US House Approves Over $300 Million For Science Agencies 176
sciencehabit notes that the US House of Representatives has allotted an additional $337.5 million in budget increases divided amongst four science agencies. NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science will each receive an additional $62.5 million, and the National Institutes of Health will receive $150 million. The money will help to offset the decision to reduce budget increases earlier this year. Early plans for the money include the training of new math and science teachers, and another reprieve for FermiLab's financial troubles.
$300 million sounds impressive (Score:5, Interesting)
But it's not. I'm on grants totalling over $1 million myself. If we could avoid land wars in Asia (so presciently predicted by Wallace Shawn in _The_Princess_Bride_), we could have billions to spend on science.
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, when you consider that the DOD unclassified budget is around $408 Billion, appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan are another ~$170 Billion and DOD classified projects are another ~$35 Billion.... in comparison, $300 Million is a *tiny* drop in the bucket. But $300 million might help some labs to avoid closing down...
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, when you consider that the DOD unclassified budget is around $408 Billion, appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan are another ~$170 Billion and DOD classified projects are another ~$35 Billion.... in comparison, $300 Million is a *tiny* drop in the bucket. But $300 million might help some labs to avoid closing down...
Yes, its hard to imagine not killing others for some reason or another; we can do it. Seriously think about just chilling back and watching huge amounts of your cash go somewhere productive.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not like there is a machine where you put money it and it outputs scientific truths on the other side. Science is not about throwing lots of money at once - it's a long distance thing. You need skilled manpower, you need equipment (that has to be produced) etc. etc.
DO increase the budget, use billions to do that, but don't expe
Re: (Score:2)
I tell you, if you h
Re: (Score:2)
Some people obviously still think this is true. After a certain point you run out of qualified people and the excess money goes towards "job creation", administration, marketing and management empire-building. Of course, all these expenses do absolutely nothing for productivity and actually hinder those doing real work.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Extrapolating...extrapolating...okay, we've jumped from 20% efficiency of solar cells to over 40% in the last 5 years or so with just a couple of million dollars being spent by companies in research. I'd say we could easily hit the "magic" 80% mark with just a fraction of that money, which would completely eliminate the need for any other kind of energy source AND have enough money left over to rebuild the infrastructure
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the kind of thinking that gets us into trouble.
Imagine that funding is like water, and it flows through various pipes. Now imagine users of funding for some particular purpose are hooked up through those pipes through small diameters hookups, because they are organized around the assumption that they have to make do with, say, 100 gallons/day. Their interior plumbing is all designed around using on that order of water a day.
Now, you tell them, "I'm going to give you 10,000 gallons per day, for t
Re: (Score:2)
www.pipingdesign.org
www.pipingdesign.com
Right, because that's what the Constitution says (Score:2)
I'd rather see my tax dollars go where Article I says they are supposed to, not where modern day liberals would like. Besides, the private sector is a hell of a lot more efficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Article 1, eh? Read section 8, clause 8. It says that Congress is allowed to "Promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts."
(Incidentally, it also goes on to provide an example of a way Congress might accomplish that -- creating copyright and patent monopolies -- but it doesn't say that that's the only way in which Congress might Promote Progress.)
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:4, Interesting)
Except we don't need it. It's mostly for show. We have enough nuclear firepower to wipe the floor with any real nation that decided to oppose us. Are you seriously suggesting that if we engaged in a war where aircraft carriers were truly necessary and -under threat- that we would hold off on the nukes? We'd have to face an actual military foe for that.
As nice as it is that we can just roll over whatever dinky (or even not-so-dinky) country in the world because our military spending is through the roof, it isn't even necessary. We don't need more soldiers, we need smarter, better ones. We need soldiers that understand the role they are in, and commanders that are going to lead them by example in doing so. I mean no slight to our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other conflicts past and current. Rather, the enemy has changed, and our military has not. We still have overwhelming firepower, for what? We don't need to take out a city, we need to find the -one guy- who wants revenge, who has some political or religious vendetta against us.
Instead we send boys off to their death, to risk life and limb against an uncertain adversary. And for what? They're so terrified out there because they well and truly never know when their life will end abruptly that they are close to snapping. We have soldiers coming out and bravely admitting some of the criminal activities that are occurring with the complicit support of their commanders. Drop weapons are placed on the bodies of innocent civilians to hide the fact that they were killed merely because they appeared threatening. Mosques are shot at out of revenge, not because of apparent threat. These boys and girls we are sending are ill-prepared to deal with the fact that people around them are dying for no reason whatsoever in a pointless ground conflict that has no apparent end.
I'd be terrified too. I'd probably want revenge too if some faceless Arab took my friend's life suddenly and with the utmost cowardice through the use of something like an IED. Every single day I'd have to decide whether or not I think that guy walking towards me might be wearing an explosive belt. Every day I'd have to live with the fact that I don't know the people around me, I can't understand them, and that my target is going to look exactly like a civilian.
