Negative Impacts on Society

I presume you mean that we do not teach the application of the Scientific Method as a tool by which to add more understanding about things we study. If I am correct, I applaud you.What we teach in schools is science history and rational that has emerged (from experiments). We creat Technocrats, engineers if we are locky, and not enough even of them. Real sceince people, who step by step build an Empirical Argument for their particular insight is as rare a snow at the Equator.However, even with all the prigress we seem to have made by this 21st Century, the biggest impediment in education is that we don not understand oirselves. We do not understand human thinking or human behavior. We are surrounded by so called informed and knowledgeable sources which can program the society collectively to insist that this or the the other thing is right. We have a democratic sophistry of wisdom, "DZon't eat fat!"... no what, make that Carbs.... hey!I'd hate to count all the thick Prime Steak I avoided. (ain't even available anymo'.)One big step in the right direction has been Dr Howard Gardner. His "Multiple Intelligences" have reached the ears of the educators. But, they do not know how to apply it,...
they are not sure what it is,...
they can not get it going in the classroom...
they have the keys... seven keys...
they can not or will not enter into the Temple of Real Education, bowever, and their adminstrators and "leaders" in the Ivory Temples of the Teaching Colleges won't let anyone else do that job, because its, embarrassingly, their job... and THEY can't do it.BUT, PRIESTHOODS... IT'S AN OLD STORY:Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Thank you for the reply.
Yes, teachers are great. I mean that.
Let me exaggerate, for argument sake, since everything I write below is and can be debated, on and on. Of course, that debate makes my point. Education needs major surgery.Teachers are now the "parenti loci" of the community. And, no one else is, even the parents themselves.
I find that they care about everything, in addition to the kids. They are willing to attend meetings for self-edification and improvement. They are ravinous readers of new ideas. They are experts in child/adolescent behavior. Teachers are often idealistic and moral by comparison.Teachers, however, are prisoners in small rooms, interacting with small groups in accord with the now out dated system of educational organization. And, to a large degree, they are prisioners of their own psychological pre-sets about how to teach, what a teacher ought be doing. These pre-sets are the result of enculturation in their own edusation, they mimick the pedagogue of hteir own experiences with the "box" they have also been matriculated.This is to say, that the present 19th Century program, one designed to prepare workers for mass production, is still the superimposition reigning. The breaks between classes, 5 minutes for the rest room, and getting to the next class on time is standard "Assemble Line" norms. The silence, hands folded, boredom, raising the hand for permission, "Ms" authoritarianism, and quiet, time on task environment is gone. Yes, they won't do this any more. Revolted. There has been an unreported student revolt. They can and do change that environment, one way or the other. And, they know that nothing can or will ready happen to the students who commandeer the change in classroom environment.They will not take it, rightly so, anymore. A full day of opposition to comraderie and social intercourse, in the stifling silence of bye gone days, has been replaced in the classroom. But not in organizational structure of education. Teachers now move on, go as deep as the particular class will allow them. The suspected dumbing down is a ready and expressedly necessity. They must teach to the slowest, either slow by ability or intent. The classroom is led by the teacher, or else the few who have usurped his/her authority, in an anarchy of student freedom. The tenets of the new student perspective is "He can't flunk us all," and "I am not coming to your detention."Good, bad? We don't know yet, this unconscious and cancerous adaptation has taken place in small steps. Laws, students rights, pre-occupied, two paycheck families, or single mother, undereducated, drug-fearing parents are having their own "educational" problems at home with these same kids.
Changes have been made. Each change has been an alteration within the general system of things. Scotch tape. That it works satisfactorily at some level, particularly with students most ready for Public Education, is not enough. No, because these are too few in number, and are found in the richest and most affluent districts. That is not exactly the idea of Free Public Education. Some districts, and some classes in every district, do as well, regardless of the impediment of the teachers and staff and system. They, their type, always have learned inspite of all.The problems unaddressed are in that larger and ever growing body of students, the lower class student bodies. The teachers, unassisted, can not avoid their own burn out, nor the demise of a Public Education, and they can not, by themselves, pull the whole nation from the brinkmanship of an uninformed and uneducated populace to come.I insist. That at the highest levels, they do not know what to do. But, they do anything and everything. Charter schools, vouchers, donning Catholic School uniforms, heavier textbooks, less teacher formality, absent the dress codes, forget homework, test teachers, test students,...But, the standardized nation wide testing shows only minor improvements for all the fanfare, and a larger body of students remain below competency. My point is made, also, in reflecting the low numbers of students who enter certain fields. I refer to those fields were the REAL jobs are to be found, fields which require a different submission to education. That is, a submission that results in actual learning, in fields like nursing and computer science, as example.While the outsourcing by American business gathers momentun, the point that too few "educated" people in computer science are available. That is, at the fair world market price.
The previous American monoply, by those successfully educated, say the computer programmers, is meeting its own reality. The high salaries are now going down, salaries that these few people once recieved. This is due to lack of competition, others students avoided the rigors of that field of study. America turns out too few ready and interested in the tasks facing employers. Employers can find Indian students and Asian students outside America, in great numbers and with ready competencies. They have and continue to get educated.The growing political pressure, to insist that the lack of qualified people in America means that American business ought reward, and bow down to those few, who have submitted to actually learning something, will not be acceptable. We are being invaded (via internet) for jobs we have not been preparing, or not preparing enough of, our own kids to do. Reality is just setting in.I repeat. We do not know the next move beyond more of the same, and on the students' terms as much as possible.

