Re: Too taboo? Re: Structural failure of NY's WTC

["Michael N. Monce" <mnmon@CONNCOLL.EDU>]

On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Raymond Rogoway wrote:

> This is the age of political, social, and psychological correctness.
>
> In formulating questions for the California Golden State Examination in
> Physics during the early part of this year, we were required to reword
> questions where a gun or a rifle was used to launch a projectile. We were
> told that guns and rifles and bow and arrows are "violent" and could not be
> used in the test.
>
>
> Ray Rogoway


        I don't believe I was being "politically correct".  In fact, I
abhor the entire notion of political correctness.  I was, however, trying
to point out from my own experience, that student's response to such an
analysis may not be what the instuctor was expecting.  Doing such an
analysis for an engineering audience might work much better than a class
full of pre-meds.
         I looked at my attempt as a way to use physics to
analyze a bad situation in order to learn how to prevent such a situation
in the future.  The students looked at it as a cold hearted disregard for
a loss of human life.  Of course, they then expect "us" (the scientists
and engineers) to somehow "fix" the problem.
         I'll be very interested to see how Glenn's students react to his
analysis.


                        Mike Monce
                        Connecticut College