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Lie-to-children

en.wikipedia.org

1–10 of 68 posts

Re: Lie-to-children

#2
> Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive

Then they're not lies. Nor are jokes, fiction, or any other perceived-to-be-untruths not intended to deceive.

Re: Lie-to-children

#3
post #2

> Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive Then they're not lies. Nor are jokes, fiction, or any other perceived-to-be-untruths not intended to deceive.

> the authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie".

Re: Lie-to-children

#4
post #3
post #2

> Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive Then they're not lies. Nor are jokes, fiction, or any other perceived-to-be-untruths not intended to deceive.

> the authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie".

I sense a paradox there. They are insisting on calling it a lie but really it isn't

Re: Lie-to-children

#5
When I was a child myself I hated this and as adult I am still unconvinced it is necessary.

Also this sort of stuff made me lose lots of trust for educators in general, even university level ones are willing to teach junk.

Re: Lie-to-children

#6
The problem here seems to be that "lie" is a loaded term.

Understanding is a point somewhere between an absolute falsehood and the an absolute detailed truth. These two can be hard to define for some subjects but nevertheless.

People who don't have the mental capacity or knowledge to understand the complete truth can still benefit from a partial understanding of what's going on and that's what this is talking about.

I think it's similar to how programmers use libraries to hide abstractions. We don't need to know the details of what's going on at the lower levels of our stack to be useful even though we're operating with some "false" notions of what's happening under the hood.

Re: Lie-to-children

#7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie".

I sense a paradox there. They are insisting on calling it a lie but really it isn't

The models that they call "lie" are, in fact, mostly correct, they are good approximations, with limited scope, and sometimes don't handle edge cases, the same with Newton's gravity and many topics.

The same way that Pi is not 3.14159, nor it is 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286, and it's not a lie, just an approximation.

The reality is that we don't know the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything

Even general relativity is a lie if you want to go that route.

This Wikipedia article is just scientific trolling promoted by satiric authors like Pratchett, that some people here are taking too seriously.

Re: Lie-to-children

#8
post #5

When I was a child myself I hated this and as adult I am still unconvinced it is necessary. Also this sort of stuff made me lose lots of trust for educators in general, even university level ones are willing to teach junk.

Well forgive me if I'm misunderstanding but it seems that all human knowledge being approximate it all comes under this heading. They are simply saying is that it may not be best to start with the most complex approximation.

Re: Lie-to-children

#9

The problem here seems to be that "lie" is a loaded term. Understanding is a point somewhere between an absolute falsehood and the an absolute detailed truth. These two can be hard to define for some subjects but nevertheless. People who don't have the mental capacity or knowledge to understand the complete truth can still benefit from a partial understanding of what's going on and that's what this is talking about.…

"All models are wrong; some models are useful."

Re: Lie-to-children

#10
post #5

When I was a child myself I hated this and as adult I am still unconvinced it is necessary. Also this sort of stuff made me lose lots of trust for educators in general, even university level ones are willing to teach junk.

I'm in the same boat. I always wondered whether the thing they are teaching next is really the way things are supposed to be or if it's once again simplified mumbo-jumbo..
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