My point above is that students should have as a minimum sufficiently broad and deep knowledge of the basics of modern science, so that they understand how the world around them works. Ability to think critically is very important, but it is not a substitute for sound knowledge of science basics. Since this is a very broad topic to cover on one's own, there is a need for teachers. I do not imply that critical thinking ability should not be developed, or that parts of the scientific method should not be taught, just the opposite.
And since we're arguing over things we agree about, I'll stop here;)
That'd be totally true if I were discussing the education of scientists. The context, however, was science education for the people who won't become scientists, and IMHO, the requirements for that are not the same.
This is a slightly misguided attitude. You cannot always stop a smart kid, but you can make his/her life a lot harder than necessary. Why?
Also, the more educated your population is, the easier is for the society to advance, especially so in a democracy. If your voters are stupid, don't expect your politicians to be smart, or society to be a good place to raise smart kids.
Here I am just replying to the GP, who, IMHO, is blaming the wrong party. At home I do what I can, but unless there is a large enough group of people who share the general direction my beliefs and can effect political change on a large enough scale, and that means changing attitudes internationally, it is a lost fight. Globalization affects domestic policies too, and the global trend with few exceptions is towards more comfort and less hardship.
Unfortunately, learning science is a pain, albeit sweet pain, and I'm afraid the taste for the sweet pain of science is an acquired taste.
Also, sorry for the hard to read mess above, I blame the Android and the lack of coffee on the train.
Nah, it isn't some mythical "ethicists" that are the problem. Two things are at work here that have shaped this kind of attitude.
First, there is a gradual and seemingly purposeful dumbing down of public education, especially in the "civilized" world. When I was growing up, I had boring math and physics books with theorem proofs and many problems in them. These days my kids have pictures, diagrams, bold colors and boxes with all sorts of historical and "cultural" references, but what was standard hardness in my book is now "optional" or "advanced" and "can be skipped without loss of continuity". The situation is the same in every field that teaches science. Teachers are poor, undereducated and not interested in teaching. Kids are "spared" the "psychological shock" of failure that low grades imply. The situation in higher education somewhat similar, except at the very top, which is accessible to the very few -- who turn out to be the researchers.
Science is hard and getting harder, and to make sense of it, you need to be taught about the basics. There is no time anymore to figure it out for yourself. No education == fertile supply of "luddites". Incidentally, this also means a fertile supply of "consumers".
Second, there is the media world, which has totally gone down the drain in terms of quality. Serious journalism, where reasonably educated people would research a topic and write about it in articles long enough to cover the subject in some depth and breadth has devolved into idiots spewing out 150-200 word articles, or "blog posts" or "twits" of 140 chars or less. They make money by try to make a sensation out of everything. More and more people seriously believe that the Wikipedia article and the top hits on google on any topic give them the full picture. So, you are undereducated and fair and competent coverage, that is filtering out manipulative interests is almost inaccessible to you. How are you not going to become a "luddite" in some fashion or other?
Add to this the growing disconnect between politics, where more and more things is internationally and behind closed doors, and you can understand why people distrust the "official" line more and more, and turn to "the fringe" -- all these movements that we here usually laugh at. Unlike the "official" coverage, the fringe is cozy, warm, easy to understand, and sounds plausible to most in the audience. You can find friends who think like you and join your own misinformation bubble, deepening the problem above and adding psychological support and motivation that further solidifies your "luddite" attitude.
This is your recipe for the dark ages, and, sadly, it starts with your government screwing up the public education and your corporations converting journalism in a platform for sales enhancement.
Well, if "app" means something else than an abbreviation of "application" in your world, you're free to use your definition. I'll abstain from feeding you further.
Your hands must be very strong moving the goalposts like that. I will quote you again:
There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow, and there were no mobile platforms that offered 99c as a common price point.
I don't see you limiting the discussion to "smartphones". If you choose to do so now, would you care to specify a definition of a "smartphone" first, so that I'm sure I'm not wasting time arguing with a fat troll?
There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow,
You're obviously unfamiliar with i-mode and i-appli and Bree/Java development for Japanese carriers. These were exactly automated purchase-download-install workflows.
What part of my post above isn't "true" exactly? I see nothing in your post that proves me wrong. The only thing I see is that you assume your experience is good enough to describe the *whole* range of phones and services. If you seriously believe that, you're having the -tard problem.
