After rechecking, I see that the story was indeed in the UK. I envy you. It's bound to happen here as well, and there will be very little recourse available.
Graven Image - your observation about you and Mr Image being only children is very interesting, and something I hadn't considered.I think that I'm holding up is that I've lived alone most of my life, since I was 16 or 17. What I hadn't considered, until you mentioned being an only child, is that I have one sibling, ten years my senior, so it was rather like being an only child. perhaps that has helped me.
For those who are suffering a sense of isolation, being trapped, etc., I can well imagine that having people say that we should be thankful, that we'll come through this stronger would be, at the very least, intensely irritating and unhelpful. I will say, from my perspective, that to read people posting here that, really, I'm in denial, and not doing well at all, makes me grind my molars at their condescension. Each of us will get through this as best we can, and lecturing one way or other over the fence does no one any good.
My ma in law, who is 93, said that every morning she gives thanks that she's not in a care home. She lives alone, and manages with help from neighbours. How amazing that a care home could be seen as a death trap. But there was an old guy on TV, in an area with treatment in the home facilities, who was wailing to the nurses, I'm not going in hospital.
That's what they are generally known as over here.
Both my mother and father were confined to such institutions toward the end. I have some pleasant memories of their experiences, some downright funny, but in general they were hell holes.
My grandfather, who worked as a GP not far from Eastbourne described his town as a place where people went to die, and then forgot what they had gone for.
That's Dr. Deborah Birx, who is the administration's coronavirus task force response coordinator. I know there are various (possibly legit) questions about the CDC and the WHO. But this has me wondering if T has gotten to Dr. Birx...and she's seemed to me one of the saner people dealing with this at the White House level...
A niece of ours is a researcher at the CDC in Atlanta. She recently told the family that she had spent her whole career preparing for a time like this - it's what she lives for. A pox on that shitehouse of a White House
As anyone who follows my posts (hello? knock knock... is the mic on?) knows, my background is history and philosophy. But my sister is a geneticist, one of my best friends is a biochemist, and another is an astrophysicist, so I have a pretty sciencey milieu. What I cannot understand is how a culture, both tech driven, and tech obsessed, is simultaneously hostile to science as knowledge and method. Is it a strange cognitive dissonance, like witch trials during the beginning of the Enlightenment? Are we at a liminal stage of some sort? Enquiring minds....
If you mean the conspiracy theories, something I notice in the people I see expressing them is it seems to be more an ego thing than a genuine search for truth. People are not giving logical or rational arguments for their views, but focusing on how they are independent-minded and think for themselves, and are not one of the 'sheeple.' It seems about a self-image of being more astute and free-minded than the majority, about not being controlled by the government, about being one of the special few who can see the real truth, who aren't gullible. A huge ego thing.
Ah yes, true. Not sure to what extent that is happening in the UK. The evangelical Christians I know are being incredibly rigid about lockdown and very vocal about the evils of the people not sticking to it - to the extent of even judging people they see out walking who could simply be families who live together. I am seeing these two extremes in general - at one extreme, people judging everyone they see out walking (despite the fact they're out walking themselves - they seem to think everyone else should have stayed home so they could be the sole walker!), and taking photos and putting them on FB to shame people, and calling the police over groups of three people who could easily be a family. At the other extreme, the conspiracy theorists who refuse to comply with rules because they are free thinkers and this is all a plot that we sheeple are blind to because we are not opening our eyes and thinking for ourselves.
Minimal or no science education for the vast majority of children.
Except that's not true. Children in this state get science every year from 6th through 12th grade, and a good bit of it before then. It just doesn't seem to rub off.
That's Dr. Deborah Birx, who is the administration's coronavirus task force response coordinator. I know there are various (possibly legit) questions about the CDC and the WHO. But this has me wondering if T has gotten to Dr. Birx...and she's seemed to me one of the saner people dealing with this at the White House level...
Here's her reaction when Trump was suggesting using light inside the body or injecting disinfectants to kill the virus. She looks uncomfortable in the extreme, but she didn't say anything. I have a problem with that.
Minimal or no science education for the vast majority of children.
Except that's not true. Children in this state get science every year from 6th through 12th grade, and a good bit of it before then. It just doesn't seem to rub off.
Of course, there are jurisdictional variations. I hated biology, so never took it after Grade 9 - after that, physics and chemistry. (Long, complicated story about biology.) And a lot of maths. A friend of mine, very bright guy, gamed the system to avoid (real) science and (real) mathematics after Grade 10. He is, as a result, a scientific illiterate. I once made a joke about being asymptotic, and he hadn't a clue what I meant. And we came up through the same public provincial system.
