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101 Comments
Ron Paul is the only one who can clean it out, so we can start again.
Otherwise it just gets worse.
That’s what the whole bunch on both sides has to offer, more worse, all spun different ways.
Ron Paul won’t be getting a blank check, it’s just that congress won’t be able to pull anymore crap…..earmarks, pay raises and the like.
Oh, and kiss the “patriot Act” good riddence along with the rest of the damage that Bush has done.
There are those who have their fangs in the neck of America and they’re not going to want to let go.
You do know who they are….right?
We’ve been talking, on a soon-to-disappear thread, about evolution.
Some readers would like Intelligent Design to be taught in science classes. It isn’t going to happen, except in some rural classrooms.
Evolution proponents SAY “You can teach ID in philosophy classes.” Examine your middle-school and high-school children’s philosophy class offerings. There are ZERO. The people who say that all children taking science classes, which exist, must be taught evolution in science class, and these children can consider ID in philosophy class, which do not exist, are fraud artists.
When your children are taught evolution, this is anti-science. They can’t go out to do fossil digs, or do genetic evolution lab projects. Textbook and lectures, without hands-on exploration is anti-science.
So, what can you do? You cannot try to insert ID into science classes, except “under the radar” in some rural schools. Don’t even think about trying to make it a state rights political issue.
But you can rule that every science topic be founded upon a practical mission so that kids can get jobs. So, for example, don’t try to incorporate ID, but eliminate evolution as being of no value to your kids’ future. You have limited time for your kids to learn and dollars to spend on their learning. Where do you invest them?
For example, Kansas needs thousands of young people every year to hire who have scientific skills: engineers, nurses, medical technologists, radiology technologists, pharmacy technicians, physical therapists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, dental hygenists, medical doctors, veterinarians, dentists, architects, scientifically knowledgeable farmers, water-quality managers, et al.
Offer online options to students who want to learn about evolution.
Now suppose somebody files a lawsuit. You have more than a dozen experts who testify, “The theory of evolution is irrelevant to what we do in training thousands of young Kansans every year for well-paying careers.” The plaintiffs dig up a palentologist who testifies, “I’m producing one Kansas job every eight years.”
So, you have many science-knowledgeable experts who render convincing testimony that ID-absent, evolution absent education produces thousands of jobs per year, and one guy saying evolution-belief per se creates one eighth of a job per year, what do you think the courts will decide, when an online evolution-learning-option is provided.
There is no religion-connectable doctrine taught in science classes in this scenario. There are thousands of evolution-is-irrelevant annual jobs that are created versus a fraction of one job that requires an adherence to evolution. How are the courts going to rule? Easy decision.
Doh?
That argument is about as dumb as I have ever seen… but predictable by somebody gung ho on teaching ID to a bunch of kids… BTW, you also dont teach much Biology or Chemistry to K-5 age kids either!! So, that argument is just lame!!
Oh, how are the courts going to rule??? Ummm They wont have to rule… They wont allow the case to begin with!! Invalid case for a court of law!!
Chas…………..go read the NOVA thread and you’ll see that MPS is just bringing his melt down to a new venue.
Bottom Line: ID simply has no place in the public school curriculum… Teach it all you want in a private school!! Have at it!! Look, I can teach ID in a public school curriculum, in such a way, that every flaming religionist will be breathing down my neck… HOWEVER…. IF it is truly not religion… Then no flaming religionist could STOP me from teaching my form of ID!! I dont think you even want to try to go there on that one MPS… It is just an exercise in futility!! And it aint gonna happen!!
Hi Apophis… I WATCHED the NOVA program… it was terriffic!!
Bush Stuffs Spending Bills With Earmarks For Dad’s Foundation, Wife’s Librarian ProgramOn Monday, President Bush explained his veto of the recent Labor-HHS bill, claiming the “majority” in Congress had abandoned his “clear goals for the Congress to reform the earmarking process” and was “acting like a teenager with a new credit card.”
In reality, Bush “stuffs his budget with billions for pet projects.” According to Senate Democrats, Bush placed 580 earmarks worth $15.6 billion in a recent military and veterans appropriations request, along with “billions” in the energy and water spending bill:
Some presidential earmarks have obvious roots, such as $24 million for the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The president earmarked a billion dollars for the Reading First program, which was criticized by government auditors for steering contracts to favored companies. He also sought $8.9 million for the Points of Light foundation, a pet project started by his father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Congress slashed $676 million from Bush’s request for Reading First and eliminated the Points of Light funding. Bush retaliated by vetoing the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill.
The Democratic-led Congress has made major advances in earmark reform in contrast to the profligate spenders of recent conservative-led Congresses. An analysis by Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that earmarks in FY08 appropriations bills are “down about 33 percent from the $29 billion in earmarks in FY06 spending bills”:
The report showed a significant reduction in one of the largest magnets for earmarks, the Defense appropriations bill. The FY08 measure, by the group’s reckoning, included 2,074 projects worth $6.6 billion. This compared to 2,822 projects worth $14.9 billion in the FY06 bill.
The group also said Democrats have made strides against earmarks in the Labor-HHS spending bill, which Bush vetoed Tuesday.
Last week, Bush also hypocritically lambasted “the majority” in Congress, ignoring the fact that the largest earmarks in the legislation that he vetoed were from Republican Sens. Mitch McConnnell (KY) and Richard Shelby (AL).
“Republicans’ newfound fascination with spending stems from a simple reality: They suffered badly over the issue in 2006,” notes the Wall Street Journal. Ironically, President Bush should be the target in his “war over earmarks.“
I’m here to announce, sadly, that the enemy has won the war on terror.
My participation on another forum has brought me to this realization. But it is here too.
The enemy wanted to destroy our values we Americans hold dear as a society. Yesterday, I saw it in action, and I was in the minority. The objective was acheived. We are no better than the terrorists.
Before 9/11, we wouldn’t have been arguing if torture was ok. Before 9/11 we probably wouldn’t have so many who believe that a war deserter should be put to death. So much for life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and freedom. Death, over refusing to go to war. I have seen some say that little children should starve to death if their parents can’t afford to feed them. All with a leader at the helm who is trying to destroy the constitution..instill religious doctrine.
We have become what we were supposed to be against.
Amen, PMom!!
PMom, nothing has really changed, just attitudes.
I can do the very same things I did 8 years ago. I can say the say things without worry that I said 8 years ago.
I can go to the same places I went to 8 years ago.
If one wears Politics on their ’sleeve’ then expect the view of the world to be skewed.
People who do not blog or generally become self-absorbed with Politics only complain about the price of milk and gas. Their complains although utilitarian reflect more of the national conscience than does the mindset of this or any other blog.
Fret not, the world as you knew it is still here. If you don’t believe that is true, then ask a child who wasn’t born eight years ago.
The child will explain the “truth” to you. :)
You can’t teach science unless it is hands on? Uh… I don’t understand. There is way too much kids need to learn about science and not everything can be hands on. You’d reduce the information gleaned by over 80%.
Do I really need to go up in a spaceship to learn that the planets are in space? I don’t think so. This is a ridiculous argument.
But Kansas, things have changed. That’s the problem. Do you think Nazi Germany would have had their downfall if their attitude had been that Hitler was as crazy as he really was?
