Poltics , Religion and Sex

[Zwack]

Along those lines...

I remember in Primary school having a book that had a piece of text on one page and a space for work opposite it.  This was in Primary one (so around four years old) and the only part I remember was a bit about a toy shop.  The text went something like "Jack and Jill are outside the toy shop.  There is a bat and a ball in the toy shop window.  Draw the bat and the ball." 

So I drew a bat and a ball.  And the teacher told me off.  Apparently the Bat was supposed to be the kind that you use to hit the Ball and not the kind with wings.  I still (35 years later) think that she was wrong to tell me off rather than patiently explain that they probably meant the other kind.

Z.

[Magister]

tell me about it. I don't feel like I'm in college, it feels like a machine. and my college is run like a business too. I can't even minor in anything, it's so streamlined. which is sad, because I'd minor in fashion design to learn how to sew.

They wont let you minor, at all? Is that something specific to your major, or is that their policy in general?

[Albrecht]

This is a bit long, so I will spoiler.

An interesting anecdote on the nature of free thought in education.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Free vs. Pedantic Thinking

The following piece by Alexander Calandra appeared
first in The Saturday Review (December 21, 1968, p 60)

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would be the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed he should receive a perfect score and would if the system were not set up against the student. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I went to my colleague's office and read the examination question: 'Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.'

The student had answered: 'Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower the barometer to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.'

I pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit, since he had answered the question completely and correctly. On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade for the student in his physics course. A high grade is supposed to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try at answering the question. I was not surprised that my colleague agreed, but I was surprised that the student did.

I gave the student six minutes to answer the question, with the warning that his answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said no. He had many answers to the problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him, and asked him to please go on. In the next minute he dashed off his answer which read:

'Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula S = at2/2, calculate the height of the building.'

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and I gave the student almost full credit.

On leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said he had other answers to the problem so I asked him what they were. 'Oh, yes' said the student. 'There are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.'

'Fine' I said. 'And the others?'

'Yes' said the student. 'There is a very basic measurement method that you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method.

'Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of 'g' at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of 'g', the height of the building can, in principle, be calculated.

'Finally,' he concluded 'there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best' he said 'is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: "Mr Superintendent, here I have a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer."'

At this point, I asked the student if he really didn't know the answer to the problem. He admitted that he did, but that he was so fed up with college instructors trying to teach him how to think and to use critical thinking, instead of showing him the structure of the subject matter, that he decided to take off on what he regarded mostly as a sham.

I enjoyed. And hope others will as well.

Yes I rather like that person. Most of the teachers I had would consider that to be smart@$$ talk and not only not valid answers but also worth of punishment.

Feh, seriously it leads to so downright foolish people like my first housemate. The man was a mathmatics teacher and a history teacher, but completely lacked common sense, and all his learning was reciting texts on those given topics. I'm not sure he even really understood them.

Unfortunately it's a product of our worlds progress that individuals with the ability to think like all those that this topic was started to discuss are acceptable if slightly annoying to the system which is really just looking for the replacable cogs that transfer what is given them to the next part of the system.

Isn't that the story of Niels Bor's final exam?

[Herkimer]

I forget the name of the movie, but there was some stupid teeny bopper movie that came out back in the 80's where, of course, the kids win out over the evil/stupid school staff.  While I remember rolling my eyes at it even then, there was one bit that hit rather close to home.  On the walls of the school in the movie were signs saying "NO THINKING!". 

In my experience with public education, I have to say that we were encouraged to memorize, and perform busy work, but there were precious few exercises where we were encouraged to really think. I actually enjoyed those, and and always did well on them.

Once I graduated high school, I went on a Vocational/Technical College and learned more math in 2 1/2 months than I had learned in the previous 6 years combined. I also enjoyed it tremendously, because I had an excellent professor.  I only had one professor who really was into the old learning by rote, routine. 
About 5 years ago I went back to the same school to finish my degree.  They now claim that all my old profs except the one who wasn't very good are no longer qualified to teach there.  In their place are some highly educated fools. 

