Conspiracy theories, or ignorance is bliss?

I read something interesting the other week, an article about why conspiracy theorists seem to believe ‘all’ of the theories out there.
It basically said (IIRC) all people look for patterns in things, and when you find a pattern, you get a hit of dopamine.
But in some people, because of a genetic difference, that dopamine hit is much, much, higher. Those people are far more likely to believe conspiracy theories, which explains why the people that believe them, are very likely to believe ‘all’ of them.
This does not mean that all, or indeed any of them are necessarily wrong of course.

A work colleague introduced me to Thrive the other day.

Which is?

We had the covid protestors near my shop last Sunday.
WTF are they actually protesting about?

Yeah, what's Thrive?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2063834/reviews this maybe? Not watched it, and not likley to either. Maybe ignorance is bliss indeed!

I think it's a conspiracy for the OP to get everyone to find out what Thrive is.
I'm out.

WTF are they actually protesting about?

Probably the optional vaccine.

WTF are they actually protesting about?

what have you got? 5G, anti western medicine, anti modernity, anti-compulsion, anti the societal contract...We get them at the surgery I manage, I take their leaflets, smile and tell them to leave. I'n not interesting in getting into a debate with them.

What if all these conspiracies are one big conspiracy?.
THEY makes you think.

We've had one recently at the site I work at. Luckily he has left now. Amongst his theories were that having the Covid injection make you 4 times more likely to catch Covid than without having it. The Queen had been dead for 6 months, she had been kept on a life support to preserve the body. We never did get the reason why anyone would do that, as they have announced she was dead anyway.
And, the most bizarre, microplastics are genetically changing us, and babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago. He is convinced. When we (all) pointed out that our childrens genitals were never measured when born, he just said a Nurse does it when we werent there, and all the data is online. Of course we all laughed at him for his idiocy.

^^^*reaches for tape measure

What if all these conspiracies are one big conspiracy?.

Some sort of Great Reset.

, the most bizarre, microplastics are genetically changing us, and babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than

Tell him to watch Crimes of the Future 🤣

Some sort of Great Reset

Yeah that.

We all like to think we know what's going on but getting your head round reality is difficult. It's much easier to just believe a nice, simple conspiracy theory.

Mate of mine did a huge amount of work about 9/11 and the collapse of one of the buildings. He even produced a film about his findings and he certainly had a pretty solid argument with plenty to back up his thoughts.

Problem is, he then went down the rabbit hole and everything's a conspiracy now, especially after covid and he's lost most of the people who thought his original stuff had some merit.

martymac

I read something interesting the other week, an article about why conspiracy theorists seem to believe ‘all’ of the theories out there.
.......
This does not mean that all, or indeed any of them are necessarily wrong of course.

This could almost benefit from deciding what a conspiracy theory actually is?
Just off the top of my head .... I guess if it's "true" (or even true in terms of beyond reasonable doubt) is it a conspiracy theory?
(Perhaps a different question is are we taking a scientific definition of theory or "public use" definition? That might seem pedantic except many conspiracies seem to make a big deal - like "evolution is just a theory")

One other reason people might believe more than one conspiracy theory might simply be because they are true and have good evidence?

Another reason might simply be that there are different levels of evidence that may require a detailed expert knowledge to question.

An example might be flat earthers like to say gravity doesn't exist... which to some extent is partially true in that gravity doesn't exist as it's been taught to them in school HOWEVER should someone actually understand gravity existing as a displacement to space-time then the idea of a "shape" to earth, the solar system or anything else is a pointless question without the frame of reference.

However ... this then extends to "fool me once shame on you"... if someone is lied to about one thing they can understand why should they trust something they can't understand without the expert knowledge?

HOWEVER... Even though I think mostly it's simply a mix of laziness, stupidity and lack of morality.

e.g. You could question why our kids are being deliberately lied to by their science teachers following a curriculum that is deliberately set out to force children to lie in order to get good marks?

Is that a conspiracy because for example we want kids to grow up into people who doubt anything a real scientist says? (and by extension an economist or any other expert) or as I believe is far more likely that our education system simply doesn't care about scientific truth and doesn't care if it leads to increasing numbers of people believing in conspiracy theories.

You could say the same over government spread covid misinformation... you didn't need to be a social scientist to work out that lying about the reason to wear a mask was in anything beyond short term going to lead to anything other than mass non-compliance to the point where wearing one to protect the vulnerable became all but pointless.

