Uhm... there's a reason Algebra isn't generally taught until middle school.
I can't tell what this was directed at, but if it was at my comment about elementary philosophy of logic education... for a very long time that was actually one of the first subjects taught to elementary-age students for most of history.
It was just a general response to the early education sentiment. Basic elements of logic aren't necessarily abstract. It just that some of the heavy critical thinking stuff and advanced philosophy can be very abstract. Kids should learn the basics, but much of the in-depth stuff will be best saved for a little later in grade school.
You can teach a kid to question things and make deductions without requiring much abstraction. For instance, my parents used to talk about who they were voting for and then ask me which candidate I favored. If I responded with the same candidate my Dad was supporting, he would immediately ask me why, requiring me to come up with some other reason besides "it's the guy you like."
Mr Wizard, Bill Nye, and the Mythbusters are bringing entertainment value to science (Don't bitch at me about rigor, I'll find that XKCD comic and plaster it all over the thread), thereby doing more to get people to think critically than any number of science teachers could. I even think critically about science fiction that I find interesting, so if we can make science fun people might like it more.
Maybe I'll write a children's book called "Occam Bear Has No Hair." It'll be about a bear who wonders where all his fur has gone, and talks to a little gnome about it. The gnome dismisses most of his answers as too complex, and tells him in various ways that the simplest answer is most likely correct. "No elephants could steal your hair, I've seen no elephants anywhere. If no elephants are here nor there, then your answer must be simpler, Occam Bear." At the end, Occam realizes he shaved his hair, and realizes the truth: "Easy things happen easier than harder things do, and that goes for everything, and my hair, too!"
This is fucking brilliant.
Alright, I'm going to write it and Kickstart it.
I'VE BEEN PLANNING TO DO THIS WITH PUPPIES AND BAKED GOODS YOU JACKASS!
It's fucking brilliant. Find a good illustrator. I'll buy 10 copies.
Setting it up for other books in the series with other characters: Bertram Badger, Newton Rabbit, Turing Toad (future star of Turing Toad Cracks the Code), and others.
Done with the first draft of Occam Bear Has Lost His Hair. Super excited for Turing Toad Cracks the Code. Also, What's Up With Watson Egg? which is going to be a slight departure from the normal rhyming form and an attempt to teach the Central Dogma to a six-year old.
BONUS: Occam Bear has an excuse for the artist to paint a super-sweet kickass dragon. I'm awesome.
Uhm... there's a reason Algebra isn't generally taught until middle school. They aren't generally very good at abstract thought until around that time.
I've actually seen some studies showing that if you teach algebra before you teach basic arithmetic, children actually pick it up fairly easily. There was even a TED talk suggesting that we can (seriously) teach young children calculus and other advanced mathematics, and that our entire method of teaching mathematics in order of complexity of calculation is laughable.
So, most of you know that I work in a state food testing lab. One of my department's policies is to serve the good people of the state with any concerns they might have about the safety of their food. To this end, we periodically receive consumer complaints about food products, and we almost always take some kind of action - investigate the item and figure out what, if anything, is going on. Once in a while, it's a productive investigation. The vast majority of the time, we're simply placating the consumer.
Today, we received a complaint regarding some milk. The consumer did not have gastrointestinal symptoms. However, the consumer had tested their milk and believed it to contain something wrong.
The inspector prodded the consumer for information as to the nature of the testing. After some time, the consumer revealed that they had mixed vinegar, baking soda, and the milk together. They observed bubbles and a slight pink color, and concluded that the milk must contain something.
I'll give you a moment to digest that one.
The inspector pointed out the flaw in the experiment, and continued prodding for more information. That's when the consumer dropped the hammer:
They'd confirmed the results. With something called a "pengulum" or "pengalum" or something like that.
I suggested holding a seance to really confirm the consumer's findings.
EDIT: For the record, I have no opinion on whether or not he's right or wrong. I think he's nuts and I shouldn't be wasting my time or taxpayer money testing a sample from a guy who believes pendulums can divine truth.
It'd be cheaper. I'm fairly certain the analyses I'm going to have to perform on this sample have a free-market value of around $400.
