Slashdot Mirror
USA to Pass Science Crown to China
instantgames writes "According to a working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research, rapid development of a science and technology base by populous Asian countries soon may threaten the economic position of the United States. Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to develop new technologies is declining rapidly with respect to the rest of the world. According to Richard Freeman, the paper's author, the sheer population of Asian countries may allow them to train more scientists and engineers than the U.S. while devoting a smaller share of their economy to science and technology." From the article: "The phenomenal growth of China's industrial base has been widely publicized, but Freeman focuses on what is perhaps the more important long-term indicator of a nation's prosperity - its re-investment in science and technology education.
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...with China's commensurate commitment to freedom of speech, human rights, free flows of information among its citizenry, support of protest and political dissent, and so on.
That's not the only critical front on which the US will be competing with China: the US will soon pass the oil/fossil fuel consumption crown to China as well if current trends continue.
Further, China is free to spend for its own growth with little oversight from the populace (such as investing heavily in pebble bed fission reactors, planning to build 30 new reactors by 2020), allowing it to spend money as it sees fit without the same social and political constraints as the US. And even with what little oversight you think we might have in the US, it's far greater than the influence a typical Chinese citizen has. It's too bad that we'll likely never see new nuclear plants built anytime soon here, with all the political baggage.[1] We'll just keep using the quickly diminishing supply of conventional fossil fuels.[2]
[1] An environmental research group came to my door the other day extolling the virtues of environmental law, conservation, anti-pollution law, and etc., as you'd expect. All noble causes, when tempered with economic reality. But they continued on to also say opposition to ANY nuclear project was critical. Could they "count on my support?" In a word, no.
[2] Bush is actually pushing hard for the nuclear plants we're in desperate need of. See the policy speeches here. Contrast this with some typical opponents' opposition to all ongoing nuclear research under the guise of nuclear weapons nonproliferation.
How many managers you can hire.
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"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hardly rocket science there... spend money on education, good science. Kids eat Mcdonalds and watch reality tv, bad science.
What baffles me even more is the fact that the USA's primary export seems to be entertainment, yet schools cut art and music programs like crazy.
I say all organized sports should be taken out of schools... there's enough money in those they could be privatized and still thrive.
That's okay, though, because here in Jesus-land, we know that the only true science is the science that comes out of the Bible! So, while all of those other countries are polluting the minds of their children with ideas of the Big Bang and Evilutionism, we here know that we're actually pulling ahead!
Sigh. The scary thing is that there are people in the US who actually believe that.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
large masses of people just aren't needed.
But, what about the Soylent Green?
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
China is still very much more a copier of technology than an innovator. Once they become successful innovators, then we have to worry.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
You may purchase this paper on-line in
I didn't buy the paper, but would like to make one point:
As long as the culture in the US continues to denigrate academic achievement and to glorify ignorance, this country will continue to fall behind the rest of the world in research and invention.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
but rather due to capital flight. Our corporations, in an effort to turn a quick buck, intentionally transfered our high-technology manufacturing assets to asia. Our design centers were sure to follow.
It only makes sense that a majority of future developments are going to come to us from Asia as we are no longer the experts -- they are.
Does this remind anyone else of the dire warnings about Japan "taking over" in the '80s and '90s.
This just reeks of fear-mongering. I half-way expect Michael Crichton to write some stupid novel about it.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
...is to raise taxes and give the schools more money.
I mean hell, that's always worked so well in the past!
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." --Benjamin Franklin
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
at least our kids know how to be politcally correct, don't have the stress of having to know how to read their own diplomas, are sensitive to every kind of form of sexual proclivity by the time they are in 4th grade, have shitloads of self-esteem, and can be sure that when they or their neighbors with little or no english skills work so hard that they reach the pinnacle of academic achievement - community college - they can be sure that there will be free childcare for them and their 4 kids when the go to class after working the all night shift at McDonalds.
/bitterness and dispair
why are we worrying about science? Thats for nerds that don't watch American Idol. Which is, in and of itself, a sad state of affairs when you look at it...that those people are who we collectively teach our children to idol.
just so long as we can yell and scream and blame every problem in the country on Bush and Judge Roberts, why would you want to fill our kids' heads with crap like science? They won't have room for remembering Nelly lyrics!
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
You didn't read carefully. It says they "May be able to produce more engineers" and they "may be able to catch up while spending less money proportionally."
Crap if you ask me. They "may" have been able to do it for years, but they "haven't" done it yet, and they probably "won't" because their ideological restraints are even "worse" than "ours".
This isn't to say that we shouldn't be getting off our asses and fixing some of the problems. Stem cell funding! Patent reform! Copyright reform! We need to provide resources and freedoms to the small innovator companies that historically produce the coolest stuff!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
This is what we get for handing our children's education over to the government.
Given that government-operated schools are the norm and not the exception among industrialized nations, I am curious as to what kind of alternative system you believe would be preferable.
Now obviously public schools don't have a 100% success rate, and there are significant pedagogical and bureaucratic problems with the current system that we should address. But the baby needs to stay even if the bathwater goes.
"Adequate yearly progress" is clearly better than "inadequate yearly progress", no?
Now couple that with right-wing attacks on public schooling in general, bleeding the public schools systems dry in order to push private schooling, and things get worse.
Now add in an economy where many of the jobs that really use your brain get offshored, and what's left are service jobs that require not as much education, and you have an increasing pressure not to care about higher education. Just get one of those service jobs and root for your team and have a beer after work and all is well in your world. Right?
Meanwhile India gets the tech jobs, and China is our major creditor, and suddenly all those smart Chinese students think why should they bother coming to xenophobic and dopey America when they can get the good science education and jobs back home. Where the economy is strong, education is encouraged, science is not neutered by religion, and things are moving forward.
This is what we get for handing our children's education over to the government.
As opposed to China, where they've handed everything over to the government?
rooooar
As opposed to those charming private institutions that handle Chinese education, and handled American education back in the good old days.
Oh, wait, good education has been done by many government programs. Oops.
American education isn't bad because it's run by the government. It's bad because people don't give a crap about fixing it.
What is a sin and a shame to me is the "one size fits all" mentality that shapes education. When are we going to finally grow up and realize that not everyone is cut out for college. Of course that would also require a measure of respect for the trades as a legitimate line of work, and not simply something for the "special" kids.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Why spend all that money on education when we can just steal smart people from other countries? Also, I know it sounds cliche, but it's historically been freedom that attracted these people. You know, escaping persecution and whatnot. Not the "vast tracks [sic] of land"... if you want land, China has a lot more than we do!
Harvard, MIT, Cal Tech...
The best and brightest from all over the world come to our universities because they are some of the best.
I think "American Dream" is more accurate description than "vast tracks of land."
There is no question. I am sending my children to private school, but I am more worried about all the other children who will be educated by people who think "Adequate yearly progress" worthy of a billboard.
