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When secular friends fall victim to Woo.
One of my close friends who's always been pretty solid in his thinking, and is an atheist saw one of those crappy shows on the history channel about how aliens genetically engineered humans to mine ore for them. We were talking about something completely unrelated and he changes the subject to this topic and babbles on about it while the rest of us just kinda looked at him. I was such in shock by the whole thing I couldn't think straight to debunk it. After all he shouldn't be the one to go off on nuttery. The concept might be interesting, but come on aliens that have high technology and FTL probably have better ways to mine ore than genetically engineering ape people and giving them pickaxes. I would think a more plausible scenario would have the aliens show up realize theres tons of people running round interfering with the mining op thats probably done by robots or whatever. I'm pretty sure geologists would have found evidence of a world wide ancient mining operation by now. Next time I see him I need to set him down and set him straight.
On a side note the history channel needs to stop having shows about aliens, ghosts, and other woo, and go back to fact land where they belong. Unless of course somebody actually has proof of something, but then I doubt we'd here about it on a show like ghost hunters. I think that would be something the media would obsess about for a few weeks. Though I'd love to see Fox news response if we had discovered ghosts. After all that would invalidate half of Christianity.
On a side note the history channel needs to stop having shows about aliens, ghosts, and other woo, and go back to fact land where they belong. Unless of course somebody actually has proof of something, but then I doubt we'd here about it on a show like ghost hunters. I think that would be something the media would obsess about for a few weeks. Though I'd love to see Fox news response if we had discovered ghosts. After all that would invalidate half of Christianity.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on -
As a historian, I can tell you a lot of historians think the history channel has serious problems in fact land, too. Have you watched PBS American Experience? I have found Biography sadly lacking in substance, too. Of course, if you are fond of war documentaries you can find quite a few on the $5 shelf at Walmart. I think my dh has almost all of them.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Nicole on -
Our family sticks to the National Geographic Channel, luckily. >.>
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Permalink Reply by Patrick Niblock on -
Yeah Grace I figured their actual history shows would have issues with it. One thing that annoys me is the lack of detail in documentaries. After all some of those shows, especially science shows you can drill down to a couple of paragraphs of info. So usually if I wanna know more about something I'll look for it on the internet, and the internet being what it is I try to get multiple sources. Nat Geo's a better channel but they do have stuff on Nostradamus and other odd subjects now and again, but their a lot better than the History channel at presenting that stuff. I watched one and they showed both sides of the argument pretty well.
On a side note me and a friend decided to test his 13 yr old nephews history knowledge from school, plus his gullibility. So we had him convinced that the Civil war was a conflict between president Sherman and the Nazi's under Emperor Von Braun (he shot Hitler and took the throne). He was believing it till we told him the US cavalry charged the German tanks in DC with Velociraptor mounts. The dinosaur mention didn't faze him as he thought that was a type of horse, but the tanks in the 1860's did it and he called bs at that point. Moral of the story I guess is history must be really badly taught in public schools. My kids are hopefully going to a private school that hopefully isn't run by the religious nutters.
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Permalink Reply by Noh Name on -
Yeah it's pretty scary what kids are not being taught in school. A few years back I got a hold of a 8th grade history book. To begin with the language was horribly dumbed down. I recall a sentence about the American Civil War "The war was really, really bad. Lots of Americans lost there lives." It wasn't just those lines the whole narrative felt more like Mister Rogers telling me that I am special than someone teaching history at an 8th grade level.
Vital information was omitted and of course praise of "heroes" such as Wilson and Nixon was in there. I understand that an 8th grader is most likely not capable of, or would have the desire, understanding something at an college level but the history books have taken a nosedive since I was in public school. Unless you find one hell of a private school for your kids I'd suggest introducing them to history yourself, like a supplement.
I homeschooled my oldest from K-3. It was easy. We had good history books and I'd just point out interesting facts like... People once had boxes filled with ice to keep there food cold or there once were thousands of buffalo that would go through here... to start conversations. The conversations always turned out to be awesome and in joint research I often learned something new. Doing that I was able to instill a love of learning by encouraging his curiosity and critical thinking.
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Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on -
The book said "lots of Americans lost there lives"? I get infuriated when I see obvious spelling and grammatical errors in a published book, let alone a school textbook. I don't remember the books being quite so simplistic, but they must have gotten much worse since I graduated in 1998. (I don't remember how many years it takes to update public schoolbooks, but some of mine must have been pretty old.) Your description of the book reads like something we'd have read before 5th grade.
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Permalink Reply by Noh Name on
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Yes, unfortunately it did. I can forgive an occasional typo, like one misspelling but this book was ridiculous.
I was in school until '94. This had to of been around '03 or '04, we were still homeschooling at the time, it was a new book. My stepfather borrowed the book from a friend who was a teacher. I nearly forgot, it was a teacher's edition. The teacher's notes were just as bad, but I only recall my impressions of them not any details. I was appalled. She was deeply upset by it but the school board decided it was going to be the new history book. She had only a couple years teaching under her belt. So it was a choice between do what you can with the book or lose your job and have difficulties finding a new one. I felt terrible for her being in that situation.
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Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on
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History channel being anything but history, Fox news being anything but accurate news...I think I'll just stay away from anything on TV that's supposed to be about facts, and just watch cartoons instead.
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Permalink Reply by Edward Becker on -
if only there was a "like" button on this post.
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Permalink Reply by Park Bierbower on -
Thats what happens when reality tv gets 25% of programming to it~ Competition kills quality.
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Permalink Reply by Patrick Niblock on
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Thats why I don't bother watching just normal TV anymore. Everytime I like something it gets canceled. Poor Firefly, The Sarah Connor chronicles and now Caprica. If they cancel Dexter or True Blood I may have to burn something down. Seems like if its smarter than wrestling for reality tv its doomed.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer E. on -
Long live Dexter!
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Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on -
And if it had no quality to start with......?
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