No, I don't mean that.I mean that science in the High School is more like a poorly taught History of Science.A well taught History of Science would actually be an improvement.Science instruction is not intended today to teach students how to use their Logical/Mathematical Intelligence. In fact, it hardly focuses upon that elemental facility of understanding things, even when examining the concepts in the science curriculum that are presented.Take Avagadro's Number.
Avo deduced the number of molecular particules in one molecular weight of a substance. He actually could prove by his logical reasoning, long before the electron microscope, at the earliest stages of the science, that EXACTLY so many, invisible and super tiny atoms, were present in any pinch of a substance. The logic is like a chess game. Few cared then to follow his reasoning. We would not even know about it today if one student had not really listened, only one person among all his students in his high school classes, and scientists he had tried to tell.He argued with out experiment or lab, that 6.22 x 10^23 atoms MUST be in one molecular weight of ANY substance. His some what complicated argument was not heard by his own contempories, neither is it expressed for what it is today.
Students learn how to answer questions using this number, but they are not focused of the amazing scientific thinking, Mathematical/Logical Intelligence, that is utilized here. Do we want to give the students a fish of mysterious numbers, or teach them to fish around for more such numbers? Is the goal for learning the art of "fishing," not receiving free fish?It matters not, because the curriculum leads onward, and teachers must cover much, in great detail, for memory. True?

Oh. OK rocket, then you really are trained in science. So, you caught that intentional mistatement of the number.BUT... no, ou are wrong. It required only reasoning from the work of others alraedy done to figure out that number.Since you are the scientist, tell us, how do we KNOW that this is the correct number of atoms in one mole of says Hydrogen?You are a smarty pants... a super guy in ROCKETS... a ROCKET SCIENCE GUY... pray and then tell us all.

Sorry about that number. An old impediment.The article does not indicate that Avo actually performed any experimentation.That was my point.Avo's contribution was intraneural contemplation. He puzzled the answer out of hard to understand experimental results.

Now we are getting somewhere.The text books derive Avogadro's number 6.220,.... er, 6.0220x10^23 by asserting that 1amu = 1.6605655x10^-24 grams,then, simply dividing this into the ave atomic mass, bingo.... 6.02x10^23 molecules.Look what they do:Carbon : 12g x amu/1.6605655x 10^-24g x 1Atom/12u = 6.0220 x10^23That' bull sh-t...In Avo's day, we didn't know the value of one atomic mass unit.As a chemist, tell us... how did Avo reason out his number?

Now we are getting somewhere.The text books derive Avogadro's number 6.220,.... er, 6.0220x10^23 by asserting that 1amu = 1.6605655x10^-24 grams,then, simply dividing this into the ave atomic mass, bingo.... 6.02x10^23 molecules.Look what they do:Carbon : 12g x amu/1.6605655x 10^-24g x 1Atom/12u = 6.0220 x10^23That' bull sh-t...In Avo's day, we didn't know the value of one atomic mass unit.As a chemist, tell us... how did Avo reason out his number?

Boy, where is a jerk like me going to find such smarties as rochetscience guys to ask whether science people just have come to BELEVE in 6.0220 as the right number of particles in any one mole sample of any substance, or is their FAITH based on KNOWING?I mean, true one mole/1.660 x 10^-24 grams = 6.0220 x 10^23 particles....But, that number, 1.660 x 10^-24 is from where?A proton (Hydrogen nucleon) wieghs 1.673 x 10^-24 grams...
.. but, if we use that Avogadro's # is 5.9772 x 10^23,...
....and, that's the same magnitude of error as my dumb mistake, 6.22!Shocking idea!Let me ask, is Avogadro's number JUST an accepted guess? A "round off approx?"[This message has been edited by kofh2u, 04-24-2004]

Hahaha...
Avocado...I guess my question, making people certain I am a fruit cake has produced a Freudian slippery slope for you.Yeah?
How could this guy, Avo, get credit for a number, if he never produced the number, ...
....and if the long accepted number is wrong, (which it is)...
... and if he died before Mosely, Thomson, et al without and before any knowlegde of protons especial their weights...... and, then, he DOESN'T get deserved credit for unraveling the mystery that Diatomism, which essentially cleared up Chemistry mathematics, when he explained that one mole of H plus one mole of Cl = TWO moles of acid!
Hey!
There MUST have been H.H and Cl.Cl in those other moles!thanks for the responds...
daveBut, that's the way they teach science, because the guy who DID discovered protons has been ignored, the Jewish guy, Goldstein.