My take: anyone making even a pretty mediocre living can attend to their children's education if they're willing to live within their means. For the rest, I would dearly love to see true competition in education and I beleive that school vouchers could be structured to acheive that.
But this is not going to happen now that the "gimme" generation (aka baby boomers) has made just about everything the government's responsibility.
Donley
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
This is what we get for handing our children's education over to the government.
You say that as if public education is a recent development. American Public Education goes back as far as the American Revolution, and has roots that go back even further. It sounds like you are not aware of this history, so here's a primer. Read and learn.
Abandoning the poor people is bad for the American economy and American democracy. If anything, you can trace the growing ruin of American society to increased privatization and reduced funding of public services such as Public Education.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
You're saying that America has a freedom and government problem? Is this compared to the enlightened government of China?
One of the main points is that China can in fact force their people to go in the direction that they want without having to deal with things like community interaction. Can you imagine the emminent domain kerfluffle over something the size of the Three Gorges Dam project if it was done here in the US? Heck a highway bypass takes forever here.
And hey, if the populace gets TOO rowdy they can just send in the tanks and mow 'em down.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
You have too high an expectation of the commercial system. You expect that commercial education will mean that your kids can get a great education. I expect that, if parents are given the opportunity to send their kid to any school, and any school can get funding, that 60% of kids will end up at the Pepsi McSchool of Jesus.
A huge part of the problem is the way we compensate employees in the US. Engineers simply are not paid as well as they should be, and executives and managers are over paid. This creates a dis-incentive to enter engineering, or at least creates an incentive to view moving out of engineering and into management as "advancement."
US companies need desparately to eliminate the artificial ceiling on the advancement of pay for engineers. IBM has made some small efforts in that direction by creating the "Distinguished Engineer" title, so that highly skilled engineers can be "promoted" and paid more, without being forced into management. A few other companies have similar initiatives, but that's not nearly enough.
If we want to attract workers to high tech fields, we have to give them a reason to want to do so. And quit wasting multi-million dollar salaries and millions of dollars of bonuses on inept CEOs like Carly Fiorina.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Unfortunately they are pricing the Universities out of the reach of the populace.
seriously, what good does this thinking do?
best of luck to all the asians. i hope we do well too. screw this fetish with being #1 in everything.
There have been lots of great ideas for fixing it, but every single one of them have been shot down by the NEA.
It is a sad state of affairs when the major private organization in our country helping to shape education policy is a teacher's union, who's interest lies with teachers, not students.
Let me refine my point by pointing out that you can track the decline in S&E with the rise in the power of the Department of Education.
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
Industry insiders are largely responsible for research cuts. When companies like HP, AT&T, Bell Labs, and many other former research giants cut back their activities to become just another consumer electronics company, it's no surprise that research in the US will be lacking. Until someone is willing to focus on more than next quarter's profits, this will be an ongoing trend.
When are we going to finally grow up and realize that not everyone is cut out for college.
As soon as "elitist" isn't a dirty word. As soon as ethnicity-blind policies become the law of the land. As soon as we recognize that homo sapiens is subject to evolutionary pressures and its various subpopulations are variously adapted to their environments.
Any leftist with a lick of political sense is now branding me a racist. Odd how anti-evolution the left becomes when you discuss apply the principles of evolution to the human race.
The US cannot have it both ways. It cannot have the Fundies working against areas of science that flies in the face of their silly Biblical literalism and still foster a healthy scientific community. At some point the states and Congress are going to have to tell the religious anti-science crowd that they do not have the right to trash science education, or the US is going to enter its decline, and this time the rising powers are going to find it in their best interests to keep scientists away from American universities and research.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think it's more along this line:
American education isn't bad because it's run by the government. It's bad because it's run by the politicians. If politicians focused more on the future of our students, they'd devote a greater share of our tax dollars on education. Instead, we worry more about the troubles of the day; a pointless war in a country half a world away.
Giving money to education is not a bold move in America, like it should be. Hell, Gates has given TONS of money to educate kids, and he's still looked down upon as the scum of the earth for inventing Microsoft, which, like it or not, is the means to an end.
We need to start caring about the future; nuclear reactors, hydrogen cars, an education system that doesn't leak students across the union, and the proper facilities to stop corruption from spreading through our government any more than it already has (even if people don't want to admit it). And if I could have my way, digital rights would be included in there some where. The only way these things are going to come about is if we mend our constitution and our law system from the hopelessly outdated system we put in place three hundred years ago, two hundred years ago and a hundred years ago, and replace it with fixes for the 21st century which will allow us to be the competitive powerhouse we were.
Personally, I think complacency is the root of all evil, as through complacency comes money, and money's generally accepted.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
It's because technology is created by engineers and in China, India, Germany, etc. engineering is the most prestigious field of all.
In the US people only value giant houses, rims, expensive watches, luxury cars w/ wine glasses in tv ads for them. Noone even knows what engineers do, they just admire doctors and lawyers for having lots of dolla bills and bling. Meanwhile, legal and medical cost are far and away the highest in the world.
Visit the engineering building at any university in this country and you wont even find anyone who speaks english -- it's all exactly Chinese and Indian people receiving stipends in addition to free tuition courtesy of US govt grants and then head back to their own countries, contributing nothing to tech in the very country that paid for their education.
"When are we going to finally grow up and realize that not everyone is cut out for college."
Maybe there should be a college for nerds and a seperate 'college' for jocks?
Note the use of quote marks...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Actually, we technically have more "area" than China if you count Alaska (it's very close, US: 9,631,418 sq km vs China: 9,596,960 sq km, source CIA World Fact Book, but that also includes water, which we have more of, check for yourself to see). China does have very little more actual land. However I'm just being a dick and not really participating. :)
All I know, is that it seems to take a MAJOR issue (like a giant war) to really cause a superpower to fall. So, barring the end of the United States by military coup or what not, there will come a point where China will no longer be able to make leaps and bounds vs the US because the time will have come that China becomes a first world nation with first world problems. It's much harder to totally surpass your opponent technologically than to just catch up by taking their ideas and performing a brain drain on their universities and pretending that by making your population smarter, they won't start to demand more and more resources.
What I'm saying, is that it doesn't matter that China is catching up. The problems that happens in all developed nations will happen there. For example: their smarter population will demand increases in pay, pensions, more vacation, etc... Becoming a first world nation is tough, every first world nation is having some sort of major problem. China will have theirs.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Unlike checkers, the global economy isn't a zero sum game. The description "may threaten the economic position of the United States" is flawed. If I get a 50% raise but my neighbor gets a 75% raise am I worse off? That's what the wording of this article would have you believe. We may get richer but if someone else is #1 then our "position" has been compromised. America is hated largely because we are number one in terms of GDP, freedom, etc. I say let someone else take that spot at the top (at least in GDP) so the rest of the world can hate them for a while.
