I've been watching a series on the Discovery Channel called What the Ancients Knew. When I was discussing the Japanese ability to create non-electronic robots, I was overcome by how much we don't know and how much we ignore.
We ignore so much of the knowledge of the past because we see it as provincial, quaint, and small-minded. We forget that from those ideas come our own. We can expand on something someone knew thousands of years ago and come up with something like a microchip (it has to do with ceramics). We are looking less and less to the past, and as a result, important scientific discoveries are being held up, or worse, completely overlooked.
We are so far behind the rest of the world educationally, but we should be even more ashamed of how little we have been able to accomplish with the information we have. At this point in history more people have more access to the most information humankind has EVER had. Shouldn't we be doing better? Are we really, as a country, as a world, or even as individuals, working up to our potential? Somehow, I doubt it.
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So very true. We have a myopic view of the world and history, instead of a realistic one. I've heard people claim that only space aliens could've created the pyramids. What, only WE are intelligent enough to do great things? Puh-leeze. It's this idiotic thinking that will doom us to repeating the same mistakes which have been made over the thousands of years of "civilization" that mankind has experienced.
Well, the ancients are kind of aliens to us since we only have a small percentage of the knowledge they had. I wouldn't exactly call them space aliens, though. We have no idea the about the things they could do on a daily basis. We only assume they were primative in their knowledge. All we do is make the same mistakes over and over. You can find parallels to the mistakes we make today to the downfall of every civilization in history. We've learned virtually nothing of merit.
I think knowledge evolves with the rest of us. Indians had great knowledge when it came to making bows and arrows that is lost to the vast majority of us today. Yet the average person today can navigate the internet with ease while our ancestors would shudder at the thought.
I don't think that it is a lack of knowledge but just an evolved set of knowledge.
I also don't think that our current knowledge is stagnate. Some people are geared for revolutionary thinking and the vast majority aren't. That could apply to this generation and to all previous generations. It just seems like the previous generations had more thinkers because history only writes about those that succeeded.
I do agree with your opinion on our education ranking with the rest of the world and I do think this hurts us in everyday life. But I think those that are going to revolutionize the world with their thinking are still going to get the education they need regardless if the masses just keep getting dumber. However, getting support and encouragement from the society around them may be a different story and is why Japan is beating the pants off us when it comes to science and technology.
No, Ed, I've got to disagree. Some where out there is a kid who could revolutionize American industry, or business, or government, or something. But the people who run his school are more interested in testing than in learning. They're playing accounting games rather than nurturing promising young mind, and trying to make the kids who dont care perform at the level of the kids who do (whose levels drop due to inattention and distraction).
And if that poor kid should weather the storm of primary education and survive with his intellect intact, he then faces paying for college at a rate of increase that defies that of even medical expenses (and in too many cases penalizes him for going part-time and working his way through school - remember that part of the American Dream?).
As for the ancients, we've been bouncing up and down the road to technological prowess for millenia. Ever read Charles Pelegrino's books Ghosts of Vesuvius or Unearthing Atlantis? 3500 years ago, the Minoan culture, at least on the island of Thera, had multi-story houses with plumbing. The Pompeiians had plumbing, glass windows, and there's evidence of steam-powered machinery!
Ever seen the Greek Computer that's estimated at 2000 years old?
This isnt to say that they were better or more advanced than we are. But most Americans would be more surprised to see an African villager on a cell phone (probably a more advanced model than we have), or an Afghani in an internet cafe, or a Guatamalen watching DVD on his television, than they would to discover that they had idea that the Republic of Georgia was there. And that's really sad.
...had no idea that the Republic of Georgia was there. (personal experience, I really didnt know)
ps. always preview the big ones, right?
Dave - I am that kid that you described. I came from the smallest school in the state of Iowa. (Graduated top in my class of 8.) I was constantly frustrated by the lack of hard science classes available to someone who wanted to become an engineer and design things. I was instead taught how to put a condom on a banana and that calling someone names might be hurtful. By the time I graduated and entered college, I was three years behind most of my peers. I lived for two years in the library teaching myself by night what my teachers for the previous twelve hadn't and then went to school during the day trying to keep up with my peers. The good news was that not only did I keep up, but I passed them. I also didn't receive a dime from anybody and paid my own way through college. It took me six years instead of four, but I graduated with honors and became the design engineer that I always wanted to be designing new things on a daily basis.
