That would be true if it weren't for the fact that football programs are self sustaining, and actually through the extended avenues of revenue they have (example, keeping Alumni interested and donating), football programs often contribute TO the schools and help pay teachers, and help support other athletic programs in the school which are not revenue generators.
16 of the top 20 college football programs are revenue positive. Everyone else (300+ schools) is pretty much losing money because of football, mainly because they believe in your incorrect narrative.
...
3. for the working poor, and the middle class for whom their employer doesn't provide coverage, the US healthcare system sucks. ironically, it sucks for them even more after the "affordable healthcare act".
This is an ideal situation for those who desire socialism.
Wherever you got your education and wherever you get your "information," you have been seriously let you down. You don't know what socialism is. It's your boogieman. I'm not even arguing for it, just that you have no fucking clue what it is.
But here is a hint, passing a law that you have to have medical insurance is not socialism. Passing a law that medical insurance must meet certain minimum standards is not socialism. Passing a law that will "redistribute" some tax money from the the wealthy to the poor to help them pay for mandatory health insurance is not socialism.
The ACA may be a disastrous hodgepodge of the compromises required when the government is owned by lobbyist and half the legislature is butt hurt and won't participate in a constructive manner because the other party won the presidential election. But it's not socialism. It's pure "American Exceptionalism."
I just wish that the government would actually issue people real free IDs since you are correct that they are needed for every damn thing today do it at the federal level with with the local governmental offices all being able to issue them, and have them be valid for 5 years. If you need a replacement then have it cost like $5 or $10 of what ever the processing cost is.
Funny thing. The same people that want to require voter ID don't want a national ID. They want it to be hard for poor people to vote. It's a feature, not a bug.
You need an ID to get a job, cash a check, buy beer and ciggs, use a credit card, drive, etc. You need an ID for life nowadays, and passing a voter ID law that includes free IDs for all who can prove who they are (a requirement to register to vote!) is somehow racist?
It's really classist. The racist part is a side effect that a greater portion of African Americans and Latinos are poor. In the US while just under 10% of whites are poor, both African Americans and Hispanics have poverty rates over 25%. Poverty creates quite a feedback loop that tends to make everything more difficult and expensive. Anyway, if you look into it you will find that voter id laws typically act as a filter that removes poor citizens (actual citizens) that are having a rough time all in the name of solving a problem that does not exist.
For the thousandth time, a low 0-60 time does not make your car a sports car. There is so much more to a sports car than raw acceleration. The Miata is 3x slower than a Tesla to 60mph but it's ten times the sports car. Go drive one and use a manual transmission.
This is an article about Porsche making an electric sports car. Porsche knows a thing or two about sports cars.
Hey, at least someone is making an electric car that isn't FUGLY.
I was excited about electrics when Tesla had the roadsters out, but I just couldn't get one. Then tesla switched to only doing "family cars" and the like.
I wish they'd out together a good looking, 2 seater sports car that was all electric, in the price range of maybe a corvette? Something affordable.
I'm sure the Porsche will be out of my price range again, but at least someone is making an electric car that doesn't look ass ugly, or that a boring family of five's family truckster, ready to head to Wally World.
I don't know about the price coming down but Tesla is planing to release a new Roadster in 4 years. That's sooner than the Porsche. At least before adjusting for Elon Musk's penchant for late deliveries (which don't bug me, but one must consider it when planning.)
I like the look of the Model S, but clearly that is a personal preference. Hopefully someone will make something that works for you.
Based on the spec, it will compete with now obsolete Tesla Roadster. Good luck.
Actually, Tesla is planning a new roadster for about the same time frame. So it will be competing with the new Roadster, not the obsolete one. I'd say good luck with that, but I imagine different people will have different preferences.
Why does everyone have wood for all-electric cars now? The Chevy Volt model, if refined to a Porsche/Tesla level of quality and not wrapped in a nerdmobile shell is the best of both worlds. At least as a bridge to some future model (all hydrogen?)
Until then, gas's "recharge" time (less than 5 minutes) + 10,000s of locations to fill up trumps all-electric every day of the week as of today.
