“The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance, but to overcome it.”
h/t: Planet Atheism
h/t: Pharyngula
Always Question Authority
One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority. ~ Hitchens
“The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance, but to overcome it.”
h/t: Planet Atheism
h/t: Pharyngula
Always Question Authority 
Excellent! I wish that I had the ability to explain the consequences of this “dumbing down” of education the way Lawrence Krauss does. I would take this thought a step further; however, and state that teaching children religion is child abuse PERIOD. I’m 63 years old and have been a non-religious person since my late teens but I still remember being taught by my parents that if I did something wrong, I’d go to hell. This caused me a great deal of distress as a child. I am not blaming my parents as they did this to me with nothing but the best of intentions but I’m sure they never realized how frightening that is to a small child!
Conditioning young minds when their cognition interprets the world in black and white only – this type of ethical criminality would bring the law to bear on small sects; what about the big ones? While demographic in every country show a shift away from these medieval fantasies, why allow the two last generations to be manipulated? Can’t they see the writing on the wall and stop NOW.
BOOM! Thanks for the post.
He’s right that we, or more precisely our popular media, have cultivated this notion of ‘false equivalencies,’ that empirical evidence of something is just another ‘opinion,’ no greater that the theological or ideological notions of others that run counter to that evidence. Our media has become so intimidated by social and religious conservatives they will now give airtime to the most outrageous notions (Donald Trump on any given day) with a shrug that says, ‘let the public decide’. Too often and too late we discover as Krauss notes here that they think the sun revolves around the earth. Geez, we’ve come a long way haven’t we?
Absolutely spot-on.