No, I don't remember ever having to pay to get pictures off my phone, and my "walled garden" phones have had "app" markets and "music" markets since about 2000 for prices that were comparable to the iTunes and the Android markets. The only "new" thing I've seen since the advent of the iPhone and the Android is video download, and that is mostly a development due to tech that developed independently of smartphones.
The comparison would be apt only if you buy the kind of books that are edited for "easy reading". You know, the kind that manage to squeeze "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Ulysses" in no more than 50 pages in simple English.
Game consoles have had "walled gardens" (ugh, that term) for decades, approving all software that appears on their devices, and the world hasn't fallen apart.
Nice strawman you got there. Nobody is arguing that the world is falling apart, the argument is that there is possibility of real harm done. The Microsoft near monopoly in the PC market did not cause the world to fall, but it is hard to argue it was totally harmless.
Nobody is forced to use an Apple device, so again, the "freedom" argument is silly
It is good I am not making this argument then. All I'm saying is that people buy Apple products by the looks and assume the rest from what they already know about computers, and by doing so they buy into a sales method that limits the modes in which they can use their devices.
In my book that is bad, but, as I said in my frist psot, you always can accept it and rejoice.
many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives
I don't believe you think more than skin-deep about the dangers of the "walled garden" approach. The problem with Apple is very simple -- they have delegated themselves a right to approve how do you use "their" device and a right to charge you a tithe for everything that comes to you on "their" hardware. In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out.
Also, software freedom is only a small part of it. Think of other possibilities that the Apple approach prevents. Even if an independent business and an owner of an Apple device both think there is a business mode they both can benefit from, which mode does not go through the Apple-approved system, they cannot achieve it easily, and hence cannot exploit the full potential of the hardware platform to their advantage. This is especially bad for the person who has paid the price for the Apple device.
Apple is "exciting" people about "technology" the same way Louis Vuitton is "exciting" people about, you know, apparel design and textile technology. Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.
With Apple it can actually get worse -- if you make the Apple device the dominant way you access information. That's fine and dandy, until you consider that when you buy the shiny little toy, you only get permission to access the world through it the way the designers of the technology believe it should be accessed, through their "approved" modes.
Once I heard an expression in a meeting that describes the situation very aptly -- "we're looking at your specs as if through a bent straw", said some desperate developer. If you're using Apple products, that means that you're looking at the world through a very bent straw, and Apple is doing the bending. Is it in your favor? You decide.
Of course, you can choose to be grateful and excited.
From the summary, that's what it feels like. My hair is tingling, my hands are shaking, my pupils are dilating, my mouth opens all by itself and I feel happiness and joy take me over.
Newton resolved this flamewar coupla hundreds of years ago, apparently said something about standing, shoulders, giants. And it was not Apple's Newton, mind you.
ORLY? I hear the ocean is absorbing more CO2 and is getting slowly more acidic as the temperatures and the atmospheric concentration is rising. You know, kind of like you can dissolve more sugar when you heat the water, not less. You got some prooflink for your interesting statement?
Or subby using a tablet or mobile phone + one of those pesky auto-miscorrecting software keyboards, more likely. One of these ruined a date for me by substituting an often-used name for the one I wanted to write... Although I ought to know better at this age than to use names.
Erm... They were predicted before they were observed, so it wasn't a chance discovery, but rather, an experiment to find an object with the specific properties suggested by the theory. You know, kind of like an experiment.
Actually, the process with climatology was subtly different, something like
1. Someone got a PhD in science
2. They began collecting data and observe what's happening
3. They published some papers and gathered about 10 more people, who had gone thru 1 and 2
4. They published more papers
5. They collected more data, and convinced their government that even more data is necessary
6. They got more equipment, more data, came up with some ways to put these data together
7. Then they refined their hypothesis, got more funding and more students
8. Then they got publicity by semi-literate journalists, and it all went political. Unfortunately, unlike the people who play politics, the people who did the research were not prepared for the tricks on the political side.
9. Even unfortunatelier, nobody else was prepared to understand or argue sensibly the "tricks" on the research side
10. Ever since, it has been one giant downhill race in lies, accusations and misunderstandings, to the detriment of science
11. When it should have been a harmonious transition to getting more understanding of the topic, and gradually and smoothly planning and executing whatever action would be necessary.
Astronomy and geology are certainly not "observational sciences" in the sense you use that phrase. Experiments are not only possible in astronomy and geology, they are performed routinely. I don't know much about geology, but there are a lot of notable experiments in astronomy, from ancient times to yesterday. For example, the determination of the circumference of Earth by Eratosthenes, the discovery of the planets beyond Uranus, the observation of neutron stars, the background cosmic radiation, the discovery of extrasolar planets, and many, many others.