Germans didn’t wake up one bright morning and decide that torturing Jews was the right thing to do.
Mark my words, this American attitude will be our downfall.
What has changed PMom? We are at war, but not the first generation to go through such an event.
What exactly is the “American Attitude” that you are talking about?
I can assure you than fishermen living in Maine are far too busy to be discussing how Obama, Bush or Congress affect their lives.
Go up to a farmer and start talking politics, you will be getting, “You are wasting my work time” look.
For sure our society in the U.S. is ever evolving. “Old Timers” in my day complained how the parents of “Boomers” were spoiling their children. They also complained about how “A-Bombs” would be then end of us all and believe it or not, the price of gas. Young people complained how “the man” was invading their privacy, inhibiting free speech and generally causing the destruction of the social fabric of our country.
Boomers complained about how the government wasn’t doing enough, so the government did more. Now Boomers are complaining that the government is doing too much and interfering with their lives.
As the old folks always said, the more things change, the more it stays the same.
Or we could all just go back to the days of no microwaves, black and white TV and Politics where “greased palms” was the standard method to get elected.
Perhaps we can convince the Soviet Union to reform and take back their “Iron Curtain” countries. That way, the Libs will have an identifiable enemy or a philosophy they can identify with.
What’s missing in your life PMom? Don’t have the answer? Neither do any of us.
My confirmation of life lays within my faith. I know there is a better place and time. I cannot force you into my faith, it’s a personal choice and decision.
When I’m troubled, I know God listens when I pray and the burden is transferred.
Don’t become your worries PMom. You will find “worries” are nothing more than temporary. God is forever.
You have just heard a TGIF Sermonette from The Rev. “Kansas” in Kansas, in the state of “kansas” values.
We now returnto our regularly scheduled programming… “God, Guns, and Gays” Have a wonderful day!!
Cambridge Officials Put a Stop to Boy Scout Drive to Aid Troops in Iraq
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The city that’s home to Harvard and MIT solidified its nickname as “The People’s Republic of Cambridge” when it put a stop to a Boy Scout troop’s Election Day drive to collect care packages for American soldiers in Iraq, claiming it was “political.”
“We just wanted to make a lot of troops happy,” Scout Patrick O’Connor told the Boston Herald.
The big-hearted Scouts from Cambridge Troop 45 had placed donation boxes at the city’s 33 polling stations in hopes of collecting toiletries, magazines, candy and other items after one of O’Connor’s relatives was injured in an IED explosion while serving in Iraq.
But someone complained to the city, allegedly claiming the boxes were a “political statement,” and the boxes were removed.
Read the full story at:
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1045046
Read the Editorial Reply in the Boston Herald here:Excerpt:
“t gets worse. At the same polling station that was the scene of the complaint, on the same bulletin board where the Scouts had posted their flier were about 75 other fliers. According to Patterson they included those “promoting Get Out of Iraq, Campus Green, College Democrats of America.” The only one removed belonged to “those evil Boy Scouts collecting things for the troops,” he added.”
Full Reply at:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1044992
Well, obviously, if they pulled the Boy Scouts collection box, they should have pulled ALL of the other fliers as well… That only makes common sense… Shame on the Polling Place staff folks!!
On second thought, the Boy Scouts should have possibly gone door to door with their collection campaign, rather than at an election polling station… They are, after all, a Non-Profit organization… Also, the type of facility of the polling station isnt listed…
Still waiting Chas for that source showing Bill Clinton joined the NRA.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
Good one Chas.
Here you go Max, Chas “facts” shot down in flames once again.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/11/open-thread–13.html#comment-90125814
“On second thought, the Boy Scouts should have possibly gone door to door with their collection campaign, rather than at an election polling station… They are, after all, a Non-Profit organization”
Just when I thought Chas might have purchased some common sense.
Mom and Kansas sadly I have to agree with both of you, Mom I agree with you because we being here and paying attention notice the minute changes for the better or worst. So it seem that the world is truly moving far too fast to the edge. I am concerned that if things do not change in the other direction, we will one day wake up to the people of this nation’s worst nightmare. Right now it is more just a disturbing dream, but I still have hope that reasonable people will prevail. That somehow the worst mistake this country has made will be somehow corrected. I will be attacked for saying it, but there is just no way to get around it. By our unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq. It has add this nation’s name to the list of country whom have violated the world’s peace. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and now the United States has acted without cause to move militarily against another souvenir nation. The thin ice we dance upon is barely holding our weight. Frightening in deed..
But Kansas is right, today is in reality for the average American no different than yesterday or the day before. Especially for those that do not pay attention to the world outside of their daily lives. They greatest concern is what to eat for lunch or who will be kicked off of Big brother. Shortly after 9-11 the President told the American people to continue with life as if nothing had happened. And for the most part it is still as it was before the planes hit the twin towers. I was amazed some time ago that while talking to someone I mentioned Bush and to my amazement they asked who that was? Whether we are song birds in gilded cages or just in truth not effected by the minute changes. The sun is still raising in the morning, we are still going to work, watching our favorite TV. shows and living life without outer cares. Those on this blog give more thought in one minute about whom they will vote for in 08. Then the average voter will in the remaining time till the election. Sad but true, the average Republican if not disillusioned with the party already. Will vote for whom ever the party gives the nod to. The same goes for the average Democrat and the independents will be voting for whom ever is of the party they best feel follows their minute thought.
Max, call me whatever you want, but it wont change the facts. Clinton WAS a member of the NRA… I was surprised. BUT… the NRA threw him out during his first campaign for President… They didnt want him as a member…Not like when they hollered when Bush withdrew his membership…
And, also, soon after the NRA threw Clinton out, the Southern Baptist Convention did the same thing at their national convention in 1992 as well…
Sources Chas?
Of course not,
You can just make this stuff up and it becomes fact, because you’re a Lib.
Thanks for proving the negative Kansas!
(Next Chas will say that Hillary is a Life Member of the NRA and we’ll soon see pictures of Hillary hunting in her brand new Gortex gear wearing blaze pink.)
Oh, thank’s Chas for the reminder on the Baptists throwing Bill and Hillary out of their Church.
I had forgotten that.
Strange how religious Hillary now seems….
Supporting the troops?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/15/wounded.marine/index.html
Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel was attacked by a suicide bomber in Iraq. He lost part of his skull, his face was badly scarred and a portion of his brain was damaged. But when he returned home, the VA rejected his brain damage claim.
Imagine what would happen if the Dems started supporting the Iraq war, by putting their words where their votes to fund the war are.You see some effects now, from the Dems continuing to fund the war, and the surge. Despite the Dem Rhetoric to stop the war, even the enemy now sees through the continued Dem votes to fund the war, that the Americans are going to be there in Iraq for a long time.
At least until 2013 according to Hillary Clinton.
This has demoralized the enemy, the number of attacks are down. And now, 44% of America now thinks the war in Iraq is going well. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3602EDC4-3048-5C12-005578659CDA41C0
Imagine, if the Dems had supported the war with their words for the last 4 years, in the same manner they supported it with their votes to fund it.
The enemy might have given up 2 years ago.
But then, the Dems would have nothing to run on in 2008.
Political games by the Dems.
Stinking Republican obstructionist in the Senate killed the bill demanding withdraw be started! Throw the Obstructionist out!