Offense is not what we need, we need strategic and tactical advantage. We don't have it. We're fighting Joe Arab.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except we don't need it. It's mostly for show. We have enough nuclear firepower to wipe the floor with any real nation that decided to oppose us. Are you seriously suggesting that if we engaged in a war where aircraft carriers were truly necessary and -under threat- that we would hold off on the nukes? We'd have to face an actual military foe for that.
You didn't ask me, but yes, the US would hold off on the nukes when we're fighting someone with similar nuclear weapon firepower. 20 years ago the USSR had that power. 20 years from now there probably be other nuclear powers. It's not static.
I'd be terrified too. I'd probably want revenge too if some faceless Arab took my friend's life suddenly and with the utmost cowardice through the use of something like an IED. Every single day I'd have to decide whether or not I think that guy walking towards me might be wearing an explosive belt. Every day I'd have to live with the fact that I don't know the people around me, I can't understand them, and that my target is going to look exactly like a civilian.
The classic projection argument. Pretend it's something you'd do, and that somehow makes the argument true. Then again, maybe you would do this, which means that it's a good thing you aren't serving in the US military.
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't ask me, but yes, the US would hold off on the nukes when we're fighting someone with similar nuclear weapon firepower. 20 years ago the USSR had that power. 20 years from now there probably be other nuclear powers. It's not static.
The USA and USSR where never actively in conflict. Only covert actions were taken, if the USA or USSR had launched a full on conventional war then I would not be typing this right now and humanity would be completely over.
Nah, just a good portion of humanity. We have a pretty good understanding of what a nuclear weapon does. The USSR even decided (back in the late 60's) it could win a large nuclear war. The circumstances never arose though (it remained behind the US in nuclear and convention power).
The classic projection argument. Pretend it's something you'd do, and that somehow makes the argument true. Then again, maybe you would do this, which means that it's a good thing you aren't serving in the US military.
That's absurd anybody put into a situation where their life is at stake constantly from an enemy they do not understand, from an enemy who hates them more than they value their own life, would clearly be extremely scared and would do anything necessary to survive.
That's not the situation in Iraq. The enemy is not hard to understand. Only some of the "enemy" (mostly the foreign recruits in Al Qaeda) commit suicide bombings and they're running low on allies. Most of the attacks are asso
Re: (Score:2)
Except we don't need it. It's mostly for show. We have enough nuclear firepower to wipe the floor with any real nation that decided to oppose us. Are you seriously suggesting that if we engaged in a war where aircraft carriers were truly necessary and -under threat- that we would hold off on the nukes? We'd have to face an actual military foe for that.
Aircraft carriers are used to launch aircraft, which are used to drop bombs, which are used to neutralize threats that are located in a place where sending in ground troops is either unacceptably dangerous or impractical. Do you think that you have no enemies in such locations?
You seem to think that only large, nuclear-armed states can hurt you.
Re: (Score:2)
...which is true! Name a single instance in the last 50 years where a small, non-nuclear-armed country has hurt people within any of the 50 United States. I dare you.
Re: (Score:2)
How about this one? [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
That wasn't by a "small, non-nuclear-armed country." Try again.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it was by a large, nuclear state? Your argument was that the US would only ever have to fight large, nuclear states. Here is an example of where a small, well-organized group succeeded in performing a very high-profile operation on some of the US most valuable targets.
Note that I myself am not convinced that Al-Queda is to blame.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it was by a criminal organization not connected to any state at all.
No, my argument was that, of the states that the US might fight, only the large nuclear ones would have a chance of hurting people within the U.S. Entities which are not states are entirely different, and not included in my argument.
Of course, the actual point I'm getting at here is that the military is designed to
Re: (Score:2)
No, it was by a criminal organization not connected to any state at all.
Drop the term 'criminal' and I'm inclined to agree.
No, my argument was that, of the states that the US might fight, only the large nuclear ones would have a chance of hurting people within the U.S. Entities which are not states are entirely different, and not included in my argument.
Why do you suppose that a small non-state organization could hurt the US, but a state could not? Does something magical happen when one attains statehood that they could not do, which they could when they were a small organization?
Of course, the actual point I'm getting at here is that the military is designed to engage in well-defined combat with other states. It is not appropriate for use against non-state entities; we would likely be better off handling "terrorism" with the CIA or something.
I agree that the US, and most other, militaries are designed to fight standing armies. Most of the international treaties that the US is party too regarding warfare assume the situation of one or more standing armies fighting o
Re: (Score:2)
You. Fail. Miserably.
Re: (Score:2)
We can? Then why is it we're still in Iraq five years after the mission's been accomplished? Air support is the best way to protect ground troops and you need aircraft carriers to get them to places like Iraq.
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The argument that oil is the reason that we went in to Iraq keeps comming up, but it is a bit rediculoius. Before the war the West was the one that prevented Iraq from selling oil (except the limited amount in the "oild for food" program). Before that Iraq was happy to sell it to us. And now Iraq is a net importer of oil, since all the infrastructure was hevily damaged in the fighting (both the old-style war, and the insugency). And that sort of damage was completely predictable (in fact the militaty comman
Re: (Score:2)
Without oil, the US and the middle east would have little to do with each other in the first place. And without oil wealth, radical Islam wouldn't have any resources to support international terrorism even if they still wanted to.
