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The Decline of Science and Technology in America
puke76 writes "There's a good article over on the BBC about the decline of science and technology in the U.S.. Vint Cerf and others are going on record to voice their concerns about the current administrations recipe for 'irrelevance and decline.' Scientists are increasingly concerned about the White House's pandering to the religious right at science's expense. From the article: 'radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data ...to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations.'"
There's a saying that I hear a lot of religious people say: "You reap what you sow". Ironic then that in this case America gets precisely what it sows. You teach kids that ID is science and you get crappy scientists. You cut the percentage of GDP spent on RND and you get less nobel prize winners. You ignore the science of economics and you end up with a huge current account deficit which will take a decade to repay. You ignore the *fact* that human produced carbon dioxide is warming the earth and you wreck your environment just in time for your grandchildren.
America is at a cross-roads of sorts. It can choose to be the The Christian Republic of America or the United States of America. It seems as time goes on these options are becoming more and more mutually exclusive. The religious fanatics are intent on replacing the textbook with the Bible. The atheist fanatics (yes they do exist) are intent on removing any shred of religion from public life.
The next fifty years are going to be interesting. Will the US continue to train world class scientists and be a home for the creative? Or will the US sink in to irrevelence through placing religious dogma before pragmatism.
The condom policy in Africa makes me think the latter rather than the former.
Simon.
The sad thing is many of these christian fanatics are uneducated, Rush Limbaugh/ Bill O'Reilly products (sculpted zombies) who's life doesn't stray further than Wal-Mart.
Church........[WALL].........State Not a difficult concept.
I think this is a key point. And not just public support for science and government funding, but the motivation of young people going into the field is critically important to whether or not scientific effort actually makes a difference in the real world. Are there real world problems (like the problems that led to development of
radar and computing in WWII, or the needs of cold war espionage and besting the Soviets post-Sputnik) that captivate people's attention? If the critical needs are there, that ensures both public support, government funding, and highly motivated researchers bringing real advances.
And we do have critical needs for R&D work right now - renewable energy probably most critical. Developing things further in space is a challenge that needs our best efforts now too. But our government and media, and even places reflective of geek opinion like slashdot, spend a lot of effort downplaying the seriousness of problems like oil depletion and
global warming. People can't be motivated to do anything about it if most of the country thinks it's not really a problem at all.
Energy: time to change the picture.
First off it's easy to decline when you're the world leader to begin with. Unfortunately in an age where the Internet is taking over, and unlimited possibilities for learning present themselves, the protectionists in the Bush administration are having their way with Americans. What kind of an insane world leader would suggest that we have to fight religious extremists, and then in the next breath insists that he supports Christian ideology being taught in the 21st Century science classroom?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Corporations are more to blame for the decline of science than the government. Most industrial development is ultimately driven by companies looking to make money on new technologies. Lately, most companies have been gutting research budgets in favor of more short term profits (ie. HP). Look at most job postings, how many both require an advanced degree and are willing to pay enough to hire someone? Most companies aren't interested. Until corporate America can look past next quarter's numbers, R&D will not really exist in the U.S. anymore.
Yet Americans continue to think that they are automatically number one in everything. The man on the street still believes that we Americans are the smartest, strongest, and most capable people in the world. Mostly that's a delusion supported by ignorance, as the typical American knows very little about what's going on in the world outside of the US.
Certainly any American is capable of being the best, and is more likely to acheive that given good opportunities and education, and a culture that values whatever endeavor they choose. For science and technology, that's just not valued much by our culture. Americans like entertainment and instant gratification, and think the more of that they have the better they will be.
I fear for our future.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
"Young Americans are opting for better paid law and medicine over science and engineering and visa restrictions on bright foreign students further dilute the talent pool"
Well, the more we blame this situation on religious/anti-religous bugaboos and other flamefests, and not on THE WAY WE RAISE OUR KIDS nothing will ever change.
How many of you (or your wives for that matter) get on their childs teacher's case for being "too hard on my kid", "they just aren't good at math" etc. and not the other way around?