Or if we go further out on the "conspiracy of conspiracy theories"??? Perhaps having the population believe in conspiracy theories is part of the plan? The "mother" of all conspiracy theories (at least in modern times) could be Area 51 ... where perhaps the idea was it was better for the public to think aliens crash landed than have it public knowledge where they were developing and testing new military planes?

 It’s much easier to just believe a nice, simple conspiracy theory.

Some are less "nice" than others

The NSA mass surveillance was the one that I was astonished with.  I wouldn't have thought it would have been technically possible to process that much data but I was wrong

fun chart

We all like to think we know what’s going on but getting your head round reality is difficult. It’s much easier to just believe a nice, simple conspiracy theory.

As complex and baroque as many conspiracy theories are they're actually about trying to make the world simpler to grasp. Its much more comforting to think theres some sort of shadowy orgamisation  making bad things happen because it makes it feel like the solutions to the worlds problems are comparatively simple. A reality where things happen because of huge random mixture bad planning, no planning, a lack of joined up vision, human failings, unintended consequences and that basically things often happen for no reason is much more difficult to digest. And its depressing as its makes the world too complicated to even describe let alone fix.

Part of the thrill really is just making the world simpler.

And, the most bizarre, microplastics are genetically changing us

That's actually fairly plausible.

You could question why our kids are being deliberately lied to by their science teachers following a curriculum that is deliberately set out to force children to lie in order to get good marks?

Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?

Some sort of Great Reset.

I've taken to replying that Lanzarote isn't that great a resort, and then walk off.

The “mother” of all conspiracy theories (at least in modern times) could be Area 51 … where perhaps the idea was it was better for the public to think aliens crash landed than have it public knowledge where they were developing and testing new military planes?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQ_FsmU19g

This is a really good UFO video, seems well researched and believable, but I am not an expert.
He does a lot on paranormal and conspiracy theories, sets out 'what happened' and then picks holes in it is the standard format. This one is a bit different.
As he says, if we can debunk 99% of these theories, doesn't that make the other 1% much more interesting?

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago.

So governments around the world have been measuring and keeping records for at least 50 years then?

Thing is most people in power actually aren't that clever...

The organisations that actually run countries civil service,MI?, CIA, etc are too busy stopping the people in power ****ing up.

The real control os global finacial its not a conspiracy more a system.

Birds aren't real.

Some are less “nice” than others

At the top of that inverted triangle are theories that are people revelling in their disgust - all the satanic child-organ-harvesting bullshit. Spite and disgust are much bigger motivating factors in our lives than we like to think and theres a bunch of key ingredients - shadowy under world, children being 'harvested' and ungodly rituals- and the idea that its all happening under people's noses. When they all happen to come together in one package  the revoltingness of it is too thrilling.

Its something that has happened throughout history but social media has become an unwitting accelerator of. Facebook for instance used to have a very simple engagement for driving content 'Likes' - 'like' a post and its algorithm will direct other content to you that it thinks you'll like too with the simple aim of encouraging you to spend more time on the platform - but thats fine because your spending that time consuming stuff you 'like'. . But they changed that to a range of responses. People often used to moan that there was no 'dislike' button but Facebook wouldn't want that because its a criticism of the original poster that would discourage people from posting as much in future, but instead it gave you a range of responses rather than just 'like':  "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", and "Angry". What people dont really realise is those responses are scored - 'like' and 'love' have low scores and 'sad' and 'angry' have high scores. If you express sadness, shock or anger about a topic Facebook will feed you more things to be shocked and angry about - because you'll spend more time on the site being thrilled by the horribleness of things.

Its nothing new - politics and tabloid journalism have been inventing things to be angry about for centuries - I remember the Daily Express once had a full page headline that simply said 'IT JUST GOT WORSE'. All social media has is a much faster feedback loop and they've removed humans from that loop.

Before 'Pizza Gate' and their ilk a bunch of very similar sounding theories were popping up in East Asia  - rumours would suddenly spring up out of nowhere implicating a figure or a group - with all the key ingredients - people in power, secrecy ,disappearing children and their organs, rituals - they'd escalate rapidly and  resulted in tragic mob violence and lynchings of innocent people. They're not connected to each other or to any of the nasty theories in the states. Its just nasty rumours throwing every horrible idea someone can think of into the same pot - but in a social media age sometimes all the ingredient come together to make something explosive.

Mate of mine did a huge amount of work about 9/11 and the collapse of one of the buildings. He even produced a film about his findings and he certainly had a pretty solid argument with plenty to back up his thoughts.