As to Birx, the single best thing that she could have done was to fall on her sword, and say, Mr President, you haven't the foggiest clue what you're talking about. You are ignorant of any relevant fact. Step aside. Of course, she would have been fired, but she would have been fired with great honour. At the very least, it would have made for some great television.
Minimal or no science education for the vast majority of children.
Actually, you do have a point. I friend of mine grew up in Georgia (the US state) and I grew up in Ontario (the Canadian province) and she was astounded at what we were taught. I don't know where Georgia places on the table in the US, but my high school calculus, she thought, was university level, and we were doing particle/wave theory in physics (granted, not advanced). My school was in the public system, not an elite private school. I'm not brilliant - I was lucky that the system did its job in a working class town. (The lesson is, pay your taxes. You get what you pay for.)
Yes, I saw her reaction. I think maybe one reason she and the others don't fit is...would T appoint anyone else, and who would they be? We're in the middle of a pandemic; we have an extremely broken president who's a flim-flam man, thinks he's got smarts and is admire for them because his uncle was at MIT, and who probably couldn't find his way out of a paper bag.
If the task force members stay in their jobs, there's at least a chance that they may be able to do some good, carefully balance some of what T says, and try to educate him at a teeny, tiny, nano level.
Some governors have made nice, or even kissed up, to try to get the anti-corona supplies and help they need. Gavin Newsom, governor here in California, one of them. I'm not sure how well that's gone--T really, really hates California as a primarily blue/Democratic state. OTOH, T is happy to help Florida, which tends to support him.
Being tech driven and tech obsessed doesn't automatically mean that people understand the witchcraft science.
Technology and science are different, though related, disciplines. There are some advances in scientific understanding that allow the development of new technology, but most technology develops without the need for new scientific advances. There was new scientific understanding about the electrical properties of crystalline silicon and the effects of various trace elements on those, these lead to the development of integrated circuits ... all that followed from the first home computers to the significantly more powerful computational capability of your mobile phone proceeded without any significant scientific advances in the understanding of the properties of silicon. Designers of new tech don't need to understand the science of the electrical properties of silicon, they are engineers rather than scientists.
And, I agree that a large portion of the population is effectively scientifically illiterate. They may have some residual information of science attained at school, but not enough to be able to understand current scientific debates unless those debates are broken down to more easily understood terms (and, doing that well takes a considerable amount of skill). Most practising scientists would be effectively scientifically illiterate in regard to significantly different fields of science - I consider myself well informed about bioscience but would not be able to read and understand the full details of a paper on key aspects of coronavirus behaviour. There's nothing wrong with not being able to read every scientific paper produced, anymore than there's something wrong with not being able to appreciate the artistic skill of Jackson Pollock. There's probably something wrong with not making the attempt when needed, or at least not making the effort and also rejecting what experts are saying.
Minimal or no science education for the vast majority of children.
Except that's not true. Children in this state get science every year from 6th through 12th grade, and a good bit of it before then. It just doesn't seem to rub off.
They do, but it doesn't connect with their lives. Partly, I think, it faces the same "science and math are hard" folk wisdom that math does. People are happy - almost proud - to tell you that they don't understand science - that it's too hard for them, that they were never any good at it at school, and so on. And when they learn science at school, it al stays inside its "school subject" box. Someone will tell you that they "did chemistry" and might even be able to recall performing particular experiments, but makes no connection between "school chemistry" and baking, for example.
Minimal or no science education for the vast majority of children.
Except that's not true. Children in this state get science every year from 6th through 12th grade, and a good bit of it before then. It just doesn't seem to rub off.
Yes, we get tons and tons of it too. If I had to guess, the real problem comes in trying to teach critical, logical thinking--which is the problem of the English teacher as well as the science people. And there's always that contingent of kids at the back of the room flipping each other off and paying attention to ANYTHING but the incredibly necessary subject in front of them...
I'd like to see some sort of national standard (with exams!) in critical thinking. But no doubt the older doofuses (doofi?) would reject it.
There's a stupid pill in the Anglosphere. That's the only possible conclusion of current events and effects like this. Why is learning so difficult for Anglosphere kids to get their heads round? Why are our populations so supine and stupid? There is something seriously wrong at a cultural level?
There's a stupid pill in the Anglosphere. That's the only possible conclusion of current events and effects like this. Why is learning so difficult for Anglosphere kids to get their heads round? Why are our populations so supine and stupid? There is something seriously wrong at a cultural level?
