One in four Americans is an idiot

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)
 
Randwolf said:
You mean as opposed to the fundamentalist right wing that would replace evolution with creationism? The same ideological party that would eradicate sex education from schools? The one that disavows global warming? The one that can not grasp the concept of plate tectonics? Seriously?
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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.
 
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?
 
sculptor said:
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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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.
 
wellwisher said:
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!"
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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?
 
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?
 
wellwisher said:
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.
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So, we "idiots" could not answer that question as "True"?
 
Motor Daddy said:
So you think if we went to any big city, pumped in enough money into teacher's pay and building enough classrooms to have 1 teacher for every 10 students that everyone would get smart and all would be good in the world?
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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.

How about the kids that are smart enough, but the parents beat them every night? How about the kids that grew up running the streets at 8 years old, hanging with older kids teaching them how to survive on the streets in that gang infested neighborhood? If the kid does make it through HS, where then? Back to the streets working at Micky D's?
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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.
 
wellwisher said:
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.
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This is so stupidly incorrect, I think that we have found our 1 in 4 here.
 
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.
 
PhysBang said:
This is so stupidly incorrect, I think that we have found our 1 in 4 here.
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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...
 
Magical Realist said:
"Americans are enthusiastic about the promise of science but lack basic knowledge of it, with one in four unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun, said a poll out Friday.

The survey included more than 2,200 people in the United States and was conducted by the National Science Foundation.

Nine questions about physical and biological science were on the quiz, and the average score -- 6.5 correct -- was barely a passing grade.

Just 74 percent of respondents knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun, according to the results released at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.

Fewer than half (48 percent) knew that human beings evolved from earlier species of animals.

The result of the survey, which is conducted every two years, will be included in a National Science Foundation report to President Barack Obama and US lawmakers.

One in three respondents said science should get more funding from the government.

Nearly 90 percent said the benefits of science outweigh any dangers, and about the same number expressed interest in learning about medical discoveries."---http://www.newsdaily.com/article/9f...in-4-americans-unaware-that-earth-circles-sun
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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?
 
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?
 
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
what i found interesting was that the US averaged about 61%, China averaged about 43%, and the EU averaged about 64%; all really lousy.
 
Dr_Toad said:
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?
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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.
 
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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