Re: [Phys-l] Nurture vs Nature (Was:Student engagement)

[lhodges@iastate.edu]

> >   About the only people you can not
> > blame for modern society's ills are the Amish.

Nor its triumphs.  There is a well-known physicist who grew up in an Amish
community.  I didn't know this until one day, in casual conversation, I
innocently asked him where he'd grown up.  This brought back bad memories, his
face literally turned red, and he told me and then angrily denounced his
community as nothing but "child abusers."  I think he meant in the sense of
depriving children of a chance to become educated.  He managed to escape the
community while a teenager (maybe 15) and hated it with great passion.  My wife
(a food writer) once interviewed some of them for an article about Amish cooking
and reported back to me with amazement, "These people glory in their ignorance."