Someone started a thread on mental illness here today.
How would someone without some backround in biology, genetics, psychiatry, etc. be able to form their own opinion on a complicated and important subject?

They would learn out of school.

yes. A Rebbi I once had relayed a story how someone berated him that he didn't know that much about a cow. To which he retorted that he knew more about a cow than that man could possible know because he studied kadshim. The problem is, of course, that even Rav went to a farm just to learn about different mumin. One simply cannot learn Torah without understanding how the world works...

(meaning even if you assume that there is no value to a secular education itself)

yeah, one of the roshei yeshiva I had grew up on a farm. People laughed at using an egg to support at table until the rosh yeshiva told them that he'd done it before. He explained that something about the chickens we use in america, or the battery process for getting the chickens to produce them weakened the shells considerably. I don't pretend to understand it, but he's quite the expert in all sorts of things that you see on farms so I'm inclined to trust him.

I remember also once we had a bochur who was trying to make wine. He could make rasin wine or white wine but he couldnt' figure out how to make red wine, it always went sour, and he asked the rosh hayeshiva who basicaly told him that you needed somewhat special barrels to do it. (he'd made red wine before, and watched it done many times as a child. one of the things he lived on was a vinyard apperantly.)

he was an amazing guy, especialy with talmud, but I'm not surprised considering he had experience with these subjects first hand, unlike alot of other american or current isreali rabbanim.

I like this post.

It's true that you don't need secular books to learn science. It is possible to observe things to understand the Torah. I would even argue that for most people, they have to observe things in the world in order to understand Torah.

(My brother showed me in gemara where the gemara explains Pythagorean's Theorem- they draw diagrams that are the same as you'll find in secular books.)

My grandparents used to have a whole bunch of chickens up in Monticello so I know all about fresh, non commercial eggs. The shells were somewhat thicker but not so much that you could support a table with them.

Why not? Theoretically it should be possible, provided the egg is standing on-end and the pressure is being placed directly in its center..

bri, there may also be a species difference.

Lack of opinions has never been a problem.

Domestic chickens (Gallus gallus) are one species.
There are hundreds of breeds of chickens with diffenent physical characteristics.

I should have said "an informed opinion."

I would say for all people. The Torah wasn't given to angels who couldn't murder anyhow, but to men who live in this world. To pretend that the Torah isn't involved specifically in the nitty gritty of our daily lives is just absurd.

What conclusions do you draw from that?

Being self-taught is as valid as a formal education.

assuming you achieve the same results....

Much more so... Self-taught people actually KNOW something sometimes.....