America spends more per student than France. France! The problem with education in America isn't a lack of funding regardles of what the angelic teachers unions would have you believe. Maybe the problem is that as the richest country in the world, parents have simply gotten lazy because they know their kids aren't going to starve here no matter what they do.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
The endless raging river of media vomited images of the intelligent person being something that should be made fun of and looked down upon, washing over generation after generation of ill-educated and hyperactive minds, worming its way into every single crevice of the collective coma is appearing as a giant sinkhole after eroding away all support beneath the surface.
And you think this news will stop the stupidization of this society? Dream on. 99% of the population will never even become aware of it. They'll be blithering about red states and blue states and angels and demons and what whore Justin Dumbass Timberlake is fucking this week.
Harsh attitude? Tough shit. I have met parents who were bothered when their children did *too* *well* in school, lest they be considered "brainiacs" or "geeks". People aren't remotely harsh enough on these sorts of memes.
I was tapped out of tolerance on this front years ago. I'm on my way to retire in my early 50's, and then I'm outta this dump. Sit an wallow in your celebrity gossip, sports teams composed of sociopaths who are forgiven every crime by their followers and your endless wasteland of (pseudo)reality television and basing scientific legislation on ancient fairy tales.
You dared to give Bush a compliment. While I am no fan of GWB, I do think we should start building new nukes based on the latest technology. Of course, there is all coal we have which nukes would replace.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
I'm curious why Americans are so shocked that the world preeminence we have enjoyed for a century looks like it will come an end in the next few generations (if we're lucky).
History is in fact rife with empires that rose to politcal, military and cultural dominance and then (for whatever reason) saw it slip away. The English before US. The Spanish before them. The HRE, Romans, Egyptians...
Why on earth do Americans think, "Oh, but the American world dominance will be the one that lasts forever?" Didn't the English believe that in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries? The Spanish in the fourteenth - seventeenth centuries? ...
It is a fact of history: Cultures rise to dominance and then fade from dominance. America is just fulfilling the eon old historical pattern. Maybe China will be the next in line; Maybe an unified Europe; Maybe India; Maybe a repeat of the middle ages where there was no global power. I don't know. But I do know, that eventually America will fall from its penacle. No doubt about it.
A bit harder to protect than we thought it was, then? Hell, I know a lot of people telling me explicitly that they won't apply for patents because it'll allow corporations to use them, and they will get virtually no money for it. If their idea's totally unheard of, then they'll make the millions, and be fine and dandy.
If we had an open technology interchange, we'd all be making progress at the same rate. Any new technologies invented or discovered could be passed along for the common good, and the people making money could be the various different implementers of the technology. Perhaps the government should get into the Knowledge Farming business; simply churn out enough ideas and let big business implement.
If you wanted to be less radical, simply shorten the length of patent protection, and for certain, disallow patents of stupid, unoriginal things. This is simple enough to do; pay a few college students 10 bucks an hour to go through a stack of patent documents, do a quick google, use common sense and rule against patents. The ones that get past the students go on to supervisors, who make sure patents are being well put down (all they really have to do is check a website, or actually read the patent aloud and laugh their asses off). The ones that nobody can find a problem with, goes on to a small public review (say pull in people like jury duty), pay them a few bucks a day and have them listen to a company explain their patent, why it should be aloud. Make patents a courtable ideal, and there will be much, much less abuse of the system, as they realize they can't pass bullshit on people.
I dunno.. I have strong opinions, but you've got to agree that it's rediculous that we're churning our asses off with new technologies, and meanwhile they're taking all of our exploits, making more of their own, and at a rate that we can't possibly ever hope to keep up with. If we share, we'll both succeed. If we become secretive, nobody will, and really, patents are just the legal way of being secretive (of course, not getting one is "top secret", but not without it's own problems).
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
.. albeit one that was not expressed very diplomatically.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, it sent a shock wave through the collective American populace. From coast to coast, people were asking themselves a simple question: "How could this have happened?" There was a sense of general dismay that the Soviets had won this particular leg of the Space Race, and Americans were more or less united in the goal of making sure that it didn't happen again.
As a result of this, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which set new standards for math and science education and established low-interest loans for college tuition. We recognized a threat, we took it seriously, we invested in our educational system, and the result of that investment was the generation that built the tools with which we won the Cold War.
Fast-forward to Modern America, and not only does it seem that we did not learn from that lesson of the past, but we're also moving in the wrong direction. Test scores are slipping, math and science education are being regarded in some circles as irrelevant (and even as "dirty" in some more extreme circles), and I've even seen the phrase "college-educated" used as a slur. (As if having a college education is a bad thing!)
It is dismissive to suggest that the rising and disturbing trend of religious fanaticism here at home has nothing to do with this trend. No offense intended to anybody's beliefs, but it should be obvious that the "6000 year-old Universe" crowd has far more political clout and organization than they did (say) ten years ago, and it is dangerous to dismiss them as "quaint" or "traditional." When I think "quaint", I think of Norman Rockwell paintings; it is hardly an adjective that I would attach to a movement that (I would contend) is a threat to the national security and the future of the United States.
Of course, it's equally dismissive to suggest that only religious fanaticism is responsible for our nation's disinterest in proper education. We've got a culture that is obsessed with shark bites, missing white women, and celebrity divorces. We've got parents that are more worried about having better landscaping or a bigger SUV than their neighbors than they are about their own children's education.
Personally, I don't care so much about the root causes of the problem as I do about the problem itself, and I'd like to see it fixed. Maybe what we need is a new national committment to math and science education, much like the one that served us so well in the past. Maybe what we need is a National Defense Education Act for the new millennium.
Sadly, however, I have very little faith that such an act would even make it out of committee in today's climate.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Sadly, now the things valued most highly in American institutions (public and private) are things like 'diversity training,' 'empowering employees,' and 'inclusive respect.'
Actually doing a good job has ceased being the primary focus of our workplaces- we now sit around and talk about how wonderful we all are, even the stupid people have something to contribute. We really need to seek out their ideas, because they might give us a new perspective!
Sure, yes, all well and good. But when our kids end up working in some factory making cheap consumer goods for the Chinese- maybe 'sensitivity training' won't seem so important.
(Sorry, I just got behind on my work by a week while sitting through this week-long training course...)
No reason to lie.
Well, to be accurate, they just give more of a crap about everything else, like funding an unjustified war. Or taking care of big business. Or any of other 1000 things that the government wastes OUR money on. Everyone gives lip service to bettering education, yet they love to say ignorant things like "well, at least teachers get the summer off".
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This could all be interpreted in many ways, but at face value, this is hardly surprising.
The United States, at large, pushes ridiculous religious dogma that infiltrates and dillutes science and science education with theology.
This country spends untold billions on its military and and related conflicts, diverting money from education and research.
Certain government entities almost routinely intimidate scientists and alter research findings that don't support a money or dogma-driven agenda.
We have a society that demonizes the educated, and also frequently for religious reasons, blames education for a break-down of morals.
