Hi vanna,

look I don't agree with all you say but I respect your right to your opinion.

I subscribe to the theory that basic truths never change and that the basic truths of the ancient and not so ancient mathematicians, scientists etc still have relevance and are the basis of much of our technological advance.

Where we agree is with the inability of the education system to produce and encourage enough sufficienttly interested teachers to tutor and enthuse our children in the subjects of maths and science.

Wow CJ look at all that difference between vanna and I and there is not one word of denigration. Now there is a lesson for you cj.

As for Mr Holdens list, well he missed the two most significant advances ever. Even though they didn't occur in the 20th century they should never be overlooked.

The industrial revolution and the development of man to communicate without physical contact. ie the development of radio communications.

The ability to transfer thought from one person to another over vast distances. The names Thomas Eddison and particularly his chief engineer Arthur Edwin Kennelly, as the discoverers of the atmospheric layer which enables radio waves to bounce around the world, should be seared into the brain of everyone at birth. Without the discovery of that ability we'd still be in the age of telegraph and snail mail.

The other much more basic truth Mr Holden overlooks is that all the major technological advances occured in free societies with capitalist economies which were largely unencumbered with utter theocratic dominance.

Ahh how everones view of history is determined by their political and/or idealogical beliefs.

See how I'm such a liberal.

It's sad that there is a very good possibility that over 90% of Australians think that Germany voted for Hitler and later started WW2 because they were sore about not winning WW1, that Robert E Lee was an advocate of Slavery, and have only the faintest idea of how badly we treated indigenous Australians in the past (and present).

It's amazing that over 12 years of education and we hardly actually LEARN anything from school, as much as work for work's sake.

We desperately need a more active history program, with modern history and politics starting MUCH earlier and more actively (drop some English class while we're at it- how some rubbish by Charles Dickens could possibly be more important to cover than the founding of Israel is insane)!

And some more classes in politics and civics would be good.

But another problem is, is the highly controversial nature of many parts of history and the bureaucratic obstacles preventing an accurate in-depth analysis of issues to reach the classroom- the "Tyrant" label for Menzies somehow being controversial is a good example..

History is a subjective subject as it is written down by the winners. History is also taught in schools from a society point of view. We can teach our children religious education but we teach them scripture instead. Many would argue this is the same but it is only one point of view, a christian point of view of religion.Our history books show us that Arabian Muslim's are fundamentalist and anti-western, they may wish to point out the invasions like the crusades and betrayal such as the colonisation post WW1 the west has enforced on them over thousands of years and are simply standing up for themselves. History without philosophy, sociology and psychology to help find perspective are simply tools of manipulation and misinformation. We truly are the dumb society so full of our own self importance that we surely will smart ourselves into extinction.

In reply to both Brian's article and Keith's comment:

You both left out another critical event of historical importance in the last century. The feminist movement, which taught us not only that referring to humankind as "Man" is inaccurate, but that it is also inherently sexist.

Looks like both of you could do with a little brushing up on the basics of 'social history'. Perhaps then we can move on to the technological stuff ;)

Grayzie,

I wonder whether Marie Curie bothered much about her feminism ... I certainly don't.

Nor do I think the thousands of other active females, like my mother, who contributed to western development bothered much about it either.

If you think women only contributed to western development since the inception of modern feminism sadly ignores the facts and reality.

ok I can substitute humankind for man, that's very simple for me as I accept the equality of the sexes, but can you accept womens involvement in western development prior to modern feminism?

C J Morgan

You seem to be a very modest chap for someone with such great wisdom, so I have some questions for you.

What if you were able to develop quantum computing, which gave you almost infinite computing ability?

And what if you had mastered nanotechnology, and could manufacture whatever you liked from simple raw materials?

What would you do with all that?

My guess is that you would want to develop a brand new planet, populated entirely by C J Morgans.