Fantasy U

[ss20ts]

One of the first lessons I had in Business Statistics was to take a male college student and turn him into a purple monkey who eats pancakes. Seriously. Stats are made to be manipulated. I don't put a ton of faith into them. No idea why anyone would. Same with studies. You have to look at who paid for the study and what the study was ORIGINALLY asking not what the results were.

[sanantone]

Some of these are getting too specific I think.  I wouldn't go to your universities - they're just more of the same.  I think theories and concepts that you want people to learn is understandable, but some of that doesn't really need to be a semester-length course - you can teach a lot of what you want people to understand in a single sitting with some of those.  How about you get a freshman-level course that meets 3x a week for an hour, with the basics of econ, bio, history, etc.  Why does it have to take an entire semester?

I took econ, and then taught my kids lots of the concepts in it pretty easily -it's not hard to understand some of the basics.  Stats is WAY to easy to manipulate - you can see what they did with Covid statistics when they would do a data dump over a weekend, putting weeks worth of deaths into the computer on a single day, and then reporting it, and the media reports how deaths went up last week, when it wasn't true.  How about teaching people how to read stats, and how they lie with them as well?

I'm not taking Bio 2 (I didn't take Bio 1 either), I'm not certain there's anything there that I can't live without.  I'm not taking Physics (loved it in high school but no longer interested).

Yes on World History and World Geography, although I want a teacher who will cover it without a shit ton of bias - or maybe multiple teachers might be better - and TONS of discussion from all sides.  And teacher's that aren't just from the US here.

And separating kids into "yep, you're college-bound" and "no, it the trades for you" at a young age sounds awful to me.  Just because our system doesn't work as well as it should doesn't mean that these other systems are better ones.  Picking winners and losers early on in their lives - and some government bureaucrat or standardized test doing the picking at that - seems like the worst possible way to run things.  Think about a doctor at one of the VA systems that let vets die being in charge of this program.  Or an unhappy bored DMV employee.  No thanks.

I'm not saying the European systems are better, I'm making a point to the people who say their 3-year programs are better. We should take into account that they're weeding out students early. If a UK student decided to end high school at 16 and changes his or her mind, they have to go back to complete Level 3. Germany takes few risks. This provides context as to why the U.S. system is the way it is. If we wanted to function like Europe or the British system seen in former colonies, know what that comes with. 

After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.

[ss20ts]

After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.

You do realize that everyone who believes in different theories isn't an idiot, right? Plenty of highly educated people who do understand the basics of science don't agree with what's happening today. There are doctors and members of the medical community who don't agree with everything in the media and refuse to be vaccinated. Doesn't make them idiots. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make them an idiot.

[sanantone]

After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.

You do realize that everyone who believes in different theories isn't an idiot, right? Plenty of highly educated people who do understand the basics of science don't agree with what's happening today. There are doctors and members of the medical community who don't agree with everything in the media and refuse to be vaccinated. Doesn't make them idiots. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make them an idiot.

You didn't ask me which situations I consider to be idiotic. Some things are blatantly wrong. For example, I'm a Black American, and many Black Americans thought our melanin protected us from COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. Sorry, but that's idiotic. There were also the stupid 5G tower conspiracy theories and a bunch of other dumb things people believed.

[Alpha]

Here is a list of popular conspiracy theories (not the craziest).  I think they're all rubbish although I do have some suspicions about Prince Charles.
The Craziest Conspiracy Theories That People Actually Believe (popularmechanics.com)

[sanantone]

Another thing, people who did poorly in high school science and never took a college science course would try to argue me down with nonsense. I have an associate's in natural science/biology and a master's in medical sciences. I'm not saying that scientists are never wrong or they should never be questioned, but don't overestimate your knowledge and abilities. I've challenged veterinarians, but I did it with research from veterinarians who were experts in the relevant area. Most veterinarians are generalists. I've also gotten second opinions from other veterinarians. What I am not going to do is act like I'm more educated on animal health than the majority of veterinarians because some chiropractor or physician with multiple disciplinary issues on YouTube is paranoid and giving different information. There were people listening to chiropractors over virologists on the COVID situation. Chiropractors can't even get their own "science" right.

[dfrecore]

Some of these are getting too specific I think.  I wouldn't go to your universities - they're just more of the same.  I think theories and concepts that you want people to learn is understandable, but some of that doesn't really need to be a semester-length course - you can teach a lot of what you want people to understand in a single sitting with some of those.  How about you get a freshman-level course that meets 3x a week for an hour, with the basics of econ, bio, history, etc.  Why does it have to take an entire semester?

I took econ, and then taught my kids lots of the concepts in it pretty easily -it's not hard to understand some of the basics.  Stats is WAY to easy to manipulate - you can see what they did with Covid statistics when they would do a data dump over a weekend, putting weeks worth of deaths into the computer on a single day, and then reporting it, and the media reports how deaths went up last week, when it wasn't true.  How about teaching people how to read stats, and how they lie with them as well?

I'm not taking Bio 2 (I didn't take Bio 1 either), I'm not certain there's anything there that I can't live without.  I'm not taking Physics (loved it in high school but no longer interested).

Yes on World History and World Geography, although I want a teacher who will cover it without a shit ton of bias - or maybe multiple teachers might be better - and TONS of discussion from all sides.  And teacher's that aren't just from the US here.

And separating kids into "yep, you're college-bound" and "no, it the trades for you" at a young age sounds awful to me.  Just because our system doesn't work as well as it should doesn't mean that these other systems are better ones.  Picking winners and losers early on in their lives - and some government bureaucrat or standardized test doing the picking at that - seems like the worst possible way to run things.  Think about a doctor at one of the VA systems that let vets die being in charge of this program.  Or an unhappy bored DMV employee.  No thanks.

After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.

I was under the impression there was a 97% survival rate if you were like 80 and had diabetes.  What's the survival rate if you're 19 and in perfect health?  How about if you're 40?  Or 60?  Or 8?

I also now personally know MANY people who have not gotten the vaccine who haven't gotten Covid, or haven't gotten sick from Covid, but know a handful of people who have gotten the vaccine who have had VERY bad reactions to it.  A 15yo who passed out from it (she did that about 45 minutes after receiving it, while at work with my kid - still hasn't come back to work a week later), another 40yo doctor who has had neurological problems for months and still hasn't recovered (and told his wife DO NOT GET THIS VACCINE), and some others.

So while you may call me a dummy for not thinking the vaccine is the best idea in the world, I can only go by what I see before my very eyes, and read - and the vaccine is far from perfect or a great idea.  Especially for someone who had a near-zero chance of getting sick from Covid in the first place.

[jamshid666]

My fantasy would be something like Study.com and the "Big 3" but at the graduate level.