Corporations pander always to the lowest common denominator when it comes to offering products and services rather than depend on a thinking population.
We eat junkfood like there is no tomorrow, effectively eliminating the chance of a healthy lifestyle that is essential to a healthy brain and mind. (Yes, bad food makes you stupid.)
I could go on, but that would just get too boring. Also, none of this would be too hard to defend (I'm not providing refernces because I'm on a cell phone at the moment). Really, when you think about all the nonsense and silly behavor which saturates our society, what do you expect? A population of enlightened thinkers?
Join Tor today!
The best and brightest from all over the world come to our universities because they are some of the best.
That's true now, but China is busy building it's own versions of these universities. They're already very good in many ways. And with U.S. immigration making it harder to get here, Chinese students will soon have fewer reasons to leave home.
That North America glorifies cash as the ultimate goal of everything. If you've got 2 phds and are leading breakthrough research for a modest wage, you are considered less of a success then high-school dropouts who are making 6 figure (or more) salaries. Think of all the College drop-outs running amok in the billionaires club, you think for a second they respect the intelligent researchers that make the breakthroughs for their company? Think again, they think they're the smart ones.
I hear all the time on the radio. The talk-show jocks will mention that they didn't go to college and are making a killing, will take calls from people who started a roofing business or whatnot and are raking 250k, and laugh together at the college graduates making 35-60k a year.
Not that this is a new phenomena, the history of science is filled with geniuses that contributed monumentally to science but lived modestly.
pursuing an agenda of undermining public education
Our educational system was specifically designed to manufacture interchangeable factory drones who followed orders and avoided thinking whenever possible - and it seems to have done it's job well. If anything it's a smashing success.
If you want research and innovation, public education is not the place I'd focus my efforts.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The US position isn't going to be helped by the growing movement of people trying to weaken science education in this country. I'm speaking, of course, about Christian fundamentalists who want to eliminate the teaching of science wherever it conflicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible.
This is entirely incompatible with science, which is all about a method for finding the truth such that where it leads cannot by definition be circumscribed in advance.
These people have a far greater chance of "destroying the country from within" than those who think that same-sex marriage is OK. First it's evolution, then it's astrophysics, then they'll find something wrong with quantum mechanics and want us to stop teaching students how to make microprocessors. Finally we'll rely entirely upon "atheistic Red China" for all of our new technology. That will be a great situtation for Americans.
For the sake of the US and in fact the entire world, the people in control (high-ups in the executive branch, at least) must de-politicize science education now before we are doomed. PLEASE.
Ah, it's the perennial bitchfest on American education. Why don't our schools work like they should? Here's a view from the inside (I teach in a public magnet school).
1. American culture is deeply anti-intellectual. Americans do not value teaching and learning. Look at the behaviour of our largest universities. Americans are interested in their children being credentialed; they for the most part don't give a fig if their children become sentient, civilized adults.
2. Education has a second-rate image as a profession. Americans think that teachers should work "for the love of it". These same people think that a tepid middle relief pitcher should get 3 megabux a year 'cause its important for the home team. There is no star system for teachers. All are yoked in syzygy into rigid pay scales that do not reward performance. Well, Americans are getting what they pay for.
3. Education starts in the home. Are you sending your child to school properly socialized so he can function effectively? Do you read to your chyldren? Does junior know his colors and shapes, or is he educated by the television?? This is probably the biggest source of the achievement gap in schools, tho' it ain't PC to talk about it.
4. Schools STILL function in the industrial revolution model. Your average edhead says "Gee, don't one size fit all....?" Schools are, more often than not, tighly and centrally controlled like factories. Schools push values such as lockstep conformity. "Dont be different! That's bad!" Then their administrations sit and wonder why every kid is doing drugs as a teen. In the 21st century, people need to learn to think for themselves to be effective citizens. (this is a heretical and incendiary idea)
5. It's OK in america to neglect gifted kids. "They will take care of themselves anyway" Uh, wrong. Tragically wrong. This is a topic for a lengthy disquisition. I have been a specialist in the field of gifted education for many years. The misconceptions held by the public on this issue are legion.
It is not a pretty picture. And given our yahooish culture (highest cultural value in America: tits wiggling on a video screen) and the loutishness and selfishness of our business and political establishments, change isn't in the cards any time soon. Remember, it's always fat'n'sassy right until the very moment the roof cafes in. Hello Bejing.......
Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to develop new technologies is declining rapidly with respect to the rest of the world.
So what? In the U.S. we can outlaw evolution. We'll just change science when and if needed.
"Kansas school board's evolution ruling angers science community" [CNN].
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
I can say for a fact that they are not hindering scientific education, in fact it's quite the opposite.
My biology teacher (of whom I now greatly respect) is very religous, but tought not to enforce biblical references (that's just rediculous), but 'taught the controversy' and let us decide for ourselves. To be specific evolution vs creationism. He never said 'this is what happened' or 'this is the only accepted version of how we ____', it mentioned both, and some lesser ideas as well. He taught us to evaulate and not to laugh at the strange ideas.
As far as I know, that would be the best way to address the issue. My teacher showed us the facts, theories, and possibilities that exist, and demanded that we (through essays/tests and such) demonstrate full knowledge of what the scientific community knows and what current theories entail.
How would that inhibit science?
(note to the grammer/spelling nazis: while I'm a student of science, I abhor anything related to those 'English' classes that test on spelling, so tough :-P)
I blame the overpaid CEOs. For just a small reduction in their ridiculous saleries, they could avoid overseas outsourcing and kept technology jobs here, which is one of the best ways of reinvesting in technology.
...
Very true, but our market system here in the US, as opposed to say, the EU, encourages one or two quarters of forward looking, as compared to the typical five to ten year forward looking planning the rest of the world enjoys.
Sadly, most shareholders aren't even permitted to vote on the CEO/exec salaries, an obvious loophole
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If you truly think that "religious extremists" are the problem you're even more nuts then they are.
The REAL problem is that our society does not LIKE smart people, it prefers jocks.
It starts in grade school with the teasing of the "smart kid" and progresses through High School where large football players with brains the size of walnuts play whack-a-mole with kids half their size and three times their intellect.
When we become adults are we, defined as popular society, more interested in learning about the latest advance in Physics or what Brittney Spears had for breakfest?
Religous extremists are NOT the reason our education system is failing nor are they the reason that we are producing fewer and fewer talented, motivated, and intelligent Scientists and Engineers.
THE answer is all around us, and it is IS us...it's society stupid.
BTW, my father-in-law is a devout Christian and an AWESOME Advanced Placement Physics instructor at the local high school.
In no particular order:
1. Funding slashed for public education.
2. Lawyers fighting trivial patent battles (instead of that money being used to innovate).
3. Companies suing their own customers for copyright infringement
4. "Infotainment" instead of informed news. Fox News anybody?
5. Controlfreak-behavior everywhere. Controlling what people with their information, controlling foreigners/terrorists/everything, etc.
