I can't quite figure out how to do multiple quotes yet. Someone can enlighten me please?

I haven't had much institutional education on astronomy and physics. General physics, astro 101, Life in the universe class. But, I do a lot of reading on the subjects, and have a good friend who is working on his post grad in physics, who rightly puts me in my place often, which I like.

I agree that humans are naturally explorers of their surroundings. Look at where it has gotten us.

I am not worried that people aren't going to be exposed to alternate theories. You can't get away from them on the internet. I do admit that most of the time excitement gets you before you sit down and say ok what are there claims, evidence, accpetance, etc etc.

Neried-"Ditto for 'exploding planet hypothesis'". I know the current accepted theory on this, i wasn't saying lets teach it as fact, but teach that "it's a possibility". I do not think that teaching that planets 'could' explode is wrong. Just because we haven't observed it doesn't mean it could never happen. I keep reading that one of the main reasons the theory isn't accepted is that no one can agree on a mechanism. I think that is quite a limiting thought on the possibility of it.

Also, I do not think that general education should be astrife with alternate astronomy theories. Did I imply this? Anyways, this whole topic stemmed from my frustration with the way that the institutional system is as a whole. It can be a wonderful thing if the person is smart enough to sift through the BS and get down to what they really came there for, and at the same time it can be a huge creative/critical thinking block in almost any topic out there IMO. I'm sure most of you would somewhat agree with me on this. If I need to expand more on this topic, I would be more than willing to let anyone know why I think the (at least in the US) "educational" system is an utter failure as it is set up.