Seriously? You want people to make their own mind up about whether they're at risk at work? You think people are going to be able to make a rational decision about that? No wonder he clashed with his teachers if he's always been this much of an entitled tosser.
I wouldn't mind so much if people were managing their own risk profile, but that's not what they're doing. Other people's behaviour determines the community spread of the virus. It's not just about you.
I see the same thing in the remarks of some people who want the lockdown to end so they can have haircuts and so on -- in all cases it seems that they want someone else to carry the risk of their own convenience.
Context is all with some of those. I want lockdown to end is so I can see my family and do normal things like getting a haircut but ... Only if it's safe for everyone.
I was overjoyed to learn that my local coffee shop is opening for takeaways each morning from tomorrow. It's a family owned business so I'm assuming they've worked out a way to do this safely.
I shall be masked and gloved in the queue with my bucket for my first latte in weeks. And as no one else in the house likes coffee, I get to go on my own. A small slice of normality and some on my own time. Anyone who takes photos of me whilst I'm doing it can do one.
I'd like to see some sort of national standard (with exams!) in critical thinking. But no doubt the older doofuses (doofi?) would reject it.
Oddly enough my wee sister did an AS-Level in Critical Thinking. I think such things have been stamped out by the current government in favour of being able to break wind in Ancient Greek but there is an old specification here: https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/73470-specification.pdf
Minimal or no science education for the vast majority of children.
Except that's not true. Children in this state get science every year from 6th through 12th grade, and a good bit of it before then. It just doesn't seem to rub off.
Yes, we get tons and tons of it too. If I had to guess, the real problem comes in trying to teach critical, logical thinking--which is the problem of the English teacher as well as the science people. And there's always that contingent of kids at the back of the room flipping each other off and paying attention to ANYTHING but the incredibly necessary subject in front of them...
I'd like to see some sort of national standard (with exams!) in critical thinking. But no doubt the older doofuses (doofi?) would reject it.
All of this. I learned critical thinking from my 11th grade humanities (an elective) teacher, and bless him every day of my life for it (may his memory be eternal). In an interesting twist, I was trying to find him online about 10 years back, and found a note from an author of a book on Amazon who said that R.G. (our mutual teacher) had taught him how to think, which is what I have always said. I'm sure there must be more than 2 of us. Dr. G. did a great service no doubt for a great many students. Even if he was an asshole.
My brother was reminding me the other day of how our Pater taught us critical thinking over the dinner table, bringing up an Important Subject of the Day (after we had each said what we'd learned that day, and explained it to the family, after which we were allowed to speak of other things), and then instructing us to argue both sides of it. More parents should do that.
My brother was reminding me the other day of how our Pater taught us critical thinking over the dinner table, bringing up an Important Subject of the Day (after we had each said what we'd learned that day, and explained it to the family, after which we were allowed to speak of other things), and then instructing us to argue both sides of it. More parents should do that.
You'd need to start by having families sit together at the dinner table, and to turn off the TV. Not going to happen.
I recall seeing a TV interview, aeons ago, back in Happier Times, with Michelle Obama, where she stated that the First Family did indeed, whenever possible, sit down together for an evening meal.
She also mentioned that Eldest Daughter would invariably ask Barack about what he had done that day, resulting in a long political speech, whilst she and Youngest Daughter really wanted to discuss clothes, makeup etc. etc.
I kinda like the experiential learning of Forest Schools and Ecoquest programs. Learn trigonometry for example by calculating the distance across a river. Write an an essay or about the urban wildlife your class's trail camera picked up. Must not be driven to school. Make your own way there with parental help.
The kids end up competent and lack anxiety. Nature bathing, broadly intellectual intellectual, unanxious, competent.
My brother was reminding me the other day of how our Pater taught us critical thinking over the dinner table, bringing up an Important Subject of the Day (after we had each said what we'd learned that day, and explained it to the family, after which we were allowed to speak of other things), and then instructing us to argue both sides of it. More parents should do that.
You'd need to start by having families sit together at the dinner table, and to turn off the TV. Not going to happen.
At that time, our TV was a tiny black-and-white model. It lived in a back room and was available by appointment only. We were book freaks.
I have a television, but it’s in a room on the lower level; I have to use the chairlift to get there, and it seldom seems worth the effort.
Oddly enough my wee sister did an AS-Level in Critical Thinking. I think such things have been stamped out by the current government in favour of being able to break wind in Ancient Greek but there is an old specification here: https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/73470-specification.pdf
Looks interesting, thanks. In my day, that would certainly have been regarded as a bit of a Noddy course (rather like General Studies), and many of us would have thought that we'd be able to score reasonable marks on the examination without any dedicated study. We'd have also thought that, given that we thought that, there was little point in attempting the exam as it wouldn't be well regarded by university admissions officers.