Actually, there is no such a thing as "observational" science -- ability to define your theory so that it can be tested against an experiment is what distinguishes a science.
Well, I am not on a first-name basis with "Steve", and I am not a privy of his legal arrangements, so I obviously get my ideas about this issue from how I'd feel about it.
It seems from the fine article that Apple believes they can manage the "celebrity rights" of Jobs that, well, descent to him from the quoted California legal provision. The idiocy of the "celebrity rights" concept aside, Apple, being the anally lawyered-up company they are, probably have some legal paperwork to this effect from Jobs or his family.
IMHO, this is highly unusual, as Apple is, ostensibly, neither in the business of legal services, nor in the one about profiting from celebrity names.
The only plausible reason for Apple to ask Jobs to retain and manage his "celebrity rights", would be Apple product PR. I can't really see how "dignity" and "soul" would figure in such arrangement, especially long term.
The only reason I can imagine for Jobs to ask Apple to accept such a scheme is for him to have had such contempt and distrust of his family that he'd prefer some unknown board to manage those "rights" for the next 75 years rather than his wife and offspring.
Of course, the third reason could be that his family simply wishes to have nothing to do with defending Jobs' "celebrity rights" (and spending money on lawyers), so Apple has this to avoid PR problems.
Any way I look at it, it looks pretty weird to me.
The summary doesn't say anything about why Apple is doing this, and neither is TFA from my cursory read through. As far as I understand the matter, it is a family affair, and it is really weird and highly unusual that they would not hire a law firm to sue, but have Apple do it instead.
The criminal threats are also mildly surprising, and the way Apple is clinging to Jobs is indeed sort of sick. As are the people who might want to buy a figure like this one.
Slashdot Mirror
My point above is that students should have as a minimum sufficiently broad and deep knowledge of the basics of modern science, so that they understand how the world around them works. Ability to think critically is very important, but it is not a substitute for sound knowledge of science basics. Since this is a very broad topic to cover on one's own, there is a need for teachers. I do not imply that critical thinking ability should not be developed, or that parts of the scientific method should not be taught, just the opposite.
And since we're arguing over things we agree about, I'll stop here ;)
That'd be totally true if I were discussing the education of scientists. The context, however, was science education for the people who won't become scientists, and IMHO, the requirements for that are not the same.
This is a slightly misguided attitude. You cannot always stop a smart kid, but you can make his/her life a lot harder than necessary. Why?
Also, the more educated your population is, the easier is for the society to advance, especially so in a democracy. If your voters are stupid, don't expect your politicians to be smart, or society to be a good place to raise smart kids.
Here I am just replying to the GP, who, IMHO, is blaming the wrong party. At home I do what I can, but unless there is a large enough group of people who share the general direction my beliefs and can effect political change on a large enough scale, and that means changing attitudes internationally, it is a lost fight. Globalization affects domestic policies too, and the global trend with few exceptions is towards more comfort and less hardship.
Unfortunately, learning science is a pain, albeit sweet pain, and I'm afraid the taste for the sweet pain of science is an acquired taste.
Also, sorry for the hard to read mess above, I blame the Android and the lack of coffee on the train.
Nah, it isn't some mythical "ethicists" that are the problem. Two things are at work here that have shaped this kind of attitude.
First, there is a gradual and seemingly purposeful dumbing down of public education, especially in the "civilized" world. When I was growing up, I had boring math and physics books with theorem proofs and many problems in them. These days my kids have pictures, diagrams, bold colors and boxes with all sorts of historical and "cultural" references, but what was standard hardness in my book is now "optional" or "advanced" and "can be skipped without loss of continuity". The situation is the same in every field that teaches science. Teachers are poor, undereducated and not interested in teaching. Kids are "spared" the "psychological shock" of failure that low grades imply. The situation in higher education somewhat similar, except at the very top, which is accessible to the very few -- who turn out to be the researchers.
Science is hard and getting harder, and to make sense of it, you need to be taught about the basics. There is no time anymore to figure it out for yourself. No education == fertile supply of "luddites". Incidentally, this also means a fertile supply of "consumers".
