This argument is akin to, if we lived in a world where everyone carried guns and used them constantly (no I'm not talking about the USA, this is a hypothetical), saying "It's a good thing that people constantly shoot off their guns, otherwise we might not wear bulletproof vests all the time. Then we'd die, what with all the shooting of guns that goes on". His argument boils down to "Since we live in a world where nasty people unleash viruses on the world all the time, its a good thing people are unleashing viruses all the time, so we are prepared for all the viruses that nasty people are releasing".
Dr. Forrester seems to have a (disappointingly) poor understanding of ecology (in the natural and artificial world). Every benefit has a cost associated with it. When there is selective pressure, organisms capable of coping with the selective pressure gracefully will thrive, and those that can't won't. This however doesn't mean that the ability to cope with that selective pressure is universally good; advantage is determined by the environment.
A real life example: livestock are given antibiotics in their feed, because it makes them grow bigger, faster. Why? Because in such a (antibiotic rich) situation where the challenge presented to their bodies by bacteria are diminished, they can spend less resources on their immune system, and therefore more resources on growing bigger faster.
This is not to say that feeding antibiotics to livestock is a good thing for society. It isn't, and for a very similar reason. Frequent use of antibiotics selects for antibiotic resistant bacteria - in an antibiotic rich environment, resistant bacteria thrive, and non-resistant bacteria die. However, just like everything else, there is a cost to antibiotic resistance. In an antibiotic-free environment, non-resistant bacteria have an advantage, and they will outcompete their resistant bretheren. Whereas the presence of antibiotics selects for resistant bacteria, the absence of antibiotics selects for antibiotic susceptible bacteria. When you get a life threatening infection, I assure you, you would prefer that the bacteria inside you did not previously reside in an antibiotic rich environment.
Given that we live in a world where there is crime, it is a good thing that we spend a lot of money on government organizations that fight crime, but if we lived in a crime-free world, it would be silly to spend any money on policing, and we would be better off spending it on something else (or reducing taxes accordingly). Dr. Forrester's argument is in essence a tautology, it boils down to "Given the way things are, its good that things are the way they are." In biology, as in computers, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Because there are virus writters, we spend money on virus-scanners, and time disinfecting computers. In a virus rich environment, it is good that there are virus-scanners, but if no one wrote viruses (because everyone was thoughtful), we could spend our money and time otherwise.
This said, I should point out that pathogens (biological, computer, or societal - e.g. criminals) are essentially inevitable. Selection rules. If there is a way to leach off the system, there is probably a selective advantage in doing it, and something with figure out how to do it.
Giving credit where credit is due, these arguments are derived, however distantly, from The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
First, a personal opinion: I believe that learning how to program is so valuable because through it, one learns problem solving skills.
On that note, if you want to teach programming, here are some ideas. I have use none of these for teaching, but I am intrigued:
Scheme/LISP - I learned Scheme from The Little LISPer (the most recent version is called The Little Schemer), a great book! I already knew how to program when I learned Scheme, but this might be a good way to learn.
Other resources for learning programming through Scheme (with which I have no experience, but sound interesting):
Slashdot Mirror
Dr. Forrester seems to have a (disappointingly) poor understanding of ecology (in the natural and artificial world). Every benefit has a cost associated with it. When there is selective pressure, organisms capable of coping with the selective pressure gracefully will thrive, and those that can't won't. This however doesn't mean that the ability to cope with that selective pressure is universally good; advantage is determined by the environment.
A real life example: livestock are given antibiotics in their feed, because it makes them grow bigger, faster. Why? Because in such a (antibiotic rich) situation where the challenge presented to their bodies by bacteria are diminished, they can spend less resources on their immune system, and therefore more resources on growing bigger faster.
This is not to say that feeding antibiotics to livestock is a good thing for society. It isn't, and for a very similar reason. Frequent use of antibiotics selects for antibiotic resistant bacteria - in an antibiotic rich environment, resistant bacteria thrive, and non-resistant bacteria die. However, just like everything else, there is a cost to antibiotic resistance. In an antibiotic-free environment, non-resistant bacteria have an advantage, and they will outcompete their resistant bretheren. Whereas the presence of antibiotics selects for resistant bacteria, the absence of antibiotics selects for antibiotic susceptible bacteria. When you get a life threatening infection, I assure you, you would prefer that the bacteria inside you did not previously reside in an antibiotic rich environment.
Given that we live in a world where there is crime, it is a good thing that we spend a lot of money on government organizations that fight crime, but if we lived in a crime-free world, it would be silly to spend any money on policing, and we would be better off spending it on something else (or reducing taxes accordingly). Dr. Forrester's argument is in essence a tautology, it boils down to "Given the way things are, its good that things are the way they are." In biology, as in computers, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Because there are virus writters, we spend money on virus-scanners, and time disinfecting computers. In a virus rich environment, it is good that there are virus-scanners, but if no one wrote viruses (because everyone was thoughtful), we could spend our money and time otherwise.
This said, I should point out that pathogens (biological, computer, or societal - e.g. criminals) are essentially inevitable. Selection rules. If there is a way to leach off the system, there is probably a selective advantage in doing it, and something with figure out how to do it. Giving credit where credit is due, these arguments are derived, however distantly, from The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
First, a personal opinion: I believe that learning how to program is so valuable because through it, one learns problem solving skills.
On that note, if you want to teach programming, here are some ideas. I have use none of these for teaching, but I am intrigued:
Scheme/LISP - I learned Scheme from The Little LISPer (the most recent version is called The Little Schemer ), a great book! I already knew how to program when I learned Scheme, but this might be a good way to learn.
Other resources for learning programming through Scheme (with which I have no experience, but sound interesting):
http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/Teaching/
http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/drscheme/
http://www.teach-scheme.org/ (doesn't seem to be working right now)
Starlogo is very cool, you might also want to look at the book Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams by Mitchel Resnick, the creator of StarLogo (in the book he talks about working with kids on StarLogo projects)
I don't even know Python, but I have read several things about using it as a teaching language:
Article at O'Reilly on Python as a first language
Computer Programming for Everybody - a proposal by Guido van Rossum
The Official Python Tutorial
Why Python? - by Eric S. Raymond
Learning to Program - uses Python
I hope this is helpful!!!