Questions from a student today:
I have not included what I answered, but some of it might be guessed at by the progress of the questions. How would any of you have answered? I have my answers here and we can compare later…..
- “How did man evolve from ape?”
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“Then we should still evolve. We can’t just stop evolving. How did it stop?”
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“Then how did it start?”
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“In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
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“But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower?”
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“Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
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“Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
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“But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
Posted by Stephen Charchuk on September 04, 1998, at 09:17:23:
In Reply to: Welcome to my world…..
Posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 01:30:44:
- “How did man evolve from ape?”
We didn’t evolve from apes, we share a common ancestor. Apes and humans are primates.
- “Then we should still evolve. We can’t just stop evolving. How did it stop?”
It only stops when a species becomes extinct. Though, we are at the point when we do have some control over our evolution, but not much.
- “Then how did it start?”
We don’t exactly know yet.
- “In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
Actually more and more people aren’t being born with handicaps. More and more handicapped people are surviving longer because of our better health care. This is one of the ways in which we have control over our evolution.
- “But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower?”
No, they were not “slower back then”.
- “Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
A bit of both.
- “Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
No, it is a virus. A virus can damage genes when it feeds off of the body. They were wrong about what apes were. They are not deformed humans.
- “But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
Humans and apes share a common ancestor. It is a misnomer that humans evolved from apes.
AIDS is the final stage of HIV.
Posted by Floyd on September 04, 1998, at 10:24:55:
In Reply to: Welcome to my world….. posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 01:30:44:
1. “How did man evolve from ape?”
Depends on your definition of ape I suppose. Natural and sexual selection.
2. “Then we should still evolve. We can’t just stop evolving. How did it stop?”
It hasn’t. It’s a slow process, but if you compare groups from different cities in the same country you can bet you’ll find greater genetic variation between the two populations than in them. Selection of variations doesn’t stop.
3. “Then how did it start?”
Mundane chemical reactions in a relatively reducing environment. That or the selfish whim of a lonely superbeing who intervenes every now and then in his rage and destroys his creation. I know which I find more likely.
- “In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
More people with handicaps are surviving childhood. That’s to do with medical advances not evolution.
5. “But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower?”
Again, that’s environmental change, not genetic.
6. “Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
I guess this only makes sense with respect to your answers Helen
7. “Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
Frankly, I’d be worried about the lack of knowledge about viruses this otherwise intelligent student has.
8. “But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
Evolution in response to illnesses indeed would have occurred. HIV might indeed mutate into a more virulent strain, which is reproductively more successful than present forms. You can never tell.
Posted by MEYER on September 04, 1998, at 13:26:35:
In Reply to: Welcome to my world….. posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 01:30:44:
- “How did man evolve from ape?”
Man didn’t evolve from ape. According to cosmological evolution, all life has evolved from the same elements according to the universal rules. These rules say life must appear, and it must follow these rules. What these rules are, I don’t know, but you can tell them they can check http://www.seti-inst.edu/lowgfx/faq.html here
- “Then we should still evolve. We can’t just stop evolving. How did it stop?”
Because in reality we never “evolved”, but were created. A better question would be, “why didn’t we go extinct like so many other life forms”? There is an important ancient book written that explains why we are special, but most people ignore it and worship another book written by a man a little more than a hundred years ago.
- “Then how did it start?”
If evolution didn’t happen the way NASA says, then it didn’t have a start. Since no one can show evidence that it has ever occurred, I can’t see why they believe it ever started.
- “In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
We do change, and change occurs. But change and evolution are no longer the same terms. We are imperfect, and imperfect things have bad stuff happen to them. It is all part of a bigger plan that the creator has in store for us.
- “But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower
One thing that could be speeding up “bad” things is the way we have mistreated this planet we live on. We use chemicals everyday, test nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and many other things. It is remarkable in a way that we are still a living species. Again, this shows there is a divine creator watching over our species.
- “Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
I believe so. Change after all doesn’t require a species evolve into a totally new life form.
- “Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
AIDS is caused by a virus. There are many viruses out there that can “change” us. Fortunately, AIDS can be avoided in most cases.
