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As your sources explain, the practice of writing is important for learning. Through writing we develop thoughts, compose them, as fyngyrz says below, reformulate them. Writing is a way of thinking.

The issue, however, is not writing: it is handwriting. Typing, printing and cursive (I hesitate to include texting, as I find even swype/swiftkey excruciatingly slow, and I'm pretty sure using my thumb would bring on early arthritis) are all methods of writing. The links you include speak only of writing, not handwriting. They are not about the importance of cursive.

I strongly suspect that the different technical affordances of handwriting compared to typing do indeed lead to different learning experiences. One enables editing, the other demands sentences be formulated before they are written, and that subsequent words be adapted to what has already put down. Are such differences educationally significant?

One study found handwriting enhanced student composition more than did typing, though the authors put this down more to fluency (speed) and point to the importance of teaching touch-typing. This might actually support the Finnish position. Another article theorizes that there might be benefits to manual writing. A study of university student essay examinations found no difference in performance. This study found grade 6 students could type faster than they could write by hand.

This is just the result of a quick search, but I don't see strong evidence one way or the other.

Personally, my handwriting is awful. My teachers didn't even teach me how to hold a pen correctly (I have been unable to correct by habit of using all 5 fingers). Through university I took notes in my own simplified printing (each letter one stroke with at most one reversal), a system I still use when speed matters. Recently I learned that movement should come from the arm, not the wrist; for the first time, my handwriting became legible. Learning to type, however, felt like it opened up the world to me. I wish I could write fluent cursive. Is Finland doing the right thing? Darned if I know.

The oldest known rocks are about 4 Billion years old; http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/rock.html

The earliest evidence for life is 3.8 billion years ago. The time the earth cooled to form solid mantle is about 4.0 billions years ago. (Or to go further back the earth formed about 4.3-4.5 billion years ago.) Was about 200 million years enough time for simple life, which is really not very simple, to evolve and then survive during the meteorite bombardment that was happening then?

I think this is a big problem for the current theory. Panspermia pushes this problem off earth and gives the possibility of enough time for random chance to allow simple life to form. I still think this theory and other ideas evolutionists have with the orgins of life are too improbable.

"The number one sin of programming is code duplication." - me

On a similair note, I recall a lecturer at my old University saying something along the lines of: "The single worst invention for programming was copy and paste".

History of Publishing Website covers press control and censorship under Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and censorship used for military ends during the English Civil War (1642-1649).

Second, this is an old idea. As others have pointed out, it was used to great effect in Kim Stanley Robinson's phenomenal Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy (great science fiction not only because of the science but because of the social, political, interpersonal, and cultural questions it raises).

Third, I find it unconscionable that the scientists (or the writer) didn't consider the possibility that life already exists, or did once exist, on Mars. That final quote -- "we have the chance to spread life beyond its origin" -- is arrogant beyond belief. I suspect that in another century or two (and sooner if we're lucky) the assumption that Earth must be the single "origin" of life will appear as misguided as the belief that Earth was the center of the universe. Yet another example of us stupid humans assuming that the universe exists for our benefit.

This is not to say I'm opposed to extraplanetary colonization or terraforming -- in fact, I think it's critical that, as a species, we ultimately extend ourselves beyond our tiny blue planet. But it would be unconscionable for us to even consider intentionally messing with the climate on Mars until we've determined conclusively that there is no indigineous life. That's not just an ecological argument, it's a scientific one -- if indeed there is life (or evidence of past life) on Mars, the research value would be incalculable. Just think what we could learn about genetics, biology, and evolution if we had access to life that evolved entirely independent of that on our planet. (Or perhaps it didn't evolve independently, giving weight to "panspermia" theories that life can actually be propagated between individual planets and whatnot.)

Considering how long it took us to realize that life survives in some pretty surprising niches on earth -- miles down on the ocean floor, deep inside solid rock, at all kinds of temperature ranges -- I suspect it'll be a long time before we can conclusively declare Mars sterile and even contemplate manipulating the environment. (And that's without even worrying about nonliving attributes of the environment worthy of research, such as geological features.)

Of course, there is some interesting potential here as well. If we do someday terraform Mars, by the time the environment is suitable for higher life we'll probably be pretty good at cloning extinct species and fun stuff like that, so we could turn it into a big nature preserve, Jurassic Park-style. Wouldn't a Canada-like environment be just perfect for those baby woolly mammoth?

Also, this leads me to wonder if we could develop some anti-greenhouse gases that we could use to cool Venus down to habitable levels. If we figured that out, we might also be able to keep ourselves out of trouble if global warming turns out to be the destructive force some have predicted.