6. Manipulated Science Papers to receive funding.
7. Polically motivated resaerch to bring a certain politically favoured outcome.
8. Removing of non-PC topics from school books (like "fanatism", "racial issues", in some cases "evolution theory").
9. Huge defense budget (instead of using the money otherwise).
10. Religious (christian) fundamentalism.
11. Campains to make the US the most disliked country on this planet, even by its allies.
12. etc/etc/etc
Honestly, who is surprised? This maybe what currently the majority of the (US) people want, but these same people should realize that actions have consequences.
Europe isn't much better either.
If I had mod points I'd give them ALL to you. Your first point probably describes 90% our education systems woes.
;-)
We, as a society, do not value academic excellence or achievement and THAT is what is killing our education system.
I couldn't agree with you any more if you were paying me.
It is a mistake to say this nation has no 'history of education or academic excellence', the US was an early leader in providing Universal education - and the WW2 geniuses included plenty of home grown talent - Richard Feynman, Robert Oppenheimer to name two without bothering to google for more. It is fair to point out that this history of commitment to education has been uneven, and since the early 1960's has been progressively abandoned. New York's public schools used to be very good - now they suck so bad they are almost anti-educational, in some cases. Land grant colleges (now State Universities) are a legacy of this old commitment. In California in the 1970's and before, state residents could attend any state institution that accepted them academically for free. All that is gone, and it is tragic, but we shouldn't forget that we once DID have a commitment to education, and educational excellence. They are what gave us the technological lead we are about to squander. There has been an anti-intellectual strain in American history, but it isn't exactly the same thing.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
My son, who is now four, can read "Green Eggs and Ham" and is working on the words in "Red Fish, Blue Fish". I read to him every night religiously, and I am asking him comprehension questions. Although he was slow in learning to speak, he is definitely ready now. Plus, he is learning Korean from his mother.
Except that gifted kids aren't much different from regular kids! All the studies I've seen show that if you challenge a kid, they will rise to the challenge. That means that we shouldn't classify them into "smart" and "dumb". We should be teaching them all as if they were all smart! As far as I can tell, the only factor in whether a kid is ready to learn is whether they are motivated. Kick all the non-motivated kids out, tell their parents to motivate them, and we can challenge the kids we have and give them the best education in the world.
Kids should come into high school ready for college. They should leave high school with what now passes for a four-year degree. There's no reason why we have to wait until they are 19 before we can really start teaching them. You'd be surprised what thse 14- and 15-year-olds are able to comprehend. I've had some seriously deep rational conversations with boys from this age, and these boys are by no means bright. Why aren't we taking 14-year-old kids and showing them Calculus and Physics and how transistors really work? I know they're ready for it because I can teach it to them and I'm not even a professional!
In order to get there, middle school should be what high school is today. The kids should learn to devour technical books. They should wrap up their ability to compose English and to reason with mathematics. They should get a taste of what is coming in high school.
Which means in elementary school it is absolutely critical that they master the basics. If you can't read, you can't get into 3rd grade, plain and simple. If you can't read a thick book and understand it, you can't get out of 6th grade. If you can't add, subtract, divide, multiply, and solve basic algebra problems, you won't see middle school.
Kick out the non-motivated kids, let them know that they had better change their attitude or else life is going to hit them like a semi-truck at 2AM on the interstate. Kids MUST get educated, and fast, or else the U. S. of A. will become a third world company as all the tech companies are forced to leave for India and China.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Good for personal control. As far as 'Christianity has enough blood on its hands' is concerned, how much blood would there be without it? I'm well aware of history. Most wars in the name of religion are really about land and resources.
-- IV
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
No kidding. Mod parent up!
The average Joe is more interested in the latest sports scores than the latest scientific developments. On top of that, ask the average person on the street who's worth more money, Michael Jordan or Bill Gates, and a surprising amount of people would say Michael Jordan... I mention that because I actually did have that argument with a coworker 7 years ago. She just wouldn't accept that Bill Gates was worth on the order of a thousand times the amount of Jordan.
On top of that, a large number of high school athletes seriously think they can get into professional sports, although they're more likely to win the lottery. They think that's the only way they can "make it". A lot of them skip studying in order to practise their athletics. No one around them tells them they're more likely to become successful by studying and getting a good education rather than hitting the hoops.
So, they hit the steriods and pump up. That's makes them super-aggressive, especially towards the weak nerds - a bunch of losers they perceive as having no chance of "making it".
Well, I'm thinking more of Christianity's long history of mistreatment of heretics, Jews and the like. I would hope a modern society would be able to come up with a better justification for people behaving themselves then "God says so, and you'll fry if you doesn't do what He says." That seems pretty barbaric as far as justifications go, and leaves the door open for all sorts of abuses by sufficiently cynical or insane inviduals who possess enough charisma or leverage with their community. That is, after all, why the Founding Fathers were rather keen to create a secular state. They were a pretty savvy lot who understood that simply justifying things through religious dictates was a rather open door to abusive behavior.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem is that we've now gone from NIMBY to BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone)!
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I agree but I'll take your post from a slightly different POV.
1. The US doesn't generally give a sh*t about math or science look at junior high and highschool. What are the 3 most popular groups? Football, cheerleaders and drillteam. I personally would like all sports banned from school except for intermural PE sports.
2. I'm sorry, but in this point I strongly disagree with you. Why? Because I think almost all schools are making far too much money as it is. Note: I said schools not teachers. I honestly think that almost all school admin staff across the country should be fired ASAP. Most teachers can tell you that this would radically increase the money that reaches teachers. I'd honestly like fully itemized bills sent home from school in addition to report cards. That would change the educational landscape.
3. I'm more neutral on this. I agree that any student that has a parent that forces the student to learn will generally outperform those don't. I don't think that teachers should expect any help though. I think teachers should expect any parental help as pure bonus. Honestly parents get pissed at alot of busy work that could be done in class that is assigned as homework that generally happens more in junior high and high school though.
4. At first, I was going to agree. But then I thought about it. For the most part, you are given a rather wide choice of subjects in junior high and high school. My grip is pre-reqs designed in a why that forces a student into a "career" track. If you didn't take geometery early on, there is no way for you to double up and take Cal later on.
5. You know. I hate the term gifted students. I was in gifted and talented for awhile. I decided shortly there after to avoid it like the plague. Why? Because most of the individuals that were admitted were trouble makers: those that would crack jokes, interrupt the teacher to gossip, and would talk or pass notes. I was happy that those students were there. They tested well. Testing is extremely easy to the talented. What is difficult is sitting down and listening. Heck, most school work could be done in 5-10 minutes unless designed to take longer. Gifted and talented folks pass through without a problem. Actually, in alot of respects, I think middle school through high school should be taught in the same manner with the same freedoms as college is now.
I'm not really worried about China. Why? Because they'll cut off contact with the rest of the world once they are 20-30 years ahead of everyone else. In that time frame, the US will re-evaluate alot of things and get its act together. The US only shines when we have a good partner to compete against. China will drive the US forward like no one else could.