I embarrassed one of them in the lunch room one day by proving one of his statements wrong.  (You can indeed get a 3phase motor to run on single phase in a pinch, if you know how, and it doesn't involve a variable freq drive, or other device to generate 3ph.) When he got mouthy I challenged him to go back to the motor controls lab and watch me do it. To make a long story short, I did it, and he sullenly bought my lunch.  In the process I quickly realized that this guy had never done any troubleshooting, or wired up anything outside of a lab, in his life.
 
Sadly I learned the 1ph/3ph trick, in that very lab from one of the old timers who was no longer qualified to teach there.

[DrTom]

Before the voting process someone should shout out "everyone choose 4 points"    or if they know you're going to say that in advance then they can collude to choose 4 points.  Maximum number of points all round.

Yup, that would work with a couple of exceptions.  Before I give the instructions, I typically say something to the effect of "As of this point, and until further notice, no communication between yourselves--verbal or nonverbal (you have to tell them that)--is permitted without invalidating this exercise and 'all bets are off.' "

Only choices of 2 or 5 points are awarded.  Nothing in between.

Also, I don't warn students that this exercise is coming, so no real opportunity for collusion.

What surprises me is that none of the previous cohort warns the incoming group that this will happen.  That will give them all the opportunity to decide who will pick which points (of course, in a sizeable enough crowd, there are always defectors who'll mess it up for everyone).

I think it's a bit amusing, actually, that the student in Rogue Designer's story

was so fed up with college instructors trying to teach him how to think and to use critical thinking, instead of showing him the structure of the subject matter,

Yet is seems that most, if not all, of the complaints that followed are from people who are fed up with just the opposite.  Those who are shoveled in with fact after fact, at the expense of fostering critical thinking. 

I've found this to be terribly accurate, particularly in high school and undergraduate education.  By the time I get the students (I teach graduate courses exclusively), students have become so inundated with rote memorization and fact collecting that their tolerance for ambiguity and ability for critical analysis leaves a great deal to be desired.

[Zwack]

Before the voting process someone should shout out "everyone choose 4 points"    or if they know you're going to say that in advance then they can collude to choose 4 points.  Maximum number of points all round.

Yup, that would work with a couple of exceptions.  Before I give the instructions, I typically say something to the effect of "As of this point, and until further notice, no communication between yourselves--verbal or nonverbal (you have to tell them that)--is permitted without invalidating this exercise and 'all bets are off.' "

Only choices of 2 or 5 points are awarded.  Nothing in between.

Sorry, you said that and then said people who ask for 3 points get 3 points so i was confused as to whether it was 2 or 5, or 2 to 5...  The fairest solution is of course for everyone to ask for 2.  But if they collude then that allows a few of them to ask for 5 knowing that the majority will ask for 2. 

Can I ask, typically, do most students ask for 2 or 5 points?  Given that this is obviously a variant on the prisoner's dilemma I'd be curious to know if many people realise that.

As for Rogue designer's story, personally, I find it obnoxious that the professor is trying to get people to think "LIKE HIM".  The question asks for a method to use a barometer to measure the height of a building.  Apparently he has a specific method in mind that he will accept (presumably to do with measuring the difference in air pressure between the base and top of the building, but not having been in the course I can't say for certain that that was a topic that was covered.  What the student had done was to answer the question, in as many ways as possible, but without using the "obvious" answer. 

If it's any help when I was studying for my MSc I failed one topic... not because I didn't know the subject, but simply because the professor marked the exam by whether or not you spewed his words onto the answer paper.  We found that the people that understood the subject best phrased answers in their own words and so they did poorly, those who memorised stock phrases from the lecturer did really well.

Z.

[The Kernel]

I've found this to be terribly accurate, particularly in high school and undergraduate education.  By the time I get the students (I teach graduate courses exclusively), students have become so inundated with rote memorization and fact collecting that their tolerance for ambiguity and ability for critical analysis leaves a great deal to be desired.