Tesla owners that drive less than 250 miles per day, they never have to "fill it up." It's "full" every morning. Other electric cars, the range is much shorter, but if the range is comfortably in your daily commute the same principal applies.
As to why people have wood for them, there are a lot of reasons. Everything from helping move away from fossil fuels [1], to liking something that's different, to the crazy acceleration, or the fact that it's truly quiet, to having a status symbol. At least as far as the Tesla is concerned, it seems to actually be one hell of a car. The customer satisfaction ratings are off the charts.
[1] Yes, I know coal is used in parts of the US to create electricity, but so is natural gas [2], nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, whatever. Electric cars are basically multi-fuel.
[2] Yes, I know that natural gas is a fossil fuel. But it's way cleaner than coal.
Spontaneous gene mutations made the different life forms. No theory is needed for that, just observation. Less than one percent of the existing life forms exist because of "survival of the fittest".
"Survival of the Fittest" was one way that one part of the theory of evolution was introduced to lay people because it was easy to understand. Prior to the theory of evolution, people had no idea how species came into existence (well, they had bad ideas, "God did it" or they reversed the forcing function thinking that animals actively adapted to the environment rather than randomly changed then had a survival/reproduction filter applied.)
FWIW, I went to public school in Alabama and learned about evolution. It wasn't taught as in "but remember kids, this is only a theory" nor did they say "and evolution is fact and I'm failing you if you don't admit that God doesn't exist".
It was just taught. Like things of this nature should be.
My guess is that it depends on the school district, school principal, local PTA etc. You bring up an excellent point (or remind me of one.) It's pretty shitty to disparage a whole state, or the entire south, or all conservatives because some people are idiots. I know I'm stating the obvious, but "my team" can be pretty shitty to "the other team" and it gets embarrassing. Don't get me wrong, their are some real assholes on "the other team." But I'm not sure that being just as big of assholes helps out "our team."
P.S. I can still be an asshole. I'm working on it.
P.P.S. I don't mean to imply you are on either team, I'm just hijacking your comment and avoiding work.
I think he does believe in evolution, but he's an opportunist, and a politician who will say whatever he needs to say to appeal to his base. Basically, I think he's lying.
I really don't know. I have a couple of brilliant friends that are devout Christians and somehow in their minds they are able to "square the circle" of believing in stuff with no evidence while the actual evidence contradicts their "faith." I think they are sincere.
It's funny, but even though people can be deceitful and do frequently lie, the older I've gotten the more I have come to the conclusion that it's best to take people at their word as to what they believe. Maybe Ben Carson is lying, but I would not assume that. And if I were ever to have a Scotch with him I would not accuse him of lying. I would ask him to justify what he says he believes.
... Abiogenesis is using the principles of evolution to explain the formation of early life....
No, evolution explains what happens after there are simple replicators affected by mutation. It does not try to explain where the early replicators came from. I don't understand why you can't see the difference. There is no agreed upon, irrefutable, theory explaining Abiogenesis. Yet. Maybe some day there will be one. Maybe there never will be one. That is completely unrelated to the fact that we have a pretty good idea what happened in the 3 or 4 billion years after Abiogenesis. We know the mechanism that drives complex life. We do not know the mechanism that creates simple life from which complex life evolves.
The title of the book that introduced evolution to the masses was "The Origin of Species", not "The Origin of Life."
I miss the old America where people use to create content instead of just ripping it off wholesale and presenting it as their own.
That universe never existed, much less that America. Everything is a remix. That is how progress happens. And not just in entertainment, but in engineering, science and every other aspect of human life. Mixing old things in new ways and a new insight is the creative process.
Imagine a world where the Blues cord progression was covered by IP laws. Rent-seeking greed is hamstringing human creativity. It's a real shame.
Most evolutionists seem to think they have the answers to everything as well.
Calling some one an "evolutionists" in an attempt to reframe it as a mere belief rather than a theory that's stood the test of time is silly.
I always enjoyed asking questions in school that I knew were bedeviling scientists about evolution. Watching a know it all snobby professor dance around and then get pissed off about it was amusing.