IP laws gone insane will kill research here if it goes on long enough. Our genetics research is crippled in all sorts of places by strategically held patents. Scientists can't share ideas the way they're supposed to because of non-disclosure, non-compete, and rest of the rest of muck. Science is the goose that laid the golden egg and corporates are running that sucker through a Tyson plant.
The other problem is one scientists have largely themselves to blame for. If there is one thing a certain variety of scientist can't stand, it is an interested layman. Since they can't be bothered to explain at least some of the value of what they do, antiscience politicians tend to get elected who then CUT THE FUNDING for basic research. The only other place to turn to then is the corporate world which brings us right back around to the first problem.
The neglect of gifted children is one of the worst things that occurs in the public education system. For those children who are gifted and could succeed, there is no reason to strive. They would be belittled by their peers and given no additional resources. For those children who are gifted and have concomittant special needs (i.e. can finish assigned reading in 1/2 the allotted time and then disrupt the class because they're bored, does the teacher have anything for them to do afterwards?)
You know the saying about the first 80% of an objective being easy to achieve? The next 10% is challenging, the 5% after that very difficult and the final 5% almost impossible. For some reason our schools are attempting to get the final 5% onto par with the first 80% through mainstreaming of students who may never produce average results; simultaneously they are ignoring the 10% of potential high achievers who may require more stimulation to really bloom.
I will freely admit that abiogenesis theories are far from complete, but they are themselves proper science. We gather evidence about early conditions of the Earth, and we apply our understanding of organic chemistry. We may never know the exact pathway from prebiotic chemicals through primitive replicators to modern cells, but simply saying "Goddidit" not only isn't a scientific answer, but in fact rejects the possibility that science could ever answer the question. It's an unfalsifiable claim that, even if it were actually true, would not be a scientific theory.
I think it's pretty early in the game to declare "science cannot answer this question", don't you?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The focus on a jock culture here is spot on. In India, there is an distinct absence of jock worship...most it extends to is cricket. Part of the reason is that sports has not until recently been as commercialized as in the US. i.e., sports heroes typically didn't make a ton of dough in a career over there unlike here. As a result, most parents and consequently, a lot of kids (who listen to their parents most of the time on career matters), drift to things where the die is cast in terms of secure career and life-time income...thus computers, science, etc. sits at the top of the list. This is changing slowly as sports get more commercialized in India, but it's still likely a generation before anything changes meaningfully on that front. Not sure how it is in China, but would venture to say it's similar.
Get rid of most of the teachers after grade 5 or so and let people who can utilize the vast array of self-tutorials, peer-forums and the sheer power of the internet to learn.
You're missing the point of a grade school education. Chances are, your niece is interested in mathematics in the first place. It's easy to pick up things that you're interested. The main point of grade school is to learn how to learn. Along the way you pick up knowledge that is nice for a productive member of society to have. If your niece doesn't like writing essays, she won't learn how to do that in a teacher-less form of education. Have you seen how much self-motivation most kids lack these days? Your niece is the exception, not the rule.
It saddens me how much teaching is looked down upon as a profession when it is one of the most essential profesions out there. The problem with education in America is that we don't have enough able teachers. The plethora of bad teachers is why you think they're so expendable.
Going to call bollocks on that mate.
Walk into any hospital in the UK and count the number of doctors of Asian ethnicity.
Walk into any large IT company in the city and count the number of Asian programmers.
You're talking crap mate.
Asian families aspire for their children to be professionals in the UK pretty much as they do anywhere else on the planet. And they succedd at it. The stereotype of most Indians and Pakistanis is of hard working, family orientated, law abiding and honest people.... you'll find it really hard to find a view of them being backward.
I suggest you visited another country and simply carried your own view with you.
For reference, I now live in Spain (used to work in central London), and the model of the Indian/Pakistani family is exactly the same here in Spain as it is in the UK. It's completely identifiable in every way.
No, then we have to celebrate, because we'll reap the benefits of their innovation. They'll invent ways to make things and provide services better and cheaper than before, and the world will be a better place for it. What nonsense the original article is, whining about us losing a "science crown". The world economy is a collaboration, not a competition! The richer and cleverer people in other countries get, the better off we will be.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Having followed with morbid curiousity the creation movement in the US for a number of years now, there are several key words that render the actions of your teacher suspect.
First, the "very religious" comment. This wouldn't raise my eyebrows except for the rest, as many very religious persons do not have a problem with the theory of evolution. Unfortunately a very vocal subset do. Also the very religious comment just begs the question of how you know this? Bumping into the teacher out in public or through their actions at school? The latter may be inappropriate depending on the circumstances.
Second: "...tought not to enforce biblical references..." Why should religious references even be mentioned in a science class?
Third: "taught the controversy" WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!There is no scientific controversy as to whether or not evolution occurs or new species appear, or as to the fact that humans and the other great apes share a common ancestor. The scientific debate that occurs is over the exact mechanisms of evolution and their relative importance. These are the real debates in evolution and represent the cutting edge of science. We don't teach the cutting edge in high school science classes, or even most undergraduate classes for that matter. "Teach the controversy" is simply a creationist code word for a religiously motivated attack on evolution that attempts to skirt the establishment clause.
Fourth: And right after that, we've got your statement that the teacher mentioned "both" and didn't point out the great differences between evolution and creationism. Evolution is the bedrock of biology and is the most thoroughly tested theory in science. It's been around for 150 years and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Creationism on the other hand is either a religious concept (actually several different and often incompatible concepts) or refers to pseudoscience, creationism having been removed from the realm of scientific possibility about 200 years ago and as such has no business in a high school science class.
So how does this hinder science? Well, it hinders science because your teacher wasted your classes' time by introducing unscientific ideas into a science class and removing time from actually teaching established science--the entire *point* of a science class. Worse, not by not highlighting the enormous differences between creationism and evolutionary biology your teacher implicity equated them. This is an attempt by your teacher to put you and your classmates on the path of hurtling American biology backwards two hundred years. Now while I think it'd be great if high school students could demonstrate full knowledge of what the scientific community knows and what current evolutionary biology entails, it looks pretty clear that this was not your teacher's intent.
Try to convince me that all of that -- and a ton more -- arived by accident from a bubbling pile of organic ooze (that somehow managed to arrange a plasma membrane, that's another discussion)
That fact that you used the word "accident" demonstrates that your "very religious" biology teacher has failed. Evolution is not accidental or random. It is directed by selection pressures from the environment.
If you think a teacher is required to learn anything than you don't understand the value of educating yourself and I'm sad for you and anyone you influence as learning things without the help of others is a far more rewarding experience both intellectually and emotionally. Teachers can say a litany of things that are "required" to learn in a teacher/student enviroment but the fact that they resort to rehashing the same adages of a low student to teacher ratio to get more teachers employed in the public education racket instead of addressing the question of, "Why should a child be forced to learn at the pace of others in an enviroment that is structured after the needs of an agrarian population to work their children on farms during the summer forcing the artificial splitting of subjects into semesters?"
