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From: Lance (Social Comentary and Observation)
Remote Name: 66.82.48.1
Date: 17 Aug 2003
Time: 20:48:40
I would like to discuss the incredible information online in the form of digital type encyclopedias. I would also like to comment about the incredible amount of possibly old die-hard theories and information, which is not exactly correct even in such a medium. We all know that much of the online data in the world is incorrect, made of half-truths or actually insidious misdirection. Sometimes such misdirection is intentional and other times it is merely a form of opinion, which purports to be of higher quality data than the actual know quantities, which govern relative truth and assumed fact. Misdirection can be advantageous to those who are in a security capacity, but when used on the Internet as fact can cause misconceptions, which lead to bad decisions. Let me start by introducing a thought from a previous discussion posted here regarding online learning and some thoughts on the future of education; http://parthe.net/_cwg0703/00000077.htm And we must factor in the nurture side of learning as well, since for thousands and thousands of years has been a hand me down type of knowledge that are brains are use to receiving such educational information. We know that even Jane Goodall’s studies http://www.janegoodall.org/chimps/communication.html and http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/naturalist.pdf . With Chimpanzees and other studies currently in progress in the state of Washington that primates and chimpanzees teach their young even sign language; Additional studies; http://grimpeur.tamu.edu/~colin/TheCognitiveAnimal/ on this example. These findings mean that since children learn similarly we must and should always use the mentoring process to teach children and adults, for instance the ideas mentioned in this post; http://parthe.net/_cwg0703/0000007f.htm . I also feel that today’s educational institutions are lacking to a large degree by teaching absolutes in all sectors without teaching the renaissance concepts, which have to do with related or associated industries in neighboring fields or even fields. Which should be correlated. For instance I recently met a young lady who had studied Aerodynamics and Fuel Cells with a lot of years in both, she was unaware of the project with Boeing and the Aircraft Fuel Cell program? http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/2003/072503/fuel_cell.html . How can this be? We discussed weather also and still the aerodynamics major could not understand the differences between updrafts from mountain ranges as opposed to that of heat from a highway or down drafts associated with cooler air over a lake? Now then how can this future researcher be of value to a project or go beyond her realm to discover something new, figure out the answer to a non-linear problem which transverses many industries? That is scary. The problem is we have taught memorization of encyclopedia type information based on principles, theories and rules, which are said to be fact. Taught by those who learned their information from yesterday’s knowledge without regard to the latest and new discoveries, which are against such rules, laws of nature or principles. http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/laws/ When talking with such individuals and explaining concepts they hit a wall when you discuss information above their learned material and subject line and simply report or recite facts of yesterdays textbooks. In that case all that can be known is known and the Guy at the Patent office who said everything that can be invented already has is correct, which of course we know is preposterous indeed. “Everything that can be invented has been invented." Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899. Whoops? Now today across from the George Washington Masonic Center is a brand new multi-complex Patent office which is nearly complete and in excess of some 260 million dollars. Now then if we are wanting to look or find any of this information in such works of yester year then we can find them online, it’s all there; Britanica http://www.eb.com and World Book http://www.worldbook.com . Also Gate’s who is said to have read the encyclopedia from start to finish; which I believe to be the case having read the Dictionary, Bible, Encyclopedia, History of the World, etc, from cover to cover; had put together a more user friendly version of the digital encyclopedia as a project he believed to be a of great importance to the World. It is and it is also online; http://www.encarta.msn.com . Another interactive site is Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia http://www.gme.grolier.com And Pro-Quest http://www.bigchalk..com . Even taking such sites as Encyclopedia.com at http://www.encyclopedia.com and making an insite search feature which is user friendly seems to give you what you need. But how good is all this data really? After all it appears we keep re-writing history about every 20 years anyway to satisfy the changing society. This is bad enough, but what is worse is allowing the publish or perish world of academia the latitude to stop questioning foregone conclusions and dismiss experiment results with a sweep of the hand just because it is not easily definable or does not meet the preconceived notions of the test book is crazy. Think how many laws and rules and theories which were once thought absolute laws of nature and see how many additions or deletions have been made, that alone should force those ion the know to be humbled by the fact that they do not know Sh_t. There I said it. Now with that said, this brings me back to the problem of overhauling the education system. In that if these encyclopedia information is all that we are teaching and we are not bothered by teaching people to think and reason, then why do we need schools to teach memorization? We don’t. A child should be rewarded when he-she or it completes all the known encyclopedia knowledge and then they can go to school and use it to think. Eventually we can have computer chips with the information connected to the cerebellum to feed the information to us when we have a question. Yet allow ourselves the option of simply accepting such information or deleting it or perhaps laying the information on the table so to speak and using that which we wish to and not those parts, which do not fit our line of reasoning. How can we keep producing people into the society in such important areas such as Research when they are so linear in knowledge and so absolute to foregone pre-conceived teachings? This decreases our ability to move to the next generation of discovery for which we as a society are all hurt. For instance if we are to find a cure for Alzheimer’s which has increased as a cause of death from 1.1 in 100K people in 1979 to 17.7 in 100K people in 2003 then we are going to have to get beyond that which has not yet worked and try some off the wall stuff from other sectors of science and test those ideas. But without the ideas we have no solutions and if we do not teach people to think they will have no ideas. If we only reward for memorization, then all you will have is walking encyclopedias, which eventually die and or lose all the information stored only to be limitedly transferred to the next generation and thus NO PROGRESS. Now people have argued with me about this, yet I have been taking samples from around America and the problem is getting worse not better, people are appearing to either be dumber, not care, absolute in their reports about what they have already learned that there are few if any new original thoughts. Then when there are they are immediately squashed by some wannabe, one chapter only walking encyclopedia. Of what value can that be to the common good and forward progress of the species we love so dear. Cross pollination in research and memorization learning of fundamentals are important but learning to use the brain to think, well that is the key to this whole thing really. Here is a thought of interest on that sub topic; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0703/00000051.htm . We have discussed the issues with online learning and that people do need to understand the world’s knowledge but not is such an absolute sense. They need to know the basics and where to find it. So then here are some more sites; there are several other websites which have but libraries online for learning as well; Internet Public Library for instance; http://www.ipl.org and the government too Library of Congress catalog.loc.gov and E-Library http://www.ask.elibrary.com . It appears to me that education in this country has become baby sitting to a large degree and that children are not being challenged enough and that we are settling for low tests scores and less reasoning and adapting and problem solving, which in decades to follow will appear to be lack of intelligence, when actually it is merely a lack of exercising that muscle we call the brain. Simply knowing memorized facts is not enough to call a realistic education, knowing a good set of fundamentals is only a start, that is all it is. A start with a set of base knowledge to draw from for the foundation of what is to follow, thinking. I hope you have enjoyed this topic of conversation as it relates to mistakes we are making in the education of our future generations, which will determine the direction and speed of progress of mankind. Of we are to move the ball forward it would behoove us to remember where the goal line is and then never take our eye off the ball. Any questions give me an email; Lance@carwashguys.com
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