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Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War
ideonexus writes "I've been lackadaisical when it comes to following stories about Texas schoolboard attempts to slip creationism into biology textbooks, dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country. And it's not just Creationism that this Christian coalition is attempting to bring into schoolbooks, but a full frontal assault on history, politics, and the humanities that exploits the fact that final decisions are being made by a school board completely academically unqualified to make informed evaluations of the changes these lobbyists propose. This evangelical lobby has successfully had references to the American Constitution as a 'living document,' as textbooks have defined it since the 1950s, removed in favor of an 'enduring Constitution' not subject to change, as well as attempting to over-emphasize the role Christianity played in the founding of America. The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system that favor their evangelical Christian goals."
How much damage could a poorly educated man from Texas actually cause? It's not like he could become President or something...
Fast, cheap, correct. You get to pick two.
...dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country.
I knew this and am not even American. Every piece of coverage I've seen on this issue has explained how wide reaching the ramifications are. How can anyone have missed it?
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
One is science the other is religion. Guess which one does not belong in a schoolbook?
I asked a lawyer who believed in this, pre-market crash, if they believed in a "living mortgage." Why is the Constitution the only legal document we do that to?
Anyone who wants to teach that is going for a particular point of view. Why is the opposite view nefarious but this one all sweetness and light?
This whole summary is ignorant. Everyone is pushing a point of view. It has to be somebody's.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
It's worth revisiting the lesson of the sixties that the Hippies got right, such as not to trust the government and that the purpose of public education is to lie to you.
Students should regard any political lesson taught in school as propaganda, should never trust their teachers, an in general fucking hate the government. Bible Thumpers have always sought to rule by infiltration and dominionism.
Know this, fight back, agitate others to fight back, and above all disregard anything any religionist says to defend their superstition. We don't respect Scientology for obvious reasons, and there is no reason any other superstition should get a pass, especially on a geek site. We are modern people, and modern people don't need gods.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
All it will take is a suit that the school board violates civil liberties.
I wish it could go further. I wish that provably willful violations of civil liberties were treated as treason.
In Liberty, Rene
Regardless of "academic qualification" (Most people with the paper don't have the ethical or logical capability to be truly considered qualified), the Texas school board was responding to its own concerns about the insertion of bias into textbooks.
Textbooks are already biased. How many people are around that are willing to stand against bias in ALL directions? I'm sick of bickering between defining "unbiased" as "suiting my own personal bias".
"After all, the initial singularity from which the universe sprung had to come from somewhere. "
Nice asserted conclusion. Asserted conclusions are not proof, but thanks for trying!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians ...
True.
... and according to biblical precepts.
False. The founding fathers (especially Thomas Jefferson) read so much philosophy and ethics that The Christian Bible was one of a hundred sources. One could easily argue that the nation was founded on principles of the League of Five Nations as much as anything else. Yes, the founding fathers most likely borrowed from heathen savages that populated a land where everyone went to hell before the Europeans got here.
If the people in the article think the founding fathers didn't intend for a separation of church and state, let's visit what documentation we have from them:
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
All men and women are created equal. Everyone has a right to practice what religion they so choose. So keep your religious crap out of our public schools.
My work here is dung.
Here is the problem. The bible, and jesus, pretty much considered the worst thing one can do it be a hypocrite. A hypocrite is one who does things in a crowd to make others believe he or she has faith. Here is a famous verse of prayer.
Mathew 6:5-6"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
We also know the verses on giving money to be seen. The idea is that one does these things because they are in our heart, not to gain profit. And we are putting our children in jeopardy when we ask them to do these things we know are wrong, such as acting like hypocrites.
The problem with these nut cases in Texas is they have no faith. No amount of science will sway me from what i feel to be true. No amount of world religions will change my mind what I know to be right. This does not mean I am inflexible, but that flexibility comes with experience, not cult brain washing. And because these people have not faith, how can they build faith in their children. They can't. So they limit their exposure to the world knowing the false faith could never withstand the truths in the world.
