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Comment by m463 | Hacker News Reader

Took the intro to biology course in college, and was excited. But the curriculum was mostly memorization. Phylum, order, family, etc. Even the cell structures, which I though would be amazing, were mostly memorization.

I felt (and still feel) the course was a tragedy, that I had an intro to biologists, not biology.

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I think the same thing happens with mathematics education. Even though I took maths up to 2nd year university, I never really got what it was like until many years later when I watched all of Leonard Susskinds Stanford lectures in order on YouTube. It just gave him a way of thinking and talking about something far more interesting than the symbols themselves, and I got the sense that if I had been introduced to the majesty of the universe and then shown how English as a language was inadequate to describe it, that I might have been more motivated to learn the symbols.

I had the same experience with math and physics. High school / college was mostly rote memorization, and it wasn't until much later that I heard a perspective that showed me the shape of of the concepts. It's too late for me to dive into them now, because also in college I had a friend that showed me what computers are capable of, and I've been down that rabbithole ever since. It's a good argument for being a proactive mentor. You never know when it might click for someone.

I just took freshman bio at UW as a 47 year old (with a master's and a job). They mentioned 3 people's names, Mendel, the guy with the sex chromosomes and fruit flies (see barely even covered the name) and hardy Weinberg's formulas. The whole class was stats, hypothesis testing, critical thinking and understanding and math with those formulas. We had to memorize about 30 total terms like gene, allele, heterozygous, etc. It was all observation, use a model hypothesize why the model does or doesn't fit.

I took it because when I learned honors bio in highschool in 91 it was all memorization of plant parts. This was way way better.

Reminds me of one of my favorite blog posts :-) https://jsomers.net/i-should-have-loved-biology/

So you were looking for a top-down approach and you got a bottom-up approach. I guess those biologists have enough intrinsic motivation not to care about such things.

See also James Somers’ essay I Should Have Loved Biology: https://jsomers.net/i-should-have-loved-biology/

…and Feynman’s criticism of rote memorization in education systems: https://enlightenedidiot.net/random/feynman-on-brazilian-edu...

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