Quotes:- An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. (-- Don Marquis)
Q: What do you get when you cross helium with a soda can?
A: A soda can that floats! (laughing)
I find his sense of humor funny. . . but not his jokes. This is, after all, just the most recent sample of these jokes that I have to ofer. It is better than many earlier efforts, which means he's learning.
Here are some of the things I want him to learn:
- To gather and recognize relevant information
- To recognize unstated assumptions
- To appraise evidence and evaluate arguments
- To recognize logical relationships between propositions
- To draw warranted conclusions and generalizations
- To test the conclusions and generalizations at which he arrives
Good thing I've got a few years.
In the process of all this, he needs to recognize that his feelings about the people who hold to an idea have no bearing on whether the idea is valid. This is important in understanding that people we don't like can still be right, and that people we trust and respect can still be wrong. (Also, when he's a teenager, that people who are so obviously wrong can still be trusted and respected -- within the limits of their ignorance, of course.)
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