In some ways I agree with this. If one is not able to build faith in a child, then ones options are limited. What I disagree with is making all the rest of us suffer. Sure, a parent may have a right to screw up their own child, but that does not mean they have the right to screw up everyone else's. The parent can home school, turn off the TV, but there is no reason that those of us who are responsible should have to suffer because a few are irresponsible. It would be like saying I can't buy a beer because some children weren't taught discipline, or because genetically they can't have beer, and haven't been trained to stay away from it.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Tax dollars.
CrazyJim said:
> Creationism does not in anyway detract from evolution.
What? If sit here all day and come up with an explanation of how Hansel & Gretel can coexist with evolution, it still doesn't make it true.
Oh, and in your "long day theory" you have a fundamental misunderstanding of "24 hours". The 24 is mere convention.
> As for interpreting the constitution, I agree that it should stay in its current form unless it gets ammended.
Sure, as long as things aren't changed, they stay the same.
And the people wanting separation of church and state are not "Christian enemies." It is this siege mentality that keeps the fundamentalists afraid to venture outside the flock, and engenders such divisive language.
And the point being covered up is that the US Constitution has well-defined mechanisms to change it. Some people consider that to be its genius.
Creationism means that people descend from a dude missing a rib who was sculpted from mud. It's not only incompatible with evolution, it's incompatible with rational thought.
Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change.
Two immediate responses are prompted by this article...
First is to call to mind the fate of the Muslim civilization in the second millennium. The Muslims kept the lights on during the Dark Ages. They're the reason we know about the ancient Greeks. In those days, science was considered good, because it was discovery of God's world and ways. Somewhere about the middle of the second millennium the Muslim civilization encountered other pressures (like invasions) and turned their backs on science in favor of religious dogma. (Don't know if there was cause and effect there, coincidental timing, or some other relationship.) They've never been at the forefront of civilization since. We're starting to do the same thing here in the US. One key part of science is to face the world truthfully, whatever it tells you, and deal with it. Religion can help you deal with it. But when you impose religion as a "truth filter" between you and the real world, you've lost it.
Second, a more tactical response, is to quit following Texas' lead on textbook purchases. Is there any reason we have to let them set the standard, or is it a combination of laziness and their purchasing power?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
No, one offers testable theories the other just magic. The fact that something cannot yet be explained is not reason to start assuming magic, fairies, unicorns and the sky wizard are all real.
Science is not the search for truth, just facts. If you want truth you should seek out philosophy.
you refer to people as "dumbass Texans".. if you're so smart, why not reason with them and fight the good fight instead of dropping below their level and resorting to name calling. those "dumbass Texans" are winning...
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Is that, some would argue that the present "living document" and history as given in textbooks from the 1970s and later was done by a concerted left wing effort to make the country swing left.
Instead, it backfired miserably.
My 1970s textbooks in grade school and high school went out of their way to define progress as a big march to the nanny state.. and as I remember flipping through pictures of poor people doing nothing, along came Ronald Reagan, to say that, well, it was all a bunch of crap.
Propaganda for kids doesn't work, because, the truthful documents are there. The truth is this: The wingers have this much of a point: The constitution is a strict document that defines powers given to the government, not, giving people rights, and the framers did base their ideas on Locke, that, because we've all got souls, we've all got rights. But what wingers also neglect to mention is that the framers were decidedly against much of their agenda too.
The founding fathers, in particular, want a standing army or a standing military at all. Indeed, up until the 1900s, the USA was barely a 2nd rate military power and looked on European military spending as a colossal sort of stupidity.
The founding fathers envisioned no federal power to regulate drugs or marriage or anything else. They would tax whiskey, and that was about it, and that was only to pay down the debt from the revolutionary war.
Bottom line is this, if you believe in the Constitution as it is written, there may not be any federal right to entitlements making, but there's no right to having a big army or any of the stuff the right wing wants, either.
The founding fathers were libertarians.
This is my sig.
