Americans are stupid.

[Bill3000]

Averages, you need to learn about averages. Sure, there are some Republican politicans who advocate more school spending but most do not. That means the average Republican politician at all levels is a major part of the problem. Vouchers don't help anyone but the rich and end up hurting public schools. I'm sure you will deny it though and you will claim that anyone presenting facts you don't like is a troll. It's really sad.

It's better to try to take a stab at the real problem rather than simply blaming part of the political spectrum for the problems of the education system. Saying "It's all the Republicans fault" isn't going to help much.

As well, morals have no place in science.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Bill3000
They don't have a friggin' clue. It's not just the funding that can be a problem; it's where the money is being put that's a huge problem as well. Simply throwing more money towards education means nothing if you don't make sure the money goes where it should go.

True, here in California we passed a proposition which said 40% of the state's budget must be spent on education and we had a problem with some districts, LA Unified & Oakland were major offenders, using the money to hire huge amounts of staff in their main offices while actually increasing staff size. Some cities, like San Diego where I live, have passed proportion laws which say no more then 1/3 can be spent on over head while the remainder must be spent on things children come in contact with like books, computers, teachers, etc...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Bill3000
It's better to try to take a stab at the real problem rather than simply blaming part of the political spectrum for the problems of the education system. Saying "It's all the Republicans fault" isn't going to help much.

As well, morals have no place in science.

There is a political thinking which has caused this problem in most of the country. That political thinking has resulted in some states using ancient text books because they can't afford new ones and massively sized classes because they won't hire enough teachers. The first step to solving this problem is identifying how you got to this underfunding problem.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Oerdin


BUZZ! Science isn't about morals it's about the being demonstrably true or not. Creationism is not demonstrably provable there for it doesn't belong in a science class. There are no two sides to this.

Your failure to see your own judgemental attitude is why you, and many like you, will likely never make a difference in the political arena. Your beliefs and opinions colour your attitude on this matter, just in the same way that a creationist's beliefs and opinions colour his or hers ...

Creationists believe that the beginning of the Universe is HISTORY. They have a historical document, that they believe is written evidence that what they believe, happened. Just like when you read a book about the ancient Egyptians, or read Homer or Virgil ...

You believe that their historical document is the fabrication of a bunch of dogmatic myth-makers who wanted to create a society based on their own views of what's right and wrong; and that the Bible is said fabrication.

You can no more prove them wrong, than they can prove it right ...

The reason I say you're trolling, Oerdin, is that you're simply blaming everything on a group of people, massively generalizing "clearly it is the fault of X group, because they believe F." It doesn't matter if the average republican supports or does not support education. Make a meaningful contribution to the field - tell us HOW to fund education properly, and WHY. Just blaming the Republicans as a group causes the republicans who MIGHT agree with you - like myself - to just tune you out and ignore any meaningful statement you might have.

You don't see me moaning about how the Liberals destroyed America's Prosperity ... and if I heard a conservative doing same, I'd come down on him/her twice as hard.

[Bill3000]

Creationists believe that the beginning of the Universe is HISTORY. They have a historical document, that they believe is written evidence that what they believe, happened. Just like when you read a book about the ancient Egyptians, or read Homer or Virgil ...

You believe that their historical document is the fabrication of a bunch of dogmatic myth-makers who wanted to create a society based on their own views of what's right and wrong; and that the Bible is said fabrication.

You can no more prove them wrong, than they can prove it right ...

There is a difference in the amount of credibility, however. Creationism only has the bible for evidence. (Which isn't a reliable source to begin with.) Scientists have vasts amount of evidence for evolution that have been found and examined by the scientific method. There's a difference why faith is the opposite of logic - because, by definition, faith isn't logical. They may have a similar goal, but have a different amount of effectiveness; science has, after all, produced the vast amount of technology in the past couple of hundred years, as we have come to realize how effective the scientific method is in exploring knowledge.

Science is based purely on logic, and not at all in faith. While most scientists still do have faith and such, it isn't the focus of their work. Trying to say otherwise in a classroom is the problem here. Religion is not on an equal basis as science in terms of logic.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Your failure to see your own judgemental attitude is why you, and many like you, will likely never make a difference in the political arena. Your beliefs and opinions colour your attitude on this matter, just in the same way that a creationist's beliefs and opinions colour his or hers ...