What were his conclusions and arguments . It was all a government plot to start a war on Muslims ? How did it differ from the findings reached by multidues of proper engineers.

https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html

If you want to arrive at a particular conclusion over a complex subject you can always find "evidence" to support a particular narrative.

The “mother” of all conspiracy theories (at least in modern times) could be Area 51

Actually the Mom and Pop is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A Russian disinformation campaign in 1903 that created a hoax document reporting to be a jewish plan for world domination. There was nothing new abut the anti semitism but its where the idea of a some sort of global cabal comes from and where every theory that  focuses on 'elites' 'the deep state'  or whatever operating behind governments or financial institutions or the media, you can basically substitute the word 'Jews' and find its precursor in that hoax document (which is basically a copy and paste mix of political satires.)

You could question why our kids are being deliberately lied to by their science teachers following a curriculum that is deliberately set out to force children to lie in order to get good marks?

Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?

Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.

I gave up on Fb five or six years ago, partly because I had someone with me to think about, having got back in touch via Fb, but more so because it was just becoming toxic - trying to deal with family posting crap about chemtrails and that sort of stuff was exhausting, so I stopped looking at it. I still have it on my tablet, just because messenger is useful for a bunch of us to keep in touch, but that’s about it.

Ive always thought that for Americans they have to deal with the fact that there was something very fishy about the JGK assassination. If you have a potential massive conspiracy at the heart of your recent history then it makes it much more believable that there many other massive conspiracies out their.

Some sort of Great Reset.

Nope. Aliens are real. Have been visiting earth for millenia preparing us for the invasion. The means of enslavement will be via a black oil. The governments are in on it. We will all get stung by genetically modified bees. There is a spaceship in Antarctica. There's a bloke can slither though drain pipes.*

* I may have watched X files once or twice 🤷🏼‍♂️🤣

JGK

Wait, what? Is this a new theory...?

2 questions regarding aliens.

1. Why are they so keen on anal probes

2. Why do they only abduct incomprehensible idiots (my only basis for this definition are my own prejudices) and they never take doctors, boffins or experts?

Thanks for the handy graphic, I had no idea that Prince - now King - Charles was a vampire.

he certainly had a pretty solid argument with plenty to back up his thoughts.

Plenty to back up but probably all easily debunked.

Conspiracy chart:

There's a least one, possibly two, that I would move from 'detached from reality' to 'we have questions'. I guess I must be a conspiracy theorist.

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago

Would it matter if they did?

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago

And when they grow up they are far fatter and taller than 50 years ago.
Obviously being farmed.

I see no one from Finland has posted on here yet....

regarding aliens.

Life imitating art. Nobody made a claim of being abducted by aliens until after Bugs Bunny was abducted by Marvin the Martian.

I had no idea that Prince – now King – Charles was a vampire.

I could live with him being a vampire, It his hands made from raw sausages that I'm worried about.

Life imitating art. Nobody made a claim of being abducted by aliens until after Bugs Bunny was abducted by Marvin the Martian.

Or, Bugs Bunny (and other theatrical influences) gave a potential explanation to encounters folk had been experiencing since biblical times but had previously put down to divine intervention since space travel wasn't so imminently possible in the public consciousness pre Sputnik.

1. Why are they so keen on anal probes

They don’t, that’s deliberate disinformation to make them sound absurd an inhibit belief in the truth.

They just shove the probe up the Urethra.

They just shove the probe up the Urethra

When it's my turn for abduction, I'll take the anal probe if it's all the same with you 😬

Molgrips

Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?

Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It's basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.

A random example is "select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid"
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.

It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.

!!!

I thought it would be about telling students up to GCSE that electrons are arranged in concentric shells.

@jamiemcf - If the Aliens started abducting intelligent people not prone to exaggeration then we might take the threat of invasion seriously!

Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.

A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.

Going to need some proof of this.

A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie.

This is teaching through simple models, rather than lying. In normal experience, it’s pretty hard to compress a liquid without access to expensive equipment.

Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.

A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions

The first sentence of this is inaccurate, there being no such thing as the UK science curriculum. And the rest of the post goes downhill from that high point.

Thrive FWIW:

Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?

Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.

I suspect he is suggesting that simplified theories should not be taught in schools because they are damned lies. If you can't deal with quantum mechanics you just have to accept you're a ignoramus who will probably go on to be a conspiracy theorist.

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago

...and conspiracy theorists have their ears closer together than the rest of us.

