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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Re: Calculators and Understanding
Message-ID: <423@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Jul-86 13:30:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.423
Posted: Tue Jul  8 13:30:51 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jul-86 23:42:50 EDT
Reply-To: hplabs!pyramid!utzoo!henry (Henry Spencer)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 16
Approved: taylor@hplabs
Reference: <383@hplabsc.UUCP>

This article is from pyramid!utzoo!henry (Henry Spencer)
 and was received on Mon Jul  7 15:12:29 1986

> [...assorted comments about how calculators are ruining education...]

I'm told that a couple of centuries ago, it was a mark of an educated
man that he could tell time without mechanical assistance.  Nowadays,
most everybody relies on mechanical aids, i.e. wristwatches.  Nobody
complains about this degeneration of essential skills.

In a similar vein, somebody once asked Grace Hopper about the purported
"dehumanizing" aspects of computer-mediated communications.  Her reply
was "I remember when they said that about telephones".

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry