Fear sells.

[Copernicus]

I wouldn't say that scientists are eletist, but I think that many educated people think that they can change the world for the better, when actually it is really difficult to improve on cultures that already exist because they have gone through cultural evolution that has helped there society survive.

"It's the little things that are important! Love or an act of kindness that are the things that keep darkness at bay." ~ Gandalf, in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

[Frank Merton]

Astronomy should be taught in kindergarden. There are adults walking about who don't know the sun is a star. Too many of them.

I cannot resist telling a true story about someone I met on a boat in the Mekong delta. We got to talking about the moon, and I told him that what he sees as the woman in the moon is seen by Westerners as a man. That was fine with him. Either way they were pretty stupid to get stuck up there. (The Vietnamese story is "The stupid woman in the moon," and she is stuck with the Herculean job of keep the moon in the sky.) So I asked him how she (or he as the case may be) manages the job (of keeping the moon up there).

At the time I really was not being malicious; I fully expected some sort of response dealing with gravity. But instead, he thought for awhile and then said, "I don't know, but I'm glad she knows how.")

[R.A.F.]

"It's the little things that are important! Love or an act of kindness that are the things that keep darkness at bay." ~ Gandalf, in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

That's alll very nice...now can you please respond to my post, re. educated people think they can change the future for the better?


edit to add....specifically post #25.

[danscope]

Educated people as thinkers can and do influence generations of people with universaly interesting concepts in the
world view and can indeed make a very real and continuing difference in the immediate and continuing future.
An expample would be " Earth Day " .

Dan

[Copernicus]

Educated people as thinkers can and do influence generations of people with universaly interesting concepts in the
world view and can indeed make a very real and continuing difference in the immediate and continuing future.
An expample would be " Earth Day " .

Dan

Agreed, educated people make a huge difference and improvement in the world.

[Copernicus]

That's alll very nice...now can you please respond to my post, re. educated people think they can change the future for the better?


edit to add....specifically post #25.

Educated people can and do make a huge difference in the world, I just also believe in the traditions and cultures, built up over many generations, having marvelous affects that cannot not be removed from society by narrow studies.

[R.A.F.]

Educated people can and do make a huge difference in the world...

This is fact.

I just also believe in the traditions and cultures, built up over many generations, having marvelous affects that cannot not be removed from society by narrow studies.

...and this is opinion.



edit to add...please define what you mean by "narrow study".

[Copernicus]

This is fact.




...and this is opinion.



edit to add...please define what you mean by "narrow study".

Hi R.A.F.

My belief is that biological evolution, cultural evolution, etc are the combination of more than trillions of unintended experiments daily. Over time it makes the species stronger. If I take one aspect out. Lets say we did a study to get rid of the nursing shortage. Some intelligent researcher says, lets test if we raise the wages of nurses by 30 percent what happens. They do the study. Wow sure enough they raised the wages of all nurses in the united states 30 percent. A very broad study. It worked. Droves of people became nurses. Fabulous. Now what are the unintended consequences. A lot of ladies who were going to go into physics, decided to go into nursing. Nursing is 94 percent women right now. Physics guys then can't find partners and in 30 years, there is nobody bred to like physics. Now the world is in real trouble without physics geniuses.

[Superluminal]

Hi R.A.F.

My belief is that biological evolution, cultural evolution, etc are the combination of more than trillions of unintended experiments daily. Over time it makes the species stronger. If I take one aspect out. Lets say we did a study to get rid of the nursing shortage. Some intelligent researcher says, lets test if we raise the wages of nurses by 30 percent what happens. They do the study. Wow sure enough they raised the wages of all nurses in the united states 30 percent. A very broad study. It worked. Droves of people became nurses. Fabulous. Now what are the unintended consequences. A lot of ladies who were going to go into physics, decided to go into nursing. Nursing is 94 percent women right now. Physics guys then can't find partners and in 30 years, there is nobody bred to like physics. Now the world is in real trouble without physics geniuses.

I always wondered where physicists came from.

[Swift]

I just noticed this thread and it looks like trouble just waiting to happen. The OP is long gone and banned and most of the more recent posts are only mildly related to the OP and seem to be getting more off-topic and harsher. I am closing this thread. If people want to discuss ways of increasing interest in Astronomy, start new thread(s) on that. If someone has a convincing reason to reopen this thread, Report this post.