Why do you think Asians kick so much ass in the sciences and tech fields? Because they believe in hard work and challenge their kids (granted, maybe too much sometimes)
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
The Bush neoconservatives believe that their destiny is to mold the world as they see fit, and they don't care what they have to do or say to fulfill that goal. If that means lying about WMD, killing civilians, or sacrificing military personnel, then so be it. It is all for the greater good.
So don't expect them to give a crap about the cost to science by doing what the religous right demands, cause they need them to be in power in the first place.
Now if they could find a way to launder money out of R&D, like the defense, pharma, or oil industries, then you might get somewhere.
Maybe some R&D project managers need to take
Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay out for a few rounds of golf...
And while science is suffering from religious activists and the whim of politicians, innovations in engineering and technology as a whole are suffering from an outdated patent system, whose sole purpose seems to be rewarding large monopolies rather than promoting innovation.
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
If not that, they ended up running universities where their business depends on having more science students to
Then they get stressed out that my kids look around at their father and his cow-orkers stressing over whose job is the next to vanish. They look at the management, lawyers, and politicians getting wealthier and more powerful every year, and shock! they decide not to go into tech.
Here's the paradox: they want the best and brightest to make life decisions that they themselves saw as foolish.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I think they should have a country (somewhere else) where Slashdot idiots can gather and live. Maybe you could be the first! (but I'm sure not the last).
eMelody Web Directory add your site today!
What you have to realize is that disbelief in climatology does not necessarily have to do with Christianity. Incredulity of science among the extremely religious may be a factor there, I am sure. However, you don't have to be Christian. In fact, all you have to be is someone who believes so strongly in American-style capitalism that anything which implies the actions of capitalists to be imperfect must be untrue. For example, a Libertarian.
To see this in action, compare any "Intelligent Design" related article on Slashdot to any article in some way related to global warming. We don't have a lot of hardline Christians on slashdot, so in the former article will have a very "trust science, evidence and reason over faith" slant in the comments. However we do have a lot of hardline libertarians. So look in the latter article and you will find one of the greatest torrents of anti-intellectual anti-science sentiment imaginable. As soon as it comes up that all available evidence makes it quite clear that human-produced greenhouse gases are causing global climate change with negative effects, suddenly we are presented with people insisting that reality is ephermal, nothing is knowable, and rather than do risky things like attempt to regulate polluting businesses we should just have faith that our actions will not have faith on the world around us. After all, it is not like climatology or chemistry are hard sciences, like the economic science is which Milton Friedman has used to conclude that governmental regulations universally and always cause harm.
What we really need is one country (somewhere else) where Christians can gather and live in whatever primitive manner they choose.
m l
Ummmmm. they did a few hundred years back.
http://pilgrims.net/plymouth/history/mayflower.ht
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I'm not sure that you understand what bias is. Just because Slashdot often paints Bush in a negative light when it comes to science-related issues, it doesn't mean that there's a bias. Face it, there's not much you can say that's positive about this administration's attitude towards science, and if the /. editors were to balance out all of the negative Bush-related science articles with positive ones, that would be extremely biased in Bush's favor. (In fact, that is the essence of what is wrong with Fox News.)
Un actually you are dead wrong.. The Indians, The Mexicans and even the Vikings were here before Christopher Colombus sailed that ocean blue. What we need is a completes separation of church and state. While people may have thier moral and religeous thoughts, i think our government needs to be able to look at whats good for americans without prejudice(and thats truly what most religeous politicians are) thought. Think about the supreme court...
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
As a Christian, and an amateur scientist (though not a Christian Scientist) I am increasingly disturbed by an administration that ignores whole chunks of the Bible (namely, nearly every word of Christ) in favor of pandering to a small and crazy fringe group who wants an untenable literal interpretation.
I am disturbed as a a scientist because it's holding us back, and educating our kids with BS, and I'm disturbed as a Christian because this is not Christianity, at least not of the mainstream portion. And most Christians are too afraid to stand up and say anything at the wholesale hijacking of their faith. (I wonder if this is how Muslims feel) Please, slashdotters, don't paint with a broad brush Christians as being like.....this.......
The "meat" of Christian teachings are _not_ incompatible with evolution, the big bang, modern society in general, etc, etc.
Voted for Bush the first time around, voted libertarian on try number 2.