My undergraduates originate from two sources, one group who have been taught primarily by rote learning and fact aquisition for three years, who have transfered to complete their underraduate training (as this can't be done at their original university) and those who have trained at "my" establishment thoughout who have been taught using "problem based learning (PBL)" from the start of their course 2 years ago.
The "factual aquisition" group give the impression of greater knowlage but can't reason and have difficulty learning new material unless "spoon fed". The PBL groups learn (self directed), and carry on learning and in the long run (post-grad, which I also teach) far outstrip the factual aquisition group.

[DrTom]

Sorry, you said that and then said people who ask for 3 points get 3 points so i was confused as to whether it was 2 or 5, or 2 to 5...  The fairest solution is of course for everyone to ask for 2.  But if they collude then that allows a few of them to ask for 5 knowing that the majority will ask for 2.

Sorry, typo.  It's an offer for 2 or 5 points only.  Those who ask for 2, get two, those who ask for 5 get 5...there's no 3 point option, it's an error on my part in the post.

Can I ask, typically, do most students ask for 2 or 5 points? 

Most ask for 2.  What's fascinating is that those who ask for 5, and would have reason for not revealing that for obvious reasons, often like to speak  up and offer their reasoning for purposes of class discussion.  The number one answer is that they figured that so many people would be afraid to choose the bigger points, they figured they were safe.

Given that this is obviously a variant on the prisoner's dilemma I'd be curious to know if many people realise that.

Indeed it is, and it's a major part of our post-discussion exercise.  However, I've noticed that most of the student's usually either aren't familiar with the prisoner's delimma or only remember it by name.  I was once impressed by a student who was not only familiar with it, but was able to describe it with relative clarity.  Turns out that student studied under one of the better known social psychologists in undergrad.

We found that the people that understood the subject best phrased answers in their own words and so they did poorly, those who memorised stock phrases from the lecturer did really well.

Unfortunately, that's a fairly common problem, and is often the result of a poorly phrased question.  The general rule is that if you want a very specific answer, write a very specific question.  If it has to be extremely specific...make it multiple choice.

[Luella Dobson]

tell me about it. I don't feel like I'm in college, it feels like a machine. and my college is run like a business too. I can't even minor in anything, it's so streamlined. which is sad, because I'd minor in fashion design to learn how to sew.

They wont let you minor, at all? Is that something specific to your major, or is that their policy in general?

seems to be their policy in general. one of my friends fought very hard to get a class that was not in her major.

[Magister]

tell me about it. I don't feel like I'm in college, it feels like a machine. and my college is run like a business too. I can't even minor in anything, it's so streamlined. which is sad, because I'd minor in fashion design to learn how to sew.

They wont let you minor, at all? Is that something specific to your major, or is that their policy in general?

seems to be their policy in general. one of my friends fought very hard to get a class that was not in her major.

I would have to transfer away from that school. No question about it. That is simply a bad policy.

If I wouldn't have been able to take classes outside my major, I would almost certainly have dropped out in my freshman year. (My original major was an area I was not as good at as I originally thought I was.)

As it turned out, I found my real talent, and my new major when I aced some classes I took simply because they sounded interesting, and then accidently acquired a minor in philosophy (and some professor friends) because I kept on taking random classes that were interesting.

In fact, I consider the opportunity to check out diverse fields and areas of study one of the highlights of my college years.

[lavenderfae]

Along those lines...

I remember in Primary school having a book that had a piece of text on one page and a space for work opposite it.  This was in Primary one (so around four years old) and the only part I remember was a bit about a toy shop.  The text went something like "Jack and Jill are outside the toy shop.  There is a bat and a ball in the toy shop window.  Draw the bat and the ball." 

So I drew a bat and a ball.  And the teacher told me off.  Apparently the Bat was supposed to be the kind that you use to hit the Ball and not the kind with wings.  I still (35 years later) think that she was wrong to tell me off rather than patiently explain that they probably meant the other kind.

Z.

