One in four Americans is an idiot

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Magical Realist, Feb 21, 2014.

  1. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, wait, there's always that .0000000003% that their parents have $$ and they grow up in a gated community, going to private schools, and attending Harvard. Once they get done with that, their job of CEO at Dad's buddy's company is waiting for them (not to be confused with flipping burgers at Big Boy for $7 per hour).

    So no worries for them. They earned it, though. They worked hard for that chance to have rich parents and have a good start in life. Yeah, that's it! (rolls eyes)
     
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  3. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The fundamentalists right wing has it roots in the old Democratic party of the South that was pro-division and pro-slavery. Many people in the deep South still talk about pre Civil War, as the glory days, when there was segregation and slavery. These democratic party traditions of old define who they are. They are conservative to a democratic party past.

    I lived in the south for many years and got along with everyone, so I could get people to talk about these old time Democratic Party values, which the new Democratic party pawns off as Republican at heart. The reason they vote Republican is connected to them being more self reliant and not dependents of the state. They are self sufficient democrats of old that believe in free enterprise, freedom and separation.

    The New Democratic Party, which is more northern based, is a hybrid of the Northern Republican Party of old. This party was about equality and all men are created equal. It was about the underground railroad and helping the blacks. Lincoln was a Republican and is still rated high by the blacks who, ironically, side with the party who favored slave owners. There is confusion about who is who.

    The liberal Democrats control the public education system and have changed the education system so it costs more and the standards of teachers and students have falling. It is not clear whether this is unconsciously connected to the segregation mentality of the old Democratic party. That democrat party always believed that blacks were inferior, so they may have unconsciously changed the system to create this realty; allow anyone to pass without regards to literacy competence because they are inferior. Their old Republican aspect of the new Democratic party, then cares about the problem their alter ego created, and tries to help with more money. But like the war on poverty, nothing really changes, except the cost keep going up to solve the problem their alter ego creates.

    If look at religious schools, such as Catholic schools, these cost less to implement and score higher with almost 100% literacy. Catholics were not liked in the old south. The were the Irish and Italians who settled in the North and West, or, Republican area of equality. The Catholic church supports education and science. It is the old Democratic Southern mentality that is the foundation of the fundamentalists.

    The hybrids of the modern parties, creates confusion as to who is messing up with the old Democratic party traditions the main source of the decline and division in the Union. This is in both parties, via the hybrids and tends to be more of a problem than a solution.
     
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  5. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Only an idiot would pose a theoretical question in the absolutes of "True or False"...True or False
    eg: 7. The universe began with a huge explosion. True or false?
     
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  7. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The standard model is not an explosion, but an expansion of space-time. An explosion sort of has space-time fixed with matter expanding. The standard model has space-time expanding leading the matter, which is not easy to visualize because this is not common experience.

    Interestingly, in Genesis of the Bible, the universe was formless and void; pre-singularity, the spirit of God was brooding over the deep, he said, "let there be light!"

    This is fairly close to the modern science model, even though it was written 6000 years before modern science concluded a theory that is not too far away. Genesis begins with energy (light) and not matter, which is part of the consensus theory with particles of matter forming out of energy. The bible separates the waters from the water or from light or photons come matter and anti-matter particles (waters). Not too bad for 6000 year old scientists without any tools.
     
  8. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    So God came before light and the universe, so God resided in space (volume), which is 3 dimensional distance. Since God spoke "let there be light", and then there was, light arrived after God in space. God resided in space an elapsed time before light did, so there was time before light and the universe. So there was distance and time before the universe and light.

    So things were happening before the universe began. Things were happening before God too, no? God just popped into existence in space but the universe couldn't have done that?
     
  9. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    BTW, I think we need to redo that test for the world.

    Questions:

    1. Do you think there is a white bearded dude in the sky that can speak universes into existence at will?

    2. Do you think pools kill people?

    3. Do guns kill people?

    4. Do you believe Einstein's BS?
     
  10. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    question:

    We need, or want, to turn this into an anti-religious rant? True? or False?
     