Many of the people who came to America were not religious conservatives, but religious liberals. The quakers, for example, were prosecuted for their views on organized religion. See this link for example. Your comments are exactly what the religious right would have us believe, that religion should be the core of our government, when in fact it was founded by people who got the harsh edge of that stick. The basis of our government is freedom of religion, not freedom to choose a state religion.
I stay out of peoples bedrooms and churchs, for the very reason that I don't want others in mine!
What you are saying, that America has always been a Christian nation the way it is today, is a nice little fairy tale, but it simply isn't true. Members of the Christian political movement that have hijacked America's politics in the last 45 years try to pretend that the spot they hold is their divine right and that they have always held it, that oceania has always been at war with eurasia, but the fact is a political member of the SBC stranded 200 years ago would be nothing but a ranting street preacher. Drop them 225 years ago among the deist-packed "founding fathers" that people are always trying to lay claim to, and they'd be even worse off...
Take any shred of religion out of the government, but don't tell me our forefathers or constitution says it should be that way.
Our "forefathers" and the constitutional law they wrote say it should be that way, in very specific terms:
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I have seen this time and time again while working for large corporations
1. Focus on short term profits over long term profits.
2. Management by MBAs that have no technical understanding, and cannot understand technical subjects, nor key trends and drivers in an industry.
3. Rampant cost-cutting, to the point of providing legacy computers to their employees.
4. Hiring incompetent, wannabe techies with no mastery of technical subjects or even the motivation to learn.
5. Lack of vision for developing core capabilities to market leading potentials
6. Revenue-stream milking, to the detriment of all other activities
I think the parent poster is very accurate. If there is a problem, it is our litigation prone society that rewards lawyers over engineers and scientists, exponentially. Our innovators should be better compensated, and the tort/IP system reformed.
That would be a start in the right direction. I'd like the Bush administration to change those problems first.
god is, by defenition, outside of the scope of science. the question of the existance of god is theology [think sub-division of philosophy].
the only people that i see bringing god into scientific debates are fanatics trying to prove god's existance through non-scientific methods and logical fallacies while claiming it as science [eg intelligent design].
this does not make it science.
evolutionists have no opinion on god from a scientific point of view.
sum.zero
Yes, those nasty Christians. The ones who kept learning alive inside monasteries during the Middle Ages. The ones who started the universities. Christians like Newton, Darwin and Galileo.
The poster demonstrates ignorance of the effect Christianity had on learning in Europe.
Ah yes. The ever so predictable jab at Bill Clinton from a republican. How convient that we use the past to gloss over the huge republican fuck up that is today present time.
Country is bleeding cash to foreign nations, country is insanely in debt, oil costs a fortune, christian religious dogma dictates public policy, record high unemployment, health care is unaffordable, we've off shored most of our manufacturing, stem cells are no considered babies, ass backwards tort reform, bullshit patriot acts by a republican government no less (the irony is fucking histerical)...
Oh the list goes on, and its retarded. There isnt a single GOOD thing that has come from this administration, other than perhaps "we invaded Afghanistan" but yet, havent gotten Bin Laden.
Our current goverment is a joke. They're incapable of doing anything AND that includes the democrats that are in office as well. They're lame and weak.
The republicans know how to fight, but they have no clue how to run a country. They certainly are good at giving government hand outs ot their rich friends though.
And that is a big issue.
So lets not talk about Clinton. Lets talk about the assholes in power RIGHT NOW.
The article got one thing right - unless you have a limitless passion for science, there is no reason for an American student to become a scientist.
If you become a PhD scientist, you will not get through your now essentially-mandatory post-docs until after you are thirty years old. Depending on your field, you can then expect to start at a salary of $60-80k.
On the other hand, a typical lawyer is out of school at age 25 and already makes a higher salary than the PhD will. Yes, they have a larger debt but it is only about a year's salary. Also, the lawyer does not have to worry much about someone from China or India replacing him at a third the price.
Economically, it does not make sense for a bright young American to choose science. We should not be surprised when few do.
HUman evlution is the teaching of a conclusion based on certian evidences.
Scien is not truth. Science is discovery through scientific methods.
Nothing evolves just randomly, and if you think thats what evolution is, then you are very misguided.
