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Again, I say it’s a “Do as I say, not as I do” mentality on the left.

My present view about teaching has evolved from a difficulty I encounter in my research programs, and is but one example of the interaction between my teaching and research. Specifically, any “key word” search of the literature reveals approximately 300 new published papers per week in my research field. Clearly neither I nor anyone else reads 300 papers a week, so how is it that we can actually keep up with our fields? The solution to this problem would clearly be relevant to solving the central dilemma of teaching a rapidly progressing field. Although I have unlimited respect for facts, and delight in their discovery and appreciation, I have come to the obvious yet almost blasphemous view that, with respect to teaching, the facts just aren’t that important. Otherwise the weight of a truly modern biology text would be staggering. Actually, I suspect most professors in biology have come to this view but we do everything we can to avoid admitting it.

What Prof. Rine is indicating is that you can’t possibly teach on the cutting edge of science because of the overflow data and new results. Rather you do your best to piece together a cohesive story that gets your students to think and to be engaged. New knowledge is continually supplanting the old. He’s not saying that you teach nonsense, but you teach what you can without fear that the details might have changed.

I suspect that most biology textbooks in this country still say that one of the major differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is that the former lacks a cytoskeleton, however this is blantantly wrong given research conducted in the last 3-5 years. The textbook lags and unless you are in that field you wouldn’t necessarily know it. Are those professors liars? No, rather they just aren’t at the cutting edge.

Isn’t that the same ideology as whazisface Hirsch saying that he doesn’t bother with the facts when speaking, altho he is “scrupulous” to the truth in his writings. Yeah, right, liar, liar..

So why is this getting this much play in the blogosphere??
Is it because he is a BERZERKELY professor? You know, code for him being some crazy, pinko commie?

Berkeley’s liberal reputation is mostly hype… the conservatives and Christians on campus are very vocal and very well represented… And let us not forget that Berkeley is the home of the laser and nuclear bomb (among a few other universities).