Ah, I still remember 2nd grade. We were supposed to draw mountains, and I coloured mine purple. I got a "poor." Probably ruined my art career.

[Zwack]

Google has 258,000 hits for "purple mountain"  (and over three million without the quotes) or 96,100 for "purple mountains" (over six million without the quotes)...

And given that you probably went to School in America (I didn't) the following lyrics might be familiar...

    O' beautiful, for spacious skies,
    For amber waves of grain,
    For purple mountain majesties
    Above the fruited plain!
    America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
    And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

or

    The purple headed mountains,
    The river running by,
    The sunset and the morning,
    That brightens up the sky;−

    All things bright and beautiful,
    All creatures great and small,
    All things wise and wonderful,
    The Lord God made them all.

Z.

[Von Gast]

Along those lines...

I remember in Primary school having a book that had a piece of text on one page and a space for work opposite it.  This was in Primary one (so around four years old) and the only part I remember was a bit about a toy shop.  The text went something like "Jack and Jill are outside the toy shop.  There is a bat and a ball in the toy shop window.  Draw the bat and the ball." 

So I drew a bat and a ball.  And the teacher told me off.  Apparently the Bat was supposed to be the kind that you use to hit the Ball and not the kind with wings.  I still (35 years later) think that she was wrong to tell me off rather than patiently explain that they probably meant the other kind.

Z.

Ah, I still remember 2nd grade. We were supposed to draw mountains, and I coloured mine purple. I got a "poor." Probably ruined my art career.

My contribution would have to be telling my classmates (aged six or so) that Santa didn't exist. I was told off because "it might upset them". Thing is, when they've just spent a whole assembly telling people not to lie then it's rather hard for the six year old mind to tie this up with believing in Father Christmas...

I also decided that "cheeky" actually means "the kid is right, but I refuse to accept it"

[rovingjack]

sort of puts me in mind of the physics class I had in high school, where the teacher was tryinging to demonstrate some of the hurdles in physics. One of which is defining concepts like time and space. The implication was that these things are so fundimental and so interlinked that defining them is not really possable.

So he posses it to us to try and define time.

And almost before he finishes that statment of challenge my mouth lets out the stream of thought that was going through my head.

"I'd say the easiest way I can think to describe time is that given a frozen instant of existance all things within in it would be unmoving but should the smallest portion of it shift from it's set point to an adjacent point in space I would have to suppose that as an incrimental step forward in time."

He was sort of caught flatfooted. He did eventually come out with praise for the thought but also said that there were a few problems with that answer. Not the least of which was that I used space another undefined in my definition and that infact the two are not seperate but are part of a single entity space-time.

I was sorry that my course load was as heavy as it was and that I unfortunately had to drop that class to take a Gym class in order to graduate.

[Mlle A. Aurantia]

I know a girl who was kicked out of the Psych department because she fought for an individualized major in Sex Therapy. This is the same school that keeps trying to shut down the Religious Studies department because the local conservatives are offended by the fact that the head of the department has a Ph.D. in Feminist Theology, but that's edging into forbidden territory here.

It's too bad. She was already very good, and could calmly advise anyone on sexual trouble. She would have been a magnificent therapist.

[Flynn MacCallister]

Damn. Wish I'd done that. At least my examiner could've had a laugh.

Another true one: in a 3rd year organic chem exam (2005, sem. 1, I believe) there was a question about the role of Si in protecting groups, or somesuch. One student submitted his (or her) answer in illustration form: On the left of the picture, there was the entropic reaction-dragon. On the right, whatever the group being proctected was, in the form of a princess. In the middle, the silicon knight.

The marker, who was also the lecturer for the same course in 2008 as well, showed this to the '08 class, and said: "I was torn between giving them full marks and no marks. Then I thought about it, and decided that with all those stupid stories about people doing that sort of thing, they probably expected full marks, so I gave them nothing. They ended up failing the course, actually..."

[Lilith-Nighthawk]

I had a conversation with my GED intructor about the possible exsistence of life in the universe that is at least as advanced as us.