Evolution is NOT RANDOM CHANCE.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There's a good article over on the BBC about the decline of science and technology in the U.S.
I think most technological advancements in the U.S. came about as a result of large wars. Technological advancements in electronics, aviation, ballistics, space travel and satellite saw huge increases as a direct result of World War II and the Cold War (I'm tossing the Vietnam War in as part of the Cold War).
And we've always distrusted science. This isn't the first time around for a legislated solution to the 'question' of evolution. The Scopes Trial happened in the mid 1920s.
Nuclear energy in American today is also a reflection of the distrust in science (stemming from ignorance or not).
Maybe Americans have always been distrustful of science. The lack of defense spending in the past 20 years could explain the slow down in technological advances as well.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
::
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What we are really witnessing is the takeover of humanity by the corporations:
The mega-corps dictate terms and conditions regarding employment and subsistence of the citizens to governments with impunity, if the local yokels, be it county, state or an entire nations governing body make waves, well... the source of employment can move to localities more malleable to the forces of "progress"
Truthfully, how many of us reflect on the fact that the very shiny, very cool, very indispensible objects we caress (talking to geeks here, normals please ignore), are tainted by being assembled by people working in what we ourselves would deem sub-human conditions regarding pay, working-hours and job-security?
(... sorry to be such an insensitive clod to those working for outstanding game production outfits)
Let us name as examples predatory corporations of the present time such as Monsanto and Microsoft while keeping a clear head, realizing that such entities are hostage to their own success and must forge forward with ever-increasing vigour, swallowing and/or disrupting targets that can affect the bottom line.
While such virulent behaviour is acceptable to many, the history of human achievments does show a prevalance of individual invention over large-scale research.
As the workforce in other locations reach the lowest common corporate qualification so must the corporations migrate the actual jobs available in the enterprise...
The actual catch #22 is the fact that the established entities do their best to smother or assimilate anything new so by the mere fact of progressing any project must eventually become evil... or what??? please do tell
# ~: no sigs today
First... The Us was far more 'Christian' during the 40s 50's and 60's, the time of it's greatest advances. Second... Lawers, Singers, Sports and Business management are the big things today. Science is not a player in the career stakes today. Third... Corporations run America more than anytime in it's history. They exist to make money not fund science. Science can feed from the crumbs off the corporate table. Forth... In the mad house thats patents have built, whatever I may discover is bound to be already patented ten times over with an army of lawers to back them up. Whatever isn't patented is copyrighted or otherwise protected under the DMCA. Lastly... Ignorance is king! Look at mass entertainment and news. Life beyond third grade education simply isn't required and such today is considered a fringe demographic. Religion the cause my ass!
HALF the effort we American capitalists make!
So in other words, you think the people in the UK should work harder to cover up studies about multimillion dollar drugs, spend more time selling barges to each other, and otherwise screwing things up so they can be Just Like Us?
My point is that, on the value of religion at least, Tom Paine clearly ran counter to the Founding Fathers. It's become a common (albeit no longer clever) ruse to invoke Paine's name when arguing against the "Forefathers Intended Religion to be Part of US Society" angle; Paine's name is meant to spook the Forefather-invoker.
Was Paine wrong re Religion? Were Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, et. al. right? A discussion for a different thread, and I've argued both sides in my days. But there can really be no argument that the Money-Head folks intended a prominent and positive role for religion in their new nation's development. The warping of the Constitution's 'Establishment Clause' which prevents the Feds from creating a national religion into something blocking local municipalities from putting up creches or ten commandments or magic groves in their public parks if enough townies want them is just perverse.
I'm a control systems engineer, which means I design electrical panels, program automation, and start up these kinds of systems. Think big machines with motors and hydraulics, etc. If there's a bug in my code, steel crashes and smoke comes out of the equipment.
When I'm onsite, I'm one of the lucky engineers because I get paid a straight time overtime rate (divide my salary by 2000 hours per year, and they give me that much for each overtime hour while I'm on the road for 2 to 4 months a year - not time and a half, just straight time). Many of the other engineers doing a similar job do not get this.
Meanwhile, when I go onsite to a unionized factory to install this equipment, I need to have a union electrician with me all the time. This is because I can't plug in my laptop because I'm not qualified, so I need to have an electrician do that for me, or at least be present when I do it. Also, I can't use an electrical meter to measure voltages in MY machine that I'm installing for them, so I have to get them to hold the meter and probes for me.