Sounds like you had bad professors, or equally likely, you asking stupid questions that you thought were smart. Probably a combination of both.
I'm happy to admit I really don't know how God created the Universe
I'm also happy to pick at know everything jerks who don't know how evolution created it either.
But you pretend to know that a God created everything. You probably pretend to know the exact nature of that God. But "evolutionist" are the know it all jerks.
Final thought. Not knowing everything is not the same as not knowing anything.
Neurosurgeon is as close as any candidates come to scientist this round.
Certainly closer than any shyster.
No, he's not. Here is what Ben Carson believes:
“Carbon dating, all these things,” he said “really doesn’t mean anything to a God who has the ability to create anything at any point in time.
“Dealing with the complexity of the human brain,” Carson continued, “and somebody says that came from a slime pit full of promiscuous biochemicals? I don’t think so.”
Curiously, Carson did not reject natural selection – the engine that drives evolution – saying he “totally believe[s]” that useful genetic traits are more often passed on than less useful traits. But he could not draw the connection between that process acting over millennia and the human eye: “Give me a break. According to their scheme – boom, it had to occur overnight.”
So he doesn't believe evolution nor does he even know enough about it to understand that the evolution of the eye happened over time and does not have to happen overnight. The fact that he can be a doctor and hold these views just shows how extreme cognitive dissonance can be.
Untrue: evolution certainly purports to explain the creation of life. The evidence there is quite lacking, unlike the evidence for "how it changes", but still it's a consistent explanation for life arising that doesn't require the invention of additional entities.
No, you're conflating evolution and abiogenesis. Most scientists would agree that a natural process exists for the origin of life, but that process is not strictly evolution. There are various theories being worked on, but it's not as well understood and proven as evolution is. Evolution is what happens once you have slightly imperfect replicators and environmental pressure on those replicators. How the replicators came to be is a different matter.
As I said, drop the origin of life topic. Avoid the religious and scientific controversy all together. When I took biology in HS, my biology teacher skipped the topic altogether. Didn't even mention the controversy. Just skipped the chapter altogether. One student asked why she skipped it. Her response, "I will teach what can be reproduced in a lab or examined first-hand."
I've responded at length elsewhere, but you are mistaken as to the core issue. Fundamentalists are not OK with the teaching of evolution. They believe in a young Earth (less than 10000 years old.) They believe that God created all species as is. They believe that humans are not animals. That is the major rub, not the origin of life. No one teaches the origin of life as if we know the answer to that, because we don't.
But we do teach that humans are animals, not special creations of God. And a surpassingly large percentage of US citizens can't tolerate the thought that we were not created separate from animals.
All of this could have been avoided if we had dropped the origin of life from Earth entirely.
No, it can't. The issue is fundamentalist that argue against evolution. Texts tend to be very clear on the fact that we don't know how life started (yet). We just know that once it started, it evolved. Fundamentalist have no tolerance for evolution because their sacred texts state that God created everything as it is. God created every creature perfectly. Especially humans. Fundamentalist think humans are a separate creation from the animals. Maybe you have some belief that is OK with post creation evolution, but that is not why teaching evolution has been such a hot-button-topic in the US.
Most of the people fighting the teaching of evolution think the world is 1000s of years old (usually somewhere between 6000 and 10000). They believe that species do not change. They believe that humans are not animals.
There is another contingent that believes in "guided" evolution, but even there the issue is not abiogenesis. They insist that unguided evolution is impossible. They insist that intelligent design (meaning, "God did it") be taught as a viable "theory" (it's not.) Again, this group is not satisfied with evolution as long as the origin of life is not discussed. Once again, they insist that God is involved in the creation of humans. Otherwise we are just animals and they can't accept that.
The fact that you don't like some of the proposed solutions does not mean there is not a problem. Go look at the list of the top 100 companies, the largest political donors, etc. and then try to make a cogent argument as to how big bad environmental and/or poverty lobby has some how convinced 1000s of scientists to participate in whatever strange and huge conspiracy you appear to be proposing.