Anyone who has ever tried to organise and Co-ordinate a project involving multiple people and departments ( or in some cases arrange a group of people to go out for a bike ride) will know that the possibility of any government, agency or corporation to work together and not balls things up AND keep it secret is totally beyond our ability as a species.

The term 'conspiracy theory' has now morphed in meaning from a questioning the mainstream narrative to tin foil hat wearing, flat earth believing paranoia.

If you take the meaning literally of conspiracy though, it only take to people to 'conspire' against someone else. So conspiracies happen every day in all walks of life. It's healthy to question things but not healthy to just believe anything that's in print or what your pall tells you.

I do agree that it's a deep rabbit hole once you start to read into proven government conspiracies. Probably ignorance is better for your sanity if you're easily worried.

I struggle to believe that there is this elitist agenda when you look at how incompetent our leaders are. The real conspiracies for me are the ones where there are cover ups of the incompetences of the government. Things like the PPE scandal during Covid.

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago.

So this requires scientists from the 1970s to have an understanding of genetics and external effects on it, which I’m pretty sure they didn’t have as they still liked smoking while pregnant back then, and also decide that this was a desirable outcome, and then embark on a half century long process of measuring a significant sample of newborns.
And was this the only effect of micro plastics? Who cares?

This is teaching through simple models, rather than lying.

It's science not some subjective humanities subject.

Part of the problem is the questions themselves are structured to prevent the children giving a factually correct answer or even mitigating the fact they know they are lying to get a correct mark.

If we just stick with liquid compressibility then why are they forced to select an answer that liquids are incompressible rather than "In normal experience, it’s pretty hard to compress a liquid without access to expensive equipment." (for example) or "very hard to compress at normal temperatures and pressures" .. it's not a massive stretch is it for the sake of teaching what we know as fact vs what we know to be untrue?

More to the point of the thread ..

That kid has either now been conditioned to lie in order not to be punished or at a minimum taught a "simple model" without being told this is actually a simple model that isn't actually true but you are required to answer is if it is.

Just sticking with this one example, it's not exactly difficult to find fluid compressibility data in 2022...at least if you own a internet capable device. You used to need access to a library ... in 2022 google will expose these lies.

Kids have been conditioned to accept science is about "putting the expected answer" not the truth. (A common theme for conspiracy theories is that scientists en-masse are in the pay of some organisation or other and hence cannot be trusted)

What then happens when these kids leave school having not learned differently and then some (predatory) conspiracy theorist uses these lies as proof that scientists/science can't be trusted?

This is almost central to conspiracies like flat earth... who then come up with "test it yourself" models vs trust what you were told at school.

That kid has either now been conditioned to lie in order not to be punished

This just doesn't happen these days. Pupils are not punished for getting answers wrong or not giving the preferred answer. I've got no idea where you're getting this info from but it's inaccurate.

As for simplified models, they've always been a necessary part of teaching and most teachers will acknowledge them as such when they use them. There's nothing sinister here.

I'd like to see actual examples of the kind of question you're talking about as I'm afraid you're not looking very credible on this.

It sounds like you want all answers to be essays, or for there to be no science exams ‘till A-level (spoiler here for you, but deeper understanding gained from any post A-level studying of science will reveal some A-level knowledge to have exceptions, or to be superficial, we’re always learning).

On some of the points made… even in the 1980s we were told at GCSE level that electron shells were a model. The compressing a liquid thing, well I can’t remember what terminology was used there, but “common properties” can have exceptions. We were taught about superconductors to make that point (and because they’re interesting for kids).

Wait until you find out that animals can't talk, despite many "nursery" stories suggesting otherwise.

I've never recovered from being taught Bohr's theory of the hydrogen atom - it has blighted my life and led me to believe that Newtonian physics is an adequate model for those structures I designed. I expect they fell over the day after construction.

If only I'd been taught superstrings from day 1.

I’ve got science qualifications up to postgraduate level. At every stage it’s been ‘yeah, about that, it’s a bit more complicated…’

It’s not lying, it’s simplification. As far as most people are concerned, most of the time, fluids are incompressible. It works and it’s easy to understand.

slowoldman

I suspect he is suggesting that simplified theories should not be taught in schools because they are damned lies. If you can’t deal with quantum mechanics you just have to accept you’re a ignoramus who will probably go on to be a conspiracy theorist.

Not really, I'm saying that in science and maths it needs to be made VERY CLEAR AT EVERY LEVEL when something is a simplified theory.
That includes the questions that should be constructed to be truthful even if they allow for a simple model.

