Unfortunately, our (specifically, American) society has developed the idea that a diploma is an entitlement rather than a reflection of an earned education.
Well, that was what was promised by compulsory education! Waste your time at the rate of 8 hours/day for 12-16 years, don't try to think for yourself or learn what interests you, stop thinking when the bell rings, only listen to "experts" and in return you can have an industrial job where thinking is frowned upon.
Read all about it right here. (Some of his hyperbole is hard to take, but his history seems pretty correct.)
Nah, more like the translators couldn't keep their own prejudices out. Have a look here.
A friend of mine who is an ancient languages scholar mentioned to me that there is a Greek word that is often translated as "sodomite" which appears only twice in Paul's letters and in a later commentary on Paul. He said that anyone who claims to know what it means is engaging in an "intellectual shell game."
I think a variety of energy-producing methods is a great first step towards lessening oil dependency.
In the sense that "every little bit helps", maybe, but it appears that current oil consumption is about 400 times the current carbon fixation rate of the biosphere. The only thing that can scale that high is ubiquitous solar power. Kind of depressing, huh?
The real problem is the same one that the US has with the Senate. 15% of the populace elects 50% of the Senate, which is rather undemocratic. Apologists claim that this is to guard against tyrrany of the majority, but I fail to see how replacing it with tyrrany of the minority is an improvement.
13% of Americans believe that both evolution and creationism should be taught as scientific theories in science class.
Yes, many people do not understand the definition of science and the need for falsifiability. But...
16% percent want no mention of evolution at all.
...the (political) question of what should be taught in federally mandated compulsory education is not so simple. Do people have a right to be ignorant? And if not, who decides what constitutes ignorance? Bear in mind that "science" has often been used to strip people of basic rights.
60% of respondents agreed that "some people possess psychic powers or ESP" in a 2001 NSF study.
Not so clear. For example, see the experiments of Dean Radin (independent verification published here.) The argument here is that the brain works partly by using mild precognition.
In 2001, 30% of NSF survey respondents agreed that "some of the unidentified flying objects that have been reported are really space vehicles from other civilizations"
Probably false for a host of common-sense reasons, but also testable. Most importantly, it has not been tested (yet is believed). I have more trouble with this because most scientists "believe" one side or another of an unsettled question (this is just human nature). If they are good, they are willing to be wrong, but the energy for research comes from having a workable model - even if it is incorrect.
So while many of the things you list are examples of ignorance, one of them is a political question, two may be true and one of those is a subject of current research. While I have to agree that most folks believe that these things are proved when they are not, some of them are worth considering for various reasons.
It seems to me that schools don't do a very good job of teaching critical thinking.
There is a fair bit of historical evidence that the public schools as currently conceived were specifically designed to discourage the rise of critical thinking. Actual schools will, of course, vary, but the thinking around 1900 (by both politicians and business leaders) very clearly was that thinking by the vast majority of the populace was both socially and economically destructive.
50 years of moovies and teevee depicting anyone with an interest in science as a total and complete loser will do that to a society.
I have two boys (5 and 3) and I couldn't agree more. We don't watch network television, but since video is a legitimate literary form, we have a small video library including the complete Thunderbirds collection. (Thunderbirds is a British children's show from the 1960s detailing the exploits of a group called International Rescue.)
My wife does not particularly like the show (it has a high cheese factor) but one of the things that I find striking about it is that the inventor character (Brains) is not portrayed as socially inept. He is smart, somewhat introverted and disdainful of pop culture, but he is also as courageous as the Tracy boys and has no trouble conversing with women or interacting in social gatherings. No one mocks him for being different and as the scientist/technician he is an invaluable member of the team.
If this show was on today, I would expect him to be portrayed in a very unflattering light unless it was about something "nerdy". Otherwise, his role would be the butt of juvenile or macho humor.
You do realize that Stalin was assasinated by Beria almost 50 years ago? A lot happened in the USSR over the next 40 years of its existence. When I was in graduate school in the 1980s, I had a language requirement and I chose Russian because there was so much basic research written in that language.
Oh yes, the famous Soviet model that seduced so many intellectuals for so long. Centralized leadership with a 'beloved leader,' a command economy, ideas controlled and dictated from the top, enormous resources expended to achieve a result that is bloated, inefficient and bureaucratic. A free and democratic system that respects and trusts individuals will beat the Soviet model every time.