The answer to getting lower actual market value oil prices is to make it unprofitable for the oil speculators, who as far as I can tell add no value to the oil demand/supply equation. Why haven’t the politicians seized upon this issue? Considering that the stock market institutions are capitalizing on the speculation, it is probably a question of campaign contributions.http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7077230
Max you must be fed up with your party continually blocking legislation to bring the troops home?
Legislation to bring the troops home?
Where is that?
The only thing I see is legislation to cut the funding or a lack of legislation to fund the war.
It is not Congress place to demand the troops be brought home.
Nathan – there was legislation to fund the troops – it was blocked in the Senate by filibuster.
The House says it will not take up another bill to fund the war this yr., so the Republicans in the Senate have effectively cut off funding for the war. Where is your outrage?
“You can just make this stuff up and it becomes fact, because you’re a Lib.”
Posted by: Kansas
Kansas, so where are your Congressional and Justice Dept links re the levees and the Sierra Club.
Your links that the recent Arctic sea ice melt was caused by a change in the Earth’s axis?
Your credible, peer-reviewed science showing that 98% of recent global warming is natural, not human-caused?
Come on “Republikhan”, and Kansas “values”, prove to us that your opinions are based on facts. NOT!
Ben, and people wonder How vets become homeless, The military is also bad about discharging PSTD cases as preexisting mental illnesses to disqualify them from VA benefits.
Pardon Me?Hillary Clinton Takes Cash From Recipients of Husband’s Controversial Pardons 11/15/07
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=3866786&page=1
Clinton Culture of Corruption Campaign Continues
The House says it will not take up another bill to fund the war this yr., so the Republicans in the Senate have effectively cut off funding for the war. Where is your outrage?Posted by: The Phantom | November 16, 2007 at 11:15 AM
What can the Republicans do Phantom, they are the minority party?
Alas, maybe the Dems have finally kept their promise to stop the war by not passing a funding bill for Iraq.
This Dem decision will now be scrutinized to see if it was Right or Wrong.
The accountability either way is clear, and that must bring a great deal of fear to the Democrat Majority, who have finally made a decision.
Glad to see that MPS’s wack-o theories on evolution gained no purchase here.
Just wondering, MPS–with all that emphasis on “hands on” learning, how’d you teach your home-schooled kids about SEX ED?
Take ‘em to a prostitute?
Wrong again, Max.
The FEAR was what we left-wing activist instilled into the “go along to get along” party members.
Shut it down, or we shut YOU down.
Ok Capn, your Dems have shut it down. Now let’s wait and see what happens next.
Can you say, “New Funding Bill, January 2008″?
Ummm Hillary wasnt ever a member of the Southern Baptist Convention… She has always been a Methodist — In fact they are both Methodists now… AME Methodists… :-)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80% increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam war, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42% jump since last year.
According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.
The increase comes as the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military leaders — including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey — have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. And efforts are underway to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-11-16-military-deserters_N.htm
So true Tom Paine. Reminds me all too well of the many VietVets I knew who got shafted in the 70s.
There shouldn’t be six mo. tours for any branch, if they get sent over there they should all be expected to do tours of the same length.
I hope all the deserters get granted amnesty.
A holy man had a conversation with the Lord one day and said, ‘Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.’
The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished.
They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to
their arms and each found it impossible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.
The Lord said,’You have seen Hell.’
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one.
There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water.
The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The holy man said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It is simple,’ said the Lord. ‘It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.’
Thanks for that story, Chas.
I heard it long ago but hadn’t thought about it for years.
It really sums things up, doesn’t it.
We all float or sink in one boat.
The CONs haven’t figured that out yet and never will as long as they keep listening to Rush O’Hannity.
Supporting the troops?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/15/wounded.marine/index.html
Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel was attacked by a suicide bomber in Iraq. He lost part of his skull, his face was badly scarred and a portion of his brain was damaged. But when he returned home, the VA rejected his brain damage claim.
Posted by: Ben | November 16, 2007 at 09:53 AM
Somehow Ben, this story smells of B.S.
First, if the Sgt was injured while in combat and active duty, he would have been retired medically from the Marine Corp. Which means he would have gotten a percentage of his Basic Military Pay.
Secondly, from the article:
“Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.”
That adds up to 140 percent, which means that the Sergeant would have been compensated for 100 percent of his Basic Military pay, plus another 40 percent.
It’s good he fought for the brain trauma. I imagine what happened is that he didn’t not schedule with VA Doctors for an appointment before his medical board and the the 10 percent “brain trauma” was based solely on the Active Duty Military findings.
So let’s recap. The Sergeant now gets 100 percent for brain trauma injury, 60 percent for left arm amputation and 80 percent for facial trauma injury. That adds up to 240 percent, which is 140 percent above his retired medical pay.
If the Sergeant was at least an E-5, he would get 2171.40 from the Marines and and additional 3039.96 from VA per month. 5211.36 per month is hardly paupers pay. That’s what he would have gotten before.
After the VA recalculation, he will be receiving with his active duty basic pay 7382.76 per month.
The story portrayed by the CNN, acted as he was receiving nothing.
It’s very sad that the young Sergeant was so tragically injured. I pray that he gets better from the treatment offered via the medical system of the Marines and the VA.
Kansas, I the problem is that wounded vets shouldn’t have to “Fight” to get their benefits
Kansas, I the problem is that wounded vets shouldn’t have to “Fight” to get their benefits
Posted by: Rev Jim | November 16, 2007 at 12:23 PM
I don’t disagree with that. It does happen though and there is plenty of help around to help the wounded vet appeal the decision if you think it was under rated.
I have a relative who received brain trauma injury from this third tour in Iraq. He had some help going through the process including some advice from me on how to carefully walk the ladder of the VA claims.
Unfortunately with bureaucracies, the days of “sign here” are over and one must do their best to get their claims answered. If not, there could be some things looked over as it appears that has happened in the case of the young Marine Sergeant.
This is not unlike any claim for injury regardless of the cause. It requires knowledgeable application and perseverance. If one is alone and needs help, there is plenty of help to be had. There are VFW and American Legion volunteers who know the ropes of the VA system and will help any VA recipient for free.
I utilized the services of a VFW rep as I wasn’t “feeling” well when I left active duty and knew my fuzzy approach to the pile of paperwork wouldn’t work. (btw, one applies for VA before they are released from Active Duty.)
What I was knocking was the reporting by CNN that this Marine was somehow abandoned and left out in the streets.
Vets are very close knit usually and will help each other. I get advice from vets and give advice to younger vets all time. It’s the most effective way to understand how the piles of paperwork in the VA bureaucracies work.
‘Climate change report to warn of potentially ‘irreversible’ impacts’
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iggsAV8wEXjxCt-QucSew1khh_oQ
“Less than three weeks before a crucial conference on climate change, UN experts agreed Friday on a draft report that warns global warming may have far-reaching and irreversible consequences….The IPCC experts agreed that the rise in Earth’s temperature observed in the past few decades was principally due to human causes, not natural ones, as “climate sceptics” often aver.”More at link.
http://www.americablog.com/2007/11/breaking-reid-shut-downs-bush-recess.html
Give ‘em hell, Harry Reid. No more sucker punching the Dems . . .
