Five Myths About Christmas (answered?)

[BartHumphries]

Bart, I'm still playing you-know-who's advocate....

All you've shown is that your system seems to work better than the alternative. But did you really give the alternative a fair chance? Shouldn't the alternative be taught alongside 'conventional' gravitational theory in physics classes, in order for the students to make up their own minds?

The alternative is already taught in school and students are already encouraged to make up their own minds (at least at the schools that I've gone to, even going back to elementary school). That's why I was already aware of the evidence supporting the current theory of gravity (and aware of some of the things that we don't understand about it currently). The best teachers ask questions, provide information, etc., while helping students learn things themselves. The best people continue to be lifelong learners (about whatever it is they're learning over their lifetime).

 

Some students do get more of an indoctrination than other students and you can't teach everything in a single class. You've no doubt heard the adage that you can tell what year (Freshman-Senior) a Philosophy-major student is by what their current beliefs are that semester? But eventually a person starts to be able to investigate and discover things for themselves.

 

Granted, some schools are not as good as others.

[vol_scouter]

Bart,

 

When taking my second year college honors physics course, I was fortunate enough to have a wise and brilliant professor who told us not to believe anything that he told us was correct except in taking his tests. We were to always be skeptical of all theories. In medical school, we were told that medical knowledge was doubling every 10 years - it is less now - and that half of the knowledge was wrong - not quite that bad. So it is important that students learn the what is felt to be true today but to have a healthy skepticism without becoming jaded. The problem becomes from discussions that I have read here is that some then feel that science is arbitrary which it is definitely not.