On Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:33:08 -0400, H the K
wrote:

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:

I've always been of the opinion that "education" is really curiosity
and that formal education is merely a process by which information is
presented in ways that provide some order to the process and is not
essential for one to be "educated". Some of the smartest people I've
ever dealt with have high school educations, but are well and widely
read, have sound knowledge of basic mathematics (arithmetic, geometry
and trigonometry) and an insatiable curiosity about the world the
surrounds them and what goes on in it.


A good formal education is an indicator for many of intellectual
curiosity. It is much more than "merely a process."

While no one can deny the intellectual and worldly success of the
self-taught in many fields, the fact is that a college degree is at the
very least a rough indicator that its "owner" had enough self-discipline
to stick with a course of study, and satisfy the intellectual
requirements and standards for graduation.

At its best, a good formal liberal arts education forces you to think
way outside the box, and exposes you to ideas and people whose
backgrounds and thoughts are very different from yours.

Bull****. There has emerged a culture within the academic system in
which only one set of liberal or progressive ideas is believed and
discussed.

A study by Santa Clara University in 2002 demonstrated that among
social science and humanities professors nationwide, there are seven
Democrats to every lone Republican. In some fields, this ratio climbs
as high as 30-to-1.

This has serious implications for the spirited debate so central to
education. There is discrimination when dissertation topics that take
conservative positions receive harder, and harsher, scrutiny - not
because the evaluators have a conscious agenda they wish to advance,
but for the obvious reason that we are all instinctively more open to
an argument with which we agree.

I've experienced this and is one of the two reasons I'm not involved
in academia any more other than research/project consulting and
sitting on PhD review boards occasionally.

If you are self-taught, *you* are the individual in charge of
determining what you expose yourself to during the process of learning.
If you go the formal route, there are many who can guide you, as
teachers, as colleagues, as fellow students, as group experiences.

Doesn't surprize me at all that your general life's view as a
collectivist extends to education.