And why is that precisely? And if the Universe requires a prime mover, then why doesn't the prime mover? And if you're going to assert that the prime mover is exempt from the very logic you claim makes the prime move necessary, then why can't I apply Occam's Razor and declare the universe can have that property you claim for the prime mover, and thus declare the prime mover unnecessary?
Or, more to the point, why would this posited singularity be bound by causality?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So let's remove gravity, most of physics, and genetics from the science classroom as well. Those are all theories. You don't prove a theory. You find evidence either for or against it. As soon as you find some evidence against Evolution, we can reconsider it. But being as ALL of the evidence gathered since Darwin was pontificating points to Evolution being the mechanism by which life changes, science (and the science classroom) should stick with that.
It doesn't matter what an individual scientist believes. That's immaterial, an argument from authority which is of no worth. I can point to priests who believe in evolution. Shit, the CATHOLIC CHURCH is ok with evolution. That is NOT a reason to accept it. The reason to accept it is that the facts we have about genetics and fossils and such all point to Evolution.
The only reason you would have even posted this is because you're ignorant of science, which makes your opinion of it uninformed and therefore worthless.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Why can't we just have education books just present multiple popular theories along with the pros and cons of each?
Do you expect students to carry the new 10,000-page science volume entitled "Things That Aren't Science" home and back each night?
Because there are thousands of popular theories about thousands of things that Aren't Science. Bothering to mention any of them in a science class distracts from the limited time where students are able to learn about . . . science.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Religion has a huge impact on many aspects of society: language, culture, politics -- even science. Religion could certainly be a legitimate topic of academic study, done properly. For example, I doubt it is possible to truly understand the history of the United States without understanding the role of religious belief. It's just too intertwined.
Your point about people trying to pass religion off as if it were science is well taken, however. Bugs me when people try to pass humanism off as science, too.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
You know, I have to chuckle every time I see one of these stories. When I was back in school, it was pretty standard classical stuff - the Greeks, Shakespeare, Newton, the Scientific Method, etc. Now, it happened to be that dead white guys came up with most of that stuff, but that was just how it was. But sometime after I left, the Deconstructionists, the Postmodernists, the Moral Relativists, and the Frankfurt School got their hands on the reigns. No ones 'truth' was any better than another. The scientific method was no more valid than animism. Everyone got their own truth.
Well, guess what, folks? Now the Christian Fundamentalists (and the Islamic Fundamentalists) are pressing for their own 'truth'. Remember, yin and yang - everything contains within itself the seed of its opposite. That's one piece of non-white guy wisdom that holds up pretty well.
Evolution has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. More than 99 of biologist believes in it. Anything that gets that level of acceptance is considered a FACT by scientists.
They may also believe in a God, but that does NOT mean they believe in Intelligent design. If in fact they do believe in Intelligent Design, that still does NOT mean they think it is science. They are all more than smart enough to recognize Intelligent Design is a RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE.
Your problem is that you ignorantly believe several blatantly false theories:
1. Only science counts. No. You can have a belief that is not science without it being invalidated. My religion is not invalidated merely because it is not science.
2. Science does not have rules. No. Science is based on the idea of testability. If something can not be falsified, then it is not science. Period. If it can be proven false, then only then is it science. You must propose a test, then do the test and then ABIDE by the test.
Intelligent design is inherently unfalsifiable. People that believe in it will never disbelieve it no matter what you say or do. The very power of God means he can do things that we can't do. He can ineffect CHEAT at any test he wants to. (I.E. He can plant dinosaur bones and make them look like they are million years old. He can create a whole set of fake dead bones that illustrate man's evolution from ape to man. Etc. etc.) That means it is NOT science. It can't ever be science.
Yes, people can believe in Intelligent Design, but that is never science, that is RELIGION.
The problem is a bunch of lieing shmucks that want to teach their personal religion and pretend it is science. That is against the highest laws of the United States of America.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I figure that there should be mandatory classes, at the mid to upper high school level,
in basic epistemology and metaphysics (i.e. meta-level topics such as):
-How to think carefully, logically.