We are releasing millions of years of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere and we are doing it on the time scale of decades. To pretend that will not have consequences because all the solutions are ideologically distasteful is appalling.
I didn't intend to be funny. I intended to be serious.
And yet you were funny. Every biological and paleontological discovery in the last 150 years has supported the theory of evolution. Stressing it's "only a theory" is like stressing the fact that reality might be part of a Monte Carlo simulation or that all of history may be constantly changing but we can't tell because our memories and artifacts change with history.
All science is provisional, that is it's nature. But I think the likelihood of evolution being overturned is smaller than the possibility of me being able to levitate using only my mind. (Spoiler alert, I can't do it.)
I say drop the origin of life topic all together from public education.
Evolution is about the diversity of life, not it's origin. Evolution is what happens after you have life (which I think of as almost, but not quite, perfect replicators.) Abiogenesis is the term used for the process of life arising from non-living matter. Last I checked, there are some nascent theories regarding abiogenesis, but nothing solid yet. I'm not sure why you would want to drop mentioning that in public education.
I've said before to underwhelming response, we need to spend on protecting this gorgeous planet of ours from big rocks coming at us. It has happened before, so instead of trying to get off this really nice planet on to a crappy cold rock, we should first make sure we can defend the nice home with air, water and food before trying to build on a long shot.
The two are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, they are complementary efforts. And given that there are 7 billion humans, we can actually focus on more than one goal.
Propulsion science is just too primitive at this time. This is where the bulk of the money needs to be spent.
No, it's not. Barring catastrophes, future technology will always be better, but current chemical rocket technology is good enough or close to good enough. And has the advantage of existing or being a refinement of what already exists.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be true if it weren't for the fact that football programs are self sustaining, and actually through the extended avenues of revenue they have (example, keeping Alumni interested and donating), football programs often contribute TO the schools and help pay teachers, and help support other athletic programs in the school which are not revenue generators.
Uhh...sometimes.
http://www.ncaa.org/about/reso...
http://www.cbssports.com/colle...
16 of the top 20 college football programs are revenue positive. Everyone else (300+ schools) is pretty much losing money because of football, mainly because they believe in your incorrect narrative.
Don't bring facts to an ideological fight.
... 3. for the working poor, and the middle class for whom their employer doesn't provide coverage, the US healthcare system sucks. ironically, it sucks for them even more after the "affordable healthcare act".
This is an ideal situation for those who desire socialism.
Wherever you got your education and wherever you get your "information," you have been seriously let you down. You don't know what socialism is. It's your boogieman. I'm not even arguing for it, just that you have no fucking clue what it is.
But here is a hint, passing a law that you have to have medical insurance is not socialism. Passing a law that medical insurance must meet certain minimum standards is not socialism. Passing a law that will "redistribute" some tax money from the the wealthy to the poor to help them pay for mandatory health insurance is not socialism.
The ACA may be a disastrous hodgepodge of the compromises required when the government is owned by lobbyist and half the legislature is butt hurt and won't participate in a constructive manner because the other party won the presidential election. But it's not socialism. It's pure "American Exceptionalism."
I just wish that the government would actually issue people real free IDs since you are correct that they are needed for every damn thing today do it at the federal level with with the local governmental offices all being able to issue them, and have them be valid for 5 years. If you need a replacement then have it cost like $5 or $10 of what ever the processing cost is.
Funny thing. The same people that want to require voter ID don't want a national ID. They want it to be hard for poor people to vote. It's a feature, not a bug.
You need an ID to get a job, cash a check, buy beer and ciggs, use a credit card, drive, etc. You need an ID for life nowadays, and passing a voter ID law that includes free IDs for all who can prove who they are (a requirement to register to vote!) is somehow racist?
Grow up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's really classist. The racist part is a side effect that a greater portion of African Americans and Latinos are poor. In the US while just under 10% of whites are poor, both African Americans and Hispanics have poverty rates over 25%. Poverty creates quite a feedback loop that tends to make everything more difficult and expensive. Anyway, if you look into it you will find that voter id laws typically act as a filter that removes poor citizens (actual citizens) that are having a rough time all in the name of solving a problem that does not exist.
