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I should have loved biology too

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Re: I should have loved biology too

#191

Post by PicassoCTs »

tqi wrote: post #90
PicassoCTs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those curiculums developed by sould-dead gremiums in consensus on the minimum knowledge you goto have are a blight on western civilization. Instead of giving students the ability to discover a topic, or built something they are interested in themselves and then give them a understanding and fascination with the discoverers who have gone before them. Instead they kill the subject.. I must confess, it gives my dry old…

Ok... what would you do differently? Keep in mind you have to educate millions of students across an enormous spectrum of abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and interests.

I would build a "intrinsic motivation" first curriculum, where knowledge is handed as powertools to a already existing passion and the self-thought "expansion" of knowledge is the most important gift to be made.

If the child is fascinated by video games- i would help it make video games, the curriculum be damned. All knowledge holes can be filled later, but the passion to wanting to know, can never be restored unless the want for knowledge remains intact.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#192

Post by skrebbel »

yurishimo wrote: post #169
skrebbel wrote: post #165

This resonates with me. I live in the Netherlands and back when I was a teenager, the English language started to become trendy so high schools began programmes where certain subjects were taught in English. I enrolled in one of these, generally liked it, but it made me hate biology. Thing is, in my native Dutch, most things from nature have normal, natural sounding names. Words like "scheenbeen" (shin bone), "longon…

I think it also depends on where you're coming from and what the end goal is. For reference, I'm an American who moved to NL a few years ago and speak Dutch at a B2 level. When I was in school, biology as a subject was a high school level course. If you were in one of the classes meant for "advanced" students, the textbook was more of a college prep book as opposed to simply learning the concepts. Sure, the concepts…

Appreciate the context! Thanks for the detailed writeup, bonus points for the conspiracy hat.

> If your school imported books in English without performing due diligence to compare the philosophy of both books (Dutch vs English)

I'm pretty sure they did some due diligence - most books were great. Also they were without exception British schoolbooks, not American. I know little about the UK school system but I doubt it's as college preppy as what you describe.

> What was your experience with textbooks growing up? Did you read all of them cover to cover as a part of the curriculum?

Yes. Well, read.. We like did one chapter per week or something like that, with explanation and exercises etc. All the school books were designed in a format intended to be worked through, cover to cover, over the given period (usually 1-3 books in a series per year depending on the subject). I can't recall skipping anything ever. Fwiw this held for the English books too.

There was also often a separate textbook and "workbook" from the same series that tied in together. I believe these workbooks primarily exist to make schools re-buy them every year (kids write in them), super wasteful & scammy. But still, no skipping (except maybe little bits here and there that the teacher thought was silly).

Re: I should have loved biology too

#193

Post by bruce511 »

999900000999 wrote: post #184
bruce511 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, and this is worth pointing out, "computer science" is not about programming. It's about science, in this case specifically the science that makes computers work. At school I thought "computer science" meant "programming" - which it doesn't. So well done for recognizing this before wasting your much time. (Seriously, not sarcastic.) programming can easily be learned outside college. To other general readers h…

It depends on where you took computer science. I took a few foundational classes at community college. It very much felt like a Wikipedia article on the history of computers somehow stretched out over an entire summer. I have my own issues with the way college is generally setup. Do students really need a massive amusement park when self study along with 3 or 4 exams would provided the same value. Will spending 70k p…

>> It depends on where you took computer science.

Well, yeah. That's true for any field of study. Every college has strengths and weaknesses- its the opposite of a franchise.

>> I took a few foundational classes at community college.

A few foundational classes is somewhat different to classes you take in prep for a major. I did a foundational class in astronomy, designed for students who were just looking for an introduction. It was very different to my comp Sci classes in tone and style.

Yes there was some math involved, but not much in the comp science classes. Math was a pre-requisite though so we got our math in, well, math.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#194

Post by bruce511 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #176
milesrout wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a myth. Computer science absolutely is about programming. The science that makes computers work is called physics. There are theoretical parts of computer science, but it is fundamentally a practical subject. All of it is in service to programming. Type systems are about typing programs. Algorithms are implemented using programs. Data structures are for use in programs. The very worst computer science lecture…

This might be just a semantic argument, but if you mean "programming" as in "configuring a machine to implement one or more algorithms" (which I would assert most people do when they use the term), computer science is emphatically not about programming, although programming is taught for much the same reason that artists learn how to use a pencil. Computing, as a discipline, predates the machine (although the machine…

Yeah, I'm more in this camp too. We did a lot of practical modules, things like OS development, databases and so on. So yeah, learning programming was the first couple months, then programming becomes the tool to express progress in knowledge depth.

It's probably fair to say that although we learned some history, we had the privilege of learning at a time the field was exploding. That history you learned, I lived and worked through that. It's somewhat surreal to realize that my career is your history class.

As mentioned above though, it'll vary a lot from one school to another.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#195

Post by immibis »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #190
immibis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're in the destroying phase right now. Unless you live in China - I hear they're mostly doing well. Or middle of nowhere Africa, where there's nothing to destroy because there's nothing there. But systems can rot from within too, or just decay naturally, and don't need to be destroyed. What if the core ideas that built our current civilization were ideas of the past, that we don't have any more, and we don't know w…

The do as well as the USSR did. Meaning "excellent" till the last day!