Actually, there are a few numbers floating around.
Avogadro got the credit for the number, but his real claim to fame ought be for interpretation of diatomism.Einstien has figured an Na = 6.56 x 10^23.Millikan came up with Na = 6.06 x 10^23.Max Planck got a number.J. B. Perrin got a wayout 7.0 x 10^23 from.Your x-ray source, almost the latest word on this number, reads out:
Na = 6.02213 x 10^23Of course, two things on this:1) 6.02213 is not the best most elegant number, nor the latest proposal for finalizing the Na ... I got a proposal of my own. For later.2) If 6.02213 is right,...If one mole = each particle's weight x 6.022 x 10^23,or, 1/6.022 = particle weight = 1.66057 x 10-24 gramsBUT,
... how do you (or rocket or others) explain that protonium, H, IS actually a single particle, a proton. It is heavier than this Avogadro particle. Yet, one mole wouldvstill contain yhe same number of particles, 6.022.If one mole of hydrogen represents 6.0220 x 10 ^23 protons, which we KNOW protons weigh 1.67265 x 10^-24 grams,... we get more than one mole, we get 1.0072 moles?(I think that the most beautiful and elegant number ought be used. What do you guys think? And, which number is that? And why?Something new, guys on this one. To me, it'll always be the "Kofh Number."

I wonder if you could be a little more constructive in your criticism of my anomaly concerning C12?How does carbon pertain to t
e facts here about one mole of hydrogen? The amu of hydrogen is calculated relative to Carbon, but one mole must contain anAvogadro number of Protons, true?(PS: Rso
ution of this seeming paradox is an important part in deciding on which Avo # to promote, and zi believe the present numbers are the wrong choice
.

1) We seem to agree that it is shocking, that Avogadro has no number, none at all. And, those many people who do, who have proposed a number, an actual mathematical figure, (from their experimental data), are as far from one another as was I, in my own shocking Freudian slip.Nevertheless, we do have sophisticated experimental confirmation from the work of renown scientists, to include the direct computation of "Avogadro's" Number, (Na), by Einstien, Planck, Millikan, Perrin, and silicon x-ray studies by (?) Becker... well, by a number of guys from 1930-70 at least.2) The fact that carbon was elected, arbitrarily, at an assumed composition of exactly 12 atomic mass units ignored the carbon isotopes. Compounding this, all elements have atomic weights, in amu, which also have been averaged with their isotopes. Hence, even though any sample must contain, say (x) number of whole particules, we are content with factional averages, implying that the Na is not reaaly a head count.2) Ridiculous. Of course, our numbers are fractional, and these numbers, like .0221 are abstractions, not really literal.
So, in discovering the number of particles in a mole sample, in whose weighing the several isotopes are included, what we get for Na is not the real number of particles in the sample.
And, our best answers have a range of @ 2.5% of the largest guess.I recognize that we don't even want a direct implication between the actual countable particules and the mathematical conveniece of an abstract number.With this in mind, I say we might adjust this number with little consequent, based upon the best choice for us, as regards its mathemaical and experimental relationship with other known and useful constants.For instance, Na is directly related to both Boltzman's constant k, (which is used in the gas laws, k = to R/Na), and in others, such as Planck's value for h.What I am saying is that the round robin of using constants in computing experimental results to evaluate other constants presents a round robin of on going adjustments and refinements concerning them all.A good "standardization" of constants might begin in the acceptance of one or another values for Na.See what I mean?3) Hold on. YOU SAY...."Nothing is wrong with Avagadro's number - it's no more fundamental to our understanding of the universe that the measure of egg"...Hmmmmm.... no more fundamental than counting eggs by the dozen. I wonder about that too. The rather arbitrary election of 12 as a unit, duodecimalism do theycall that, or did I spell it wrong...If we choose the value for Na, as suggested by Max Planck's experimental data, it may turn out that you are shocked,... once more![This message has been edited by kofh2u, 04-25-2004]

1) I understand your point. This which follows is not an argument.
Mathematics is the tool basic to the very understanding of what is going on in the physical reality. The abstraction of math is really a whole mental lattice of logical relationships which, when experiment realities are successfully introduced into that "Lattice" analysis, we are able say we know t is or that.The converse, that the lattice, irself, upon study, suggests domething, such as E = mC^2, which we do not expetimental "know" yet identifies an actual "lattice" and is mh point concetning mathematics and dcientific elegance.To suggest that a fundamental beauty is encorporated in any reality we scientifically investigate has been confirmed over and again indpite of any empirical proof that it is so. How could we argue, then, it is just intuitively acceptabld or unacceptable that Beauty and Truth must marry.2) On the other hand, what I am saying is, given a choice between a beautiful Na and one rather dismally plain, could you be seduced by good looks?[This message has been edited by kofh2u, 04-25-2004]

Yes.
That's what I said.We agree. And, I went a even little further, suggesting that the statistical nature of Na, and all the other constants for that matter, (for they are all related and interdependent one upon the other), suggest a slight degree of flexibility in deciding which of these famous men and famous experiments we might accept as the best value to assign Na.

Hahaha...
That must have seemed wierd. I ignored the 6. We are dscussing what this mantissa could,ought, might best be.Yes, I did just short hand the last four digits, dropping the 6 altogether. The non-sacred number 6.0221 started this whole linebof discussion because, horror of horrors, I have been playing loosely with it. I want to chage it.