-How to search.
-How to formulate good questions.
-How to recognize bias; people who are "speaking for effect"; trying to
influence you, and some of the common motivations why people do
that.
How to form beliefs using epistemic responsibility.
Then set them free to explore the information from a billion sources
that we have available to us at a mouse click today.
The scariest kind of graduate is one who has been taught only to
parrot, and to conform to orthodoxy, and who does not know how to question.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
that clergy may not talk about a political candidate from the puplit.
In exchange for not paying taxes, churches were told they could not do political stumping. This came about as a direct result of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church meddling in political affairs for centuries.
The Founding Fathers were smart enough to recognize this and forced the separation onto our new nation. And before you claim that the words aren't in the Constitution, recognize that both Jefferson and Madison explicitly stated that separation both during the haggling over the wording of the Constitution as well as in letters, with Jefferson using that exact phrase. Madison, in a letter to the President of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, specifically stated he disagreed with a pamphlet the President had distributed which tried to link Christianity and the new government. In fact, Madison explicitly states, in the fourth paragraph, that the Papal system, which combines government and religion, is the worst of governments.
For reference: Jefferson's Danbury letter, including parts he did not include in the final letter.
Madison's letter to Jasper Adams in which he clearly states that neither State nor religion should intrude on one another's toes. More quotes from Madison showing his desire for separation of Church and State.
I'm not sure how much more clear what the Founding Fathers thought about concerning the role of religion in the new country can be. They clearly wanted, and specifically stated as much, that there is a wall between the two entities. And for good reason.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
There is no such thing as gravity, only Intelligent Falling, whereby Angels grab your ankles and pull you back down to the ground.
But where are you learning about the wrongs of these narrow-minded zealots? Other narrow-minded zealots on the opposite extreme? I can agree that there are a lot of crazy christian narrow-minded zealots, but I think there are just as many anti-religion narrow-minded zealots. Why can't we just have education books just present multiple popular theories along with the pros and cons of each?
1) Not all popular beliefs are equal. A popular belief that the holocaust never happened, or a popular belief that the president is elected by popular vote, or a popular belief that having sex "just once" can't get someone pregnant should not be taught because it's simply wrong.
2) How you teach those "popular beliefs" is itself extremenly biased. "Of People and Pandas" supposedly teached about evolution, and abstinance-only programs supposedly teach about birth control.
But you're the one who made the claim, and I quote:
All you said is you know some college profs who believed in God.
So, I'm asking you to back up your claim. If you can't, then why on Earth would you claim it?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's ZEUS, you FUCKING HEATHEN. ZEUS. MAY YOU YET FEEL HIS THUNDERBOLTS. SHEESH.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
The real question is WHY school boards across the country still use the output of this moonbat-manipulated process to choose books?
My understanding is that they don't. But Texas is a huge purchaser of textbooks and the standards they set influence what the publishers are willing to print. They publish books in order to placate Texas and the rest of the country are stuck with them.
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
That's what religion is all about.
The one that has never been proven.
This is the biggest fallacy that ID/Creationists propogate about science. It does not matter if evolution/the big bang haven't been "proven". The question is which of these is a scientific model that can be used to make statements about how the world works and make predictions to some degree of accuracy.
The Ptolemaic model of the universe was shown to be wrong, but it was science, because it claimed to predict the world worked a certain (measurable) way and it was shown to be inaccurate. But for thousands of years it was accurate enough to be useful. Newton developed a model that was more accurate and Einstein a model that was yet more accurate.
Someone will come along some day and develop a model of the universe that is even more accurate than Einstein's, but that will not mean that Einstein's model wasn't science or that the new model is "truth".
On the other hand, you cannot use the Bible to make accurate predictions about when to plant your crops, how the planets move around the sun, or what makes characteristics propogate from parents to children. This is why intelligent design is not an alternative form of science. It's not even a matter of whether intelligent design is true and evolution is wrong. Intelligent design cannot be used to do useful science. Evolution, even if ultimately wrong, can be used to make the most accurate models of the way things work.