- “But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
It may change into an airborne virus, such as one strain of Ebola did, but the cause of aids will most likely remain a virus. And keep in mind, it is still not known for sure if a virus has life or not. There is still much to learn about viruses. Flu viruses change and will continue changing, that is why some people need to have flu shots every year, to keep up with the changes in the viruses. But, they are always flu viruses.
- Posted by Brett on September 04, 1998, at 16:02:46:
In Reply to: Welcome to my world….. posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 01:30:44:
1. “How did man evolve from ape?
In fact, humans and apes share ape-like common ancestors. The fossil record of early ape-like primates is very poor, so fossils of the actual ancestors have not been found, although their existence is inferred from the nature of the fossil record (change recorded over time; ancestral human forms like Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus) and the genetic record (humans and apes share a vast majority of their genes, just as one would predict if they shared common ancestors).
At least the student didn’t ask how man evolved from monkeys.
- “Then we should still evolve. We can’t just stop evolving. How did it stop?”
Humans do still evolve. Biological evolution is defined as change in a population’s allele (gene) frequencies over time. This still occurs in human populations.
3. “Then how did it start?”
Nobody knows. Evolution starts when you have a self-replicating molecule or organism. Evolutionary theory is virtually (and appropriately) silent on how the first self-replicating molecule came into existence.
4. “In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
Many handicaps are not the result of heredity, and so they do not count as evolutionary change. However, those handicaps that are genetic in nature do have an evolutionary effect, because they often change the frequency of certain alleles in the population.
5. “But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower?”
Assuming that there are more handicapped people living today, I can see two possible reasons for this. First, modern medical science has made it possible for people to lead normal lives with handicaps that would have been severely debilitating, even fatal, a few hundred years ago. Second, the population has grown significantly, and with it so has the number of handicapped people.
6. “Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
First, individuals don’t evolve; populations of individuals do. Second, evolutionary change only occurs when there is an increase or decrease in the number of alleles in the population.
7. “Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
Viruses do not (generally) produce heritable changes, and hence they are not considered agents of evolutionary change.
8. “But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
The virus that causes AIDS moves from person to person, but not through inheritance. Therefore it is not an agent of evolutionary change.
Posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 18:11:30:
In Reply to: Welcome to my world….. posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 01:30:44:
My responses are in italics and the student’s questions are in straight print. After reading all the comments and such today, I have added a few comments here for this forum. They are underlined. The questioner was a 14-year-old girl in this part of the conversation who has declared under no uncertain circumstances that she hates science. I am endeavoring to change that opinion.
“How did man evolve from ape?”
Evolution does not say that man evolved from ape. The theory of evolution says man and ape have a common ancestor. A long time ago it is thought there was an ape-like animal and through a series of genetic changes several branches of life emerged. One of them was homo sapiens, or human beings. Other branches which came from this common ancestor include the chimpanzees, apes, and animals like that. We refer to this as being descended from a common ancestor, not that men came from apes.
“Then we should still evolve.”
There are many scientists who think we have stopped evolving.
This question was combined with the next two for the purposes of the CARM forum, and if this caused any misunderstandings, I apologise. I did not go into the “change in allele frequency over time” as they are clueless about alleles and I did mention later on that evolution simply means change, which leaves the door open for the technical biological definition being used today.
“We can’t just stop evolving!”
Well, they don’t see it happening now. They are working on this, trying to find out more about it.
“How did it stop?”
I don’t know. I don’t know that it has.
“Then how did it start?”
The evolution theory says that the first cell started mutating, or changing its genetic structure, a little at a time, until new life forms gradually started showing up in its descendents. This would not have happened quickly, but very slowly.
“In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
We don’t know how many changes people have had before, or how many handicaps. Most people were ashamed if people were born into their families with handicaps, so no one kept record of the numbers.
One of the reasons I answered this way was because the student was making an unsubstantiated presupposition that there are more handicaps today. We will be going into presuppositions next week and how to recognize them and how to separate the facts as presented from them.
“But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower?”
Well, evolution is change. That’s what the word means. So my question to you is, ‘Are we talking about the same kind of evolution here as the kind that changed that first cell, through the years, into all the different life forms we see today?
