tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post5865251350492138935..comments2023-10-24T17:21:16.565+02:00Comments on Sounds in the Hickory Wind: What Should Children be Taught?The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-64018532161686700602009-12-06T19:24:46.863+01:002009-12-06T19:24:46.863+01:00The sciences, especially the physical sciences, wo...The sciences, especially the physical sciences, would be included in the 'understanding the world' section. Science is regularly abused by journalists, politicians, charlatans, people with axes to grind and not infrequently by scientists themselves, but it is still the only way to discover certain things about the world, the past and ourselves.<br /><br /><br />Science is a method, and it is as important to learn and understand that method in detail as it is to learn what it has allowed us to find out. It is also very important to learn and be able to evaluate the degree of certainty which can be attached to any given result or discovery, and the errors of method, reasoning, transparency or imagination which have led to certainty or at least undue credence being attributed to results, ideas, interpretations and theories which were subsequently shown to be quite false.<br /><br />I like the idea of philosophy as art, by the way.The Hickory Windhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-79756881166196565482009-12-01T12:49:33.121+01:002009-12-01T12:49:33.121+01:00I'm interested in the absence of any sciences,...I'm interested in the absence of any sciences, apart from biology, in your tentative list. Understandable since science has become a new branch of political/religious pressure group/priesthood.<br /><br />Science taught in schools should arouse excitement and curiosity. I remember my first science lessons, in which the master demonstrated to us the existence of air, in various different ways, with little experiments. For example he put a wooden ruler with one half jutting off the edge of the table, the other half covered with a sheet of foolscap paper. Hitting the overhanging piece a sharp blow, he broke the ruler; illustrating that there was an invisible pressure on the paper, preventing it from see-sawing up.<br /><br />The clear but unspoken message could be generalised thus: "There are mysterious things in this world, waiting for you to discover them."<br /><br />Gradually, physics got harder and from my point of view less interesting. But importantly it did not try to be fashionable and up to date. It was partly historical, so that one could retrace the steps of the original discoverer; but most of it was still relevant, having not been superseded.<br /><br />But it was important to learn how wrong some of the most learned thinkers had been in the past - teaching much needed humility to today's scientists.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-51908537588070215082009-12-01T12:27:04.771+01:002009-12-01T12:27:04.771+01:00I agree with what you have written, emphatically. ...I agree with what you have written, emphatically. <br /><br />On philosophy, I would think of it as a history of ideas to be taken in a cultural and political context but also as an individual creative expression, not just a set of logical steps, even if the philosopher or theologian has intended it to be the last word of logical coherence. Philosophy, in other words, is one of the arts.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com