If you don't want to treat intelligent design as religion, that's fine. Teach it in philosophy. But it is not science.
It's annoying how people think they must believe that everything came from somwehere. If we can neither create nor destroy mass and energy, why is it so damn hard for people to believe that the shit was always around in varying forms and behaviors?
Naw, some dude with a beard and a toga just stamped out humanity with an injection mold. Yutzes.
Asimov wrote a perfect tract on this here. A relevant quote:
Oh BS. The Prime Mover argument is, first and foremost, a philosophical and metaphysical argument, not a scientific one. Science can only go on the evidence points. At the moment, the "cause" of the Universe is not known, nor is it certain that the Universe even required one. The question "What caused the Universe" may not even actually make any sense (as Hawking said, "It's like asking 'what's north of the North Pole?'")
But if one is going to try to assert a logical necessity of a Prime Mover, then one has to deal with the logical conundrums that that claim makes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually no they aren't, [citation]
From Wikipedia Yeah I know not the foremost authority, but look up the Wikis referenced citations.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
So let's remove gravity, most of physics, and genetics from the science classroom as well. Those are all theories. You don't prove a theory. You find evidence either for or against it. As soon as you find some evidence against Evolution, we can reconsider it.
To take this further, I'm fairly certain that gravity is a much more vague theory than evolution. Evolution is a pretty good theory; there is a pretty good consensus as to how it happens, why it happens and what makes it happen; it has also been directly observed. The current theory is an adaptation and improvement on a theory developed a couple of hundred years ago.
On the other hand, while we have some fairly good approximations for how gravity works (Newtonian, General Relativity), there are still a lot of different theories as to why gravity works (gravitons, M-Theory, quantum field theory, quantum loop gravity are the main ones, I think). The LHC is working on getting more evidence for some of these theories; but despite the fact that there is a huge amount of evidence for the basic stuff (i.e. massive things attract each other), the fine details of what, how and why are still very confused.
As scientific theories go, evolution seems a lot more straightforward than gravity...
[Disclaimer: I've only got an undergrad. degree in maths.]
Dominionists, for those who don't recognize the term, are Christians (usually evangelical Protestants, though some Catholic groups exhibit dominionist theology) who believe that God's "laws" or moral wishes supersede any law drafted by men. To these folks, abolishing abortion by legislation or by Supreme Court reversal, banning homosexual rights (and possibly even recognition as humans), and creationism (along with a general rejection of scientific consensus) are all crucial and pressing policies that must be enacted in any government.
Naturally, that theology runs afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...). They will, of course, try to argue that they're not trying to establish a Church of America, but nevertheless the consequences of their success are no different. Furthermore, trying to reason with them is usually futile, as they perceive the US to be a rebellious state against God that was originally founded by Christians (which is a poor reading of history at best)-- and since their theology unnaturally blends Old and New Testaments, they think that if the US continues the status quo or adopts policies left of conservatism*, it will meet the same fate as ancient Israel when it was conquered by Babylon, or when it rebelled against the Roman Empire. No amount of arguing from Paul's letters or "render unto Caesar" will do any good, because as far as they're concerned, they have absolutely nothing to lose-- the Kingdom on the earth must be established, but they will not recognize that it was never meant to be a literal kingdom or government built by the hands of men.
But in their minds, they've already lost several times-- the conservative Supreme Court has at least ruled conservatively where social issues were concerned-- as in, they relied more on precedent and the Constitution rather than Christian morals (though we'll really see their true colors when the CA Prop 8 trial is sent their way), they only got what was no doubt in their minds a watered-down abortion/stem cell ban from Congress, and they've now lost a very reliable friend and ally in the White House due to term limits and a charismatic Democrat-- not that the former Alaskan governor did much to help them at all. They refuse to believe that their allies in government (the Republicans) failed them, because their allies are their leaders and to them, "one of us". If you're a member of the congregation, you don't speak ill of "one of us", though you can heap criticism and vitriol on "one of them". Therefore they see the electoral losses in 2006 and 2008 not as defeats, but as "them"-- non-dominionists-- having conspired to destroy the Church (or euphemistically, the "good things about America"). You'll notice that this duress argument is used commonly in the big Tea Party rallies and by some right-wing media men.
