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Thanks for the lecture, MM

I speak here of logical argumentation which rarely takes place on Iranian.com. Even so there is no contradiction with the writings that you have witnessed in contexts which I choose carefully.

People who interact with me with respect, get respect in return. And people who attack unfairly see their own ugly reflection back at themselves, to exact proportions. I'm old enough not to care about third-party judgementalism, and not to allow anonymous cowards get away with dumping their emotional baggage without a response.

If you act like human being, you get treated like one. That's my motto.

Q - take a look at your own writings

Your comments/replys are full of hateful & condescending remarks.  If you moderate your writings, stick only to the facts, without colorful commentaries, you will also be treated nicely. 

I even had cordial conversation with "No Fear" today, but you just thought I was clueless.  My suggestion is to have someone neutral take a look at your writings and critique them.  Otherwise, as soon as Q's signature is seen, the word "nuntium necare" is the norm, and you will be in a perpetual war of words with your advesaries.

no, I don't know, Ari

what you describe is my own experience as well. But I doubt if the schools were but a symptom of the problem.

Q, enshaa vs. essay

Q, I don't know if this is still going on in the Iranian educational system but the art of enshaa was preferred to the craft of the essay. I remember that the best grades in enshaa were given to works with strong emotional appeal with over the top use of rhetorical devices. If there was a premise to be supported, an appeal to authority, or even a beautiful verse,  trumped outlined reasoning. Also the topics proposed by the teacher were usually a  priori moral imperatives with the expectation that the student would defend the premise at any cost to critical thinking. Do you happen to know what they're assigning iranian kids these days in the way of real essays? 

Ari, oh I hear plenty of ad hominems too,

and red herrings,
and begging the question,
and hasty generalizations,
and false disjunction,
and guilt by association.

you name the logical fallacy, it happens here, many times with much pride in ignorance.

I hate to say it but my overwhelming observation is that critical thinking and logical/scientific argumentation is almost non-existent.

Instead of dispassionate evidence based discourse where a hypothesis is presented and evidence is inspected and conclusion drawn, we often get the absurd situation where:

First, the conclusion is drawn, judgement made (based usually on family, prejudices and emotions)

Second, a bunch of weak-at-best observations, anecdotes and biased samples, and fallacious reasnoning are given as post-facto justifiation in a faint homage to "logic". This has the effect of fooling the person commting the fallacy into think he/she has always had a sound and dispassionate conclusion.

Third, anything that comes up regarding the conclusion, anything negative or inconsistent with reality is summarily dismissed followd by angry attacks on the meseenger and tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories.

I personally blame the parents! So many halfwit Iranian families have pushed their kids forcefully into science and medicine, and valued superficial success to such a degree that basic critical thinking and critical reading skills have never been nurtured.

Great post Ari jaan and so true.

There is a reason they call it Faux news

Mehrdad