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Old 12-04-2013, 05:04 PM
 
2,776 posts, read 3,580,584 times
Reputation: 2312

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
In terms of "thinking", all major religions in the world originate in Asia. Europeans are just followers. However, East Asian nations are also the first ones to be agnostic/atheist/secular in the world, which demands some level of "critical thinking" to begin with.
Those European priests who discovered genetics (Mendel), the scientific method (Friar Bacon), the heliocentric universe(Copernicus), and the big bang (Lemaître) would likely disagree with you.

Oh, and heres about a hundred more:

List of Roman Catholic cleric


There is a reason the Japanese were still using the flintlocks brought by the Portuguese in the 1600's in the late 1800's....to change would have required innovation; something they're not capable of.
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Old 12-04-2013, 05:15 PM
 
Location: Montreal, Quebec
15,082 posts, read 14,259,015 times
Reputation: 9789
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
A lot of countries test the students and put them on academic or vocational tracks.
We don't do that in the US..they are all on academic college ready tracks.

Finland, for example provides a basic education for all until 15 and then it's either vocational or academic.

It's not that they are cheating and picking their smartest kids.
They TRACK and have already separated out the non college kids and put them in vocational tracks.

What you have left on the academic side is basically college prep.
We don't operate that way. We say everyone will be educated and college ready.
So we just keep fooling ourselves and making excuses because the numbers don't back up our education mantra.
I don't know why everyone keeps harping about Finland. Canada doesn't track, and neither do a lot of other countries that are cleaning your clock in academic excellence.
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Old 12-04-2013, 05:23 PM
 
9,240 posts, read 9,692,398 times
Reputation: 3310
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kreutz View Post
Those European priests who discovered genetics (Mendel), the scientific method (Friar Bacon), the heliocentric universe(Copernicus), and the big bang (Lemaître) would likely disagree with you.

Oh, and heres about a hundred more:

List of Roman Catholic cleric


There is a reason the Japanese were still using the flintlocks brought by the Portuguese in the 1600's in the late 1800's....to change would have required innovation; something they're not capable of.
Japan is an island country and had very little contact with other parts of the world. Europeans kept borrowing ideas and materials from the middle east, from India and from China, always.

No one denies the fact that Europeans created science and technology, but human history is very long and it is unfair to look at the recent 400 years only. We should also look forward to the future.
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Old 12-04-2013, 07:14 PM
 
Location: Palo Alto
12,149 posts, read 8,380,733 times
Reputation: 4190
Quote:
Originally Posted by weltschmerz View Post
I don't know why everyone keeps harping about Finland. Canada doesn't track, and neither do a lot of other countries that are cleaning your clock in academic excellence.
Like Germany or Hong Kong or Japan or ....?

The US is about average..

Some of the top-scoring countries have fewer students than NY or LA or other large school districts. Affecting change of an entire nation is easier when the total cohort is a couple million kids.
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Old 12-04-2013, 08:06 PM
 
Location: Montreal, Quebec
15,082 posts, read 14,259,015 times
Reputation: 9789
Right.
First, the excuse was that the US doesn't track like other countries do.
Then it was because the US has too many African-Americans, and they pull the scores down.
Other countries are more homogenous.
Now, it's because the US is too big.

Understood. You just can't admit that you're not the absolute best at absolutely everything.
Oh, the horror!
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Old 12-04-2013, 09:10 PM
 
Location: Palo Alto
12,149 posts, read 8,380,733 times
Reputation: 4190
Quote:
Originally Posted by weltschmerz View Post
Right.
First, the excuse was that the US doesn't track like other countries do.
Then it was because the US has too many African-Americans, and they pull the scores down.
Other countries are more homogenous.
Now, it's because the US is too big.

Understood. You just can't admit that you're not the absolute best at absolutely everything.
Oh, the horror!
We don't have to be the best at everything to be the best overall.
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Old 12-05-2013, 02:08 AM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,470,334 times
Reputation: 22471
Quote:
Originally Posted by weltschmerz View Post
Right.
First, the excuse was that the US doesn't track like other countries do.
Then it was because the US has too many African-Americans, and they pull the scores down.
Other countries are more homogenous.
Now, it's because the US is too big.

Understood. You just can't admit that you're not the absolute best at absolutely everything.
Oh, the horror!
At least they're willing to learn English --- not so many of the immigrant groups.
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Old 12-05-2013, 02:12 AM
 
24,488 posts, read 41,008,220 times
Reputation: 12919
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bulldawg82 View Post
And yet for all that, they don't seem to be able to create/invent and are constantly stealing technology and duplicating already existing systems.
The same can be said about Americans. We stole science, math and technology from Asia. Sure, we built on top of it. That's the same as Asia is doing now. You can't ignore the innovation that is coming out of Asia.
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Old 12-05-2013, 07:28 AM
 
22,768 posts, read 30,621,385 times
Reputation: 14737
Quote:
Originally Posted by Natsku View Post
China and several other (unnamed) countries were accused of flawed testing.

The homogeneous argument isn't a very satisfactory argument (although I am sure it has a large influence) because other homogeneous nations don't do as well, and Finland itself didn't have a very good education system in the past - it was its reforms that made its system good, not the nature of its population.
you say i am making "the homogenous argument" , when i actually said, "homogenous, educated, and white."

i am not saying any homogenous group performs better. no. i think east asian and northern/western european cultures are superior when it comes to producing educational outcomes. Racial homogeneity just serves as a proxy for cultural homogeneity, since we can't measure culture.
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Old 12-05-2013, 07:33 AM
 
22,768 posts, read 30,621,385 times
Reputation: 14737
Quote:
Originally Posted by weltschmerz View Post
Canada is hardly homogenous. It's a nation of immigrants.
yeah... it's a "nation of immigrants" in the same way that luxembourg is a "nation of immigrants." you take in a lot of educated and wealthy people.

which is fine ... it just isn't your educational system that is the cause of the high performance.
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