I think we would have been only half-way right on both fronts. But we were arrogant little shits back then...
I think many of us find being positive is a good coping mechanism. If I can convince myself that this is one of the better possible worlds, I am better off. The asshole issue is when I start telling everyone else that they should use my coping mechanisms.
While we are listing groups that have it easier, working parent of medium to large kids with spouse who is either always stay at home or furloughed and capable of running a house and kids. I have my obligation to earn money and keep our house going, so when I want everyone else to go die in a fire, I close my door and work on the earning money thing. I also sometimes yell that they should all die in a fire, but that's probably less adaptive.
One of the most useful things I did at school was a ScotVec module in philosophy. It covered (fairly shallowly) definitions of consciousness and self awareness, ethics and logic. It was taught by a PE teacher who recently retired as head teacher of my old high school. I suspect the effect of that short, non-tested course on my work has been greater than then effect of my school chemistry, physics and biology.
When I took the International Baccalaureate back in the dim and distant past it included a compulsory epistemology (theory of knowledge) course - and I believe it still does.
If some of you have kids who are not in their last to years of school yet - might be worth if seeing if an education provider in your area offers it.
When I took the International Baccalaureate back in the dim and distant past it included a compulsory epistemology (theory of knowledge) course - and I believe it still does.
Sadly epistemology as a subject tends towards questions like, Do I know whether I'm not really a brain in a vat in the Matrix? as opposed to, Do I know whether this politician is an irresponsible demagogue?
Comments
Extortion. Capitalism is based, in part, on it.
Pretty certain neither employers or employees can consider the Health and Safety at Work Act as optional.
For those who are suffering a sense of isolation, being trapped, etc., I can well imagine that having people say that we should be thankful, that we'll come through this stronger would be, at the very least, intensely irritating and unhelpful. I will say, from my perspective, that to read people posting here that, really, I'm in denial, and not doing well at all, makes me grind my molars at their condescension. Each of us will get through this as best we can, and lecturing one way or other over the fence does no one any good.
My late father-in-law, who, sadly, had Alzheimer's, and died a few years ago in a home, used to refer to them as 'God's Waiting-Rooms'.
Stephanie Cole, and Graham Crowden, behaving rather badly...
That's what they are generally known as over here.
Both my mother and father were confined to such institutions toward the end. I have some pleasant memories of their experiences, some downright funny, but in general they were hell holes.
"Birx said 'there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust' in a White House coronavirus task force meeting" (Business Insider).
That's Dr. Deborah Birx, who is the administration's coronavirus task force response coordinator. I know there are various (possibly legit) questions about the CDC and the WHO. But this has me wondering if T has gotten to Dr. Birx...and she's seemed to me one of the saner people dealing with this at the White House level...
Except that's not true. Children in this state get science every year from 6th through 12th grade, and a good bit of it before then. It just doesn't seem to rub off.
Of course, there are jurisdictional variations. I hated biology, so never took it after Grade 9 - after that, physics and chemistry. (Long, complicated story about biology.) And a lot of maths. A friend of mine, very bright guy, gamed the system to avoid (real) science and (real) mathematics after Grade 10. He is, as a result, a scientific illiterate. I once made a joke about being asymptotic, and he hadn't a clue what I meant. And we came up through the same public provincial system.
As to Birx, the single best thing that she could have done was to fall on her sword, and say, Mr President, you haven't the foggiest clue what you're talking about. You are ignorant of any relevant fact. Step aside. Of course, she would have been fired, but she would have been fired with great honour. At the very least, it would have made for some great television.
Actually, you do have a point. I friend of mine grew up in Georgia (the US state) and I grew up in Ontario (the Canadian province) and she was astounded at what we were taught. I don't know where Georgia places on the table in the US, but my high school calculus, she thought, was university level, and we were doing particle/wave theory in physics (granted, not advanced). My school was in the public system, not an elite private school. I'm not brilliant - I was lucky that the system did its job in a working class town. (The lesson is, pay your taxes. You get what you pay for.)
Yes, I saw her reaction. I think maybe one reason she and the others don't fit is...would T appoint anyone else, and who would they be? We're in the middle of a pandemic; we have an extremely broken president who's a flim-flam man, thinks he's got smarts and is admire for them because his uncle was at MIT, and who probably couldn't find his way out of a paper bag.
