On 10/27/2010 7:12 AM, I am Tosk wrote:
In ,
says...

On 10/26/2010 11:32 PM, Eddie wrote:
On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:19:34 -0400, "Paul@BYC"

I teach at a university in the middle of the state.

What do you teach?

Upper level undergrad and some grad courses in the traditional liberal
arts.
I'm a liberal arts grad, U of Hawaii '71.

Paul, have you ever heard this statement?

"College teaches you how to make proper decisions on disputed
arguments."

Another one I remember: "College teaches you that if you don't know
the answer, you know how to get the answer."

Learned that my first year from one of my professors.

Makes sense to me.

Eddie


I hope you are still in Hawaii. I'd never move from there if I were
lucky enough to live there.

Hopefully, we teach our students how to think critically, which is, to
me, what you are saying with slightly different words.

If "critical thinking" (aka indoctrination) is what happened to my
oldest, you can have it. A product of American U, just finishing up her
masters, she still thinks George Bush pushed a button in the oval
office, sent missiles to take out the twin towers, the pentagon, and the
plane over PA, "there were no planes, the footage was faked", "the
witnesses were staged"... Yeah, critical thinking... Pffffttttt...


Are you blaming American University for this?

On Oct 27, 7:41*am, "Paul@BYC" wrote:
On 10/27/2010 7:12 AM, I am Tosk wrote:





In ,
says...

On 10/26/2010 11:32 PM, Eddie wrote:
On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:19:34 -0400, "Paul@BYC"

I teach at a university in the middle of the state.

What do you teach?

Upper level undergrad and some grad courses in the traditional liberal
arts.
I'm a liberal arts grad, U of Hawaii '71.

Paul, have you ever heard this statement?

"College teaches you how to make proper decisions on disputed
arguments."

Another one I remember: *"College teaches you that if you don't know
the answer, you know how to get the answer."

Learned that my first year from one of my professors.

Makes sense to me.

Eddie

I hope you are still in Hawaii. I'd never move from there if I were
lucky enough to live there.

Hopefully, we teach our students how to think critically, which is, to
me, what you are saying with slightly different words.

If "critical thinking" (aka indoctrination) is what happened to my
oldest, you can have it. A product of American U, just finishing up her
masters, she still thinks George Bush pushed a button in the oval
office, sent missiles to take out the twin towers, the pentagon, and the
plane over PA, "there were no planes, the footage was faked", "the
witnesses were staged"... Yeah, critical thinking... Pffffttttt...

Are you blaming American University for this?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No, actually I think it was more the pseudo - intellectuals she got in
with earlier at U-Hart...

On 10/27/2010 8:35 AM, JustWaitAFrekinMinute! wrote:
On Oct 27, 7:41 am, wrote:

If "critical thinking" (aka indoctrination) is what happened to my
oldest, you can have it. A product of American U, just finishing up her
masters, she still thinks George Bush pushed a button in the oval
office, sent missiles to take out the twin towers, the pentagon, and the
plane over PA, "there were no planes, the footage was faked", "the
witnesses were staged"... Yeah, critical thinking... Pffffttttt...

Are you blaming American University for this?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No, actually I think it was more the pseudo - intellectuals she got in
with earlier at U-Hart...


I doubt many intellectuals, even pseudo-intellectuals, believe that
"George Bush pushed a button in the oval office, sent missiles to take
out the twin towers, the pentagon, and the plane over PA, "there were no
planes, the footage was faked", "the witnesses were staged"..."

If I were you, I would look elsewhere for the origins of those thoughts
in your child's head.

On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:42:07 -0400, "Paul@BYC"
wrote:

On 10/27/2010 8:35 AM, JustWaitAFrekinMinute! wrote:
On Oct 27, 7:41 am, wrote:

If "critical thinking" (aka indoctrination) is what happened to my
oldest, you can have it. A product of American U, just finishing up her
masters, she still thinks George Bush pushed a button in the oval
office, sent missiles to take out the twin towers, the pentagon, and the
plane over PA, "there were no planes, the footage was faked", "the
witnesses were staged"... Yeah, critical thinking... Pffffttttt...

Are you blaming American University for this?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No, actually I think it was more the pseudo - intellectuals she got in
with earlier at U-Hart...


I doubt many intellectuals, even pseudo-intellectuals, believe that
"George Bush pushed a button in the oval office, sent missiles to take
out the twin towers, the pentagon, and the plane over PA, "there were no
planes, the footage was faked", "the witnesses were staged"..."

If I were you, I would look elsewhere for the origins of those thoughts
in your child's head.

University is meant to teach rigor. Conspiracy theories generally
lack much rigor.

That said, I wouldn't doubt that George knew something was afoot, to
happen and planned to use it to invade Iraq, whatever it was.

The neocon crew were hoping for an incident that would allow them to
launch a US military force, the specific goal being change in the
mideast. Certain of them also liked the idea of controlling all that
oil.

That said, to string everyone's worst nightmare together to form a
theory probably isn't a good idea but certain aspects of each of them
are at least considerable.

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:37:42 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:22:12 -0700, jps wrote:

University is meant to teach rigor.

That was true in the early 60s. Now it is virtually impossible to
flunk out as long as you can keep paying the tuition and there are
banks, more than happy to loan you the money to do that.
"Four year" degrees commonly take 5 or even 6 years to get.

It's still the case. May not be as obvious today.

And you don't need to attend a university to understand rigor but it
certainly helps.

On 10/28/10 1:34 PM, jps wrote:
On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:37:42 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:22:12 -0700, wrote:

University is meant to teach rigor.

That was true in the early 60s. Now it is virtually impossible to
flunk out as long as you can keep paying the tuition and there are
banks, more than happy to loan you the money to do that.
"Four year" degrees commonly take 5 or even 6 years to get.

It's still the case. May not be as obvious today.

And you don't need to attend a university to understand rigor but it
certainly helps.

Two doctoral level students my wife knows did not pass their 3-4 day
written exams after getting good grades for three years in
doctoral-level classes. That means they were dropped from the program,
not allowed to prepare their dissertations, and not able to receive
their doctorates. In addition, they are "out" many tens of thousands of
dollars, perhaps as much as $100,000, and will have nothing to show for it.

Pretty grim.


--
Guns Don't Kill People -- Fundamentalist Religion Kills People!

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:46:46 -0400, Secular Humouresque
wrote:

Pretty grim.

Why is your inflammatory tag line back ?