Big Think has printed another of a class of essays written by scientists, common these days, announcing in triumphant tones all the things that science can do outside its particular and limited domain. Almost without exception, these essays, which implicitly aspire to philosophical eloquence, fly too close to the sun. The only difference being that, while Icarus […]
“The U.S. is running short of people who can tell the forest from the trees.” So says a recent Wall Street Journal article that is at least partly indicative of the fate of science education in the U.S. in recent years. It tells of the growing problem of “plant blindness,” the term used among botanists […]
I have given many speeches and written many articles on the subject of what classical education is. One of the things I have realized in doing so is that, among the many impediments to understanding what classical education is, there is the simple problem of the lack of clarity in the words we use to […]
The expression “the science is settled” has been invoked as a way to end numerous discussions of scientific importance. On issues involving evolution, dietary science, or exercise physiology, it is not uncommon for one side to claim that the research has settled the issue. But, however much evidence there may be for any particular scientific […]
I was talking with a homeschool mother recently and she told me that she had visited Britain. She was particularly impressed with Hadrian’s Wall, which was built during the Roman occupation of the island. Hadrian’s Wall is made of stone and runs some 84 miles, from Wallsend on the River Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway in the […]
What precisely is Western culture? In a nutshell, it is the civilization that derives from the cultures of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, that was conquered and transformed by Christianity, and which has been handed down through the centuries by an education system which in more recent times has been referred to as “classical education.” These […]
Stephen Hawking once pronounced that he thought his brain was little more than a computer and that, because of this, he was unafraid to die: “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story […]
What does reason have to do with faith? What does the intellectual have to do with the spiritual? What does philosophy have to do with Christianity? These are questions that Tertullian, one of the early fathers of the Church, summed up when he asked, “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian’s question seems to […]
If you were to ask most classical educators what classical education is, you would find them hard-pressed to give a short, coherent answer. That is the way with a lot of movements: It’s easy to get swept up in the enthusiasm, but when asked to formulate what it is that excites you, it’s hard to […]
The most basic thing we can ask about anything is “What is it?” Young children explicitly ask this question all the time. But even adults do it, although they may not do it explicitly, or even think about doing it at all. We ask this about words we don’t know, and things we encounter for […]