I can't parse this comment, but yes, in some respects, we're in a similar stage now to the USSR's final stage.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#196

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

ramraj07 wrote: post #182
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once met a scientist who spent a week traveling to where there was a powerful x-ray laser. He used it to blast a thin film of something or other that was floating on the surface of some water. He left with a flash drive full of data and some FORTRAN titled LSQREFL, which allegedly could decode the laser results. He then spent the next 6 months trying to make it actually do that. Turns out you had to have a folder w…

Sounds like he was doing an xray diffraction experiment? The last time (in my opinion) XRay diffraction based structure results meaningfully changed scientific discourse that affects human life was probably in the 80s or 90s. While it's important work it's no more important for Healthcare than some physics guy doing things with a random metal alloy. The point is there are interesting things but one shouldn't delude t…

There were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galectin proteins embedded in a thin lipid layer on the surface of the water. The goal was to understand what conditions triggered various conformational changes. I'm under the impression that such details end up in databases and get selected for further inquiry by drug design processes, particularly those targeting autoimmune diseases. Or at least, that's what I got from his talk on it. I'm still working my way up to the biochemistry classes.

But yeah I get your point about avoiding that delusion. Honestly I'd be happy enough to be doing something that I suspect is not actively harmful (this should be easy but SaaS tends to converge on products that control their users and not the other way around). I don't need to be humanity's savior. More helpful than harmful will be enough.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#197

Post by 999900000999 »

bruce511 wrote: post #193
999900000999 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on where you took computer science. I took a few foundational classes at community college. It very much felt like a Wikipedia article on the history of computers somehow stretched out over an entire summer. I have my own issues with the way college is generally setup. Do students really need a massive amusement park when self study along with 3 or 4 exams would provided the same value. Will spending 70k p…

>> It depends on where you took computer science. Well, yeah. That's true for any field of study. Every college has strengths and weaknesses- its the opposite of a franchise. >> I took a few foundational classes at community college. A few foundational classes is somewhat different to classes you take in prep for a major. I did a foundational class in astronomy, designed for students who were just looking for an intr…

This is one of the only skills you can learn for practically nothing. A cheap laptop is all you need. I taught myself enough to get a middle class job with nothing but free time and 3$ iced coffees.

I just don’t like the idea of gate keeping it behind an expensive degree. The source code for most popular frameworks and tools is free for anyone to read.

It’s not like medicine or something where you need to drop 300k on education.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#198

Post by ramraj07 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #196
ramraj07 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like he was doing an xray diffraction experiment? The last time (in my opinion) XRay diffraction based structure results meaningfully changed scientific discourse that affects human life was probably in the 80s or 90s. While it's important work it's no more important for Healthcare than some physics guy doing things with a random metal alloy. The point is there are interesting things but one shouldn't delude t…

There were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galectin proteins embedded in a thin lipid layer on the surface of the water. The goal was to understand what conditions triggered various conformational changes. I'm under the impression that such details end up in databases and get selected for further inquiry by drug design processes, particularly those targeting autoimmune diseases. Or at least, that's what I got from his…

I admire your stance but consider this hypothesis: nothing is better than nonsense. Most research leads to nothing. Knowledge is better than ignorance but research funding isn't unlimited. I estimated the average biology paper to cost several hundred thousand dollars if it didn't involve animals and a million if it did. Does the parameter you find or establish even justify such a cost? Most of my and my colleagues work really didn't change anything in my opinion. Even if some of us didn't want to be useless like this, we had no choice. The system just forces you to do these projects. The only way to beat this system is to get out of it. That's what I did. I hope to start a garage lab sometime and do whatever I want as you say. At least I won't be taking public funding and I hope I might find something better without those limits after all.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#199

Post by tomjakubowski »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #128
abletonlive wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's not an absurd take at all. The absurd take is that we "should not bend language around ignorance." That's precisely how language changes over time. Language is not a strict set of rules. It's based on understanding and consensus, so sometimes things that are "wrong" do end up being accepted. I suggest this as a great introduction into what languages are and how they evolve over time https://www.amazon.c…

I am not a native speaker, but the two words do not sound even remotely the same. How does this mistake happen so often? Can you explain people's thought process a bit? Is it just: "Something something 'seg...' ... ah I know, I will simply use another random word that starts with the same 3 letters and doesn't make sense in this phrase!"? Also this is the first time I see it.

Segue is borrowed from Italian, the "ue" is a diphthong like English "way" or Spanish "güey"

Re: I should have loved biology too

#200

Post by bruce511 »

999900000999 wrote: post #197
bruce511 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It depends on where you took computer science. Well, yeah. That's true for any field of study. Every college has strengths and weaknesses- its the opposite of a franchise. >> I took a few foundational classes at community college. A few foundational classes is somewhat different to classes you take in prep for a major. I did a foundational class in astronomy, designed for students who were just looking for an intr…

This is one of the only skills you can learn for practically nothing. A cheap laptop is all you need. I taught myself enough to get a middle class job with nothing but free time and 3$ iced coffees. I just don’t like the idea of gate keeping it behind an expensive degree. The source code for most popular frameworks and tools is free for anyone to read. It’s not like medicine or something where you need to drop 300k o…

No, it's certainly not like medicine or law. And you can certainly aquire skills on your own.

Of course, in this field, learning is continuous. You're not going to use just one language (much less one framework) over a decades-long career. It's also likely that your domain will change, your focus area and so on.

A good college course doesn't prepare you for programming in one language, but all of them. (In the sense that once you understand the theory of programming, language is just syntax.)

You get exposure to different types of languages (imperative, functional etc).

I think for me the critical takeaways though were research, critical thinking and communication. The "skills" are easy to learn yourself, but the formality in which you place that learning is harder to do yourself.

Which is not to say a degree is a requirement- it's clearly not. But it's helpful because it builds a strong foundation on which the self-learning can rest.

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