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« on: February 04, 2019, 04:36:48 PM »
I've been at this site for about a decade. Maybe made 40,000-50,000 posts by now, I've lost count. I've never managed to convince a single person that the earth is flat. Option 3 doesn't exist.
But I have reached kids that teachers couldn't. Those disengaged, those that would never put their hand up in class but can hide behind the anonymity of the internet, those that didn't think they had an interest in science until the day they needed it to prove that I'm an idiot. In class you can be told the earth is round, but that's a pretty shaky basis for establishing a foundation that you will build everything else upon. Why is it round? How can you be so sure? What are the underlying principles? Do you understand every nuisance, can you use what you know to explain things you've never considered before? Explain to the alien, school the flat earther.
"Someone is wrong on the internet" is a powerful motivator. It will motivate kids to read scientific papers, do pack of envelop calculations, debate, discuss, create their own content ... and not as a tick in the box assignment for a grade. Because they became passionate about it. Because they wanted to win. Because they wanted to use their wit and brains to defeat a loudmouth on the internet. The flat earth movement is 21st century digital education. Effective, alluring, interactive and rewarding. No one leaves this forum more stupid than the day that they arrived.
And yet google stomps through the internet meadow, crushing the delicate little flowers beneath with its size 12 boots because it has no sense of the underlying ecosystem that it is destroying and it never takes a moment to stop and enjoy the beauty of things it doesn't understand.
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