What's even more depressing are some of the comments, which show an extraordinary dearth of both education and intelligence. The commonest failing seems to be an inability to distinguish between the two relevant meanings of the word "belief", the one that refers to something faith-based and the other that concerns an empirically based conclusion. This isn't a vocabulary matter: it's a failure to be able to distinguish between two fundamentally dissimilar things because confused at some very elementary level by their having the same name. In logical terms this is an imbecility, of course.
Our schools and to a great extent our universities lack courses on what I'd suggest is the most important educational function of all: teaching young people how to think. I guess the assumption is that the ability to think is innate to human beings, even though it's patently obvious that this isn't the case. But the ancient Greeks, among others, recognized the importance of this educational discipline; why have we lost sight of it?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-12-09 11:43 pm (UTC)Our schools and to a great extent our universities lack courses on what I'd suggest is the most important educational function of all: teaching young people how to think. I guess the assumption is that the ability to think is innate to human beings, even though it's patently obvious that this isn't the case. But the ancient Greeks, among others, recognized the importance of this educational discipline; why have we lost sight of it?