REID MOVES TO FORESTALL RECESS APPOINTMENTS BY THE CHIMP-IN-CHARGE
The Senate will be coming in for pro-forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments.
My hope is that this will prompt the President to see that it is our mutual interests for the nominations process to get back on track.
While an election year looms, significant progress can still be made on nominations.
I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me half way.
But that progress can’t be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions.
As Democratic leader, I recommend nominees to the President for many important commissions like the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
These independent agencies are required by law to have Democratic representation.
As a result, the President has a statutory obligation to honor my recommendations and move on them in good faith.
. . . the administration has been stalling progress on Democratic appointments.
PM,
Kids don’t have to go into space to learn about planets.
But they can look through telescopes: “Wow! I see Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s Red Spot, just like in our classroom poster. Mr. Smith, are those bright dots next to Jupiter moons?”
They can assemble Estes rocket kits, and get a reality sense of what happens at Cape Canaveral.
This is how you inspire kids in science.
Is it expensive? Not really. The Afton observatory is a public-owned facility. Any school can reserve an early evening viewing. We have football and basketball games at night. Enlist some parents to chaparone. It’s doable.
Rockets aren’t free, but they’re not expensive. An Alpha starter rocket + launch-pad kit costs $20 through online discount sellers. The launch pad components can be used for a decade. That’s $2 / year. Rockets cost $10.
So with 1 rocket for 4 kids, the total cost is $4.50 per student.
You can have parent-donation drives. If you get enough parents supporting this with $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 donations every year, you can accrue enough money to do some great science in school.
Science DOES REQUIRE READING, and lectures, and demonstrations by teachers. But a consensus has emerged that about 20-25% of grades 5-12 science classroom time–essentially 2-3 periods every 2 weeks, must be devoted to guided-inquiry hands on projects in order for science comprehension to occur.
This isn’t all that much time. In specialized public residential math and science 11th-12th grade academies in Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and elsewhere, as well as science-focused 9th-12th day schools like Bronx High School of Science and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, students routinely spend at least 6 hours a week–a full day’s equivalent, and often more– doing labs and school-sponsored hands-on research projects.
Jefferson looks awful to a naive observer. It has a ghetto-school ambience with chipped-paint walls and holes in ceilings from tiles that fell out, broke on the floor and weren’t replaced. But TJ gets money for science equipment, including private benefactors. Somebody even donated an old Cray computer to a programming contest that Jefferson students won. It’s the only supercomputer in the world on a high school campus.
Every one at TJ would love a new building, but science-passionate teachers (including Ph.D. scientists) and students have no desire to transfer to spiffy-maintained suburban schools with traditional read-much / do-little “science” curriculums.
Most Wichitans don’t understand science or scientists. If somebody said to you, “You’ll be working in this basement room,” you’d say, UGGH. But a scientist is happy as a clam, as long as his or her quarters have the equipment needed to do research. Would a social scientist be happy with a basement office? Not so much.
In the spoon story, did the second group cooperate voluntarily, or was it through government coercion?
OhmyGosh!
MPS DID take his kids to prostitutes.
Paul KrugmanOp-Ed ColumnistPlayed for a Sucker
Lately, Barack Obama has been saying that major action is needed to avert what he keeps calling a “crisis” in Social Security — most recently in an interview with The National Journal. Progressives who fought hard and successfully against the Bush administration’s attempt to panic America into privatizing the New Deal’s crown jewel are outraged, and rightly so.
But Mr. Obama’s Social Security mistake was, in fact, exactly what you’d expect from a candidate who promises to transcend partisanship in an age when that’s neither possible nor desirable.
To understand the nature of Mr. Obama’s mistake, you need to know something about the special role of Social Security in American political discourse.
Inside the Beltway, doomsaying about Social Security — declaring that the program as we know it can’t survive the onslaught of retiring baby boomers — is regarded as a sort of badge of seriousness, a way of showing how statesmanlike and tough-minded you are.
…
But the “everyone” who knows that Social Security is doomed doesn’t include anyone who actually understands the numbers. In fact, the whole Beltway obsession with the fiscal burden of an aging population is misguided.
…
How has conventional wisdom gotten this so wrong? Well, in large part it’s the result of decades of scare-mongering about Social Security’s future from conservative ideologues, whose ultimate goal is to undermine the program.
…
Fortunately, the scare tactics failed. Democrats in Congress stood their ground; progressive analysts debunked, one after another, the phony arguments of the privatizers; and the public made it clear that it wants to preserve a basic safety net for retired Americans.
That should have been that. But what Jonathan Chait of The New Republic calls “entitlement hysteria” never seems to die. In October, The Washington Post published an editorial castigating Hillary Clinton for, um, not being panicky about Social Security — and as we’ve seen, nonsense like the claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme seems to be back in vogue.
Which brings us back to Mr. Obama. Why would he, in effect, play along with this new round of scare-mongering and devalue one of the great progressive victories of the Bush years?
I don’t believe Mr. Obama is a closet privatizer. He is, however, someone who keeps insisting that he can transcend the partisanship of our times — and in this case, that turned him into a sucker.
Mr. Obama wanted a way to distinguish himself from Hillary Clinton — and for Mr. Obama, who has said that the reason “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions” is that “politics has become so bitter and partisan,” joining in the attack on Senator Clinton’s Social Security position must have seemed like a golden opportunity to sound forceful yet bipartisan.
…
We all wish that American politics weren’t so bitter and partisan. But if you try to find common ground where none exists — which is the case for many issues today — you end up being played for a fool. And that’s what has just happened to Mr. Obama.
In the spoon story, did the second group cooperate voluntarily, or was it through government coercion?
Posted by: unknown poster | November 16, 2007 at 01:50 PM
Either / or fallacy, Graffitti Troll.
They VOLUNTARILY formed a government and agreed to help each other.
Too bad we cant teach that kind of cooperation here, without being accused of being socialist!! LOL The story says thats Heaven… Guess some on the Blog dont want that kind of heaven!
Spoon story…
Too bad there won’t be soup or spoons in Hell. There will be eternal torment with spiritual pain one cannot even fathom.
There will be eternal torment with spiritual pain one cannot even fathom.Posted by: Kansas | November 16, 2007 at 02:27 PM
My vision of hell is eternity with nothing to read by posts such as the above.
…meant to say “BESIDES posts such as the above.”
In the Spoon story, who makes the soup, the spoons, the chairs, the clothes, the heating and cooling, and the room?
And who makes these people go into the room?
My vision of hell is eternity with nothing to read by posts such as the above.
Posted by: Tom | November 16, 2007 at 02:29 PM
…meant to say “BESIDES posts such as the above.”
Posted by: Tom | November 16, 2007 at 02:30 PM
You were right the first time. :)
If the Islamic fanatics thought that in heaven, they would be sitting around in a room feeding soup to each other, we’d likely have fewer terrorist attacks.
Dem War Games Fail Again
Democrats’ Plan to Tie War Funding to Troop Withdrawal FailsFriday, November 16, 2007
WASHINGTON — Democrats failed to bring combat troops home from Iraq by December 2008 and place more restrictions on the administration’s interrogation program through a $50 billion war-funding measure.