Conversation:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Me: I think its impossible for there not to be some other form of life in the universe.
Teacher: The bible says that god only created the world and all creatures therein.
Me: Then why do so many cultures have myths about star people?
Teacher: there just myths.
Me: same could be said of the bible.
Teacher: The bible says god created the earth.
Me: and that eliminates the possiblity of life in another galaxy?

And then we were interupted and class continued. ;

[garingling]

I had a conversation with my GED intructor about the possible exsistence of life in the universe that is at least as advanced as us.

Conversation:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Me: I think its impossible for there not to be some other form of life in the universe.
Teacher: The bible says that god only created the world and all creatures therein.
Me: Then why do so many cultures have myths about star people?
Teacher: there just myths.
Me: same could be said of the bible.
Teacher: The bible says god created the earth.
Me: and that eliminates the possiblity of life in another galaxy?

And then we were interupted and class continued. ;

Your coversation just reminded me of something that happened in elemetary school. I went to a very small private school for a couple of years (2nd - 4th) and I can still remember one particular school program. They gathered us all in the church to listen to special speaker. This speaker had all of this dinosaur stuff including a slide show, bones etc... He started of telling us about them then broke in to scripture about how God created everything, that we were created in his image, the flood was to purify. This turned into there could be no such thing as evolution. So how did this speaker explain away all the artifacts/scientific proof that there were dinosaurs? They aren't real and that "the devil put them there to cause doubt". At least even at an early age I was a free thinker and didn't buy it.

[Sean Patrick O-Byrne]

Apparently there's some museum being built down in the Bible Belt that has dinosaur's and lions and humans(presumably with fig leaves on their mummy-daddy bits) all walking about enjoying things together. This has brought some interesting controversy. I don't wish to express too strong of opinions on the matter, as this topic was started in the spirit of fun, but I thought it related somewhat to Garingling's post.

Wonder how many free-thinking children will or will not agree with what's there.

Does anyone know more about this place? Information, please, we don't want to get this topic locked. I'm curious is all.

[Mlle A. Aurantia]

I had a conversation with my GED intructor about the possible exsistence of life in the universe that is at least as advanced as us.

Conversation:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Me: I think its impossible for there not to be some other form of life in the universe.
Teacher: The bible says that god only created the world and all creatures therein.
Me: Then why do so many cultures have myths about star people?
Teacher: there just myths.
Me: same could be said of the bible.
Teacher: The bible says god created the earth.
Me: and that eliminates the possiblity of life in another galaxy?

And then we were interupted and class continued. ;

Your coversation just reminded me of something that happened in elemetary school. I went to a very small private school for a couple of years (2nd - 4th) and I can still remember one particular school program. They gathered us all in the church to listen to special speaker. This speaker had all of this dinosaur stuff including a slide show, bones etc... He started of telling us about them then broke in to scripture about how God created everything, that we were created in his image, the flood was to purify. This turned into there could be no such thing as evolution. So how did this speaker explain away all the artifacts/scientific proof that there were dinosaurs? They aren't real and that "the devil put them there to cause doubt". Scary at least even at an early age I was a free thinker and didn't buy it.

This is edging into dangerous territory, but I was homeschooled K-12 in the scientific knowledge that not only did dinosaurs walk the earth with man, and not only were there dinosaurs on the ark (WHERE did he put them???) but that they were still living. My textbooks mentioned African legends of the mokele-mbembe and the behemoth of Job (brachiosaurs, of course), the Native American Firebirds (Pterosaurs), and a "dragon" slain in 13th century France (triceratops, obviously). There were anecdotes of the plesiosaur carcass in Japan, and giant bat-like lizards found alive underground when the people building the great railroad tunneled through the rockies. Fossils were caused all at once, by an entire planet of life being suddenly buried in mud, ash, and meteroic leftovers.

