God and the corporate oligarchy for
the Church.

Science is a great tool--one of the best!  But this tool is easily
used to kill and control, and at least in the West, substitutes for
traditional morality.  Its lethality should be kept in mind, so that
we can all be "responsible science owners" (as in "Science doesn't
kill people, people kill people!").  How dangerous to base morality
and human behavior on a rapidly-changing set of assumptions.  The
difference between me and Jackson on this score is that I don't claim
to have the solution.

My apologies if this doesn't apply to you, but I enjoyed writing it!

Miguel,

Why don't you give up that big, black, hairy vagina and start
swinging'?


David
.

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