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* Bullard, Claude L (Len) <len.bullard@intergraph.com> [2005-08-11 09:13]:
> From: Didier PH Martin [mailto:martind@netfolder.com]
>
> Alan said:
> Currently, their is a fuss in the blogosphere about "A-List"
> bloggers. They're saying that the "A-List" bloggers ought to
> introduce newer bloggers to their readership. The latest
> class of bloggers are finding that the early adopters are
> entrenched. This is preceeding a revolution where ranking and
> relevence are determined by individuals, not algorithms.
>
> Didier replies:
> Another good point; Yes indeed human are adaptive animals and they found the
> trick to be ranked well in Google. Anything based on social interaction is
> subject to social manipulations. The more we see social networks embedded
> into the web the more we will see people organizing themselves to manipulate
> it. Very good point Alan.
> Which is why the question to Peter was 'good for whom'.
>
> When social networks become the dominant control for organizing
> information, finding facts will become even harder. The current
> brouhaha in the American culture wars over intelligent design is
> emblematic of the process of power seeking over fact seeking. In
> the process, the Americans are destroying their educational and
> scientific foundations for competition. Watching the web
> replicate this process in the name of 'democratization' is almost
> absurdist (as in the theatre of the absurd).
> "all of your dreams, and not just the good ones..."
Bah! Straw man.
Intelligent Design is not hob-goblin that everyone makes it out
to be. It's a Christian response to a Christian perception of a
state endorsement of secular humanism as a state religion.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is a concern that evolution
is taught in such a way as to negate the belief in a creator.
They feel that public education is undoing religious education.
When questions of faith are raised in the classroom, if the
state is providing an athiest/agnositc answer, then the state's
got a toe on the church's side of the separation.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is a valid political
concern, which is why we are having a political debate.
Other cultures have ciricula that are chock full of lessons that
are culture specific. The argument that the creationist debate,
which is as old as The Origin of Species, will send the U.S. to
the back of the pack, to delight of India and China, is, as you
say, absurd.
Neither Adam, nor Eve, nor the messy democratic process by which
we design our lesson plans has kept the United States from
succeeding on the global stage.
Education in the U.S. has always been a poitical affair, with
teachers unions, elected school boards, even, on rare occasion,
parents, having a say in what gets taught in our schools. The
'democratization' of information is the law of the land.
Textbooks have been, always will be, just as much a source of
controversy, as they are a source of fact. Japanese history
textbooks, for example, not very popular with Koreans.
What do you think the web will do in the theatre of the absurd
that isn't being done in the real world already?
--
Alan Gutierrez - alan@engrm.com
- http://engrm.com/blogometer/index.html
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