It also mentioned that all cultures have a world flood story and that said flood was caused by the then-fifth planet of the solar system exploding into the current asteroid belt and sending millions of tons of cosmic debris to strike the earth and rearrange Pangea into the current continents within a timespace of one year. At this point the intense cloud cover of the pre-flood era (because it had never rained before then) was dispersed and the protection from UV rays gone, causing the shortening of the human lifespan by hundreds of years and lowering the global temperature (ice age) for a time, which killed off most of the large reptilian species that had been created for tropical climates. Oh, and the tyrannosaurus rex had to have eaten melons, because before the flood no animal was a carnivore. They had to be allowed to eat meat because there were so few plants alive after the flood.

The crab nebula is estimated to have exploded about 2000 years ago, and would have been visible from earth at that point, which ironically coincides with an ancient Chinese legend of a mysterious ultra-bright star (visible day and night: a geometrical impossibility for a distannt supernova, but no one seemed to have noticed that. . . ) that appeared in December of the year 0 and disappeared within a few days. This was obviously the infamous Star in the East, despite the historical date of Christ's birth being in the Autumn (or maybe Spring, but I know that it wasn't even close to being winter) of the year A.D. 30-something.

I used the same logic at age ten, pointing out that every culture in the world has had some version of the were-animal legend, though the animal itself varies, and some sort of nocturnal biped that feeds on live blood. I was told that those were just superstitions, because the Bible never mentioned them. However, extraterrestrial life is obvious. Angels are intelligent, not bound to Earth, and not human. More substantial life is possible though never mentioned (and the vampires?), even sentient life (which even exists on our world: dolphins and chimpanzees), but like dolphins and chimps could not have souls and we would have divine dominon over them as such.

Religion is all well and good, but let's have a little logic, shall we? Fox Mulder had better science than this. Imagine my mother's (the teacher) delirious scientific fervor when I explained the zero-point energy field to her.   She was so happy.

The Creation Museum was being announced when I was in school. If I remember right, the ringleader is Ken Ham, who wrote most of my textbooks and edits Creation Ex Nihio magazine. I think that my mother still subscribes to it. We've discussed this museum in class, with even the majority of Christians laughing their posteriors off. He's completely insane.

[garingling]

Mr O-Byrne I was not aware of that. Too Whom it concerns, Please don't let my post cause this to get locked I was just sharing a school memory no offense to anyone was intended.

To steer out of danger and add to the interesting exam questions since I hadn't seen this one: I had a friend who was a philosophy major and on the big final exam in one of his classes there was only one question.
WHY?
The offiicial answer:WHY NOT? all other answers were only given partial credit
-Georgia

[SalieriAAX]

I wonder if these are all urban legends.
The one I heard:

Philosophy Class, Nottingham Trent University.

"Is this a question?"

One student simply wrote: "Is this an answer?", got full marks.

I think you get full marks for writing in full sentences at Nottingham Trent

I mean, yes, probably a myth. Academics can generally pretty much publish whatever they want and put forward any opinions they want under the terms of their tenure, regardless of how the university feels about it, but they'd get into hot water with their faculty if they messed about with teaching and assessment. It's the kind of thing you hear about happening at Oxford in the 1920s, but given Trent's modernity it seems quite unlikely.

[Albrecht]

I had a conversation with my GED intructor about the possible exsistence of life in the universe that is at least as advanced as us.

Conversation:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Me: I think its impossible for there not to be some other form of life in the universe.
Teacher: The bible says that god only created the world and all creatures therein.
Me: Then why do so many cultures have myths about star people?
Teacher: there just myths.
Me: same could be said of the bible.
Teacher: The bible says god created the earth.
Me: and that eliminates the possiblity of life in another galaxy?

And then we were interupted and class continued. ;

What a nitwit of teacher aaaaaaaaarrrggghhh!

[Sean Patrick O-Byrne]

I had a conversation with my GED intructor about the possible exsistence of life in the universe that is at least as advanced as us.