Bottom line, the educational system isn't what it should be (both in agreement here) but I don't think it is going to stop someone like myself who is determined. I'm not putting myself in this category but I think all the Einsteins and DaVinci's of this world are determined individuals and would have succeeded anyway. Where our educational system really hurts our society are to those who aren't very determined and just go with the system.
I don't know that our anscestors would shudder at the thought of being able to access any information they wanted at their fingertips, they just couldn't figure out how to do it. I think that given the knowledge we have, we could be doing more. There are a lot of laws and corporate interests governing our discoveries. The ancients had those in the way of religion, but the revolutionary thinkers ignored it.
I don't think we'ew ignoring it. Our revolutionaries lack motivation and imagination. I think we're at a stagnet point at the moment, and I hope it doesn't last too much longer. It's not just the music that is manufactured, it's the ideas. It used to be the teachers who inspired the revolutionaries, but I don't think the limits placed on schools allow for that.
The education is available, it's the motivation, the encouragement that's lacking. No one really has the drive, the courage, or the fortitude to be revolutionary anymore.
The greek computer I know about, but I'll have to read the other books. Thanks for the tip!
Ed,
Maybe you had good parents, maybe you had a good life. There are some kids though who can only be encouraged by teachers because they're the only ones who care. We're missing out as a nation on the knowledge those kids could discover and inspire. We spend more time on testing than on teaching, and it is more difficult than ever to start and fund a private school. We are failing our children. Daily. It HAS to stop. We NEED a revolutionary!!
Ed, I also worked my way through college, I even grew up (partly) in Iowa. But if you look at the tuition rates in some schools now (and the number will grow), a part-timer, or anyone who takes more than the "standard" four years to graduate, pays MORE per hour than a "normal" full-timer. Yes, a determined person can still do it, but the level of determination required is much higher than it was 5 years ago, and it shows no sign of stopping.
Polanco, read the books, they are terrific.
United We Lay - "It HAS to stop. We NEED a revolutionary!!"
Most definitely agree. Perhaps a President that will allow privatization of our schools instead of slowing everybody down with "No Child Left Behind."
Dave Away From Home - Though it cost me more per credit, it was money well spent and has paid me back well in the decade since. Despite the hardship my K-12 years caused me, I would do it all over again because it did make me who I am today.
Very, very true. It's a side effect of early anthropological models that were built on darwinian theory (in error). They assumed that degrees of intelligence and civilization were linear, and therefore anyone before them was "primitive". Given that Asia and the Middle East kept mathematics and medicine alive while my ancestors were living in the muck throwing feces at eachother - I don't buy that linear model.
SO very, very true.
KNowledge is not relative. In some ways, it is absolute.
Interesting concept, this one. Another "book" that might be interesting is "The Sleepwalkers" by Arthur Koestler.
From what I can see, one of the main things standing against science today is our political-religious Christians R Us republican far right.
They either don't understand or deliberately mislead people about science, failing to understand that it is a self-critical methodology and not a bunch of preconceived notions which scientists then follow up on by selecting just those facts that support what they already think.
That's how Christians who are fundamentally, so to speak, dishonest, use the Bible. And it has nothing to do with science.
What worries me is home schooling is especially big among such Christians, and they're steeping their children in terrible ignorance - almost as if it were the Middle Ages all over again.
I am counting the days until we are free from No Child Left Behind. 01.20.09 Tuition rates definitely need to improve, and student loans need to have lower interest rates. The religious are against science, but so are the people. Kids aren't motivated or encouraged to go into these professions. Those kids are called geeks and get their asses kicked. We don't value knowledge as a society. Our values are much more superficial. Money. Power. A perception of safety. People forget that to keep all of these things, knowledge is crucial. I would homeschool my kids if I could afford to. We're working on a way. But supplementing you're child's education is not difficult to do, especially if you're interested in doing it.
Happy Mother's Day! ;o)
Saur,
Thank you!! You, too!
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