Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

These concepts don't all relate to education, and their importance most certainly isn't limited to political life, but it's a good list and educators should be aware of all of them. Here's the one-minute version:

  • Scepticism - "a willingness to evenly assess the scientific evidence available."
  • Iatrogenesis - illness "brought forth by the healer," like the opioid epidemic
  • Social cost of carbon - the damage each ton of CO2 emission costs society
  • Clean coal - expensive, but "captures the carbon dioxide and buries it"
  • Gene drives - increase a gene's chance of being inherited
  • CRISPR - being widely used to manipulate DNA with extraordinary precision
  • NgAgo - new tech which might manipulate DNA with even greater precision
  • Confrmation bias - the tendency to select information that supports our existing beliefs
  • IPFS - makes copies of everything instead of relying on links
  • PFOA - unregulated cancer agent turning up in drinking water
  • Neonicotinoids - the pesticide that caused widespread bee colony collapse
  • SETI - search for extra-terrestrial intelligence using powerful new tools

Now you's caught up. :)

 

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Aug 28, 2025 8:48 p.m.

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