So the way they see it, because the "liberals" and the "atheists"** cheated, they're going to fight back just as dirty-- but of course they'll justify their own actions as "saving the children", as that has demonstrably worked to enact skewed legislation for generations. Their efforts to mess with public school textbooks is but a taste of what these extremists are capable of, and are willing to do. The greatest shame is that they will think they have brought another Enlightenment and Revival to the US, when in fact they will have consigned their children to academic inferiority as China, India, and other nations progress. The conservatives who are participating in the name of ideological "balance" are digging their own graves as well, as they are more interested in indoctrination, not building up thinking skills in our children. I suppose that, given their permanent self-victimization, they'll blame our relative failure on the "liberals" and "atheists" too.
* Given the "small government" creed of conservatism, dominionism has always been a strange bedfellow, but I suppose Frank Schaeffer's father leveraged his connections well to cement the alliance...
** And here's where Dawkins' movement really hurts those who wish to bring some of these folks back to reason... Yes, I know reasoning with them is usually futile, but that doesn't mean I'll stop trying.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
http://www.gorgorat.com/#49
After the war, physicists were often asked to go to Washington and give
advice to various sections of the government, especially the military. What
happened, I suppose, is that since the scientists had made these bombs that
were so important, the military felt we were useful for something.
Once I was asked to serve on a committee which was to evaluate various
weapons for the army, and I wrote a letter back which explained that I was
only a theoretical physicist, and I didn't know anything about weapons for
the army.
The army responded that they had found in their experience that
theoretical physicists were very useful to them in making decisions, so
would I please reconsider?
I wrote back again and said I didn't really know anything, and doubted
I could help them.
Finally I got a letter from the Secretary of the Army, which proposed a
compromise: I would come to the first meeting, where I could listen and see
whether I could make a contribution or not. Then I could decide whether I
should continue.
I said I would, of course. What else could I do?
I went down to Washington and the first thing that I went to was a
cocktail party to meet everybody. There were generals and other important
characters from the army, and everybody talked. It was pleasant enough.
One guy in a uniform came to me and told me that the army was glad that
physicists were advising the military because it had a lot of problems. One
of the problems was that tanks use up their fuel very quickly and thus can't
go very far. So the question was how to refuel them as they're going along.
Now this guy had the idea that, since the physicists can get energy out of
uranium, could I work out a way in which we could use silicon dioxide --
sand, dirt -- as a fuel? If that were possible, then all this tank would
have to do would be to have a little scoop underneath, and as it goes along,
it would pick up the dirt and use it for fuel! He thought that was a great
idea, and that all I had to do was to work out the details. That was the
kind of problem I thought we would be talking about in the meeting the next
day.
I went to the meeting and noticed that some guy who had introduced me
to all the people at the cocktail party was sitting next to me. He was
apparently some flunky assigned to be at my side at all times. On my other
side was some super general I had heard of before.
At the first session of the meeting they talked about some technical
matters, and I made a few comments. But later on, near the end of the
meeting, they began to discuss some problem of logistics, about which I knew
nothing. It had to do with figuring out how much stuff you should have at
different places at different times. And although I tried to keep my trap
shut, when you get into a situation like that, where you're sitting around a
table with all these "important people" discussing these "important
problems," you can't keep your mouth shut, even if you know nothing
whatsoever! So I made some comments in that discussion, too.
During the next coffee break the guy who had been assigned to shepherd
me around said, "I was very impressed by the things you said during the
discussion. They certainly were an important contribution."
I stopped and thought about my "contribution" to the logistics proble
I'm hostile because people want to throw out Evolution and put forth an "alternative theory". Go ahead and believe in a God. I don't care. The point is that Evolution is a valid, well-supported scientific theory, AND THERE IS NO CREDIBLE CHALLENGE TO THE EVIDENCE. None. Whatsoever. Period, end of story.