98% of the time I don't need these services, so the union electrician sits beside me reading a newspaper. I don't have a problem with this because generally they're nice guys, and they are skilled, but here's the kicker:
They didn't have to get a 4 or 5 year electrical engineering degree. They can't do my job, but I'm actually overqualified for their job... and while he's sitting there reading the newspaper, he makes 50% to 100% more per year than I do, even though I'm paid respectably based on salaries quoted on salary.com for my area.
I like my job, but the financial incentive clearly tells me I should have gone for the 2 year college course to be an electrician and gotten hired to a union shop.
That's where the science and technology edge has gone. An average American in a factory makes $22 to $45 an hour, and you wonder why the country can't compete with India and China for manufacturing jobs?
I can go online and hire 2 or 3 Indians to play my MMO game for me for a total of $1.50 an HOUR to power level my character. If there was free trade in the world, the western nations would be SCREWED.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Yes eventually, but he was funded by christians to do much of his research.
Christianity isn't one monolithic entity.. never has been... there's always been a strong pro-learning streak in it (spreading education throughout the world, establishing hospitals - we still have 'sisters' in hospitals today even though they're not nuns any more), and there's always been the stuck up gits who care more about their own power than anything else.
Actually not much different from today... they call them Senators now not Bishops, but the principle is the same.
Yea, it's rather ironic that one of Citibank's biggest stockholders is a Saudi prince.
the Spanish Empire under the Inquisition
When Queen Isabela demanded that Jews, Sephardim and Muslims, Spanish Moors either convert to Christianity or leave the Iberian Peninsula suffered a massive brain drain. It was mostly Jews and Moors that were educated in the different kingdoms of Iberia, most of which become Spain.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Congrats on your +5 Insightful, despite having many wrong and overly biased points.
America is always at some kind of crossroads. And you know what? It usually comes out pretty okay.
Talk to anyone in their 70s. They will all say the political climate today is INSANE. That politics around Vietnam were nowhere near as corrupted as things are today. We have religious right senators talking at Baptist Conventions on Sundays during the services, for peats sake, trying to build an extreme view of religion into the goverment. Our President, despite turning the world into a terror-filled place takes the longest vacations in US Presidential history. He should be impeached, but our own congress is too scared for their selfish reasons to stand up against this guy. Bush's actions have killed more Muslims/persons than Bin Laden, or Saddam. This will never be reported in the US news, though the entire world knows this. It's true- add it up. Why do you think everyone hates us? The conservatives are against abortion but don't mind at all killing 10's of thousands of Iraqi women and children, almost 2,000 US soldiers, or anyone else. I have yet to understand how that is in any way 'morals.'
The point being, this is a conservative country. Get used to it. It's always been that way, going back to its founding - remember, this country exists because people needed somewhere to go to practice their religion. The freedom to not practice religion was added later.
You couldn't be more wrong. Read the Declaration of Independence sometime and get back to me. This country was formed by persons RUNNING AWAY from crazy rulers/dicators like BUSH. LIBERAL. How more liberal can you get other than leaving across the Atlantic Ocean to get away from over-ruling leaders? If you read this document outloud on a public news station, you would probably be arrested under the Patriot Act. Read it- though I know no conservatives believe in this document, sadly enough.
Look it up. Honestly, *none* of the founding fathers were Christians. At best they were "deists", which is really a polite way to say "atheists", because deists believe that while a god exists, it does nothing and everything works by natural law just as if no god existed.
Even if the things the Republicans said *were* true (something I dispute), did it justify breaking the law? Did it justify the risking of the lives of other operatives and associates that worked for and with the Brewster-Jennings cover organization? Or is it OK to break the law in the name of political expediancy if you are a Republican administration official? What a fscking moron.
That is all.
"Newton was a Christian"
Isaac Newton was a Unitarian, thanks very much. Like his friend John Locke. Please get your facts straight before accusing others of ignorance.
