昊 天 翱 龙 » 日志 » 2008-03-26 Issue128 Argument72 垃圾都不如的东西
2008-03-26 Issue128 Argument72 垃圾都不如的东西
昊天翱龙 发表于 2008-03-26 15:30:04
TOPIC: ISSUE128 - "It is often asserted that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. In reality, however, formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free."
WORDS: 430 TIME: 00:36:56 DATE: 2008-03-26 10:31:40
The speaker asserts that formal education, which should serve to free the minds and the spirits of the students, tends to restrain them instead. I fundanmentally agree with the speaker that the purpose of education is to free the mind, but in my opinion, education is to help students cultivate necessary skills for their professions in the future as well.
In many colleges and universities, the freedom of spirit is given great priority. The management department of a university always spare no efforts to advocate and build up a sound environment for students. We can find a large number of society groups aiming to students with different intersts, and lectures of various subjects are held each passing day. We are always willing to join these kinds of groups and lectures due to our intrinsic curiosity, and the society groups and lectures serve well to broaden our views, thus free the student's minds.
On the other hand, education not only aims to set one's mind free, but also has a lot to do with training. Graduates from colleges and universities will have to find their positions in the society sooner or later. In this sense, a particular skill is indispensable. An engineer should master basic mechnics to ensure the safety of the building he designs, a composer must have adaquate skills to create a structive tune. Without the education compass, students will lose their directions in the society ocean.
As the education of training seems to restrain our minds, and another purpose of education is to free our spirits, however, these two purposes of education do not mutually exclude. When we are trained to be an effective worker in our future occupation, what we learn can be beyond the training we get. From learning fundamental physics and mathematics principles, we can develop our logical thinking and understanding of our surrounding world. From taking history classes, we can learn from the past and be encouraged by those great figures who made outstanding contributions in human history. Insipid training does not prevent us from free the mind and spirit at all, the key point is the way we take such education.
It is evitable that education today is to offer adaquate skills to cultivate the students into an effective worker, but it does not contradict with the purpose of education to set free our minds and spirits. If we face the education provided to us in a proper way, even from restrainful education can we broaden our minds, develop deep thinkings, and discover a lot of interesting things as well as useful skills.
TOPIC: ARGUMENT72 - In measuring electrical activity in different parts of the brain, researchers found that people who describe themselves as generally happy have more activity in the left prefrontal lobe of their brains than do other people. Therefore, a medication for stimulating the left prefrontal lobe of the brain would be an effective treatment for clinical depression.
WORDS: 382 TIME: 00:26:52 DATE: 2008-03-26 10:31:40
The author suggests a medication for stimulating the left prefrontal lobe of the brain to be an effective treatment for clinical depression due to following reasons: (1)People who describe themselves as generally happy have more activity in the left prefrontal lobe of the brains according to the researchers. (2)Stimulating the prefrontal lobe can be effective to the treatment of depression. But I find the judgement flawed, which can not convice me that the author's suggestion will be effective.
To begin with, the author does not give any information on the repondants of the research, so the conclution that the activites in the left prefrontal lobe in the brains have something to do with people's happiness is not convincing. Not mentioning the number of respondants who take paticipation in the research makes me doubt the statistical crebility of the results. And there is also a possiblity that those who are willing to coorperate with reserchers are generally optimitic people, and it happens that most of them have more activity in the left prefrontal lobe ot the brain, so it turns out that most of them describe themselves happy.
Even assuming happiness is related to the left prefontal lobe of brain, there is still no evidence proving that stimulating this part of brain can serve as an effective treatment for depression. Depression may results from other parts of the body. No matter how the left prefrontal lobe of the brain is stimulated, but the problem of that particular part of the body is not solved, the feeling of depression of the patient may still exists.
Besides, the auther overlooks other aspects of this issue. Stimulating the brains can be detrimental to the brains, and leads to counterproductive consequences, such as influencing one's intelligence, agility, etc. Other kinds of treatment can also be effective to the treatment for depression, such as psychological inquiry, physical exercises and so forth.
The suggestion raised by the author is not convincing as it stands. The author's assertion based on an doubtful research and unreasonable analogy. He overstates the effects of stimulating the left prefontal lobe of the brain may bring and overlooks other relevant factors of this problem. In conclusion, I find the author's reasoning and suggestion unconvincing. He should take out more rational evidence to support his suggestion.
