How many people on DU do you think took high school science?

[lightningandsnow]

I constantly have to explain things I learned in grade 11 and 12. For real.

Like fructose not being a part of cellular respiration, being in fruit, but not really being metabolized by your body.

And sucrose being consistently chemically the same, no matter what the source.

And mercury poisoning looking nothing like autism, and "systemic candida infections" being serious, only occurring in immunocompromised people, and being a lot more than tummy aches and frequent yeast infections.

Jesus. I only got a B in high school biology, but I seem to know more than everyone else. Is it the Canadian education system or the fact that some people here are just anti-science?

Maybe I should go into public health after all.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I'd say about 95%.

How many paid attention and/or remember anything? <10%

[lizerdbits]

2. I'm not sure if it's the education system or not

since I'm not familiar with the Canadian system. Maybe some schools here lack the teaching of critical thinking and evaluation of evidence skills so people fall for quackery. I think if someone doesn't have knowledge of biology past HS it might be harder for them to know when they're being bullshitted. If they hear science-y words they think it's true because they don't have a very good understanding of how certain biological processes work. I took a bare minimum of physics since I was a biology major, so I couldn't point by point refute physics woo. Not that I believe the woo; the reason most people in a given field accept certain ideas is because there is sufficient evidence supporting them. Some random guy with a website saying his magnificent idea is being rejected by an entire field of researchers because they're all scared of him probably has a shitty idea. He could turn out to be right, but it's not very likely.

I think the media plays a part in that as well. If you take a journal article that found compound X destroyed cancer cells in a flask the news headline would probably be something about a miracle cure without knowledge as to how compound X is altered in digestion, if it would even be absorbed (those 2 only applying to oral dosage), how it would be processed by the liver, or if it would have side effects too severe to be as useful treatment.

[Orrex]

3. I confess that I've forgot a good deal of the minute details

For instance, I couldn't balance a chemical equation if my Thimerosal depended on it.

However, I retain a measure of critical thinking ability that helps me to assess bullshit even without knowing where every last electron is supposed to wind up.


Sadly, I received no education in critical thinking until my sophomore year in college.



I'm not bothered by people who are innocently ignorant of science, but I do really dislike people who assume that their ignorance gives them some unique or esoteric insight beyond the abilities of the dogmatic scientistic fundamentalists.

[dropkickpa]

6. Critical thinking is sorely lacking in HS education

Especially the sciences. I lucked out big time in that my HS bio teacher (I took nerd classes and took Bio 1, 2, and 3 in HS) was a big proponent of teaching critical thinking skills in even his super-basic science classes.

I suck at physics (never took it), but love to listen to the physics people I do work with because they do know what they are talking about. Why woo's are so quick to dismiss those who actually are experts in their fields baffles the fuck out of me. Is it some dumbfuckistanian requirement to immediately dismiss the educated because they're the "elites"? Woos are no better than right-wingers because they do the same exact shit and are just too damn stupid/blind/stubborn to realize. That's what really gets my panties in a twist with them.

[semillama]

7. David Brin has some theories on this

Basically, he sees that our culture has started to show a significant trend against expertise and encourages disrespect towards experts. This is especially evident in the cultural debate about climate change. He's got a lot of good blog posts on this; here's one:

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2010/02/real-struggle-behind-climate-change-war.html

[PVnRT]

16. You can't balance a redox reaction?

How will you get a job at the Gap without that crucial knowledge?

[Orrex]

18. I know--that's like the first question on the application.

I feel so ill-informed!

[Codeine]

4. Taking it and understanding it are two different things. nt

[TZ]

5. I think its both not taking it and not understanding it

Do you know that in this country in certain professions where scientific knowledge is helpful (patent lawyers, science writers) a science "background" is having taken chemistry in high school. An ex coworker of mine (Masters PhD in biology) went to law school to be a patent lawyer and found that having too MUCH science background like she does was a liability. Because in her words, don't want a lawyer to start spouting stuff thats too technical and bore people! :banghead:

[Warpy]

8. I think most of them had little interest in the class

and retained what little information they got only long enough to pass the final. Nothing else could explain the science illiteracy in this country.

If you were interested in the subject matter, you'd tend to retain it longer.

[Odin2005]

9. Just because tou take a class doesn't mean you retain the knowledge.

For most people most of the stuff learned is no retained.

[realisticphish]

11. exactly; memorization != learning

I memorized all kinds of things for exams that I have no clue on now. But almost everything I've learned in grad school I still keep. Why? Because had to write papers on it, not fill in multiple choice answers three times a semester.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. I'm a bit puzzled by "fructose ... not really being metabolized by your body"

since it's half of the sucrose molecule, and, well, it is metabolized by the human body. :shrug:

[TZ]

12. And since fructose is common in fruit

(hello, that's how it got it's name) why the he'll they think it's treated differently by the body. Sugar is sugar.

[Odin2005]

13. Fructose isn't bad in and of itself, it's the high concentration in HFCS that is bad IIRC.

Everything I've found on the subject suggests that very high concentrations of fructose tend to overwhelm the pancreas more than other sugars. It makes sense based on what I know about the biochemistry of sugar.

[TZ]

14. its like I always say

everything in moderation. HFCS is bad cause its in EVERYTHING so people tend to eat it a lot. Otherwise HFCS is no worse or better than other sugars.

[salvorhardin]

15. But fructose isn't in especially high concentrations in HFCS

HFCS in soft drinks and other foods contains glucose and fructose in about equal proportions as to sucrose (table sugar)*. You're right that high concentrations of fructose are not good for you. Foods and candies sweetened with fructose used to be recommended for diabetics until it was figured out that consuming a diet high in fructose overloads the liver. But the relative proportions of fructose to glucose in our diets hasn't changed all that much.

What has changed is that it seems like everything is sweetened, often in astonishing amounts, these days (especially prepared, packaged and frozen foods). Also our consumption of sweet drinks, especially fizzy drinks but also candy coffee drinks (ala Starbucks) has increased dramatically. It's also estimated that people are just plain taking in more calories across the board than they used to, thus also increasing the amount of fructose consumed.

So people are taking in much higher quantities of fructose these days. HFCS is implicated only in that HFCS is the current sweetener of choice due to its cost relative to sucrose thanks to corn subsidies. If we were still using sucrose primarily and still sweetening our foods to the degrees we do, we'd still have a problem with people consuming too much fructose.

I'm not defending the use of HFCS, but I just haven't seen any evidence that HFCS alone is responsible for any health effects.

*There are three main varieties of HFCS used.
HFCS 55: Contains 55% fructose, 45% glucose and is used mainly in soft drinks
HFCS 42: Contains 42% fructose, 58% glucose and is used mainly in foods, especially baked goods
HFCS 90: Contains 90% fructose, 10% glucose and is used mainly to make the other two formulations

Sucrose is roughly 50% fructose, 50% glucose.

It should also be noted that sucrose has more calories than HFCS. Sucrose has 4 Kcal/gram while HFCS has 3KCal/gram.

[Odin2005]

17. Ah, thanks. I stand corrected.