I’m saying that in science and maths it needs to be made VERY CLEAR AT EVERY LEVEL when something is a simplified theory.

I'm a teacher and I do this. Every teacher I know does this. The trouble is that lots of pupils don't take that on board as it is actually quite a subtle idea. There's also the fact that most people's science education stops at one of the simplified levels and then they forget a good chunk of even that in the years after they leave school. That's why you get people thinking they've been taught a pack of lies at school.

If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.

Detentions- for answering a question (rightly or wrongly)?  Really?

Kelvin

It sounds like you want all answers to be essays, or for there to be no science exams ‘till A-level (spoiler here for you, but deeper understanding gained from any post A-level studying of science will reveal some A-level knowledge to have exceptions, or to be superficial, we’re always learning).

On some of the points made… even in the 1980s we were told at GCSE level that electron shells were a model. The compressing a liquid thing, well I can’t remember what terminology was used there, but “common properties” can have exceptions. We were taught about superconductors to make that point (and because they’re interesting for kids).

As I just posted ... what I expect is kids are not expected to deliberately and knowingly lie to be marked correct or avoid detention. Theoretical and simplified models should be consistently referred to as theoretical and simplified models.

I'm talking about the constructed multiple choice or fill in the missing word type questions and actually constructing those to allow a factually correct answer rather than forcing a factually incorrect answer.

As you say back in the 70's and 80's we were taught when something was a (simplified) model and as I remember the questions were constructed such that you didn't need to lie.

e.g.

I’ve never recovered from being taught Bohr’s theory of the hydrogen atom

Except you were taught this was a theoretical simplified model and an exam question could be "draw and label a hydrogen atom according to Bohr's theoretical electron model".

vs "draw a hydrogen atom"

Life seems to be hard for some.

What about birds? I heard they were fake.

Detentions- for answering a question (rightly or wrongly)?  Really?

I've been teaching for 15 years and it's not something I've ever heard of. I'm in Scotland but I can't imagine it happens south of the border either.

For a start, teachers are lazy buggers and detentions need to be staffed so we're not going to give them if we don't have to. 😀

Take a look at the UK science curriculum.
It’s basically full of lies and the exam questions are structured to force the kids to knowingly lie.

A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.

I’d consider your statement a failure to understand.

I studied electronic/mechanical engineering at uni, what was taught regarding basic electrical/electronic theory in 1st year was not comparable to what was taught in 3rd year, take it further into masters/phd level and it will change yet again. You need to enable a basic datum to get a foothold in the subject that is then expanded to a level of comprehension that bares little relation to the original teachings.

There’s a least one, possibly two, that I would move from ‘detached from reality’ to ‘we have questions’.

Feel free to share, you're among friends

Part of the problem is the questions themselves are structured to prevent the children giving a factually correct answer or even mitigating the fact they know they are lying to get a correct mark.

To be fair, it's a hell of a conspiracy theory

It’s science not some subjective humanities subject.

The Humanities are about methodically looking at patterns, evidence from a variety of sources and statistical data, not making things up. Denigrating something to make your point does not make it true.

even in the 1980s we were told at GCSE level that electron shells were a model.

I wasn't. Only got told it wasn't true when I did A level Chemistry. Not that I have an issue with it. As you and others have said there needs to be simple models to help hook students and make the initial understanding more manageable. This is particularly true in the afore mentioned Humanities where there are many abstract concepts.

I’ve got science qualifications up to postgraduate level. At every stage it’s been ‘yeah, about that, it’s a bit more complicated…’

It’s not lying, it’s simplification.

Same here and it was always stressed that what we were being taught was a simplified model. Next level of study (so moving from GCSE to A level for example) would include the "errors" in the first model and the more involved explanation of the "new" model but still with the understanding that you could get massively more complicated if you were doing this stuff at PhD / post-doc level.

For the same sort of reasons, you teach kids to read on John & Jane books, not Dickens.

I used to work with a guy who was well into his conspiracy theories. Plane crashes and Diana were his two favourites. Anything with a crash and a fireball and DEATH. It'd all be some big conspiracy coordinated from on high although for what reasons was never really clarified.

A random example is “select from the following, properties that apply to a liquid”
one answer will for example have a statement that it is incompressible and children are then trained to have to select this answer to be marked correct even though a trained monkey knows it is a lie. If they try and answer truthfully they are marked incorrect or given detentions.

Give me an actual real exam question to demonstrate this?

Your hyperbolic language makes you sound like a raving nutter, by the way.