Conversation:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Me: I think its impossible for there not to be some other form of life in the universe.
Teacher: The bible says that god only created the world and all creatures therein.
Me: Then why do so many cultures have myths about star people?
Teacher: there just myths.
Me: same could be said of the bible.
Teacher: The bible says god created the earth.
Me: and that eliminates the possiblity of life in another galaxy?

And then we were interupted and class continued. ;

Spoiler: ShowHide

Your coversation just reminded me of something that happened in elemetary school. I went to a very small private school for a couple of years (2nd - 4th) and I can still remember one particular school program. They gathered us all in the church to listen to special speaker. This speaker had all of this dinosaur stuff including a slide show, bones etc... He started of telling us about them then broke in to scripture about how God created everything, that we were created in his image, the flood was to purify. This turned into there could be no such thing as evolution. So how did this speaker explain away all the artifacts/scientific proof that there were dinosaurs? They aren't real and that "the devil put them there to cause doubt". Scary at least even at an early age I was a free thinker and didn't buy it.
[/quote]This is edging into dangerous territory, but I was homeschooled K-12 in the scientific knowledge that not only did dinosaurs walk the earth with man, and not only were there dinosaurs on the ark (WHERE did he put them???) but that they were still living. My textbooks mentioned African legends of the mokele-mbembe and the behemoth of Job (brachiosaurs, of course), the Native American Firebirds (Pterosaurs), and a "dragon" slain in 13th century France (triceratops, obviously). There were anecdotes of the plesiosaur carcass in Japan, and giant bat-like lizards found alive underground when the people building the great railroad tunneled through the rockies. Fossils were caused all at once, by an entire planet of life being suddenly buried in mud, ash, and meteroic leftovers.

It also mentioned that all cultures have a world flood story and that said flood was caused by the then-fifth planet of the solar system exploding into the current asteroid belt and sending millions of tons of cosmic debris to strike the earth and rearrange Pangea into the current continents within a timespace of one year. At this point the intense cloud cover of the pre-flood era (because it had never rained before then) was dispersed and the protection from UV rays gone, causing the shortening of the human lifespan by hundreds of years and lowering the global temperature (ice age) for a time, which killed off most of the large reptilian species that had been created for tropical climates. Oh, and the tyrannosaurus rex had to have eaten melons, because before the flood no animal was a carnivore. They had to be allowed to eat meat because there were so few plants alive after the flood.

The crab nebula is estimated to have exploded about 2000 years ago, and would have been visible from earth at that point, which ironically coincides with an ancient Chinese legend of a mysterious ultra-bright star (visible day and night: a geometrical impossibility for a distannt supernova, but no one seemed to have noticed that. . . ) that appeared in December of the year 0 and disappeared within a few days. This was obviously the infamous Star in the East, despite the historical date of Christ's birth being in the Autumn (or maybe Spring, but I know that it wasn't even close to being winter) of the year A.D. 30-something.

I used the same logic at age ten, pointing out that every culture in the world has had some version of the were-animal legend, though the animal itself varies, and some sort of nocturnal biped that feeds on live blood. I was told that those were just superstitions, because the Bible never mentioned them. However, extraterrestrial life is obvious. Angels are intelligent, not bound to Earth, and not human. More substantial life is possible though never mentioned (and the vampires?), even sentient life (which even exists on our world: dolphins and chimpanzees), but like dolphins and chimps could not have souls and we would have divine dominon over them as such.

Religion is all well and good, but let's have a little logic, shall we? Fox Mulder had better science than this. Imagine my mother's (the teacher) delirious scientific fervor when I explained the zero-point energy field to her.  She was so happy.

The Creation Museum was being announced when I was in school. If I remember right, the ringleader is Ken Ham, who wrote most of my textbooks and edits Creation Ex Nihio magazine. I think that my mother still subscribes to it. We've discussed this museum in class, with even the majority of Christians laughing their posteriors off. He's completely insane.

... Wow! 




*Flabbergasted* How... how did they eat melons with those little wee hands...!? *STILL flabbergasted.*

[elShoggotho]

Pleeeease... can we go back inside the rules?