There is a great comment I saw once about how the average CEO has a degree of control that most communist dictators can only dream about. Internally, most corporations are quite "socialistic" because internal competition is wasteful (and affects the bottom line).
Scott Adams parodied this nicely a few years back when Dilbert's company adopted "Battling Business Units". The PHB even warned them: "Don't upset the janatorial BBU"!
Ignoring the strong mathematical and theoretical evidence that it is based on computation
I'm not so sure it is as strong as you imply. There are a number of phenomeona (unitary experience and the flow of time to name but two) that are completely ignored by computational models of consciousness.
If there's a limit to consiousness on the high end of an expanding universe then we should also be able to make educated guesses at the low end and then put a front time on the resulting "wave" of intelligence.
The Big wow theory proposes that the universe itself was conscious for a brief moment after the big bang.
Yes, the vaunted consciousness that reacts a full 1/4 second after the fact when we do most common actions such as crossing the road, kicking a ball, picking up a cup, or typing comments to Slashdot?
I'm not sure where you are getting this, but it sounds like the experiments done in the 70s where subjects had brain activity 1/2 s before the execution of volitional action. The inference was that consciousness is simply meant becoming aware of something that had happened at the subconscious level.
There is another interpretation - with some interesting (replicated) experimental results to back it up - that suggests that the brain sends information backwards in time. The evolutionary advantages of this are pretty obviou, and - more relevant to this discussion - the nature of consciousness may not even be expressible in terms of discreet computation. For example, if the brain can somehow harness John Cramer's "advanced waves", then I seriously doubt that the brain is anything like a Turing machine.
"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."
- Andy Warhol
Its a pretty insightful (not to mention funny) observation about our television obsessed culture. Think about reality TV and then realize that the quote was made in the 60s.
(Actually, now that I think of it, TV suffered the same fate. Originally touted as an educational resource, it turned into the junk box it is today. It's just history repeating.)
I think the same could probably be said of books. Consider the ratio of good literature (even broadly construed) to romance novels, get rich quick books and porno mags.
Lithium is not exactly a toxic substance; for some people, it's medicine.
I have to take issue with this. Lithium is theraputic in people with manic-depressive illness, but it is not completely benign. It causes long term stress on the kidneys and I think it may also cause some problems for the liver. In high doses is it definitely not harmless - adjusting lithium levels in patients is quite tricky because the therapudic dose is very close to the toxic dose. So while it has its uses, just dumping it ino the water supply is not without consequences.
So the OP's concern is not baseless - just because something is not very dangerous does not mean that we should be cavalier about basing a major section of the economy on large doses of it. I'll agree that some people freak out over silly things (I love the folks who think that geothermal power will cool the earth's core down!) but the answer to ignorance is facts and reason, not rhetoric.
The "burden" is chosen. If you choose to have sex, then you have chosen to take the risk that you might end up with a burden. Therefore, if your value to the business world does not offset the disadvantage parenthood brings, that is entirely your fault.
Other posters have pointed out that society as a whole has a goal of self-preservation that requires parenthood. But on a more personal level, I predict that when my children are changing your diapers, you will be very glad that someone other than you took on that "burden".
Perhaps a short attention span is a defense mechanism to help filter out people's bullshit
Huh? I have a pretty darn good attention span (I'm over 40;-)) and I still manage to filter out BS pretty darn quickly. My 5 year old has quite an attention span for his age and I attribute this to books, classical music and an almost complete lack of network TV (which he actually finds annoying these days).
anyone skilled in martial arts could easily beat such an opponent
Martial artist here, with some experience with knives.
In close quarters, knives are more dangerous than guns. You are going to get cut in a knife fight, period, and anyone who tells you differently is a dangerous fsck who you should not let teach you anything. One of my instructors did a drill with me a few weeks back to impress on us how easy it is to get cut - I had no trouble cutting him and I am pretty inexperienced.
And this is if you have a knife as well. If you don't, the usual advice is to get the hell out of there.
Guns are illegal there, so you're not allowed to defend yourself against muggers.
Speaking of flamebait...
Guns are not illegal in England, they are just much more heavily regulated. They are regulated in the US as well, but just not as much.
A commuter jet is run by a business. With a poor maintenance routine and constant delays/crashes word will get out quickly and the business will fail.