Second, there is the media world, which has totally gone down the drain in terms of quality. Serious journalism, where reasonably educated people would research a topic and write about it in articles long enough to cover the subject in some depth and breadth has devolved into idiots spewing out 150-200 word articles, or "blog posts" or "twits" of 140 chars or less. They make money by try to make a sensation out of everything. More and more people seriously believe that the Wikipedia article and the top hits on google on any topic give them the full picture. So, you are undereducated and fair and competent coverage, that is filtering out manipulative interests is almost inaccessible to you. How are you not going to become a "luddite" in some fashion or other?
Add to this the growing disconnect between politics, where more and more things is internationally and behind closed doors, and you can understand why people distrust the "official" line more and more, and turn to "the fringe" -- all these movements that we here usually laugh at. Unlike the "official" coverage, the fringe is cozy, warm, easy to understand, and sounds plausible to most in the audience. You can find friends who think like you and join your own misinformation bubble, deepening the problem above and adding psychological support and motivation that further solidifies your "luddite" attitude.
This is your recipe for the dark ages, and, sadly, it starts with your government screwing up the public education and your corporations converting journalism in a platform for sales enhancement.
Well, if "app" means something else than an abbreviation of "application" in your world, you're free to use your definition. I'll abstain from feeding you further.
Your hands must be very strong moving the goalposts like that. I will quote you again:
There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow, and there were no mobile platforms that offered 99c as a common price point.
I don't see you limiting the discussion to "smartphones". If you choose to do so now, would you care to specify a definition of a "smartphone" first, so that I'm sure I'm not wasting time arguing with a fat troll?
There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow,
You're obviously unfamiliar with i-mode and i-appli and Bree/Java development for Japanese carriers. These were exactly automated purchase-download-install workflows.
What part of my post above isn't "true" exactly? I see nothing in your post that proves me wrong. The only thing I see is that you assume your experience is good enough to describe the *whole* range of phones and services. If you seriously believe that, you're having the -tard problem.
This "open" good; "walled garden" bad thing is ideology. And like all ideologies, it's wrong.
No, it is simple pragmatism developed over decades of ownership of both free and walled products.
Freetards amount to about 0.01% of the population.
What is a "freetard" and how does it relate to the discussion of the ability of owners to make full use of the hardware platform they are paying for?
No, I don't remember ever having to pay to get pictures off my phone, and my "walled garden" phones have had "app" markets and "music" markets since about 2000 for prices that were comparable to the iTunes and the Android markets. The only "new" thing I've seen since the advent of the iPhone and the Android is video download, and that is mostly a development due to tech that developed independently of smartphones.
The comparison would be apt only if you buy the kind of books that are edited for "easy reading". You know, the kind that manage to squeeze "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Ulysses" in no more than 50 pages in simple English.
Game consoles have had "walled gardens" (ugh, that term) for decades, approving all software that appears on their devices, and the world hasn't fallen apart.
Nice strawman you got there. Nobody is arguing that the world is falling apart, the argument is that there is possibility of real harm done. The Microsoft near monopoly in the PC market did not cause the world to fall, but it is hard to argue it was totally harmless.
Nobody is forced to use an Apple device, so again, the "freedom" argument is silly
It is good I am not making this argument then. All I'm saying is that people buy Apple products by the looks and assume the rest from what they already know about computers, and by doing so they buy into a sales method that limits the modes in which they can use their devices.
In my book that is bad, but, as I said in my frist psot, you always can accept it and rejoice.
many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives
I don't believe you think more than skin-deep about the dangers of the "walled garden" approach. The problem with Apple is very simple -- they have delegated themselves a right to approve how do you use "their" device and a right to charge you a tithe for everything that comes to you on "their" hardware. In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out.
Also, software freedom is only a small part of it. Think of other possibilities that the Apple approach prevents. Even if an independent business and an owner of an Apple device both think there is a business mode they both can benefit from, which mode does not go through the Apple-approved system, they cannot achieve it easily, and hence cannot exploit the full potential of the hardware platform to their advantage. This is especially bad for the person who has paid the price for the Apple device.
Apple is "exciting" people about "technology" the same way Louis Vuitton is "exciting" people about, you know, apparel design and textile technology. Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.
With Apple it can actually get worse -- if you make the Apple device the dominant way you access information. That's fine and dandy, until you consider that when you buy the shiny little toy, you only get permission to access the world through it the way the designers of the technology believe it should be accessed, through their "approved" modes.
