[mother engine]

maybe language and information are too damn accessible not to be abused. maybe i take things too damn seriously sometimes. and then maybe when a series of facts are collected in sevice to speculation/theory it is just economical in a linguistic sense to address said speculation/theory as though it were fact. either way i wish i could turn on a television program on the discovery channel or pbs concerning anthropology or biology and not be treated to a bastardizating of reason for the sake of narrative convenience. 'you see', some cheery faced celebrity proclaims, 'whales are the ancestors of cows', or 'its remarkable when you realize that birds are actually the descendants of dinosaurs'. i am happy to concede the possibility of a factual validity to such theories but why not call something what it is. to jump from spectulation (however fact based and reasonable speculation is still speculation) to fact as a matter of convenience is doing a serious disservice to education. impressionable minds exposed to such material (i.e. children, the most consistently underestimated and disrespected faction of televisions audience) are not likely to question the validity of such statements and so what is learned is not fact or truth but a distortion thereof. call me crazy but i would much rather hear 'the predominant theory is...', or even 'most scientist believe that...' than THIS IS THE FACT JACK.

[Fishteacher73]

Very few scientific ideas are absolute facts. Most all upper-end science is all theory (although much of it is heavily supported by evidence, but not enought to claim it to fact). A good read on such ideas is Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.

[Buffy]

Whoa! "'whales are the ancestors of cows'"??? That one's a doozy! More likely cows are the ancestors of whales, but they're really cousins. Over simplification is bad but being just plain wrong can be nasty... Nonetheless, if it gets kids to dig deeper, maybe its worth a little bit of "oversimplification".... Was that really on the Beeb? Discovery I can believe...

Cheers,
Buffy

[Turtle]

___I'm with you on this one MotheEngine; your cringe is my cringe. And of course I find the regular new shows do even cringier reporting.
___It is too general to say all the science shows exhibit these bon mots, but I agree the writing needs the clarification phrases you note. It wouldn't hurt to include little refreshers on just what the scientific method is either.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Whoa! "'whales are the ancestors of cows'"??? That one's a doozy! ...

Gee, I dunno. Cows float. Doesn't that prove it?

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Buffy

... Nonetheless, if it gets kids to dig deeper, maybe its worth a little bit of "oversimplification"....

I agree with ME. The more likely outcome is that kids don't investigate at all. After all, it is a "fact".

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

I agree with ME. The more likely outcome is that kids don't investigate at all. After all, it is a "fact".

Jeez, makes me want to start printing those old "Question Authority" bumper stickers we all used to have on our cars and start handing em out at high schools....

"Gimme an 'F'!...",
Buffy

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Jeez, makes me want to start printing those old "Question Authority" bumper stickers we all used to have on our cars and start handing em out at high schools....

Maybe. Although I am reminded more of something Fst said in some other thread (I forgot which one). He was concerned that kids no longer learn critical thinking, and I think that is true. It goes beyond questioning authority. Maybe the bumper sticker should just say "ask questions".

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

[Fish] was concerned that kids no longer learn critical thinking, and I think that is true.

Heh, heh: I'm sure Tom DeLay and Karl Rove would like to outlaw critical thinking: it gets in the way of "right thinking" and voting properly...

I happen to agree with this, and though I make the joke, I think that especially on the extreme conservative wing (both here and in the Arab world by the way), to stop all thinking other than that commanded by the representatives of God who are in charge. This basic push has all sorts of insideous representations, and in the schools I can tell that living even in a very liberal town, the push on the 3 R's in the pursuit of high test scores has pushed any "critical thinking" in all but the richest school districts which have the luxury of still doing it (and have a push by the liberal parents who know that that stuff is the only way to get into a top university....).

Cheers,
Buffy

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Buffy

...I happen to agree with this, and though I make the joke, I think that especially on the extreme conservative wing (both here and in the Arab world by the way), to stop all thinking other than that commanded by the representatives of God who are in charge. ...

Come on, Buff. Be serious. If you think that Bush, Rove or the "conservatives" have anything to do with the existing debalce in American educaiton, you need a vision adjustment. One could argue that NCLB did not assist in incentives toward critical thinking, but that is becasue NCLB was fundamentally oreinted toward getting elementary school kids reading at all.

It would be nice if you could at least occasionally drop the scathing anti-Bush diatribe. It sucks all of the credibility out of your arguments. Clinton would have given his left testicle to pass a bill like NCLB, but he couldn't do it.