If the task force members stay in their jobs, there's at least a chance that they may be able to do some good, carefully balance some of what T says, and try to educate him at a teeny, tiny, nano level.
Some governors have made nice, or even kissed up, to try to get the anti-corona supplies and help they need. Gavin Newsom, governor here in California, one of them. I'm not sure how well that's gone--T really, really hates California as a primarily blue/Democratic state. OTOH, T is happy to help Florida, which tends to support him.
Science that makes our lives easier or better is good. Science that makes our lives harder or worse is bad. Whether it's right is irrelevant.
And, I agree that a large portion of the population is effectively scientifically illiterate. They may have some residual information of science attained at school, but not enough to be able to understand current scientific debates unless those debates are broken down to more easily understood terms (and, doing that well takes a considerable amount of skill). Most practising scientists would be effectively scientifically illiterate in regard to significantly different fields of science - I consider myself well informed about bioscience but would not be able to read and understand the full details of a paper on key aspects of coronavirus behaviour. There's nothing wrong with not being able to read every scientific paper produced, anymore than there's something wrong with not being able to appreciate the artistic skill of Jackson Pollock. There's probably something wrong with not making the attempt when needed, or at least not making the effort and also rejecting what experts are saying.
They do, but it doesn't connect with their lives. Partly, I think, it faces the same "science and math are hard" folk wisdom that math does. People are happy - almost proud - to tell you that they don't understand science - that it's too hard for them, that they were never any good at it at school, and so on. And when they learn science at school, it al stays inside its "school subject" box. Someone will tell you that they "did chemistry" and might even be able to recall performing particular experiments, but makes no connection between "school chemistry" and baking, for example.
Yes, we get tons and tons of it too. If I had to guess, the real problem comes in trying to teach critical, logical thinking--which is the problem of the English teacher as well as the science people. And there's always that contingent of kids at the back of the room flipping each other off and paying attention to ANYTHING but the incredibly necessary subject in front of them...
I'd like to see some sort of national standard (with exams!) in critical thinking. But no doubt the older doofuses (doofi?) would reject it.
I blame Murdoch.
Context is all with some of those. I want lockdown to end is so I can see my family and do normal things like getting a haircut but ... Only if it's safe for everyone.
I was overjoyed to learn that my local coffee shop is opening for takeaways each morning from tomorrow. It's a family owned business so I'm assuming they've worked out a way to do this safely.
I shall be masked and gloved in the queue with my bucket for my first latte in weeks. And as no one else in the house likes coffee, I get to go on my own. A small slice of normality and some on my own time. Anyone who takes photos of me whilst I'm doing it can do one.
Oddly enough my wee sister did an AS-Level in Critical Thinking. I think such things have been stamped out by the current government in favour of being able to break wind in Ancient Greek but there is an old specification here:
https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/73470-specification.pdf
All of this. I learned critical thinking from my 11th grade humanities (an elective) teacher, and bless him every day of my life for it (may his memory be eternal). In an interesting twist, I was trying to find him online about 10 years back, and found a note from an author of a book on Amazon who said that R.G. (our mutual teacher) had taught him how to think, which is what I have always said. I'm sure there must be more than 2 of us. Dr. G. did a great service no doubt for a great many students. Even if he was an asshole.
She also mentioned that Eldest Daughter would invariably ask Barack about what he had done that day, resulting in a long political speech, whilst she and Youngest Daughter really wanted to discuss clothes, makeup etc. etc.
The kids end up competent and lack anxiety. Nature bathing, broadly intellectual intellectual, unanxious, competent.
I have a television, but it’s in a room on the lower level; I have to use the chairlift to get there, and it seldom seems worth the effort.
Looks interesting, thanks. In my day, that would certainly have been regarded as a bit of a Noddy course (rather like General Studies), and many of us would have thought that we'd be able to score reasonable marks on the examination without any dedicated study. We'd have also thought that, given that we thought that, there was little point in attempting the exam as it wouldn't be well regarded by university admissions officers.
I think we would have been only half-way right on both fronts. But we were arrogant little shits back then...
While we are listing groups that have it easier, working parent of medium to large kids with spouse who is either always stay at home or furloughed and capable of running a house and kids. I have my obligation to earn money and keep our house going, so when I want everyone else to go die in a fire, I close my door and work on the earning money thing. I also sometimes yell that they should all die in a fire, but that's probably less adaptive.
Cattyish, really need to get out for a run.
If some of you have kids who are not in their last to years of school yet - might be worth if seeing if an education provider in your area offers it.