Once I heard an expression in a meeting that describes the situation very aptly -- "we're looking at your specs as if through a bent straw", said some desperate developer. If you're using Apple products, that means that you're looking at the world through a very bent straw, and Apple is doing the bending. Is it in your favor? You decide.
Of course, you can choose to be grateful and excited.
From the summary, that's what it feels like. My hair is tingling, my hands are shaking, my pupils are dilating, my mouth opens all by itself and I feel happiness and joy take me over.
Is this the second cumming?
Is he still alive somewhere?
I can't wait.
I
MUST
BUY
Newton resolved this flamewar coupla hundreds of years ago, apparently said something about standing, shoulders, giants. And it was not Apple's Newton, mind you.
ORLY? I hear the ocean is absorbing more CO2 and is getting slowly more acidic as the temperatures and the atmospheric concentration is rising. You know, kind of like you can dissolve more sugar when you heat the water, not less. You got some prooflink for your interesting statement?
Or subby using a tablet or mobile phone + one of those pesky auto-miscorrecting software keyboards, more likely. One of these ruined a date for me by substituting an often-used name for the one I wanted to write... Although I ought to know better at this age than to use names.
Erm ... They were predicted before they were observed, so it wasn't a chance discovery, but rather, an experiment to find an object with the specific properties suggested by the theory. You know, kind of like an experiment.
Actually, the process with climatology was subtly different, something like
1. Someone got a PhD in science
2. They began collecting data and observe what's happening
3. They published some papers and gathered about 10 more people, who had gone thru 1 and 2
4. They published more papers
5. They collected more data, and convinced their government that even more data is necessary
6. They got more equipment, more data, came up with some ways to put these data together
7. Then they refined their hypothesis, got more funding and more students
8. Then they got publicity by semi-literate journalists, and it all went political. Unfortunately, unlike the people who play politics, the people who did the research were not prepared for the tricks on the political side.
9. Even unfortunatelier, nobody else was prepared to understand or argue sensibly the "tricks" on the research side
10. Ever since, it has been one giant downhill race in lies, accusations and misunderstandings, to the detriment of science
11. When it should have been a harmonious transition to getting more understanding of the topic, and gradually and smoothly planning and executing whatever action would be necessary.
And so it goes.
Astronomy and geology are certainly not "observational sciences" in the sense you use that phrase. Experiments are not only possible in astronomy and geology, they are performed routinely. I don't know much about geology, but there are a lot of notable experiments in astronomy, from ancient times to yesterday. For example, the determination of the circumference of Earth by Eratosthenes, the discovery of the planets beyond Uranus, the observation of neutron stars, the background cosmic radiation, the discovery of extrasolar planets, and many, many others.
Actually, there is no such a thing as "observational" science -- ability to define your theory so that it can be tested against an experiment is what distinguishes a science.
Apple at least has rights to the image of an apple (the fruit) with a bite.
I doubt very much that they have rights to the image of any apple (the fruit) with a bite. But you can believe what you want (tm).
Well, I am not on a first-name basis with "Steve", and I am not a privy of his legal arrangements, so I obviously get my ideas about this issue from how I'd feel about it.
It seems from the fine article that Apple believes they can manage the "celebrity rights" of Jobs that, well, descent to him from the quoted California legal provision. The idiocy of the "celebrity rights" concept aside, Apple, being the anally lawyered-up company they are, probably have some legal paperwork to this effect from Jobs or his family.
IMHO, this is highly unusual, as Apple is, ostensibly, neither in the business of legal services, nor in the one about profiting from celebrity names.
The only plausible reason for Apple to ask Jobs to retain and manage his "celebrity rights", would be Apple product PR. I can't really see how "dignity" and "soul" would figure in such arrangement, especially long term.
The only reason I can imagine for Jobs to ask Apple to accept such a scheme is for him to have had such contempt and distrust of his family that he'd prefer some unknown board to manage those "rights" for the next 75 years rather than his wife and offspring.
Of course, the third reason could be that his family simply wishes to have nothing to do with defending Jobs' "celebrity rights" (and spending money on lawyers), so Apple has this to avoid PR problems.
Any way I look at it, it looks pretty weird to me.
The summary doesn't say anything about why Apple is doing this, and neither is TFA from my cursory read through. As far as I understand the matter, it is a family affair, and it is really weird and highly unusual that they would not hire a law firm to sue, but have Apple do it instead.
The criminal threats are also mildly surprising, and the way Apple is clinging to Jobs is indeed sort of sick. As are the people who might want to buy a figure like this one.