The Senate also blocked a Republican countermeasure, but FOX News has learned that Democratic leaders in the Senate have left the door open to reconsidering the measures before the year is out as military leaders are warning of dire budgetary consequences.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he needed the money before February — when top Democrats believe — because otherwise he’ll have to start making layoff plans and other drastic budget cuts.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311918,00.html
I feel compelled to point out a serious math and science teaching deficiency. Don’t get mad at me, I’m just the messenger.
According to the State Department of Education,93% of math classes outside of Wichita are taught by “highly qualified” teachers.
http://online.ksde.org/rcard/summary/D03083134.pdf
You’ll see the figure 91.42% for the entire state. But Wichita has approximately 10% of the state’s teachers. It requires straightforward algebra to eliminate Wichita’s contribution (downward pulling in this case) to the 91.42% all-state value. So for the entire state excluding Wichita you derive 93%.
In Wichita only 76% of math classes are taught by “highly qualified” teachers.
Outside of Wichita, 90% of science classes are taught by “highly qualified” teachers.
In Wichita, 81% are.
In elementary ed, Wichita beats the rest of the state: 99% to 98%. Not surprisingly, the Superintendent, an elementary ed major and former elementary teacher, is committed to this area. And it shows.
In fine arts, Wichita is almost equal to the rest of the state:94% to 95%. Also in foreign language: 89% to 90%. Statistically, Wichita is doing as well as the rest of the state in these two fields.
Actually, let’s look at the percentage differences in all fields between Wichita and the rest of the state.
+ means Wichita beats the rest of the state.- means Wichita lags the rest of the state. The number after the +/- sign means by how much
Elementary Ed +1% (statistically = rest of state)Fine Arts -1%
Foreign Lang -1%ESL/Bilingual -3% (not a significant difference)
Science -9% (a significant difference)History/Govt -10%Special Ed -11%Engl Lang Arts -11%
Mathematics -17%
Now let’s look at vaunted East High home of the college-prep IB program, which offers far more AP-level college-creditable courses than any other Wichita public high school.
ESL/Bilingual +20% (100% vs. 80% rest of state)Special Ed +18% (significantly good for Wich)Foreign Lang +11%
Fine Arts +4% (not significantly different)Engl Lang Arts -2%
History/Govt -13% (signif. bad for WichitaMathematics -13%Science -15%
So East significantly beats the rest of the state’s average in one Regents University admission-qualifying “core subjects”– foreign language. It holds its own in English Language Arts. It is far behind in 3 of the 5 (60%) core subjects. Remember, this is Wichita’s BEST academics-focused high school. It magnetically draws National Merit Scholarship awardees, children of doctors and engineers.
Let’s look at Blue Valley North High in affluent JoCo, relative to the rest of the state.
ESL/Bilingual +18%Science +11%Mathematics +9%History/Govt +6%Fine Arts +5%Foreign Lang -3%
Special Ed -4%Engl Lang Arts -7%
BVNH statistically significantly beats the statewide highly qualified teacher led averages in every Regents University core subject area in 80% (Math, Science, Foreign Language, History and Govt) iof instances, but is lagging in English Language Arts.
Blue Valley North receives LESS FUNDING per student than Wichita East.
How about a school that has 47% black enrollment and 21% Hispanic enrollment (only 27% white enrollment) with poor, uneducated parents (most of them not having high school diplomas) , where recruiting highly qualified teachers surely must be impossible:
Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences in KCK. It offers an IB program like East High.
Science +11%Engl Lang Arts +7%History/Govt +6%Foreign Lang -2%Mathematics -3%Fine Arts -11%ESL/Bilingual N/ASpecial Ed N/A
Sumner significantly beats the state average in 3 Regents University admissions courses, and is statistically equal in 2: it doesn’t significantly lag the rest of the state in ANY core academic subject.
To capsulize, let’s now compare Sumner’s percentage of classes taught by highly qualified teachers vs. East High’s.
History/Govt +20% (100% Sumner v. 80% East)Science +14% (100% Sumner v. 76% East)Mathematics +9% (89% Sumner v. 80% East)Engl Lang Arts +9% (100% Sumner v. 91% East)
Foreign Lang -11% (89% Sumner v. 100% East)Fine Arts -15% (84% Sumner v. 99% East)
Sumner substantially beats East in 4 out of 5 Regents University admissions-qualifying core subjects.
How can this be? Wichita has a Regents University. Kansas City has a community college.
Just to summarize demographics:
African American + Hispanic students:Sumner 65.3% East 41%
White students:Sumner 27% East 43%
City’s Census 2000 median family income:KC $39,491 Wichita $49,247
Take-home lessons:
Affluent JoCo schools are more successful than Wichita in recruiting highly qualified teachers.
The state as a whole outside Wichita, mainly comprised of RURAL-serving and small-town/small-city school districts, is more successful than Wichita in recruiting highly qualified teachers.
Example: Hutchinson has 100% highly qualified instruction in every subject except mathematics 91% (-1% relative to the rest of the state, an insignificant difference, +16% over Wichita, a highly significant difference) and SpecEd (86% (+3% vs. state, +14% over Wichita). Hutchinson’s median family income is $40,094 v. Wichita’s $49,247. A small city, less affluent than Wichita runs a public education program that runs circles around Wichita.
Little Colby has 100% highly qualified teaching in EVERY FIELD. Median family income $45,127.
The poorest-demographic URBAN district in Kansas is more successful than more-affluent Wichita in recruiting highly qualified teachers.
Who is against public education? Not me. Our nation must educate our children well. Vouchers will be a very tiny part of our educational system for the foreseeable future. Maybe by 2030 they will be numerically significant, but we have two generations of kids to educate in the meantime.
This examination of public school data shows that Kansas has public schools that are committed to the principle that good teaching begins with fully-qualified teachers. These school can be found in rural and and poor urban settings.
The enemies of public education are those who have power to lead change to ensure that nearly all students have fully qualified teachers in nearly every class, but the “deciders” choose to sit on their duffs.
Mr. Brooks can take pride in Wichita schools having 99% highly qualified elementary teachers under his leadership. Yet, this is what scientists call a necessary, but not sufficient condition. Elementary ed is just the first half of K-12 education pathway. Think of a half bridge spanning over Kellogg, and left uncompleted. Is this a useful structure?
Brooks, principals, the local Board of Education, and the UTW leaders need to go to Hutchinson, and Kansas City Kansas, and figure out, “How do they get more highly qualified teachers than we recruit, even though they have less resources than we have?” If they do this, they will incite success for our community’s children. Don’t they want to do this?
‘Instigated’ Violence In Iraq, ‘90 Percent’ Reduction After WithdrawalAfter Britain partially withdrew forces from southern Iraq in September, the White House slandered its “closest ally,” claiming “British forces have performed poorly in Basra” and suggested “it’s best that they leave.”
The White House should take notice of what has happened in Basra as British troops have left. According to Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, commander of British forces in Basra, the presence of British troops instigated violence. Now, violence has reportedly dropped to one-tenth that of earlier levels:
The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad’s Green Zone.
“We thought, ‘If 90 percent of the violence is directed at us, what would happen if we stepped back?,’” Binns said.
Sectarian tensions in Basra, a predominantly Shiite city, are not as high in other parts of Iraq, but “it has seen major fighting between insurgents and coalition troops.” British Defense Secretary Des Browne observed last month:
The people of that city are no longer subject to the significant level of violence that was directed against the British forces and our allies.