“I don’t understand the question. I’m not a scientist!”
OK, let me put it this way. We do see some changes today. We do see birth defects and problems and different sicknesses that kids can get born with. Some of these things are because of mutations, or genetic changes. Do you think this kind of change is different from the changes that were needed to change one kind of life form into another, if there is enough time?
“Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
I understand what you are saying. But there are two kinds of changes — one is like an accident, if you break your leg, or if you are born with a problem because your mom was sick during pregnancy — these are accidents and they will not affect your children because they do not have to do with the genes in your cells that carry all the information of heredity from one generation to the next. But the other kind of change is in the genes, and there are different kinds of change there, too. If you look a little like your mom and a little like your dad, that is just a special mixing of the genes. We’ll get into that later this year in genetics. But some changes are from mutations, or changes in the genes themselves. These changes CAN be inherited and they CAN result in some pretty nasty birth defects. That’s why some women who think they are at risk will have special tests done when they are pregnant to see if their baby is OK.
Now there are some changes that seem to help, too. And can be from mutations, too. Evolution takes a look at the changes that seem to help different animals at different times and says that it was changes like these that, through the years, resulted in all the life forms we see today.
“Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
AIDS is caused by a virus. It is not caused by a change in the genes. That is why one person can give it to another. It travels from person to person and gets people sick like the flu or a cold, but much worse.
“But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
They are completely and totally different. A virus is a tiny little piece of material that can infect your cells, and take them over, and then it reproduces itself. But the virus kills the cell, so that the cell does not influence other cells. For the most part, a person who is sick with a virus will not pass on any ill effects to his or her children. But this can happen if the mother is sick while she is pregnant and the baby might get the virus, too.
Genetic changes are different. They come from inside the cell. Then, if they are in the egg cells in the mom or the sperm cells in the dad, they can affect the children who are born. These children may or may not carry the same changes in their egg and sperm cells. So even genetic changes can be chancy that way.
The discussion kept going for the rest of the class period. We ended up talking about the differences between changes that are imposed from the outside, such as a virus would do, to changes that are imposed from the inside, such as a mutation. Just getting this idea straightened out was a major accomplishment for the day. I think you will noticed I left a lot of doors open for the conversation to go where it would. Some days I can do that.
Well, just about all the evolutionists here who have been on for any length of time have told me I am a terrible teacher. On what evidence, I am not sure, but now you have some of what I do on the discussion days. I think the student involved wants to see all of this herself later. If she makes any responses here, please be tolerant. Thank you.
Posted by Lucas on September 04, 1998, at 21:35:27:
In Reply to: How the discussion went….. posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 18:11:30:
“How did man evolve from ape?”
Evolution does not say that man evolved from ape… We refer to this as being descended from a common ancestor, not that men came from apes.
I think that in some contexts that might not be a bad answer. However, did you notice that you really didn’t answer the student’s question? It was a “how” question, and all you did was correct him or her on a mistanen detail of his question. After explaining that it was a common ancestor of man and ape from which both evolved, you then needed to tell the student something like “so what you really want to ask is how did humans and apes evolve from their common ancestor? Then you have to answer the corrected question.
(It was a real pet peeve of mine as a student when teachers would answer questions essentially different from those I’d asked and then pretend they’d answered my questions.)
“Then we should still evolve.”
There are many scientists who think we have stopped evolving.
Um…What scientists have said that? Some have said that we have stopped evolving by means of natural selection because the principle selection acting on humans now is artificial selection.
“We can’t just stop evolving!”
Well, they don’t see it happening now. They are working on this, trying to find out more about it.
Totally misleading. The timeframe over which such changes are observable is large compared to the timeframe over which they have been attempted to be observed. As a teacher wise in the ways of student misconceptions, you KNOW that your students will misinterpret absence of evidence as evidence of absence unless you very carefully distinguish between them.
“How did it stop?”
I don’t know. I don’t know that it has.
See previous question. You need to say that although it has not been directly observed in human populations because of the shortness of the time over which such observations were possible, that there is nevertheless no reason why it should have stopped now if it happened in the past. There is no reason to expect it to have stopped.
“Then how did it start?”
