That would require them to understand what a “gene” was in order to know that “genetically modified” is intelligible as “contains genes”. That in turn requires a working definition knowledge of what a “gene” is. Feh.
You don’t have to have a working definition of a “gene” to answer that question, you have to have the ability to pick an answer out of a lineup. This is called “standardized testing” and is what a lot of western countries base their educational system on.
They aren’t writing a paper where they have to explain it, they’re responding to a question, so it’s very easy for someone who has no knowledge, experience or understanding of science or biology to intuitively assume that “genetically modified tomato” means “tomato modified WITH genes” as opposed to tomato with MODIFIED genes. For someone whose best career option is working a broom, or filing forms at the sheriffs office, genes are a very closed and uninteresting book, but they are also humans, humans who don’t like to say “I don’t know what that is”.
experience or understanding of science or biology to intuitively assume that “genetically modified tomato” means “tomato modified WITH genes” as opposed to tomato with MODIFIED genes.
You have to know that “genetically” refers to “genes” which means you need to know of the terms. Knowing of the terms means knowing basically what they are. At the elementary school level they are described as “the building blocks of life” or “why Tommy has brown hair but Susy has blue eyes.” Yadda yadda.
If I ask you what time it is in Katmandu you’d have to know three things:
1) Where you were in terms of timezone offset from UTC.
2) Where Katmandu was in terms of timezone offset from UTC.
3) What time it was in either UTC or “here”.
Well, alternatively you could happen to have the second timezone on your watch set for Katmandu, which would imply those.
If you did not have those you would say “I have no idea” or ask for information about Katmandu or you’d sit down and think about where Katmandu was and work a timezone offset from that to get a rough idea. Because you think about problems and want to be correct because correctness is useful.
If you asked a random middle of the curve type who didn’t like saying “I don’t know”, they would (and you see this all the time on “man on the street” interviews) make shit up. There are many people in this world who do not care about correctness for the sake of understanding the world, they care about correctness for signaling purposes. They would rather be thought smart than actually be smart as sometimes if you’re smart you know things that everyone else things aren’t true (see the history of “bacteria causes ulcers” for example).
So no, you do NOT have to know what those words mean to answer the question. You have to know what they mean to understand the question and to answer it correctly.
“Even a blind pig finds a truffle once and a while”.
Edited to add:
As to learning it in elementary school—for most of the people in this country that was a LONG time ago and those lessons just weren’t relevant to their lives, so they forgot them.
That would require them to understand what a “gene” was in order to know that “genetically modified” is intelligible as “contains genes”. That in turn requires a working definition knowledge of what a “gene” is. Feh.
You don’t have to have a working definition of a “gene” to answer that question, you have to have the ability to pick an answer out of a lineup. This is called “standardized testing” and is what a lot of western countries base their educational system on.
They aren’t writing a paper where they have to explain it, they’re responding to a question, so it’s very easy for someone who has no knowledge, experience or understanding of science or biology to intuitively assume that “genetically modified tomato” means “tomato modified WITH genes” as opposed to tomato with MODIFIED genes. For someone whose best career option is working a broom, or filing forms at the sheriffs office, genes are a very closed and uninteresting book, but they are also humans, humans who don’t like to say “I don’t know what that is”.
You have to know that “genetically” refers to “genes” which means you need to know of the terms. Knowing of the terms means knowing basically what they are. At the elementary school level they are described as “the building blocks of life” or “why Tommy has brown hair but Susy has blue eyes.” Yadda yadda.
If I ask you what time it is in Katmandu you’d have to know three things:
1) Where you were in terms of timezone offset from UTC. 2) Where Katmandu was in terms of timezone offset from UTC. 3) What time it was in either UTC or “here”.
Well, alternatively you could happen to have the second timezone on your watch set for Katmandu, which would imply those.
If you did not have those you would say “I have no idea” or ask for information about Katmandu or you’d sit down and think about where Katmandu was and work a timezone offset from that to get a rough idea. Because you think about problems and want to be correct because correctness is useful.
If you asked a random middle of the curve type who didn’t like saying “I don’t know”, they would (and you see this all the time on “man on the street” interviews) make shit up. There are many people in this world who do not care about correctness for the sake of understanding the world, they care about correctness for signaling purposes. They would rather be thought smart than actually be smart as sometimes if you’re smart you know things that everyone else things aren’t true (see the history of “bacteria causes ulcers” for example).
So no, you do NOT have to know what those words mean to answer the question. You have to know what they mean to understand the question and to answer it correctly.
“Even a blind pig finds a truffle once and a while”.
Edited to add:
As to learning it in elementary school—for most of the people in this country that was a LONG time ago and those lessons just weren’t relevant to their lives, so they forgot them.