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Author | Topic: Bush promotes ID | |||||||||||||||||||
Monk Member (Idle past 3946 days) Posts: 782 From: Kansas, USA Joined: |
This thread is swirling around the bowl.
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FliesOnly Member (Idle past 4167 days) Posts: 797 From: Michigan Joined: |
Here's a link to another great bit of science that I'm sure our President would want taught in our science classrooms...right along side ID.
Kinja It's hilarious.
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Monk Member (Idle past 3946 days) Posts: 782 From: Kansas, USA Joined: |
Yea, that's funny. It seems that us Kansans will continue to be the butt of the joke for a long time to come. Did you catch the other spoof about Rumsfeld's visit to his wife's vagina?
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6497 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
Hi paisano,
I found some data on the demographics of postdocs and scientists in general for the US here nationalpostdoc.org and here http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309096138 There has definitely been a shift to a heavy reliance on foreign talent since the early 80's. Again, while there may be several mitigating factors including economics, I think the relevance to this thread is that by promoting ID and other such nonsense, the administration will further weaken US homegrown science and increase our reliance on foreigners...like with oil, this kind of reliance is suceptible to shocks such as other countries becoming more attractive for foreign researchers (as is happening with stem cell research already)...although one might not immediately see the impact of a decrease in science talent like one might see with spikes in oil prices, the long term consequences would be more dramatic if say China or the EU becomes the leader in science and the use of science in developing practical technology.
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paisano Member (Idle past 6445 days) Posts: 459 From: USA Joined: |
Well, I think we are in agreement that promoting ID will have a negative effect on science education.
As to the numbers of American-born PhDs and potdocs, I still think a number of benign factors contribute: -the demographic pool of Gen X that would be attaining PhDs now is smaller in absolute numbers than the boomers -the perpetual postdoc is not an attractive career option especially when well-paying industry positions are available in many fields. IMO, academia itself must bear much of the blame for making a scientific career extremely unattractive to a bright American, who typically will aspire to an upper middle class lifestyle and scorn careers that offer no real opportunity of such. -the MS is sufficient for career advancement in many of those industry positions To substantiate these points in detail would require some analysis of the NSF data. But some of your sources make some of these points as well. Cultural trends are harder to analyze and detect. In many ways the current situation of vocal fundamentalist activism paradoxically coincident with rapid technological change is reminiscent of the 1920's. It is possible that the excesses of the fundamentalists will be their own undoing, now as then, and in time they will fade out of the cultural mainstream.
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6497 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
Hi paisano,
Thanks for the quick reply. I agree with you for the most part except that part of the shift occurred over the last 25 years i.e. from 1981 to now has seen a dramatic shift in the number of foreigners percentage wise. A career as a postdoc was not attractive in the 80's either yet more Americans chose to go into academia (proportionally) and there were less industry options available in the 80's and early 90's than currently. Also, many foreigners also seek a middle income job when they come here (though the increase in the number of Asia postdocs in many fields may in part be because of the better economics for them in the US than at home). I have certainly been living off a middle class salary ever since I finished grad school as a postdoc. One factor that may be driving people away is the increase in the number of postdocs people usually have to through before getting a stable job and the overall length of time people have to postdoc. It used to be a couple of years and now the average is closing on a decade (in bio sciences). That drives women out in particular since they are forced to choose between having children or continuing their careers. But I don't think this explains all of it...it has always been tough to be a scientist. It takes a ton of money to do research and used to be exclusively for the rich. Darwin and Newton where hardly poor kids who made the big time. It also takes a greater committment to long term learning than many other career choices. That was true 100 years ago and is true today. What I would like to see is information on the science education competence of the countries of origin for the foreign postdocs and grads in relation to the US. There are the PISA studies which show our test scores in relation to europe. But they do not include the Asian countries where most of the foreign postdocs are coming from (Japan is included but not India or China). Incidentally, most european countries waste us in K-12 scores in science and math. If they could break it down grade by grade and for the US state by state or region by region...there might be a way to find see trends over time that might indicate when and where people are getting turned off to science. My guess (and it is just a guess) is that places with high concentrations of fundamentalists and other types of anti-science groups will show lousy science scores over time with the lowest proportion of students going on to get Ph.D.s much less become career scientists..but a study that could track this would be very interesting and useful. It might shed light on the motivations and education levels of those who come to the US from abroad to do science and at the same time, show (or not show) a cultural/educational trend that deters Americans from going into science.
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AdminBen Inactive Member |
Thread moved here from the Coffee House forum.
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5856 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
I'm about as pro-military as they come. I believe your statement is completely false. How exactly is it going to have long-term deleterious effects on economic competitveness and technology? ID isn't going to help you develop protection against bio-weapons..... ID also isn't going to help anyone restore lost organs or limbs. Any student who doesn't get a good science education is one less person who could develop a revolutionary vaccine or treatment for wounds sustained in combat. It's actually very simple.
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5856 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
And that's where we differ. I believe evolution is bad science. It is the most widely excepted theory based on the least amount of evidence (none). Fish magically turning into birds is pretty superstitious IMO. Fish don't turn into birds. If they did it would be evidence against evolution. You obviously don't even have a basic understanding of evolution or biology. It makes one look very ignorant to comment on things they don't understand.
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5856 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
There is nothing I could say to change your mind, your bias is apparent. You believe Bush to be a moron as do most on this forum. Fine. Your opinion. Well, all the evidence points to bush being stupid...... and sadly that's not my biggest issue with him. My problem with him is that he is immoral, un-christian, and quite frankly evil. But hey, who cares about the poor, or children without health insurance. .... I know Jesus wouldn't care about them This message has been edited by Mini_Ditka, 12-30-2005 11:44 PM
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Minnemooseus Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
I'm not totally adverse to the digging up of old topics and old messages, but my opinion is that the three you dug up weren't worth the digging.
I haven't reviewed it lately, but I suspect this is a rather dismal topic, from begining to end. Resist inserting GWB joke. Please, no replies to this message, here or anywhere else. Moose (just a little bit into the admin mode)
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5841 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
Please, no replies to this message, here or anywhere else. Sorry about replying, but this really seems the best place to ask my question. Regardless of the worth of the rest of the thread, perhaps this is a good place to address what the Dover trial means for Bush. He came out in support of ID, and a court has shown that it follows a creationist agenda whose promoters are willing to lie to push religion into education. Doesn't this raise the issues about Bush's earlier backing of it? What can he say now in defense of his position? holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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kjsimons Member Posts: 822 From: Orlando,FL Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
It appears the governor of the wind swept state of Florida also feels that there needs to be a "vigorous discussion of varying viewpoints in our classrooms" when it comes to teaching evolution. It's bad enough that the science standards in FL don't even mention evolution by name, now that want to further water down science education by bringing in non-scientific viewpoints about science into a science classroom. Take my governor (and president)... please!
Link to full article:
Jeb Speaks This message has been edited by AdminJar, 12-31-2005 10:13 AM
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
He will simply adopt the All New Improved Dogma.
"Teach the controversy" He will simply say "Beliefs shouldn't enter into the equation but instead we should teach that opinions are of the same weight as evidence." Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
He will simply adopt the All New Improved Dogma. "Teach the controversy" But they still fail to mention, let alone discuss, the design controversy in the process! we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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