The Cellar - View Single Post - 6/26: Homeschooling and animal skinning (thanks Slithy_Tove)

Undertoad · 07-05-2001, 03:59 PM

Well, I just figure that faith in the truth of others is different from faith in something you can't possibly prove.

A speaker I saw once pulled this on a crowd. "OK, stand up if you believe that E equals M C squared." Almost everyone stood up. "Now sit down if you can explain it." Most sat down. Moral: you believe things you don't understand all the time.

On the other hand, about 15 minutes of study should give us a pretty good understanding, at least a seat of the pants understanding of most theories and proofs in science that we take for granted.

As for the finals question, I would have assumed the question was just an abbreviation of "Can we prove that existence exists?" and would have taken an hour to rehash everything I knew about that. That probably would have gotten a B as well. The A answer might be "I think, therefore I am."

07-05-2001, 03:59 PM	#45
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Well, I just figure that faith in the truth of others is different from faith in something you can't possibly prove. A speaker I saw once pulled this on a crowd. "OK, stand up if you believe that E equals M C squared." Almost everyone stood up. "Now sit down if you can explain it." Most sat down. Moral: you believe things you don't understand all the time. On the other hand, about 15 minutes of study should give us a pretty good understanding, at least a seat of the pants understanding of most theories and proofs in science that we take for granted. As for the finals question, I would have assumed the question was just an abbreviation of "Can we prove that existence exists?" and would have taken an hour to rehash everything I knew about that. That probably would have gotten a B as well. The A answer might be "I think, therefore I am."