Educate, Schmeducate
Recently, the province of Ontario introduced legislation that would ban ownership of pit-bull terriers, a breed of dog with a reputation of being particularly aggressive. I've heard, and I understand, both sides of this argument.

The supporters of this ban point to many cases in recent history of pit bull attacks, and to the serious harm done to various helpless people. They point to hard-wired character traits of this breed of dog as a result of it's bloodline.

The opponents of the ban point to countless examples of friendly and harmless dogs within the pit-bull breed, and will point to a large number of attacks from dangerous dogs in other breeds. They say that the public needs to be more educated and that kind of education would really prevent these kinds of attacks. This is where I have a problem.

How much can we educate people? Should you have to show a certificate of education to walk a certain breed of dog? Does education cure all? One of the most educated societies in all of history was Nazi Germany. It seems to me that this is kind of similar to the left vs. right argument in the US, where the democrats proudly show off that the smartest states based on IQ scores support Kerry. If you're saying that education will make people support you, aren't you claiming to be smarter? Also, how much can we educate people? Of all the things that we expect the general public to pick up on their own, or from an intentional educational process, is the merits of various dog breeds all that high up on the list? I think that some people (people that aren't as smart as me of course) use the "let's educate people to our way of understanding" mantra to readily, without really thinking about it.

   [ posted by William @ 5:16 PM ]