In April, 12 British troops were killed in Iraq in contrast to just 1 in October. Furthermore, “British officials expected a spike in such ‘intra-militia violence’ after they pulled back from the city’s center, and were surprised to find none,” Binns said.
When announcing a further withdrawal in early October, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Basra was “calmer” since British forces handed over their base in early September. “Indeed, in the last month, there have been five indirect fire attacks on Basra Air Station compared with 87 in July,” he observed.
While the region still sees ongoing volatility, the lesson learned by the British — that they provoked violence instead of quelling it — is one that can be applied to the U.S. presence in Iraq as well.
Capn, I tried to ignore your first assinine post, but since you persist, you force me to admit you’re almost right. But wasn’t really prostitution because your wife, sister and mother gave away their services for free.
If you act in an adult manner in this forum, I’ll respond in kind. If you want to act like a teenage trash talker, you project yourself to be somebody who has seriously low self esteem, and not much intelligence. Try to close your mouth when you breath.
Do you feel better now MPS? That was one long rant. Remind us all again which school district where you are currently residing? Is it still Andover?
Bash on Winston and the BOE all you want about recruiting “highly qualified” teachers. Just leave UTW out of it. They have nothing to do with recruiting.
Heh heh
Put THIS one under “sometime’s kharma’s a bitch”
Bill O’Reilly ( and for that matter our own outlander) has been railing against the film “redacted”
Bill (and outlander) said the films producer is a traitor. Bill in his OWN words said that any American who supported the film in any way was un-American and attacking the troops. That was Monday and since.
Get this.
Last night TWO count them TWO ads for the film “redacted “appeared on FOX news DURING Billo’s time slot!!
I guess Fox news does not care where their ad revenue comes from?
Oh that reminds me.
Mark Cuban is a traitor. Boycott his NBA team.
“The O’Reilly Factor” brought to you by “Redacted” in theaters near you?
Put some ice on it outlander.
Not too nice of Billo to trash his sponsors like he did.
Redacted tells the truth. The truth is un-American. Therefore Redacted is un-American.
Boycott TRUTH!
LOL when it comes to O’Reilly, his show, Fox news and commercials, you just know there has to be a “bitch” in there somewhere! Oh wait, Coulter was on bill’s show the other night wasn’t she?How about the website that was banned from their server for having too racy of videos on their page? The topic was how News media was using sex to get and keep viewers. LOL all the clips were from Fox news and O’Reilly’s show! Yep Bill is a “cultural warrior” now you just have to figure out which cultural? Heee
Now Repuke…
We must be fair. I have not seen “Redacted” have you?
Outlander and BillO say we should not see “Redacted”.
I plan to see it IF I can. THEN I will say whether or not it seems truthful.
You must NOT see it. We must protect you from it.
WAR IS PEACE. TRUST US.
A cursory search reveals that “redacted” WILL be screened in Wichita on or after Nov. 30.
You morons can go see it. It won’t affect your view of the military. But show it overseas and see what effect that an isolated nasty incident magnified on the big screen has. Fodder for the jihad fire. There was no reason to make this film other than to trash the military and fuel hatred of the US overseas. Of course, that’s probably alright with you.
Mark Cuban is anti-American. Boycott his NBA team.
Glad to hear that brother O’Reilly is on board.
Like that un-American film Fahrenheit 911 that uses a horrible actor to portray our wonderful President.
Sacriledge!
I THINK I showed that “brother O’reilly” is not on board there outie. Or maybe he is on board but not with both oars in the water?
Outlander,
Give the liberals a week or two and they will be calling American troops terrorists.
OK MPS, I can get that more hands on learning would be great. I’m all for it. Your initial post made it sound like you wanted to do ONLY hands on experiments.
I know that it would be very hard for a family, especially a poor family, to come up with 4.50 per project though. That’s quite a bit throughout the year. Considering that our supposed FAPE isn’t even free as it is.
Nice try Nathan.
It is not the liberal side of folks that blame the troops.
Policy comes from on high. The troops just carry it out. Troops answerable only to their employer like Blackwater answer only to their employer. US troops answer to george bush.
You won’t catch me blaming any of the actions of the troops on anyone but their commander.
Oh my.
Now the brouhaha from the NOVA thread has been exported here, and I feel somewhat responsible for what I believe is an accurate description of a meltdown by MPS.
That being said, here I go about to throw fuel on the fire, because sir, I’m not letting you escape from the consequences of your behavior and what you say. Basically, I have two charges I am going to level at the doctor.
One, hypocrisy.
One of MPS’s arguments is that he is a scientist, and that those who he is arguing with are not “real” scientists. Other than the obvious fact that MPS does not really know much at all about us other than what we post on a blog, he violates his own rules.
“”The Darwinian “Descent of Man” proposal (with help from Huxley and others) theory of man evolving from apes has zero evidentiary support. The East African Rift fossil findings don’t do this in the slightest.”
I see no evidence in MPS’s background that he is an expert in paleoanthropology, osteology or cranial or post cranial reconstruction. I doubt he can recite the procedures for doing such analysis. But, that doesn’t prevent him from making a definitive statement about the “East African Rift fossils”.
However, in response to some publish, peer reviewed research I pointed out to him, this was his response:
“Okay smart guys, if you are performing interspecies chromosomal homology determinations, what procedures would you use to separate nuclear from cytoplasmic constituents, and nuclear proteins, histones, mRNA, rRNA and tRNA from DNA?”
MPS has no difficulty making definitive pronouncements about scientific fields in which, from what he has presented us with before, in depth (and actually, I differ from some of his other opponents in that I have sound SOME of his anectdotes actually interesting, and there are actually good illustrations of the scientific method in them), he has no training in.
MPS has no problem with discussing subjects that he is not professionally trained in, but then demands that his opponents have a professional level of training before they even discuss a subject.
Hypocrisy.
My second charge is more serious.
Two, MPS is a bullsh*tter. I don’t mean some guy who sits around and spins tall tales, I mean it in the sense meant by philospher Harry Frankfurt.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780691122946&itm=1
Here is what this was in response to:
MPS said: “”On DNA homologies between chimpanzees and humans, get real. If you asked creationists 40 years ago,
Do you think genetic correspondences between apes and humans will be found to be closer than between anthropoids and mice?
they would have answered yes, on the principle that anatomic correspondences are closer, and these have a genetic basis. So the homologies are evidentiarilly neutral with respect to evolution vs. creationist theory.”
That is, MPS’s argument was that because chimpanzees and humans have similar anatomies, and anatomies have a genetic basis, it would be predicted that they would be similar regardless of whether evolution or creation was the hypothesis.
Therefore, MPS made a definitive statement. He said that DNA similarities between humans and chimps are explained by similar anatomies. However, what that means is that there would be no reason for DNA sequences which do not result in shared anatomy to be similar. That is the logical inference from what MPS said.
So, here was my reply:
“The problem is, the similarities between human and ape genetic material goes beyond functional similarities, to similarities that are best described as historical. The example Ken Miller refers to in the NOVA documentary is a prime example.
“Here is a link that desribes the difference.
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html
“There is no functional (i.e., they were just made the same way) reason why the human 2nd chromosome should show evidence of fusion in comparison with other (that’s right, I said other) apes. However, evidence of such a fusion would be expected if humans shared a common ancestry with the other apes.