The evolution theory says that the first cell started mutating, or changing its genetic structure, a little at a time, until new life forms gradually started showing up in its descendents. This would not have happened quickly, but very slowly
I suppose that one couldn’t expect much better during the first week of school. I think, though, that the answer requires some assurance that the matter will be considered in more detail during the course of the year. The answer you gave has a “magical” quality, likely to be simply baffling. You might have encouraged the student to remember the question and ask it again after you have discussed “mutation and selection.” You could have reassured the student that then at least part of his question could be answered. . “In a way can’t we all still be changing? More and more people are coming up with handicaps. In a way, that is changing. Because we didn’t have that before.”
We don’t know how many changes people have had before, or how many handicaps. Most people were ashamed if people were born into their families with handicaps, so no one kept record of the numbers.
One of the reasons I answered this way was because the student was making an unsubstantiated presupposition
How do you know it was unsubstantiated? Did you ask the student why he supposed that there were more handicapped people now than previously?
It does not seem at all unreasonable that a teenaged student might answer something like “With modern medicine, more handicapped children live to become adults and marry and have their own children than would have been possible before. Some of those handicaps are then passed on to their children, resulting in more handicapped people overall.” (OK, a teenager would have used shorter sentences; but the concepts are not beyond a reasonable teenager, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bright teenager would think up something like that.
Your preemptory answer cut off what might have been a promising line of thought for that student. Teachers do that all the time, but good teachers try to avoid it as much as possible.
“But what I am saying is that we are changing rapidly in a way. Isn’t this evolution? I’m not saying they had more bad back then, but just that maybe they were slower?”
Well, evolution is change. That’s what the word means. So my question to you is, ‘Are we talking about the same kind of evolution here as the kind that changed that first cell, through the years, into all the different life forms we see today?
I think you misunderstood the question! It sounds like the student is asking why athletes are faster and stronger today than they used to be, why athletic records are being broken all the time. Is this, the student wonders, due to evolution?
The question calls for an answer differentiating hereditary from environmental effects. I suppose you can’t go into great detail at this stage of the school year. However, you might have pointed out that better diet and better training and equipment permits people to be faster now than in the past; but evolution works upon heritable traits, not environmental. (I don’t have the time to break this down into the words that would be appropriate for teenagers. I hope you get the idea, though.)
Bringing up “different kinds of evolution” and that first cell was needlessly abstract for your students.
“I don’t understand the question. I’m not a scientist!”
OK, let me put it this way. We do see some changes today. We do see birth defects and problems and different sicknesses that kids can get born with. Some of these things are because of mutations, or genetic changes. Do you think this kind of change is different from the changes that were needed to change one kind of life form into another, if there is enough time?
Now you’ve at least brought up environmental effects, but in a very confusing way. You are tacitly requiring the student to compare a deleterious environmental effect with a beneficial effect. In order to be illustrative, your example should have only one of those differences at a time until your students have mastered the simple cases.
“Ohhh, I think I understand the question now. Are you saying that this changing, does it have to do with evolving or just with outward look — is that what you are saying? Because, either way, it’s both a genetic thing, whether it’s inside or outside. It’s a genetic thing no matter which way you look at it. At least in my eyes.”
I understand what you are saying. But there are two kinds of changes — one is like an accident, if you break your leg, or if you are born with a problem because your mom was sick during pregnancy — these are accidents and they will not affect your children because they do not have to do with the genes in your cells that carry all the information of heredity from one generation to the next. But the other kind of change is in the genes, and there are different kinds of change there, too. If you look a little like your mom and a little like your dad, that is just a special mixing of the genes. We’ll get into that later this year in genetics. But some changes are from mutations, or changes in the genes themselves. These changes CAN be inherited and they CAN result in some pretty nasty birth defects. That’s why some women who think they are at risk will have special tests done when they are pregnant to see if their baby is OK.
Now there are some changes that seem to help, too. And can be from mutations, too. Evolution takes a look at the changes that seem to help different animals at different times and says that it was changes like these that, through the years, resulted in all the life forms we see today.
I don’t fault that answer. If I had been on my toes, though, I would mention in the last sentence that it is through ACCUMULATED beneficial mutations.