Go ahead and pontificate about a prime mover, a God, whatever. That has NOTHING to do with teaching of the mechanism of Evolution in a science classroom. Evolution has nothing to say about the origins of life, or the universe. Don't say "teach the controversy" because there is no valid controversy. There are only idiots wanting to force the government to support their religion, and scientists.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
If these college professors are so willing to make an argument with such an obvious flaw, they're not terribly smart after all. Don't put your faith in people smarter than you when your own brain can easily tell you that their arguments are fallacious.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Both are needed for people to live functional lives.
I live my life quite functionally without religion, thanks. Quite frankly, I think the implication that it's impossible to live morally without religion to be both hypocritical and grossly insulting.
A 'god' or an 'intelligent designer' does not have time, money, or resource constraints to worry about as developers do. They are always portrayed as omnipotent beings which could have easily designed a man w/o nipples.
I think God outsourced some of the work to lesser, overworked deities who took shortcuts. That gave God the time to design really awesome things like supernovas and pulsars and rainbows and wolverines.
They can pretend as much as they want that their shit is science. That does not make it so.
Circumcision is child abuse.
One of the weirder bits of right-wing belief is that U.S. Constitution was "divinely inspired". This is an official Mormon position, and some of the more right-wing Christian groups have picked up on it.
What's so weird about this is that we have the Federalist Paper and the debates of the Constitutional Convention. There's not much mystery about how it was put together. The major players all wrote about their thinking.
The basic parameters of the U.S. Constitution came from the constraints the authors faced. They already had the Articles of Confederation of the Continental Congress in force, which set up a confederation of states, somewhat like the United Nations or the European Union. This was a weak federation, and it ran into the problems of most weak federations - too many decisions required unanimity. so it was hard to get things done. So they needed something with more central authority. Britain was still a threat. "We must hang together, or we will assuredly all hang separately". The key point to remember about the Constitutional Convention was that the delegates knew that if their new government broke down, they'd end up being hung for treason by British soldiers. (This was not a theoretical risk. See War of 1812.)
But the states didn't want too much central authority. Almost everyone agreed that a king was a bad idea. (Well, Hamilton wanted a king. He wanted to be king. Didn't fly.) Direct democracy was considered, but the French Revolution was getting underway at the time (the storming of the Bastille occurred during the convention), and that wasn't looking too good. Especially since many of the delegates were aristocrats. Most of the states already had a two-house legislature and a governor, so that looked like an acceptable model to follow. So that was the basic model.
Once it became clear that a strong president was needed, the problem was making sure he didn't become a dictator. All the players knew what had happened to Rome. This led to some basic safeguards. Congress can impeach the President, but the President cannot dissolve Congress. There are also some subtle safeguards not often mentioned; the President has a fixed term of office and it runs out at noon on inauguration day. It's the clock, not the swearing in, that makes the new President. So an outgoing president can't stall. (Nixon's cronies once considered that option.) So when the time comes, the old guy has to leave, like it or not.
On the rights side, the debates are well known. Again, existing models were followed; the Bill of Rights looks a lot like the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The notion of an established religion was rejected; Britain had that, and it led to several civil wars. So the delegates agreed on a "hands off" approach to religion.
All this stuff was argued out. What made it work was that the delegates all knew that if they screwed up and a divided nation resulted, Britain would move in. The knowledge that one is to be hanged at dawn concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Or beyond that, why do we even have organs? I always felt that an intelligent designer would have just created us as walking, talking bags of magical life made from life cubes or something. Whenever I ask creationists why I have an appendix or a gall bladder or why, out of all the temperatures in the universe, I can only live within a tiny range of them, or out of the entire EM spectrum, I can only see a tiny sliver of it, or why leukemia exists, the only answer I get is 'God made it that way'. Seriously? All powerful? All knowing? That's why people have to poop? God wanted them to?
something goes wrong
Omnipotent designer says what?