Assumptions

Today during Econ 110 Professor Kearl started off by making an assumption in order to simplify economics.  This, to me, seems like a perfectly reasonably thing to do since I know very little about economics and to attempt of study of the most intricate details right off the get go would be nothing but futile.  However, it appears that many other people were not able to grasp this very simple concept of making assumptions to simplify a system, even if this assumption is not entirely true.  In this instance, the assumption was made that people were self-interested and would therefore ultimately act in the fashion that would help them to acquire as much as possible.  While this assumption is obviously not 100% true, it is, in general, a very good guideline as to the roots of people's behavior.  That's why it's an assumption, and not a rule of economics.  But for some reason every couple of minutes or so someone would come up with some hypothetical situation of people not acting in a self interested manner.  While this was quite frusrtating to me, the fact that people couldn't understand the purpose of the assumption he was making, it was also very entertaining.  This is because every time someone gave a situation where people were not acting in their own self interest, Professor Kearl showed them why they were in fact wrong every time.  A mother staying at home with a child, not self interested?  Why yes it is.  That mother is staying home because it would cost more to hire a full time nanny than she would be able to make going to work.  The best choice for her is to stay at home to take of the child.  Point Kearl.  The industrial revolution, people went into terrible working conditions, this most certainly was not to their benefit, right?  Wrong again, no one forced people to leave their farms, they left because in the end it was a better decision, certainly not the best but obviously better than farming, or they wouldn't have left the farm.  Point Kearl.  This continued literally the entire class and was fascinating to see people continue at it, when time and time again, the point when to Dr. Kearl.  In the end, this made me think about other classes where similar assumptions are made, and I realized that they are all technical and science classes.  So it must be that all these people have not had many, if any at all, science classes, or this concept would not seem foreign, but instead blatantly necessary.  At first I thought more people need more science to understand this concept better, because making assumptions to simplify things that are occurring in life is a very useful and helpful tool.  But as I continued to ponder on the outcome of this solution I realized something very important.  If more of these liberal arts type people are in my science classes, then I would have to deal with the stupidity all the time, and not just in one class.  So in the end the current system is probably the best one and I'll just sit back and enjoy Dr. Kearl making people look stupid.