Hopefully I didn't offer anything that sounded ignorant. The disclaimers in my original post were there only to hopefully avoid a flamewar, since I like intelligent discussion in my journal but volatile arguments make me very uncomfortable.
Oops. Sorry, I'm not used to dealing with other autistics. I should have been a little more specific.
I'm irritated by people who insist we not teach facts about the origins of organized complexity (i.e. evolution), because it hurts their feelings by contradicting their religious faith.
I agree with you completely -- just as I think it is ridiculous for schools to teach "abstinence only" because of some silly delusion that it will control the behavior of teenagers.
The part of John's statement that I agreed with was the notion that public schools do indeed engage children in a lot of mindless monkey-tricks. My definition of "value neutral" is a system of education in which facts are presented but nobody in "authority" attempts to foist their religious / political views onto the children. There is nothing political or religious about evolution -- it's more that some people have chosen to make it a polarizing issue. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the science, or that the science itself is any less "neutral".
The part of John's statement that I agreed with was the notion that public schools do indeed engage children in a lot of mindless monkey-tricks.
Well, yes, of course, but the thing is that this what schools are *for*.
Public schools are an instrument of social indoctrination, rather than factual education. This is not so much by deliberate design as by virtue of the fact that social/behavioural mores and not not skills or knowledge are what this culture values
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I'm irritated by people who insist we not teach facts about the origins of organized complexity (i.e. evolution), because it hurts their feelings by contradicting their religious faith.
Their delusions are their own business, ne?
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The part of John's statement that I agreed with was the notion that public schools do indeed engage children in a lot of mindless monkey-tricks. My definition of "value neutral" is a system of education in which facts are presented but nobody in "authority" attempts to foist their religious / political views onto the children. There is nothing political or religious about evolution -- it's more that some people have chosen to make it a polarizing issue. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the science, or that the science itself is any less "neutral".
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Well, yes, of course, but the thing is that this what schools are *for*.
Public schools are an instrument of social indoctrination, rather than factual education. This is not so much by deliberate design as by virtue of the fact that social/behavioural mores and not not skills or knowledge are what this culture values ( ... )
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