  11. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    So, we "idiots" could not answer that question as "True"?
     
  12. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I believe that the District of Columbia has higher teacher salaries and spends more per pupil than the great majority of the States, while its students' performance comes in near the bottom by most measures.

    It would also be interesting to learn what high-performing Asian school systems spend per pupil and what their class sizes are.

    Right.

    I think that there are lots of variables. Among the most important are student work ethic and respect for education. And that, to a large extent, is a function of parental support and discipline, combined with the absence of hugely disfunctional influences coming from a run-away youth peer culture.
     
  13. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    This is so stupidly incorrect, I think that we have found our 1 in 4 here.
     
  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I think that in real life, threats to education and to intellectual life are coming from both ends of the political spectrum. This thread has already covered the very real dangers posed by the religious right. But there are similar dangers emanating from the the left, including the many 'post-modernist' attacks on the tradition of scientific objectivity and on 'enlightenment' reason more generally. And unlike the creationists, who generally stand outside mainstream academia, the postmodern currents, the 'race-class-gender theories' and the 'standpoint-epistemologies' are already inside the gates, hugely influential in the contemporary humanities, and already dominate a number of departments at prestige universities. Which means that inevitably, it's finding its way into teacher education curricula and back into K-12 education. That's probably a great way to turn the country's youth into militants against racism, patriarchy, heterosexism and capitalism, but it's probably not the best way to make our students more competitive in science and mathematics.
     
  15. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    I'd have said 3 in 4 are idiots, but I live in Texas. Maybe there's an island of enlightenment somewhere where the odds aren't that poor...
     
  16. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Unsurprising; this happens every day. One of my brothers was selling his house, and got the feedback that "Hmm, yes, well I like the house, but I'm just not in love with the decor." Right at that moment, a social services team should have swooped in to confiscate passports and remove voting rights. "No, no; you don't seem to get that it's not an estate sale. No, no, I understand that you don't like the decor. You're not buying the decor, you moron. No, you're still allowed to breed. We can't really stop you doing that. You just won't be allowed a voice in the future of our nation. That's all." I've lost all respect for democracy because of fools. It's like television ratings: you know this program is a good thing because lots of people watch it? Really?
     
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Austin?
     
  18. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Compared to the rest of the state, but that's not saying much.

    I watch the drivers here so I can live a little longer, and they scare the living shit out of me: On the phone, doing make-up, reading a friggin' book! Anything but driving. I'm pretty sure they don't get any smarter once out of the vehicle, so...

    Edit: GeoffP, I share your pain. Television seems designed to remove intelligence rather than promote it, so I don't watch the monstrosity. Those who do watch are at risk of becoming idiots if they weren't when they started. Reality shows, for God's sake?
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    I doubt anyone who spends much time dealing with actual K-12 schools in the US has had serious problems confronting the rampant post-modernistic leftwing influences on their teaching methods or curricula. The religious right may stand outside "mainstream academia" ( apparently defined to exclude the large religious colleges and universities, and other major sources of new teaching hires), but they do not stand outside the school boards, faculty, PTAs, coaching staffs, and community influences of the school systems of the US.
     
  20. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    what i found interesting was that the US averaged about 61%, China averaged about 43%, and the EU averaged about 64%; all really lousy.
     
  21. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    The old man used to call it "the idiot's lantern". I can remember PBS shows, Nova, National Geographic - that was what the medium was meant for. As our economy constricts and withers, our media draws within itself, restricting its exhalations to that which will sell. (Capitalism has done us no favours there, if you'll excuse the proselytisation.) Reality shows sell. Contests and glamour sell. Sex sells. Hell sells.
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    For me the question of whether or not I believe in ghosts is hard to answer in practice - it's one of those questions in which any short answer is almost certain to be misunderstood. On the one hand, nothing "supernatural" exists; one the other hand, so many scientific types so badly underestimate the natural world - including the human mind.

    And if someone asked me whether the universe started with an explosion, yes or no, I might easily get it wrong - "Big Bang" the misnomer it was meant to be.
     

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