Have there been bad Christians? Yes. Have there been good ones too? Most definately. You can't point to any group that big and say they're all the same, just like you can't do that with blacks or women.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
So, I took a look at the website you've been touting on several posts. There's a book by Stuart Kauffman "The Origins Of Order", which clearly satisfies the requirements of the prize. Since other titles of Prof. Kauffman are listed, I can't see how they could have missed that one...
TOOO shows how auto-catalytism of peptides (tiny tiny molecules, 2 amino-acids or more, occur in non-living natural form etc.) could have formed the primeval building blocks. He provides a testable model for it. The test works. He uses the results to validate his model and then demonstrates the implications of those results.
One of the fundamental theses within TOOO is that of interconnection and interaction. A massive neural network without any connectivity is completely useless, make it highly connected and you end up with a brain. The same principles can apply to the evolution of life itself - interaction is the key, not any static properties.
TOOO then also addresses the limits that evolution must work within, and how even the simplest of these sets of peptides can become complex and integrated. He shows that order and chaos can be harnessed by evolution in a similar fashion to mutation and sex. He shows these are complementary approaches.
So why hasn't he won your prize ?
As for Logically, God exists and life has meaning, or He doesn't and it does not. There is no in-between for a binary condition., well that's not a binary condition (it's total bollocks as well, but leaving that to one side...)
There are four states for any two binary orthogonal values A and B, they are {A,B}, {A,!B}, {!A,B}, {!A,!B}. The only case your assertion holds is in the degenerate case where A=B (at which point A and B are not orthogonal)
For example, I do not believe in god (so god does not exist, at least for me), but my life has meaning to me.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
The printing press was invented for one purpose only: To spread the Word.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
China != US. The Chinese are willing to make sacrifices to achieve long term goals. Taking an huge economic hit to utterly destroy their largest and most powerful rival is absolutely possible.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You can't blame the west's decline in science and technology on right-wing politics. Quite the opposite, actually. America and the rest of the western world are showing a stagnation now because the Cold War is over; we don't need to rush to out-innovate the Soviets anymore. Furthermore, we're presently in a period of declining indistrialization. Major industries are now contending with the heavy burden of index pensions, and government has much of its funding tied up in socialist-style programs that never really worked, and prevent from reinvesting in high research spending industries like private industry, the military or space programs (this is far more true here in Canada than in the states). What I'm really arguing that our twentieth-century boom in science is planing out right now as a result of lack of motivation and because of experimentation with socialist models of economic development that have been proven not to work. From my high arctic perspective, I'd say that Bush's government is actually doing quite well in bringing about a resurge in R&D and industrialization before the end of the decade. There is new competition in the Far East to keep up with (though thankfully, much more peaceful competition than the Soviets), and the American public seem to be sophisticated enough to not become dogmatic about their philosophy (eg: science need not be atheistic, it need only have merit). Veritas totam superavit
... Dubya's crowd, I'm afraid this has been going on for much longer...
Back in the 50's and 60's there were research organizations throughout corporate America -- even a number of basic research departments (yes, that's right -- BASIC research, not just APPLIED research).
And corporate America had at least one eye focused on the big picture, making plans beyond the next quarter and being more concerned about the welfare of the company than their bonuses and severance packages.
Over the intervening years, we have seen not only basic, but applied research departments closed down in all but the largest companies. Emphasis has shifted to the current quarter (never mind the next quarter, we'll deal with it next quarter).
All that Dubya can take credit for is using the Religious Right to pummel the weakened science establishment. And the most likely reason he has chosen to attack the scientific establishment is that they ARE weakened and do not represent any sort of political (or other) power in contemporary society. Dubya picks his victims well.
The fault is in our society, and its view of science. Why we belittle the importance of science, and ignore the methodology of the scientific method, I know not, but it is manifested in the declining fraction of college and university science graduates for a much longer time than Dubya has been a factor.
Dubya is more the symptom of the problem than the cause.
Tell them Jesus was a liberal Jew. :)
You are all missing the point.
Remember Luke 4:5-8
" 5The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7So if you worship me, it will all be yours."
8Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'"
and
John 18:36
" Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
Giving the Church secular power isn't wrong because it pollutes the secular world. Giving the Church secular power is wrong because it CORRUPTS THE CHURCH. Jesus said so.
