Labeling, categorizing are surely a portion of science inquiry yet
the basis of science is that Life is a mystery that we continue to
explore and will never understand. How beautiful to have that !

What a lovely thought, Perhaps you could arrange a forunm for
this ?

Best,
Ellen Fishman

Back to the intention, oh my speculation is that they really couldn’t articulate why except for the whole culture of our
funding as you have mentiond before is often swayed by the group mentality of glitz is important to signify better.

My question is as a nation what is our intention in
education? Could we possibly articulate one thing and then concentrate on it as a whole versus this piecemeal attempt to do all?

My hope is that we have some honest discussion also, place us in awareness of what our systems have become and what that says about the values of country. Isn’t our motto e pluribus unum ?

“Private funders – particularly those that are no disease-specific charities – have a real role to play in bringing the important issues to the fore and refocusing the discussions on what really matters scientifically and practically.”

Word usage is very interesting. So much of how we use words is tied to our culture of consumerism, we have to pronounce things (research included) to be SOMETHING. Research just can’t be as simple as “find (ing) out the new idea is not as good as the old idea.”

Have you noticed how words are getting more explicit in order to entice the consumer ? On a recent movie marquee I saw this movie title= Vampires Suck. Had to laugh, what else do they do ? I imagined the teenager who had to put up the letters on the marquee as laughing when he did it.
Or today in a newspaper article about a child pornographer-headline article-”Man seduced 20″. Hmm, not quite the way I would describe the situation, but I don’t need to sell newspapers.

Your business as you have noted is not immune to such influences,
no ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-mcleod/building-resilience-into_b_554077.html

Friedman had a editorial once about how innovative poor people are because they have to be.He felt we as Americans had lost that ability to be creative in the moment . Often it has been
easier to pay for something new or pay someone else to do the
work for us.

As a classroom teacher I am trying to add tinkering or challenges into my everyday schedule. The latest challenge was
fixing my staplers. One pair took days and many pitfalls before they were successful. Their smiles were ear to ear as I took a picture of them holding the fixed stapler. I gave them no real help except for offering materials that might be helpful.
No grade was attached and other activities were available for them to do that were easier. They were not the only ones either.

My take is that empowerment is far better than giving.

Unfortunately what you speak to happens in education quite a lot also.
The models for research are different but lack the transference to the classroom and then the student.

Trying something new can happen, i.e online learning which has taken a giant leap into the educational arena, but is it really valid as it exists right now ?
I would question that as you seem to question the medical arena.