“Is AIDS a genetic deformity? It can be passed on from person to person, and it can also deform your outer appearance. That’s what they say an ape was, or a human-ape — it not only affected its inner, but its outer. The looking way and the acting way.”
AIDS is caused by a virus. It is not caused by a change in the genes. That is why one person can give it to another. It travels from person to person and gets people sick like the flu or a cold, but much worse.
I think you forgot the question during your answer. You should have added that AIDS has nothing to do with either human or ape evolution.
“But that’s like ape to human. The changes just passed on. One ancestor passes it on to the next one and then that one passes it on until it finally evolved into a human. So if AIDS passes on from one to another, won’t it turn into something worse?”
They are completely and totally different. A virus is a tiny little piece of material that can infect your cells, and take them over, and then it reproduces itself. But the virus kills the cell, so that the cell does not influence other cells. For the most part, a person who is sick with a virus will not pass on any ill effects to his or her children. But this can happen if the mother is sick while she is pregnant and the baby might get the virus, too. Genetic changes are different. They come from inside the cell. Then, if they are in the egg cells in the mom or the sperm cells in the dad, they can affect the children who are born. These children may or may not carry the same changes in their egg and sperm cells. So even genetic changes can be chancy that way.
I think you said too much. The part about a pregnant mother transmitting the virus to her child was good. The part explaining how viruses work might have been off point. I understand that you wanted to differentiate between transmission of a disease from the mother to her child from genetic transmission of traits. That’s hard to do. Are you sure that your students all know what egg and sperm cells are?
Lucas
Posted by Helen on September 05, 1998, at 01:23:48:
In Reply to: Re: How the discussion might have gone in a better (but not perfect) world posted by Lucas on September 04, 1998, at 21:35:27:
Thanks for the input, Lucas. A lot of your points were right on. In some areas, you would have added more and in some not as much. That is to be expected. If I had gotten as detailed, as you would have liked on some of them, I think it would have blocked other questions. But the way I answered probably blocked about as many…
My general idea when I start these discussions early in the year is just to see what I am dealing with in terms of students. What misconceptions, what personalities, who is going to be eager to question and who shy, what basics are missing…..that sort of thing. So I do tend to go for the misconceptions first, which is probably why I answered the way I did on a few points.
You are right about that pet peeve of having a teacher answer the wrong question, or not the question that was asked. I think we have all found ourselves doing it and that is why recording a discussion, as I did yesterday, or being videotaped by a darlin’ principal (ycchhhh) is so helpful in the long run. The way I see myself teaching and the way it comes across on tape or film can sometimes be radically different. I can be either much better or worse than I see myself as being at any given time.
You asked what scientists have said we have stopped evolving — physically evolving, anyway. Disregarding the “change in allele frequency over time” and going for the general definition that most people work with, every medical doctor I have ever spoken with about the subject has agreed that man seems to have stopped evolving. Gould himself referred to man no longer evolving in a speech he made in October of 1983 at Harvard. The quote I have from that speech, via “The Washington Times” of Feb. 8, 1984 is “We’re not just evolving slowly. For all practical purposes we’re not evolving. There’s no reason to think we’re going to get bigger brains or smaller toes or whatever — we are what we are.” There are others who seem to agree.
Regarding the more specific answers about the processes of mutations, I did a little board work later with some diagrams and such, but they know we will be getting into it later in the year. It’s part of the course outline…
As far as unsubstantiated statements go, they have to be considered that way unless data is there to back them up. I run my classes along very Strict rules here. There is not ONE kid in ANY class I have ever had who has come into the year with a good understanding of what a presupposition is compared to a fact and compared to an opinion. Facts MUST be backed up or referenced to something previously backed up. All sorts of things might be true, and presuppositions are not either a priori true or false, but they MUST be recognized for what they are in my class. As a result, some of the research papers I have gotten through the years have been pretty awesome. I think my work here is one reason my students tend to test so well later.
Many of your other comments were quite on target regarding my initially missing the point the student was referring to. And some of the rest of your comments had more to do with a matter of teaching style.
But all of your comments are appreciated, and thank you.
Posted by Helen on September 04, 1998, at 01:30:44
