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Comment by technothrasher | Hacker News Reader

> What we really need is for every student to realize why math is useful

We need to do this for science education as well. The foundation of science that we need the population at large to be educated in is not the steps of the scientific method, how to dissect a pig, or the difference between a covalent and an ionic bond. It is instead logic, critical thinking, rationalism and empiricism, and why science is superior to "common sense". Yet for some reason our primary educational systems tend to focus on the what way more than this why.

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it's funny when you mention the difference between covalent and ionic bonds.

my teacher in high school chemistry or physics told us cutting a piece of paper was a physical, not a chemical change (the textbook spent a lot of time differentiating those). It wasn't until many years later that I learned that cutting paper breaks hydrogen bonds. H-bonds are neither covalent nor ionic, but more like in-between (partial sharing of electron density by two different nuclei) but can be modelling (approximately) using ionic models (partial charges separated by a distance).

Is breaking an h-bond physical, not chemical? I want to talk to my teacher.

Not an expert, but it is a physical chance. H-Bonds are considered as a weak interaction, and making or breaking them (via phase transitions, or in this case breaking H-Bonds) do not change the chemical structure of the compounds or molecules, making them "weak" and "physical," because it is not that hard to do so.

change*, not chance

I’m just curious, but what do you think is the difference between “critical thinking” and “common sense”? Ostensibly, they both seem to mean something like effective thinking done outside the boundaries of predefined dogmas. On the other hand, “critical thinking” often appears to be Orwellian-Newspeak for “accept the dogma I am telling you”. Granted, maybe “common sense” plays the same role, but for a different audience, and the principle distinction is a class divide.

I struggle to see how “critical thinking” can mean anything other than the application of tools to ascertain the true state of things. Certainly far from “accept the dogma I am telling you”

common sense is just a form of implicit learning. many do a great job at it.

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