“By the same token, there is no functional (they were created the same way) reason why inherited evidence of retrovirus infection would appear in identical positions on the DNA of different species, but such a thing would be expected if the infection occured in a common ancestor to both species. Such homologies in retrovirus sequences exist.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254
“‘Three of the loci, HERV-KC4, HERV-KHML6.17, and RTVL-Ia, were detectable in the genomes of OWMs and hominoids, but not New World monkeys, and therefore integrated into the germ line of a common ancestor of the Old World lineages. HERV-K18, RTVL-Ha, and RTVL-Hb were found exclusively in humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, and thus are consistent with a gorilla/chimpanzee/human clade. None of the loci was detected in New World monkeys.’”
Note, MPS made a specific claim about the nature of human and chimpanzee genetic similarities. I provided direct links that contradicted that claim. That in fact, indicated that DNA similarities between humans and non-human apes extended well beyond those that result in anatomical similarities.
MPS’s response? Well, here it is again:
“Okay smart guys, if you are performing interspecies chromosomal homology determinations, what procedures would you use to separate nuclear from cytoplasmic constituents, and nuclear proteins, histones, mRNA, rRNA and tRNA from DNA?”
Followed by a longer rant about methodology.
Note the complete avoidance of the point. MPS made a specific claim concerning the reason for DNA similarities between humans and chimpanzees. I provided direct evidence that his claim was wrong. His response was to totally ignore his earlier claim and to attack the messenger with
“Well, YOU don’t know how to do it YOU don’t know how to do it YOU don’t know how to do it!”
This is, quite literally, Harry Frankfurt style bullsh*t. The concern is not to tell the truth, or for that matter to lie, or to be concerned with the validity of one’s arguments. It is say anything that comes to mind, anything to win a point, anything to win. Whether it is true is unimportant. Whether it is a lie is unimportant. Most especially, whether it is consistent with what you just said in the previous post is unimportant. Make a claim, and when confronted with information that contradicts that claim, attack the messenger as being unqualified to relay the message. After all, why be responsible for what you said when you can stay on offense.
MPS, if you have questions about the research, doctor, I suggest you take them up with Johnson and Coffin.
But MPS went further, and this I really find reprehensible.
“There has always had to be a story for why a few people are very rich and powerful, a minority are affluent, and most are poor or very poor. It was for centuries “God’s Grace Upon His Elect”, and the “Divine Right of Kings”. But the American Revolution and the French Revolution panned this. In response, there had to be something else. Ahh, Natural Selection. In the Descent of Man, Darwin explains that Africans are just less evolved than White People.
Take home lesson: today’s evolution propagandists are bleached blonds. If you look closely, you’ll see their real-color dark roots are showing.”
In case you missed it, MPS just accused myself, Apophis, Capn America, Jed, and anyone else who argues with him as being Victorian racists. That also applies to any scientist who works under the assumption that evolution, especially human evolution, is true.
And oh yes, in case you missed it, does everyone understand that MPS is now a professional historian as well?
You are in no position, sir, to be lecturing Capnamerica about maturity.
Bullsh*t.
Good night; Good luck; and God bless; whatever you conceive God to be!!
Blessings all!!
I can’t wait to to see the continuing meltdown at that excellenct post, ksag.
Wow, KSagnostic!
Some one should put that in a college textbook as an example of refutation and rebuttal.
Well done!
The BS hypocrisy you noted was exactly what I was alluding to in my “assinine” [sic] comment.
If no one is allowed to claim knowledge in MPS’s world unless he/she has direct observational experience in the scientific field, how does one teach sex ed?
Although I’m not an expert in the field of sex ed, I’m pretty sure that pairing kids up and encouraging them to “explore” on lab tables is not good pedagogy.
You were exactly right to point out that MPS shifts the ground of his argument from “here’s the evidence against evolution” to “you can’t know because you didn’t do the empirical research” whenever it suits him.
He facily ignores (or rather, refuse to acknowledge) how the same limitation he imposes on others has to apply to him as well.
There’s a hilarious scene in the movie “Thank You for Smoking” in which the main character goes to his child’s Career Day to talk about job.
He’s a lobbyist for a big tobacco company.
A little girl in the front row says, “My mommy says that smoking causes cancer.”
The lobbyist walks over and says intimidatingly, “is your mother a doctor?”
Well . . . that’s MPS.
I’m sorry fellas that you were unable to receive a solid education in science. I’m sorry that you think parroting doctrine that is fed to you is teaching science. I’m sorry that with respect to DNA homologies which any creationist 40 years ago would have predicted from anatomic homologies, that close similarities are not a proof of evolution. I’m sorry that you didn’t do well in math and failed to learn about the matter of logical fallacies, and you didn’t study statistics to understand the difference between correlation and causality, which failure of understanding you have just demonstrated.
Boy you’re so smart. Why don’t you put your brains together and get Wichita schools to employ the percentages of highly qualified math and science teachers that other districts have? You don’t have to compete with JoCo, but at least get USD 259 to the level of Kansas City Kansas, Hutchinson and Colby.
It doesn’t amazes me to witness a place that performs below average–half of communities must fill this niche, but it does amaze me to find one that is proud of this “accomplishment”.
For example read Winston Brooks’ WE commentaries over the past 5 years. Read the USD 259 website.
Where has he said to the public, “One of our most serious problems is our district’s being among the lowest performing districts in Kansas in highly qualified teacher employment, especially in math and science, which is a critical deficiency because Wichita’s cornerstone industry, aviation, is math and science intensive?”
Has UTW publicly reported, “We have too many teachers who are not highly qualified, and we’re giving them two years to become highly qualified, or they must be let go?” Highly qualified basically breaks down to bachelor’s degree, and demonstrated expertise in one’s classroom field.
In truth “highly qualified” is typical pub ed inflation, like today’s classroom “A-’s” that used to be “B’s” 40 years ago. It’s an attempt to avoid the reality of “qualified” vs. “unqualified”. But if you are not “highly qualified”, the reality is you’re unqualified, lacking subject knowledge in what you teach.
We know what the problem is, Apophis, ksag, Capn, don’t we? There are plenty of people who have bachelor’s degrees and subject expertise out there. But they want to be fairly compensated for this, either through more money than the unqualified teachers find acceptable, or else operational conditions that allow them to teach well what they know, that the unqualified teachers do not require.
You can’t be a science teacher without working experience doing science. Take a woodshop or autoshop teacher who hasn’t been a carpenter or auto mechanic. That’s an oxymoron. If you had working experience doing science, then you’d be firing off letters to WE protesting $300 science class materials budgets for making it impossible for you to convey the spirit of science to your students.
Every scientist will tell you there is a spirit underlying what they do. It’s a motivating force that they don’t understand, but that connects with them.
I’m not a scientists because I have advanced degrees that you don’t have , I’m a scientist because that peculiar spirit resonated within me a very long time ago, and I pursued opportunities that fed my desire to deepen my understanding.
How dumb do you think I am? I know I could promote natural selection, use my knowledge that you don’t possess, and you’d slavishly let me be your guru. You would say to “the other side,” in WEBLOG “Dr. S says this, and he’s brilliant and has scientific credentials you dimwits don’t have.”