For the thousandth time, a low 0-60 time does not make your car a sports car. There is so much more to a sports car than raw acceleration. The Miata is 3x slower than a Tesla to 60mph but it's ten times the sports car. Go drive one and use a manual transmission.
This is an article about Porsche making an electric sports car. Porsche knows a thing or two about sports cars.
Hey, at least someone is making an electric car that isn't FUGLY.
I was excited about electrics when Tesla had the roadsters out, but I just couldn't get one. Then tesla switched to only doing "family cars" and the like.
I wish they'd out together a good looking, 2 seater sports car that was all electric, in the price range of maybe a corvette? Something affordable.
I'm sure the Porsche will be out of my price range again, but at least someone is making an electric car that doesn't look ass ugly, or that a boring family of five's family truckster, ready to head to Wally World.
I don't know about the price coming down but Tesla is planing to release a new Roadster in 4 years. That's sooner than the Porsche. At least before adjusting for Elon Musk's penchant for late deliveries (which don't bug me, but one must consider it when planning.)
I like the look of the Model S, but clearly that is a personal preference. Hopefully someone will make something that works for you.
Based on the spec, it will compete with now obsolete Tesla Roadster. Good luck.
Actually, Tesla is planning a new roadster for about the same time frame. So it will be competing with the new Roadster, not the obsolete one. I'd say good luck with that, but I imagine different people will have different preferences.
Why does everyone have wood for all-electric cars now? The Chevy Volt model, if refined to a Porsche/Tesla level of quality and not wrapped in a nerdmobile shell is the best of both worlds. At least as a bridge to some future model (all hydrogen?)
Until then, gas's "recharge" time (less than 5 minutes) + 10,000s of locations to fill up trumps all-electric every day of the week as of today.
Tesla owners that drive less than 250 miles per day, they never have to "fill it up." It's "full" every morning. Other electric cars, the range is much shorter, but if the range is comfortably in your daily commute the same principal applies.
As to why people have wood for them, there are a lot of reasons. Everything from helping move away from fossil fuels [1], to liking something that's different, to the crazy acceleration, or the fact that it's truly quiet, to having a status symbol. At least as far as the Tesla is concerned, it seems to actually be one hell of a car. The customer satisfaction ratings are off the charts.
[1] Yes, I know coal is used in parts of the US to create electricity, but so is natural gas [2], nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, whatever. Electric cars are basically multi-fuel.
[2] Yes, I know that natural gas is a fossil fuel. But it's way cleaner than coal.
I miss the old America where people use to create content instead of just ripping it off wholesale and presenting it as their own.
What America was that? It's not like Disney invented Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, etc.
And what are you talking about anyway? Do you think the woman that posted the video of her baby dancing was claiming she wrote "Let Go Crazy?"
Spontaneous gene mutations made the different life forms. No theory is needed for that, just observation. Less than one percent of the existing life forms exist because of "survival of the fittest".
"Survival of the Fittest" was one way that one part of the theory of evolution was introduced to lay people because it was easy to understand. Prior to the theory of evolution, people had no idea how species came into existence (well, they had bad ideas, "God did it" or they reversed the forcing function thinking that animals actively adapted to the environment rather than randomly changed then had a survival/reproduction filter applied.)
Clearly there was a need for the theory.
FWIW, I went to public school in Alabama and learned about evolution. It wasn't taught as in "but remember kids, this is only a theory" nor did they say "and evolution is fact and I'm failing you if you don't admit that God doesn't exist".
It was just taught. Like things of this nature should be.
My guess is that it depends on the school district, school principal, local PTA etc. You bring up an excellent point (or remind me of one.) It's pretty shitty to disparage a whole state, or the entire south, or all conservatives because some people are idiots. I know I'm stating the obvious, but "my team" can be pretty shitty to "the other team" and it gets embarrassing. Don't get me wrong, their are some real assholes on "the other team." But I'm not sure that being just as big of assholes helps out "our team."