You mean like Alaska Airlines? The AA mechanics union had been complaining about management pressure to cut corners on safety for quite some time before fight 261 crashed into the Pacific, but management's spin control just called them whiners. The NTSB report agreed with the union and placed the blame squarely on Alaska management. Alaska is still flying airplanes.
The moral of the story is...Money walks. Dead astronauts talk.
I think the reality is more like "Money bullsh*ts".
Slashdot Mirror
Read all about it right here. (Some of his hyperbole is hard to take, but his history seems pretty correct.)
Whoever modded this -1 has a sense of humor that I normally associate with dead wombats.
A friend of mine who is an ancient languages scholar mentioned to me that there is a Greek word that is often translated as "sodomite" which appears only twice in Paul's letters and in a later commentary on Paul. He said that anyone who claims to know what it means is engaging in an "intellectual shell game."
The real problem is the same one that the US has with the Senate. 15% of the populace elects 50% of the Senate, which is rather undemocratic. Apologists claim that this is to guard against tyrrany of the majority, but I fail to see how replacing it with tyrrany of the minority is an improvement.
Is the rebuttal published anywhere?
Yes, many people do not understand the definition of science and the need for falsifiability. But...
...the (political) question of what should be taught in federally mandated compulsory education is not so simple. Do people have a right to be ignorant? And if not, who decides what constitutes ignorance? Bear in mind that "science" has often been used to strip people of basic rights.
Not so clear. For example, see the experiments of Dean Radin (independent verification published here.) The argument here is that the brain works partly by using mild precognition.
Probably false for a host of common-sense reasons, but also testable. Most importantly, it has not been tested (yet is believed). I have more trouble with this because most scientists "believe" one side or another of an unsettled question (this is just human nature). If they are good, they are willing to be wrong, but the energy for research comes from having a workable model - even if it is incorrect.
So while many of the things you list are examples of ignorance, one of them is a political question, two may be true and one of those is a subject of current research. While I have to agree that most folks believe that these things are proved when they are not, some of them are worth considering for various reasons.
My wife does not particularly like the show (it has a high cheese factor) but one of the things that I find striking about it is that the inventor character (Brains) is not portrayed as socially inept. He is smart, somewhat introverted and disdainful of pop culture, but he is also as courageous as the Tracy boys and has no trouble conversing with women or interacting in social gatherings. No one mocks him for being different and as the scientist/technician he is an invaluable member of the team.
If this show was on today, I would expect him to be portrayed in a very unflattering light unless it was about something "nerdy". Otherwise, his role would be the butt of juvenile or macho humor.
You do realize that Stalin was assasinated by Beria almost 50 years ago? A lot happened in the USSR over the next 40 years of its existence. When I was in graduate school in the 1980s, I had a language requirement and I chose Russian because there was so much basic research written in that language.
Scott Adams parodied this nicely a few years back when Dilbert's company adopted "Battling Business Units". The PHB even warned them: "Don't upset the janatorial BBU"!
There is another interpretation - with some interesting (replicated) experimental results to back it up - that suggests that the brain sends information backwards in time. The evolutionary advantages of this are pretty obviou, and - more relevant to this discussion - the nature of consciousness may not even be expressible in terms of discreet computation. For example, if the brain can somehow harness John Cramer's "advanced waves", then I seriously doubt that the brain is anything like a Turing machine.
Its a pretty insightful (not to mention funny) observation about our television obsessed culture. Think about reality TV and then realize that the quote was made in the 60s.
So the OP's concern is not baseless - just because something is not very dangerous does not mean that we should be cavalier about basing a major section of the economy on large doses of it. I'll agree that some people freak out over silly things (I love the folks who think that geothermal power will cool the earth's core down!) but the answer to ignorance is facts and reason, not rhetoric.
In close quarters, knives are more dangerous than guns. You are going to get cut in a knife fight, period, and anyone who tells you differently is a dangerous fsck who you should not let teach you anything. One of my instructors did a drill with me a few weeks back to impress on us how easy it is to get cut - I had no trouble cutting him and I am pretty inexperienced.
And this is if you have a knife as well. If you don't, the usual advice is to get the hell out of there.
Speaking of flamebait...
Guns are not illegal in England, they are just much more heavily regulated. They are regulated in the US as well, but just not as much.
I think the reality is more like "Money bullsh*ts".
An opposing view from something in a .edu domain...