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Note: I am talking about standard k-12 edu, not college and beyond.
In the future, there will undoubtedly be efforts to increase our memory capacity to greater lengths; There are even those living among us that posses this ability (although it is debatable if this type of memory is a blessing or a curse). If a great number of the population have memory cards implanted into their brains, one would question if education would be useless. On the surface, it seems to be so; A textbook can be memorized effortlessly and even those who do not certain subjects where memory is less useful (like math and science) can memorize thousands of variations of problems related to a certain concept. Courses like history may be breezed through by many students. But instead, I propose education will be enhanced.
Memory based courses of course will be obsolete but creativity will be the key factor in future education. English class already harbors it today to an extent. It is filled with writing essays which requires students' own thoughts about the book. Many students hate reading the classics because it takes a long time to digest and especially with other courses taking up time, it is inevitable that some just won't read the book. Memory chips could give students the ability to quickly "read" a book and actually understanding the book will of course take some time but the whole process will require much less effort. Students now have time to develop their own thoughts about the piece of literature they read which would greatly increase the level of quality of their work. Math and science is even more exciting. Memorizing formulas and basic vocabulary could give students more time to develop a greater conceptual understanding and also enable more time for teachers to conduct actual experiments and proofs instead of mindlessly doing problems every day.
- From my basic understanding, the biggest hurdle with CRISPR is that it can only alter one strand of DNA or gene at a time, which makes it very hard/impractical to use on adult humans
- But if a sort of CRISPR virus was made, in which it spread through all of a humans body, targeting specific genes, would this make CRISPR technology more viable for use on adult humans?