(no subject)

[elainegrey]

I can't decide if i should take this MOOC on the science of happiness. The Tropical Ecosystems and the python course seem more apropos.

And only so much time.

It did remind me that i want to be more intentional about being grateful. And i am so grateful not to have such a stressed out job. There are some things i'm finding makes me ... dismayed?... about the future. But the future isn't here yet, and i was very glad to be able to enjoy the present this evening.

Tired though.

G'night!

Comments

[arlie]

IIRC, I glanced at this one in an earlier incarnation, possibly even enrolled in it, and came away unconvinced that "science" was being used in the sense of "a body of accumulated understanding, which has been subject to the scientific method and not falsified, to the point where it appears to be basically accurate".

I've encountered (ahem) alternative "science" before, and if this is indeed the course I remember, this seemed to belong in that category. The polite description would be "science" in the older definition as simply "a body of knowledge".

Of course they may have dumbed it down for science phobes etc., and/or resorted to methods they expected to convince the majority of potential students, who are, as always, more susceptible to emotion than logic, and quite likely statistically and scientifically illiterate, if not also mathematical illiterates.

I don't find unfalsifiable platitudes useful, particularly when they also resort to stereotyping. Perhaps if I were a gender-conformant extrovert, married with children, I might have found it more inspiring.

p.s. I don't find the course in my list of courses taken, but that may just mean I dropped it in disgust. But it may also mean I'm misremembering, and dropped a similar sounding course for the reasons given above, possibly on some other MOOC platform rather than edx.

[elainegrey]

thanks for the feedback - i've found, again, i don't have time for the ones i signed up for (ecology and python).