The problem in politics is that The so-called "Christian Right" isn't really Christian. They have sold their souls to the devil to pursue political power. That is why they are an embarassment to Jesus, and bring disrespect and contempt on the true Church.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
Er, unless the alchemists have made a startingly discovery recently, forging a lump of gold remains pretty difficult.
Guess what? Blacks in the US do suffer discrimination, and have higher percentages of convictions, but they are a part of corporate america. No country can say there is zero racism, it seems to be a part of human nature to discriminate against others based on a variety of criteria. However, it would be faulty to say an entire country is racist in this case. Here's some education for you: blacks having real rights in the US is a relatively new concept, and it takes a long time to break the old spirit of racism at all levels of society. Blacks and women couldn't even vote in the US until the late sixties. Give the country some more time, and the old racists will slowly die off and give everyone some room to breathe.
;p
Now, get back to the SBC call center, my DSL is about to go down.
And with a strong dollar your exports become relatively more expensive in the rest of the World.
America already has problems selling manufactured goods to the rest of the World. Many American brands are almost unknown in Europe and Japan because they are seen as energy inefficient, lacking features, poorly made and not tailored to that market - cars with steering circles the size of Rhode Island, suspension that Isambard Kingdom Brunel would have rejected and fuel economy that makes you wonder if there is a hole in the tank, top loading washing machines, *BIG* CRT televisions - that sort of thing.
The only way America would keep export markets in a strong dollar is by doing the same as the Japanese and Germans did when they were faced with appreciating currencies - invest heavily in quality control and considering local markets rather than thinking what played well in Peoria would also go down a treat in Portsmouth, Potsdam and Pappanaickenpalayam.
The Renaissance happened because of Greek refugees arriving in Italy after the Muslims destroyed Byzantium - that's why the renaissance began in Italy.
First of all, the people from Byzantium used the Greek language but were not Greek.
Second, way before Byzantium was finally conquered by the Muslims which founded the Ottoman empire, it was overrun by crusadors and they effectively destroyed the city and its institutions. The Ottomans just finished the job there.
Third, the contacts between Byzantines and Italians that resulted in the Renaissance were the result of the attempts in the later 1400s to rejoin the eastern and western branches of the church. Refugees fleeing to Italy contributed as well, but definitely did not kick it off.
Last but not least, after Byzantium was conquered by the Ottomans, they did take the big Sofia church and changed it into a mosk (one of the most amazing buildings of all time btw, study its architecture if you are interested), but they also did allow the eastern catholic church to remain in Byzantium and were a lot less destructive to the city, its culture and population then the crusadors before them.
at least, not when it concerned foreign citizens.
in Chile and here in Brasil the CIA helped stage military coups (74 and 64 respectively) transforming what where democratic republics in bloody, raping/murdering dictatorships.
As Deep Throat once said, "follow the money".
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
In this world there are two types of countries. The ones that are powerful enough to screw others and the ones that aren't. Whenever a nation gets powerful, it screws someone. When a formerly powerful nation loses it, it gripes about the powerful ones.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
There may be genetic variations in innate mathematical abilities, but the method of teaching math makes a great difference as well.
Some of the most recent curriculums like the TIRK methods are actually very good. They encourage the student to be problem solvers and explored multiple ways to solve a mathematical problem.
Something fascinating happened when the teachers were trained in using this method. Many of them realized that THEY THEMSELVES never really understood the math concepts. They just did it by rote. This shows that a simple emphasis on "Rithmetics" doesn't help nurture engineers and scientists.
The problem occurs when the teachers are not trained in how to use the curriculum and don't understand mathematical thinking themselves. As a group, there is the additional problem that most primary school teachers are female and they were never encouraged to become proficient in math in the past.
The whole geek-jock stereotypes is damaging to the educational enterprise. Perhaps we need new cultural role models to create mass interest. Where will the next scientist-hero-celebrity come from?
One of the questions I keep asking (and never getting a reply to) is: "In what way was the Vietnam conflict so different from the Iraqi War?"
At a previous job, one of my co-workers was an expatriate from South Vietnam, an RVN officer who managed to escape after the fall of the South. He told me that the primary interest of the USA in Vietnam was oil -- specifically oil discovered off an island claimed by both China and Vietnam.