Can't you just declare the claims to be the bureaucrat-ese equivalent of "bullshit" and not do it at all?
The sad thing is, every time we do just this, the woo-woos come out screaming that we don't take them seriously and that we need to address both sides of the (manufactured) controversy.
The agency shouldn't have collected the sample in the first place. We did to stop the consumer from wasting even more of our time with phone calls. And once it's collected, we have to do SOMETHING.
If we don't take the sample, we catch shit for it from the public. Or the consumer makes a louder fuss and we're ordered to do it. The fun of civil service!
The sad thing is, every time we do just this, the woo-woos come out screaming that we don't take them seriously and that we need to address both sides of the (manufactured) controversy.
But we don't take them seriously. To pretend otherwise would be disingenuous.
The agency shouldn't have collected the sample in the first place. We did to stop the consumer from wasting even more of our time with phone calls. And once it's collected, we have to do SOMETHING.
If we don't take the sample, we catch shit for it from the public. Or the consumer makes a louder fuss and we're ordered to do it. The fun of civil service!
Dip a pH strip in the milk. Leave milk in a cup on a desk until it spoils, and then bin it. Report back to the customer: "After an assay of free ions, testing revealed that the sample did not show any quantitative ionic abnormalities from known safe sources of milk. The sample showed development of microbes at a temperature of 23C upon exposure to a 70% nitrogen gaseous mix at 101.325kPa. The development of said microbes was expected, and falls within acceptable governmental tolerances."
Now, what if you test the milk and it did contain something extremely abnormal?
That's when the real fun happens.
That's the part the woo-woos don't get. Pretty-much every scientist in the world would be thrilled for that to happen. An odd result that flies in the face of everything we know? Holy shit! Let's test that! SCIENCE IT!
The fact that no scientist has every found anything like that is testament to the fact that it's woo-woo. Any scientist worth his salt, upon finding seemingly magical results that were reproducible reliably, would have trouble continuing his research over the sound of his own throbbing erection.
From what I have been told, the milk displaying the abnormal behavior contained vinegar and baking soda. That's extremely abnormal for milk. Did you tell him that?
Comments
You can teach a kid to question things and make deductions without requiring much abstraction. For instance, my parents used to talk about who they were voting for and then ask me which candidate I favored. If I responded with the same candidate my Dad was supporting, he would immediately ask me why, requiring me to come up with some other reason besides "it's the guy you like."
It's fucking brilliant. Find a good illustrator. I'll buy 10 copies.
BONUS: Occam Bear has an excuse for the artist to paint a super-sweet kickass dragon. I'm awesome.
TL;DR: when your standards for who writes your textbooks is set by who will do it the cheapest, you get what you pay for.
Today, we received a complaint regarding some milk. The consumer did not have gastrointestinal symptoms. However, the consumer had tested their milk and believed it to contain something wrong.
The inspector prodded the consumer for information as to the nature of the testing. After some time, the consumer revealed that they had mixed vinegar, baking soda, and the milk together. They observed bubbles and a slight pink color, and concluded that the milk must contain something.
I'll give you a moment to digest that one.
The inspector pointed out the flaw in the experiment, and continued prodding for more information. That's when the consumer dropped the hammer:
They'd confirmed the results. With something called a "pengulum" or "pengalum" or something like that.
It's one of these fucking things.
Yes, a divining pendulum. The consumer divined that there was an issue with the milk, and that we should test it to avert an outbreak.
I fucking quit science.
EDIT: For the record, I have no opinion on whether or not he's right or wrong. I think he's nuts and I shouldn't be wasting my time or taxpayer money testing a sample from a guy who believes pendulums can divine truth.
If we don't take the sample, we catch shit for it from the public. Or the consumer makes a louder fuss and we're ordered to do it. The fun of civil service!
Blind the idiots with science, Pete.
That's when the real fun happens.
The fact that no scientist has every found anything like that is testament to the fact that it's woo-woo. Any scientist worth his salt, upon finding seemingly magical results that were reproducible reliably, would have trouble continuing his research over the sound of his own throbbing erection.