I am more worried about the damage done to children by teachers than anything they can provide after a certain age. I'm also not saying that we should abolish all teachers either as a great bulk of the population need them to force them to do subjects that they would never engage on their own, but if you have to coerce someone to learn they are unlikely to amount to much anyways.
I did not say they are evil, the teacher unions have that role already filled in the education game. What I said is that if there is an antiquarian of professions culling about that he is coming for your profession and that such a change is inevitable when the technology allows it. Don't worry people still make horse whips even in this day and age but I don't think many children will want to be taught in a classroom with other kids when they can get a personalized instructor who adapts to their needs and stays with them throughout their entire educational process.
I may not be an expert but I've taken enough educational classes in my current University that they blackballed me from progressing any further stating that an essay I wrote on generation ships requiring the research and development of autonomous teaching enitities being installed as a backup in case of social degradation may have to be put in a position to cull ineffective members of that society to save resources as evil and warranting that I not be allowed to do student teaching in High Schools. I'm not an expert in education as is taught in schools but I am becoming an expert in mechatronic engineering which would allow me to directly contibute to efforts at designing such an autonomous system of machines to educate a populace raised from artificial wombs if a living generation model is doomed to failure.
I don't know who you think I am but I do not heep scorn upon the hoary heads of acadamia without reason.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
One need not be opposed to evolution to be inspired by the possibility that life as we know it emerged (and continues to emerge) according to the design of a higher intelligence.
Sure it's possible. It's just untestable and unfalsifiable, and hence, useless.
The theory that life emerges as protozoa, or virii, or any other miniscule or molecular creature in any way that could survive the ravages of nature by a process of evolution toward greater degrees of organization, according to the laws of physics, without the intervention of pre-existing intelligence, fails the basic test of science: Reproducability.
First off, it's "viruses". Secondly, the exactly same thing can be said for the idea of an Intelligent Designer. Has anyone seen an example of the Designer designing anything lately? Also, if the designer is so intelligent, how do you explain that the human body is so poorly "designed"?
Until you can show me that life can emerge from a naturally occurring (meaning under present or past conditions), non-living chemical mix, in a repeatable fashion, then it is not unreasonable to assume that life does not simply emerge from nothingness.
Yes it is, actually. Since there IS a plausible hypothesis for how life (starting from reproducing molecules) could have happened using the laws of chemistry and physics as we know them, and since there is NO plausible hypothesis explaining how life emerged from nothingness, then it's very unreasonable to assume the latter. Sorry.
I'd like to start this off by saying that this isn't the first article to stir up fears of an ascendant Asia vs. a descendant America. Slashdot is full of them. Just take a look at any single article noting a technical achievement anywhere, and I mean anywhere outside the US, be it Europe, China, Brazil or India.
And what is the typical slashdotter's reaction? One of blatant chauvinism, racism and derogatory remarks about backward Chinese spacecraft supposedly copied from the Russians, supposedly socialist Europe supporting a dying dream of having the wrong vision of passenger aircraft future or not even knowing that Brazil has had a working ethanol based gasoline system for more than two decades.
That is the typical reaction. If you ask me, the problem of the US is perhaps one of arrogance based on ignorance. Ignorance on what happens beyond the US' borders. I suppose it comes from 60 years of superpower status and genuine leadership in many areas. It's gone on for so long that people in the US possibly take it for granted.
It's also not the first economic scare the US has had. The Japanese frightened many in the 70's and 80's. And now the outsourcing of jobs to China and India is frightening many more.
So where is the problem? Is it education as so many slashdotters like to believe? Is it the US media that is almost exclusively US centric to the extent that your average slashdotter knows neither the difference between Sweden and Switzerland or between Austria and Australia, and has vague and unsettling notions about the EU being socialist or even communist, let alone about place that have cultures even more remotely removed from the US such as China and India?
I think it's probably a bit of all of that, but that the real problem is that the US population is simply not interested in the rest of the world. It's US consumers that drive the US media. It's US parents that drive the education system. It's the US population that votes in a President who is only semi-literate. It's the US population that votes to supplant science with dogmatic religion and yet rail against another equally dogmatic religion, that being ironically, one of the few foreign affairs that genuinely, even if only out of fear, interests the average US person.
Taking an active interest in our world is step one to rejuvinating the US. IMO.
The problem is that the environment in the US is becoming hostile to science.
I'm with you there - though "becoming" implies something recent and this trend has been going on for decades. (Trust me. I lived through it.)
The religious extremists, greatly enheartened by a Fundementalist President's second term, are pursuing an agenda of undermining public education to replace science with nonsense like Intelligent Design and "teach the controversy."
But here I call BS.
The downfall of the US educational system predates both Bushes and has nothing to to with religious fundamentalism - unless you chose to label the "progressive" movement fundamentalist.
It it the result of a package of new-age ideologies that have formed into a meme strong enough to infect and unify nearly half the politically-active population of the US - including the entire administrative infrastructure of public school primary and secondary education (along with the professoriate of most of the institutions of "higher" learning, especially in the "liberal arts" part of the curriculum).
Some of the components:
- Look-say reading instruction - turning out functional illiterates.
- "New math", "Rain-forest Math", and other defective math and science teaching practices, turning out functional ilnumerates. (Note that the latter, while neglecting math skills, spends its time on story problems that amount to a political indoctrination course.)
- Bilingual education and "ebonics" - indellibly marking children as underclass via an accent and sabotaging their chance for higher education and employment above the burger-flipping level (at least in the legal economy).
- Self-esteem and "results-based" educational practices replacing grading on performance - removing incentive (actually producing a DISincentive) to learn.
- "Sensitivity" and "diversity" training misused to define gang activity as "black" and "latino" culture - and to require teachers ignore disruptive behavior by young gangsters as they block other kids from what little learning they could otherwise achieve in the dysfunctional institution.
- "Non-violent conflict resolution" that amounts to permitting the bullies to hit first to their heart's content, while drastically punishing anyone who attempts to defend by blocking a blow or hitting back.
- Revisionist history: Ad-Hominem flames of the founders as "Dead White Men" (whose anti-authoritarian principles and teachings can thus be dismissed), characterization of the constitution as "a living document" that can be stretched to allow anything rather than a limit on government, treating historical facts as matters of opinion, utterly failing to cover most of the most important events of the last several centuries, and a list of other misdeeds too long to go into here.
- Teacher retention, promotion, and pay scales based on seniority and tenure (in ELEMENTARY schools!) while totally blocking any consideration of qualification or performance.
- School-of-education curricula that consist entirely of political indoctrination and utterly ignore science, math, biology, and any sience except so-called "social science" (which has less to do with science than "creation science" and "Christian Science".)