It would be a walk in the park to do this. Why don’t I? Because it would require intellectual dishonesty. Evolutionary science is not a scientifically rigorous field.
Thomas Hunt Morgan is lionized for laying a genetics-based connection to evolution. But his research, which demonstrated intra-species mutation, never laid a foundation for mutation causing biogenesis from simple chemicals, bacteria becoming complex organisms, nor apes mutating into humans.
Paleontologic explorations cannot prove any of the aforegoing. The only convincing proof is laboratory-accelerated recreations, which nobody has come close to doing. It’s not enough to say, “We have found very close genetic homologies between species A and species B.” What you have to do is transform species A into species B through experiment, and then show natural mechanisms for this to have occurred over a greater period of time.
For biogenesis, you have to do it in the lab. A lot of people have tried, including Sir Francis Crick. All of them have failed thus far.
One of the things IDers propose is that school science courses DO NOT TEACH ID, but DISCLOSE TO STUDENTS THE PROBLEMS IN EVOLUTIONARY THEORY.
That’s real science. Are 13-15 year olds “too young and inexperienced” to tackle these in their brains? Maybe, but as Apophis would admit, if he took the time to think about it, when you’re just passing on experts’ opinions, that’s not cultivating SCIENTIFIC THINKING.
If you don’t get this, it’s because nobody ever invited you to explore the deeper levels of science, the BASIS OF THE THEORIES of science, which are PHILOSOPHICAL.
MPS……..exactly WHO ARE YOU to decide exactly what “cultivating SCIENTIFIC THINKING” really is? Face it guy, your opinion really means nothing. Batter and bash all you want, because that is all it is. You are obviously nothing but words, no action,
You have proven this past week exactly how irrelevent you really are on this blog.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5756/1878
EVOLUTION IN ACTION
From Science Mag
“Probing how species split2005 was also a standout year for researchers studying the emergence of new species, or speciation. A new species can form when populations of an existing species begin to adapt in different ways and eventually stop interbreeding. It’s easy to see how that can happen when populations wind up on opposite sides of oceans or mountain ranges, for example. But sometimes a single, contiguous population splits into two. Evolutionary theory predicts that this splitting begins when some individuals in a population stop mating with others, but empirical evidence has been scanty. This year field biologists recorded compelling examples of that process, some of which featured surprisingly rapid evolution in organisms’ shape and behavior.
For example, birds called European blackcaps sharing breeding grounds in southern Germany and Austria are going their own ways–literally and figuratively. Sightings over the decades have shown that ever more of these warblers migrate to northerly grounds in the winter rather than heading south. Isotopic data revealed that northerly migrants reach the common breeding ground earlier and mate with one another before southerly migrants arrive. This difference in timing may one day drive the two populations to become two species
Two races of European corn borers sharing the same field may also be splitting up. The caterpillars have come to prefer different plants as they grow–one sticks to corn, and the other eats hops and mugwort–and they emit different pheromones, ensuring that they attract only their own kind.
Biologists have also predicted that these kinds of behavioral traits may keep incipient species separate even when geographically isolated populations somehow wind up back in the same place. Again, examples have been few. But this year, researchers found that simple differences in male wing color, plus rapid changes in the numbers of chromosomes, were enough to maintain separate identities in reunited species of butterflies, and that Hawaiian crickets needed only unique songs to stay separate. In each case, the number of species observed today suggests that these traits have also led to rapid speciation, at a rate previously seen only in African cichlids.
Other researchers have looked within animals’ genomes to analyze adaptation at the genetic level. In various places in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, marine stickleback fish were scattered among landlocked lakes as the last Ice Age ended. Today, their descendants have evolved into dozens of different species, but each has independently lost the armor plates needed for protection from marine predators. Researchers expected that the gene responsible would vary from lake to lake. Instead, they found that each group of stranded sticklebacks had lost its armor by the same mechanism: a rare DNA defect affecting a signaling molecule involved in the development of dermal bones and teeth. That single preexisting variant–rare in the open ocean–allowed the fish to adapt rapidly to a new environment.
As for MPS’s idiotic and anti-intellectual assertion that “evolution has no predictive or practical value,” the source points out the following–
To your healthSuch evolutionary breakthroughs are not just ivory-tower exercises; they hold huge promise for improving human well-being. Take the chimpanzee genome. Humans are highly susceptible to AIDS, coronary heart disease, chronic viral hepatitis, and malignant malarial infections; chimps aren’t. Studying the differences between our species will help pin down the genetic aspects of many such diseases. As for the HapMap, its aims are explicitly biomedical: to speed the search for genes involved in complex diseases such as diabetes. Researchers have already used it to home in on a gene for agerelated macular degeneration.
And in 2005, researchers stepped up to help defend against one of the world’s most urgent biomedical threats: avian influenza. In October, molecular biologists used tissue from a body that had been frozen in the Alaskan permafrost for almost a century to sequence the three unknown genes from the 1918 flu virus–the cause of the epidemic that killed 20 million to 50 million people. Most deadly flu strains emerge when an animal virus combines with an existing human virus. After studying the genetic data, however, virologists concluded that the 1918 virus started out as a pure avian strain. A handful of mutations had enabled it to easily infect human hosts. The possible evolution of such an infectious ability in the bird flu now winging its way around the world is why officials worry about a pandemic today.
in 1973, a married pair of evolutionary biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, now at Princeton University, began a study of Darwin’s process in Darwin’s islands, the Galápagos, watching Darwin’s finches. At first, they assumed that they would have to infer the history of evolution in the islands from the distribution of the various finch species, varieties, and populations across the archipelago. That is pretty much what Darwin had done, in broad strokes, after the Beagle’s five-week survey of the islands in 1835. But the Grants soon discovered that at their main study site, a tiny desert island called Daphne Major, near the center of the archipelago, the finches were evolving rapidly. Conditions on the island swung wildly back and forth from wet years to dry years, and finches on Daphne adapted to each swing, from generation to generation. With the help of a series of graduate students, the Grants began to spend a good part of every year on Daphne, watching evolution in action as it shaped and reshaped the finches’ beaks.
At the same time, a few biologists began making similar discoveries elsewhere in the world. One of them was John A. Endler, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studied Trinidadian guppies. In 1986 Endler published a little book called Natural Selection in the Wild, in which he collected and reviewed all of the studies of evolution in action that had been published to that date. Dozens of new field projects were in progress. Biologists finally began to realize that Darwin had been too modest. Evolution by natural selection can happen rapidly enough to watch.
Now the field is exploding. More than 250 people around the world are observing and documenting evolution, not only in finches and guppies, but also in aphids, flies, grayling, monkeyflowers, salmon, and sticklebacks. Some workers are even documenting pairs of species—symbiotic insects and plants—that have recently found each other, and observing the pairs as they drift off into their own world
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/1105/1105_feature3.html
Same old trick.
The observable change within a species known as Natural Selection is called Evolution and used as proof for the other 90% of the theory….
Sorry, but Natural Selection is only one small part of Evolutionary theory.
It is not proof of Evolution.
Nathan: the earth is 8-10 thousand years old.
Every scientist in the world: the earth is 5 billion years old.
Who do you think is right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZLGHy2WS_M&eurl=http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/18/tony-benn-on-the-revolutionary-notion-of-democracy/