P.S. I can still be an asshole. I'm working on it.
P.P.S. I don't mean to imply you are on either team, I'm just hijacking your comment and avoiding work.
I think he does believe in evolution, but he's an opportunist, and a politician who will say whatever he needs to say to appeal to his base. Basically, I think he's lying.
I really don't know. I have a couple of brilliant friends that are devout Christians and somehow in their minds they are able to "square the circle" of believing in stuff with no evidence while the actual evidence contradicts their "faith." I think they are sincere.
It's funny, but even though people can be deceitful and do frequently lie, the older I've gotten the more I have come to the conclusion that it's best to take people at their word as to what they believe. Maybe Ben Carson is lying, but I would not assume that. And if I were ever to have a Scotch with him I would not accuse him of lying. I would ask him to justify what he says he believes.
... Abiogenesis is using the principles of evolution to explain the formation of early life. ...
No, evolution explains what happens after there are simple replicators affected by mutation. It does not try to explain where the early replicators came from. I don't understand why you can't see the difference. There is no agreed upon, irrefutable, theory explaining Abiogenesis. Yet. Maybe some day there will be one. Maybe there never will be one. That is completely unrelated to the fact that we have a pretty good idea what happened in the 3 or 4 billion years after Abiogenesis. We know the mechanism that drives complex life. We do not know the mechanism that creates simple life from which complex life evolves.
The title of the book that introduced evolution to the masses was "The Origin of Species", not "The Origin of Life."
I miss the old America where people use to create content instead of just ripping it off wholesale and presenting it as their own.
That universe never existed, much less that America. Everything is a remix. That is how progress happens. And not just in entertainment, but in engineering, science and every other aspect of human life. Mixing old things in new ways and a new insight is the creative process.
Imagine a world where the Blues cord progression was covered by IP laws. Rent-seeking greed is hamstringing human creativity. It's a real shame.
Most evolutionists seem to think they have the answers to everything as well.
Calling some one an "evolutionists" in an attempt to reframe it as a mere belief rather than a theory that's stood the test of time is silly.
I always enjoyed asking questions in school that I knew were bedeviling scientists about evolution. Watching a know it all snobby professor dance around and then get pissed off about it was amusing.
Sounds like you had bad professors, or equally likely, you asking stupid questions that you thought were smart. Probably a combination of both.
I'm happy to admit I really don't know how God created the Universe I'm also happy to pick at know everything jerks who don't know how evolution created it either.
But you pretend to know that a God created everything. You probably pretend to know the exact nature of that God. But "evolutionist" are the know it all jerks.
Final thought. Not knowing everything is not the same as not knowing anything.
Neurosurgeon is as close as any candidates come to scientist this round.
Certainly closer than any shyster.
No, he's not. Here is what Ben Carson believes:
“Carbon dating, all these things,” he said “really doesn’t mean anything to a God who has the ability to create anything at any point in time. “Dealing with the complexity of the human brain,” Carson continued, “and somebody says that came from a slime pit full of promiscuous biochemicals? I don’t think so.” Curiously, Carson did not reject natural selection – the engine that drives evolution – saying he “totally believe[s]” that useful genetic traits are more often passed on than less useful traits. But he could not draw the connection between that process acting over millennia and the human eye: “Give me a break. According to their scheme – boom, it had to occur overnight.”
So he doesn't believe evolution nor does he even know enough about it to understand that the evolution of the eye happened over time and does not have to happen overnight. The fact that he can be a doctor and hold these views just shows how extreme cognitive dissonance can be.
Untrue: evolution certainly purports to explain the creation of life. The evidence there is quite lacking, unlike the evidence for "how it changes", but still it's a consistent explanation for life arising that doesn't require the invention of additional entities.
No, you're conflating evolution and abiogenesis. Most scientists would agree that a natural process exists for the origin of life, but that process is not strictly evolution. There are various theories being worked on, but it's not as well understood and proven as evolution is. Evolution is what happens once you have slightly imperfect replicators and environmental pressure on those replicators. How the replicators came to be is a different matter.
