Originally posted by: Specop 007
For example an attorney or judge would say "Well HUR shes dumb cause HUR she cant name any cases HUR" whereas a chemical engineer might say "Well HUR shes dumb because HUR she cant name 15 elements on the HUR periodic table".
I can name 15 elements on the periodic table easily and I haven't taken chemistry since high school (about 10 years ago). Fifteen elements, for the most part, should not be hard for anyone to remember if they had or have ever paid attention in high school (let alone college).
Examples of
20 elements everyone should know, chemical engineer or not:
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Nitrogen
Helium
Carbon
Gold
Silver
Copper
Platinum
Aluminum
Iron
Lead
Nickel
Mercury
Tin
Titanium
Potassium
Chlorine
Sodium
Calcium
This is without thinking very hard. These are elements we deal with everyday. Even if you don't know that they are elements, you HEAR about them everyday.
Commercials tout every vitamin "from A to
Zinc". People who are into military have heard of Depleted
Uranium rounds. Computer people (and body augmenters) know of the many uses of
Silicon. Lightbulbs (prior to the current florescent craze) has a
Tungsten alloy filament. There's a car called the Ford
Cobalt.
To get back to the point, it's not absurd to expect someone who is running for a government office to know a bit about what the government does. It is absurd, in my opinion, to state that ignorance about what the government does or the laws that have been made is fine because the person in question is not a lawyer.
This is not like asking a random person on the street what the capital of Nepal is. This is asking a government official if she can tell us what the government is doing. There is no Gotcha question here. I'm not a chemist, but I can name elements. I am not a lawyer, but cite laws. I am not a baseball player, but I know what all of the positions are. The least I could ask is that my governing officials can tell me what the government is doing.
Sorry, I'll go back to lurking.