The USA entered the Vietnam Conflict in full force based upon the utterly false claim that two North Vietnamese patrol boats "attacked" the US 6th Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and war commenced. That conflict was marked by US military tactics that did not secure territory or borders, and an enemy that melted into a supportive population. The withdrawl of US forces from Vietnam was based upon a hand-over to the "capable US trained and equipped" Vietnamese Army.
The Iraqi War is deja vu, all over again. Once again the USA is embroiled in a conflict involving much needed natural resources, based upon yet more false pretexts of WMD and "direct links" between that government and acts of domestic terrorism. Insufficient numbers of US troops have been deployed in Iraq to secure territory or borders. We are fighting an enemy virtually indistinguishable from the general population, who appear to support them. And yet again, the USA's exit strategy is to turn the much more intense war over to another "US trained and equipped" national army.
In both these conflicts, the USA was afflicted with poor planning, and increasingly disenchanted American public, and loss of respect and stature in the international community. The only groups that benefitted from the Vietnam Conflict are, yet again, the only groups that are benefitting from the Iraqi War -- the defense department's civilian contractors. The loss of American blood and treasure in foreign conflicts was presaged by the warning from President Dwight Eisenhower regarding the USA's "military-industrial complex".
The US claims to spread democracy, yet holds presidential elections so biased towards two near-identical candidates that the only thing separating them is how effectively they rigged the impossible ballots.
Utter nonsense. Including this with your otherwise excellent points is like accusing someone of being a murderer and then adding "I also heard that he might have smoked pot once." That ballot-rigging stuff is for the sorts of conspiracists who believe that we never landed on the moon, and to those of us who vote here, believe me, our candidates are far from identical.
The US is fighting a war on terror, yet has consistently been the biggest state sponsor of terrorism for decades, and remains the only nation in history ever to have actually used a weapon of mass destruction that cost millions of civilian lives.
Here I only want to take issue with your second point, your little reference to the dropping of a few nukes on Japan. It is an action that has to be considered in context, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the reasons why the USA is the primary bulls-eye for terrorists.
I am a recent graduate in both engineering and science (mechanical and astrophysics) and I am stuck in a mind-numbing engineering job. A lot of my friends who graduated in engineering and/or science are in the same boat. We sit every day at a desk wasting time and getting paid for it. We are performing tasks that we could've performed right out of high school, with the proper training. I am in the same position in my company as someone who graduated from a 2-year drafting school. Call me an elitist, but I think that I could be putting my degree to better use. There is very little math, science, or even creativity in my field, as far as I can tell. Advanced positions all involve more management, not more engineering. So to people saying that there aren't enough science and engineering graduates, I ask whether they really think we're utilizing the ones we have. The only time I feel like I'm actually using my brain is when my friends and I are building something on our own time. Are there any opportunities to actually use my brain like I had to in college? The US isn't only suffering from a lack of technical graduates, it's suffering from a lack of applications for them.
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
Pope John Paul II was probably a nice guy, but his beliefs arguably have caused more suffering than anyone else in the 20th century.
His religious tenets on birth control in general, and condom use in particular, are indirectly responsible for the slow, painful death of millions of people, as well as the hunger and suffering of millions more.
I think Jesus would have wanted people who already have more children than they can feed, and people in countries ravaged by AIDS, to wear condoms. Although maybe only if they were Jewish, now that I think about it...
I was glad to see him go (*), although his replacement scarcely seems better.
(*) The Pope, not Jesus. I'm not that fucking old!
If you don't believe science can be politicized, you probably are not aware of Soviet History...
;^)
To put it literaly, in Soviet Russia, genetics inherits from you! [pun intended]
Lysenko's theory of genetics was that your environment could alter your genetic constitution so that you could pass acquired traits to your offspring. This was in contrast to the Mendel theory where inherited characteristics were in-born and not affected by environmental change. Stalin loved this idea as it fit with his political agenda of "re-educating" people...
As a result Soviet biology was set back god knows how many years... Perhaps in god-less soviet russia, maybe they didn't care that god didn't even know
There's the old saw: if you owe the bank $1,000, you're in trouble. If you owe the bank $1,000,000, the bank's in trouble.
Fuck it