Re the science - calling simplified models "lies" is ridiculous and suggests you don't really understand science very well. The fundamental nature of the universe is unknown to us. We can only describe it with models. We have different models that suit different purposes. Even actual physicists will use the simple models when they know there's going to be no difference in the results. And they also use them when demonstrating principles even though they know the answers are incorrect in real world terms. Black body radiation, and ideal gas laws spring to mind.

So please don't say 'kids are being taught lies' because they aren't. It's a hugely damaging thing to say. It sounds anti-education and anti-science, even if you don't mean it to be. That 8snt what the word 'lie' means.

Come on then Steve, let's see your evidence for what you say is happening in schools. Specifically, evidence that teachers are lying rather than simplifying, evidence of questions that are deliberately constructed to stop pupils giving the right answer and evidence that pupils are punished for wrong answers.

Ironically, it's all starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy...

Part of the problem is the questions themselves are structured to prevent the children giving a factually correct answer or even mitigating the fact they know they are lying to get a correct mark.

Totally agree, I mean imagine teaching kids that you can’t take the square root of a negative number. We should be teaching complex numbers in primary school!

More Cash ...

To be fair, it’s a hell of a conspiracy theory

... or is it...???

I think it's far more likely its a combination of totally boring things from laziness to not really caring what is taught or understood across a wide range of those involved.

It's far easier and less work all round to set a curriculum with a set of simple binary statements and then write nd mark questions as if those statements are actually fact.

Spin

I’m a teacher and I do this. Every teacher I know does this. The trouble is that lots of pupils don’t take that on board as it is actually quite a subtle idea.

(**sorry chopped your answer but I'll put it later)

So lets stick with compressibility of liquids ...
"Liquids are very difficult to compress at normal temperatures and pressures"

It's really not that hard is it?
What I was told is that the questions set in the pre-GCSE exams and tests are all from "exam board approved publications"... (currently EdExcell)

I’ve been teaching for 15 years and it’s not something I’ve ever heard of. I’m in Scotland but I can’t imagine it happens south of the border either.

For a start, teachers are lazy buggers and detentions need to be staffed so we’re not going to give them if we don’t have to. 😀

He got detention for refusing to write a knowingly false answer in a test then calling out the teacher when the teacher told him to just write it and if he wrote anything else in the exam it would be marked incorrect.

The question was "How many states of matter are there" ...to which my kid said he didn't know exactly and it depends if you only count persistent or include hypothetical but that 3 was most definitely not a correct answer.

He then asked "how does a plasma cutter work then" ... for which he was given detention.

chopped up bit

**There’s also the fact that most people’s science education stops at one of the simplified levels and then they forget a good chunk of even that in the years after they leave school. That’s why you get people thinking they’ve been taught a pack of lies at school.

I completely agree - This is WHY it's so important if you don't want them falling for totally bat-shit crazy conspiracy theories because someone can point to the lies they were taught and convince them that the rest of science is lies!!!

I see, so what you have is one hearsay based example of one kid getting detention for something and no examples of actual questions or evidence that teachers are deliberately lying.

It's pretty clear that what you say either isn't happening or happens so rarely as to be meaningless in terms of science education at a national scale.

Judging from your description, your kid got detention for giving a smartarse reply. Nothing else.

He then asked “how does a plasma cutter work then” … for which he was given detention.

Two possible reasons for this, I suspect.

1. Your kid learned discussion skills from you 😉 I knew about plasma as a kid but I still managed GCSE. Not being a smart arse and understanding context is an important skill to learn.

2. Your teacher is an arse. I don't know any teacher that would respond that way to a kid who is really into their subject. The school curriculum should not say there are three states of matter, it should say there are three common ones. But it's not a "lie".

I Googled GCSE science on states of matter and most of the quotes did specifically say there are three states of matter, which isn't great. But I understand why they say that, and I'm not going to claim that teachers are lying which is a pretty shitty thing to say given how both science and teachers are struggling so badly currently. Teachers and scientists don't need aggro from their own side as well as their detractors.

I completely agree – This is WHY it’s so important if you don’t want them falling for totally bat-shit crazy conspiracy theories because someone can point to the lies they were taught and convince them that the rest of science is lies!!!

By calling them "lies" you are seriously exacerbating the problem here.

Judging from your description, your kid got detention for giving a smartarse reply. Nothing else.

I wouldn't like to judge because there are some insecure teachers out there who would respond in the way described. But if that's the case, the problem is a dick teacher and not the widespread, deliberate issue Stevextc made it sound like.

Two sides to every tale...