As I said, drop the origin of life topic. Avoid the religious and scientific controversy all together. When I took biology in HS, my biology teacher skipped the topic altogether. Didn't even mention the controversy. Just skipped the chapter altogether. One student asked why she skipped it. Her response, "I will teach what can be reproduced in a lab or examined first-hand."
I've responded at length elsewhere, but you are mistaken as to the core issue. Fundamentalists are not OK with the teaching of evolution. They believe in a young Earth (less than 10000 years old.) They believe that God created all species as is. They believe that humans are not animals. That is the major rub, not the origin of life. No one teaches the origin of life as if we know the answer to that, because we don't.
But we do teach that humans are animals, not special creations of God. And a surpassingly large percentage of US citizens can't tolerate the thought that we were not created separate from animals.
All of this could have been avoided if we had dropped the origin of life from Earth entirely.
No, it can't. The issue is fundamentalist that argue against evolution. Texts tend to be very clear on the fact that we don't know how life started (yet). We just know that once it started, it evolved. Fundamentalist have no tolerance for evolution because their sacred texts state that God created everything as it is. God created every creature perfectly. Especially humans. Fundamentalist think humans are a separate creation from the animals. Maybe you have some belief that is OK with post creation evolution, but that is not why teaching evolution has been such a hot-button-topic in the US.
Most of the people fighting the teaching of evolution think the world is 1000s of years old (usually somewhere between 6000 and 10000). They believe that species do not change. They believe that humans are not animals.
There is another contingent that believes in "guided" evolution, but even there the issue is not abiogenesis. They insist that unguided evolution is impossible. They insist that intelligent design (meaning, "God did it") be taught as a viable "theory" (it's not.) Again, this group is not satisfied with evolution as long as the origin of life is not discussed. Once again, they insist that God is involved in the creation of humans. Otherwise we are just animals and they can't accept that.
This is what an agenda looks like. I don't know why, but whenever countries meet over AGW, the topic always turns to giving billions of dollars from one group to another.
The fact that you don't like some of the proposed solutions does not mean there is not a problem. Go look at the list of the top 100 companies, the largest political donors, etc. and then try to make a cogent argument as to how big bad environmental and/or poverty lobby has some how convinced 1000s of scientists to participate in whatever strange and huge conspiracy you appear to be proposing.
We are releasing millions of years of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere and we are doing it on the time scale of decades. To pretend that will not have consequences because all the solutions are ideologically distasteful is appalling.
I didn't intend to be funny. I intended to be serious.
And yet you were funny. Every biological and paleontological discovery in the last 150 years has supported the theory of evolution. Stressing it's "only a theory" is like stressing the fact that reality might be part of a Monte Carlo simulation or that all of history may be constantly changing but we can't tell because our memories and artifacts change with history.
All science is provisional, that is it's nature. But I think the likelihood of evolution being overturned is smaller than the possibility of me being able to levitate using only my mind. (Spoiler alert, I can't do it.)
I say drop the origin of life topic all together from public education.
Evolution is about the diversity of life, not it's origin. Evolution is what happens after you have life (which I think of as almost, but not quite, perfect replicators.) Abiogenesis is the term used for the process of life arising from non-living matter. Last I checked, there are some nascent theories regarding abiogenesis, but nothing solid yet. I'm not sure why you would want to drop mentioning that in public education.
No one cares for Mars. It's a frikin dead rock. There are so much better exploration targets out there.
You presume too much.
I've said before to underwhelming response, we need to spend on protecting this gorgeous planet of ours from big rocks coming at us. It has happened before, so instead of trying to get off this really nice planet on to a crappy cold rock, we should first make sure we can defend the nice home with air, water and food before trying to build on a long shot.
The two are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, they are complementary efforts. And given that there are 7 billion humans, we can actually focus on more than one goal.
Propulsion science is just too primitive at this time. This is where the bulk of the money needs to be spent.
No, it's not. Barring catastrophes, future technology will always be better, but current chemical rocket technology is good enough or close to good enough. And has the advantage of existing or being a refinement of what already exists.