Creationists believe that the beginning of the Universe is HISTORY. They have a historical document, that they believe is written evidence that what they believe, happened. Just like when you read a book about the ancient Egyptians, or read Homer or Virgil ...

In the state I live in advocating keeping religion out of public schools is a key part to getting elected to any office. I know creationists believe their dogma is historical fact but the problem is it has nothing to back it. Also they're trying to have creationism taught in biology class not history class; biology is a science and their nonprovable religion doesn't meet the objective criteria to qualify.

You seem to misunderstand where the burden of proof lies here. I do not have to prove creationism is wrong; they must prove it is right or at least semiplausable for it to get into a science class. That's the definition of science, to have testable and reproducable facts based upon evidence.

[Dinner]

OK, I give up. You folks can scratch your heads and wonder why red states typically do worse then blue states on school testing. I'm sure you will continue to claim political philophy has nothing to do with it but we'll continue to see red states with the worst schools. You're really holding your position dispite the evidence.

[snoopy369]

Bill - I'm not arguing in favor of creationism being taught in schools. I think it's a hunk of bull-hooey or however you spell that, and I don't think it should be taught in schools.

However, a creationist would argue that faith is more important - in science or in anywhere else - than pure logic. Besides, what's really the difference between faith and logic, except the number of faith-based decisions that need to be made? You must have some basis for the beginning of any argument - and it all boils down to what you believe/think. Evolution is untenable without believing that it's possible to mutate in pretty spectacular ways - and that's the most logical creationist argument, and the biggest jump of faith in evolution science, as it's pretty tough for a lot of folks to believe it's remotely possible for a unicellular organism to somehow mutate, even over billions of years, into man ... I have faith that it's possible, but I couldn't remotely tell you how or why, and I doubt any of you could, either, without relying on your faith that someone else is right.

A creationist simply makes one decision - has faith that God gave the information in Genesis to Moses - and is done. An evolutionist must have faith that:
a) unicellular life spontaneously formed (not conclusively proven, although some studies have shown it theoretically possible)
b) Unicellular life then evolved into multicellular cooperative organisms
c) Darwinian evolutionary pressures are adequate to cause, over time, drastic physiological changes in the structure of organisms

And probably a few more ... steps in the logic that aren't conclusively proven, but are assumed just because it's how things 'must be' for the ultimate logical statement to hold true, as it appears to hold ...

[Drake Tungsten]

Teaching in the Japanese school system has really made me skeptical of claims that the US public school system is terrible and failing our youth. I hate to break it to ya'll, but the Japanese schools aren't any better. The real difference is that Japanese students work harder than American students, mainly as a result of intense parental pressure. That's a problem no amount of funding is going to address.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by snoopy369
School funding is primarily handled on the local level, or at worst at the state level.

And the manifest failure of this scheme doesn't bother you at all.

The dumbest thing in the world is to fund schools by voting local taxes. Any decent economist will tell you that this just leads to underfunded schools on the average.

The reason Americans are daft is that many of them would rather do anything than pay taxes, even though it has been proven over and over again to be the best way to fund goods like health care and education.

[Agathon]

However, a creationist would argue that faith is more important - in science or in anywhere else - than pure logic

In other words, a vote for bullcrap.

[Agathon]

I think that fundamentalist Christians should be discouraged from voting. Many of them are borderline cases of mental illness.

[Drake Tungsten]

Throw in the commies and we have a deal. You're making off like a bandit on this one, removing millions of fundamentalist Christians from the voting rolls in exchange for the handful of remaining Communists.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Teaching in the Japanese school system has really made me skeptical of claims that the US public school system is terrible and failing our youth. I hate to break it to ya'll, but the Japanese schools aren't any better. The real difference is that Japanese students work harder than American students, mainly as a result of intense parental pressure. That's a problem no amount of funding is going to address.

That, and the teachers have the constant threat of being kanchoed.

[Pekka]

oh come on Americans are not stupid.