And a host of other misdeeds, again too long to post here.
All having the effect of dumbing down the victims of the education system and turning them into a mass of easy-to-control (though not as productive as they might have been) sheep. And virtually all coming out of the ideology of the left.
Yes, there are some religious sects to the right of Joe Stalin who take issue with Darwin and make noise about it at school board meetings - especially when books are being selected. They get all the press - because the press itself is more than happy to turn its spotlight on its own opposition. This lets it blame its own side's destruction of science education on the other side. They've
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sweden runs their entire government off oil revenue. When that runs dry the gravy train is over.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There is no 'controversy' in regards to evolution. It is a fact.
The Earth, and indeed, the universe, is older than 5,000 years.
What you have illustrated here very well is the bastardisation of science that is occurring in American education due to the influence of ant-scientists.
It inhibits science to lie to students about what constitutes a 'theory' in science.
It inhibits science when graduates of science in a country don't even know what the scientific method is.
It inhibits science when dogma is allowed to be presented as a credible alternative to scientific theory. Dogma, unlike science, is not, cannot be falsifiable.
It inhibits science when people such as yourself are taught dogma as if it were science, and then think you have been taught about science, and publicly aver that what you were taught was science.
It was not.
You were lied to. Creationism is a dogma built on and sustained by a long campaign of lies and misinformation.
Go and read some decent science books, there are plenty of them out there. And don't ever call creationism a theory again. It is not.
Just try to see if you can have a computer simulation come up with something on the order of complexity of TCP/IP that works even half as well.
o ntroversy#Accusations_involving_science
Given 4 billion years and an incredibly powerful 'computer' (the universe or at least an entire planet) you don't think your program might achieve something?
How did we evolve and the universe come into being in violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?
This is pure propaganda from creationists. There is not and has never been any conflict between evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation-evolution_c
What (or who) created the original Order in the universe?
Science does not know this and neither does religion.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
Their government represses religion instead of letting religion run everything thinly veiled by the supposed 'separation of church and state'.
... not becuase 'they tried to kill my daddy!'
Their government doesnt force the fables of creationism on kids during SCIENCE classes.
Their government doesnt tell their own scientists to go back and try again when evidence is found supporting the idea of global warming.
Their government doesnt force kids in some schools to recite the lord's prayer regardless of what religion (or lack thereof) they come from.
Their government invades / annexes other countries because of historical ties, to repress sepratism of semi-autonomous regions
Sure, there's a problem here and there with how China does things too, but there's no wonder why they are poised to take over.
Their government owns SO MUCH american debt, they just need to threaten to dump a little of it to send the US dollar plummetting. hmmm wonder why they just de-linked the value of their money from the US dollar peg?
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
" I made the mistake in my original post of not stressing enough that it was thought-inducing..."
I'll wager that with only one exception, all of the science you were taught in biology class was taught rather dogmatically: germs cause disease, life is cellular, mitosis, meiosis, photosynthesis, population genetics. The one area that was to be "thought-inducing" was evolutionary biology. Given that evolution is at least as well established as the rest of biology and that there are no valid scientific alternatives, why do you suppose that it might have been singled out?
"But at that particular moment in classes I am refering to my teacher was not refuting evolution, we were merely expressing other views on origins of life."
There is a problem with this statement. Right now there is only one scientifically valid point of view on the origins of the diversity of life and that is evolution. Notice the difference: diversity of life and the origin of life. The two are most definitely not the same. Evolution requires as a starting point some sort of replicator that the factors of mutation and natural selection can act upon, and nothing more. This doesn't even necessarily require something as complex as a cell. Evolution is not concerned with the origins of this first replicator; that falls under abiogenesis, which is a seperate field of study. As far as the theory of evolution is concerned this first replicator(s) could come about by natural means, aliens, or the supernatural and it would have no impact on evolutionary theory at all. If your teacher has implied that evolutionary biology and abiogenesis are synonymous s/he has done your education a disservice.
"As far as covering evolutionary material, we did that, in as much as is expected in a Biology 101 equivelant class, and much more."
It's the nature of that "much more" that draws concern. That your teacher failed to say "this is what happened" in comparing the solid science of evolution versus the disproven pseudoscience of creationism renders his/her intentions suspect.
The size of China's population is irrelevant. Statistically speaking, yes, there may be more bright people born, but political factors take a much more prominent role. Take 16th century Venice, for example. With 200,000 citizens, it had a technological advantage and military parity with the Ottoman Empire, which had 20 million residents and thousands of times more landmass. The reasons? The tradition of free & rational inquiry, some free market mechanisms, and substantially more individual liberty. The point is, firstly that population size doesnt matter, and secondly, that, as long as the US encourages free thought more than China, it will always come out on top. It is no coincidence that revolutionary R&D (microprocessors, telephones, nuclear power) have come from the West, while evolutionary R&D (the latest in motherboard designs) comes from the East.
Why did he come to the US? Fear of religious persecution by the Nazis. The US fundamentalists don't like Jews that much either. As for "origins"; how does the Big Bang fit in with that? No study of cosmology can begin if you're trying to reconcile it with a literal biblical interpretation. More practically, the bans on stem-cell research, prompted by the same mindset, will kill off any chance of getting a lead in medical sciences.
When one doesn't know the questions one will never go figure out the answers even if one has access to all the answers?
Have you ever tryied to "just learn" without any targets or objectives?
Great way to end up with a lot of of superficial knowledge, knowing many worthless things while NOT knowing many essential things.
Some guidance is always needed, especially for children.
The problem with the education system is not that teaching is bad. The problem is that measuring the results of teaching is:
a) Done by measuring the ability to memorize instead of the ability to think.
b) Continuously dumbed down so that the average TEST results of the studentsremain the same even though their average AQUIRED ABILITIES are going down.
This perversely feeds back into the system, since teachers will teach and students will learn for the tests (and not for aquiring knowledge and abilities to be used in one's future life) and for a teach, having the average tests of a class match the expected average du jour is good enough.
All empires fall, eventually. The accidents of history, or geography, or technology, or society that propel a society to greatness impose their own restrictions, and time passes, new technologies are born and grow, and eventually another society ascends.
Spain, in the time of England's Queen Elizabeth, was the dominant world power. After their fall, they were a poor nation (certainly compared to the dominant powers of Europe) for a few centuries.
The USA will not be able to continue using a quarter of the world's oil production for a twentieth of the world's population. China and India are becoming wealthier by their own industriousness, and soon their corporations will be competing with American ones to buy the world's resources.
If the world is lucky, the leaders in the USA will handle our waning influence the way the leaders of the UK did after WWII, and quietly step off the stage as new powers take over. If the world is unlucky, the USA follows the path of Czarist Russia or Imperial Germany after WWI, and descend into chaos until a charismatic leader uses extraordinary circumstances to assume supreme authority.
You are correct; there are scary possibilities in the future. What are you doing to help prevent them from coming about?