No, I'm not really saying we're as far-gone as imperial Japan, but the invasion of Iraq was simply not justified.
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, because we've come to realize that simply attacking and destroying the military bases without hitting the schools next to them is just as effective as blowing up everyone and letting "god" sort 'em out.
4000 or so (i haven't been keeping up) in Iraq in 5 years, and people think that's an unacceptably high loss.
One is an unacceptable loss in this war since we're only doing it so Gee, Dubya can finally feel like he's earned his father's approval after being a loser fuckup all of his life.
It's also nice that it;s not important enough for you to "keep up with", but important enough for you to try and justify. Perhaps if your family contained one of the 4415 (the last known name we have is a 21 year old kid named Jason Cox from Elyria, OH) soldiers, 435 contractors or the unknown tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of Iraqis killed you'd pay more attention?
The problem in Iraq isn't military, its political, and its not in Iraq, its on the cable news.
No, it's that we let the clueless and ignorant vote and we end up with people like Gee, Dubya.
Re: (Score:2)
I was medically disqualified from the service myself, even after several attempts to get a waiver (i'm allergic to dogs, they say i have asthma). I know a couple of guys who died, some that were wounded, some that got out more or less OK. My sister just married a long-time family friend last week. He's a marine and is going to Iraq in August, so don't think I don't care.
I'm also not trying to justify it. I'm just saying that if we were ACTUALLY FIGHTING A WAR instead of trying to play Team America: Worl
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't a matter of not being allowed to win, it's because the idea of winning has changed from "militarily crush the opposition."
Re: (Score:2)
We crushed Germany and Japan and still manage to sell them Coca-Cola. Until you see the enemy driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women, how else are you going to know they know they got their ass kicked?
Re: (Score:2)
In WW2, if Germans were using a 1000-year-old cathedral tower for observation or sniping, we blew it up. For some reason, we don't shoot at mosques.
In WW2, we carpet bombed cities, and eventually just nuked the Japanese. Now we use "smart bombs" and are affraid of "collateral damage."
Ya ever think that maybe we learn a thing or two from the horrific events of WW2?
Re: (Score:2)
In WW2, those countries you mention had actually attacked us before we invaded the. Iraq didn't!
In other words, the problem is not that we should not be restricting ourselves from certain targets, it's that we shouldn't have started fighting at all in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless everyone who has a say in that is crazy or a moron, then yes, you would. The second you launch nukes, you drag the rest of the world into the war.
Re: (Score:2)
You especially lost when you started saying that the soldiers are scared and crying in a corner cause they might die. We've lost what, 4000 or so in 4 years? That number is so fucking small if any of those soldiers are scared of dieing they need to get the shit kicked out of them. You are more likely to get hit by a car crossing the street than a soldier in Iraq is to get killed or injured.
Re: (Score:2)
Says the guy who has clearly never gotten closer to actual combat than playing Halo, and instead probably spends most of his time wacking off in his mother's basement.
Re: (Score:2)
Your ignorance is embarrassing. The average US soldier today has a better mix of training, equipment, and access to intel and support than any in history. You should stop listening to Jon Carray and his "ounly damb pplz becum suljers" rants.
Yes, I hear armchair generals like you spouting such nonsense on a daily basis. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Here, I'll give you an
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah - a stupider, poorly trained, and poorly organized enemy, in what's basically a humanitarian relief operation. The biggest challenge isn't in military conflicts - it's in rebuilding civil infrastructure and establishing law and order.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously, then, the only ethical course of action is not to engage in war at all in the first place! And then you've invalidated the whole rest of your argument.
That's a fallacy: for all you know, the US wouldn't have been
Re: (Score:2)
The Bush docterine has in fact, been highly successful. We have not been attacked at home again since 911. There is no getting around that fact.
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's spacious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
Re: (Score:2)
The Bush docterine has in fact, been highly successful. We have not been attacked at home again since 911. There is no getting around that fact.
This is a totally fallacious argument. It assumes that we would have been attacked had the Bush "doctrine" not been in effect. That we haven't says nothing BUT that we haven't. You'll need to demonstrate causality.
Re: (Score:2)
In the 9/11 attacks 2,998 people died and over 6,000 were injured. The world responded with a huge outpouring of support and quickly became allies in ousting the Taliban. In the Iraq war, there have been 4,102 American military deaths, and another 313 military deaths from other countries. 29,978 Americans have been injured by tally from iCasualties [icasualties.org]. Ov
Re: (Score:2)
Does that include people from the states that tried to secede? I'd be real convenient for your argument if they were no longer counted as U.S. citizens in those opinion polls...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:4, Informative)
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As an engineer for the DoD I ask, what makes you think the DoD is not spending R&D money on science and technology. I am involved in a 5 year $300 million project (unclassified)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would like to inquire exactly how you get these type of grants. I'm all ears. I'm a computer science major in college right now.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would like to inquire exactly how you get these type of grants. I'm all ears. I'm a computer science major in college right now.
Also, writing grant proposals helps.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The small company I work for goes through the http://www.sbir.gov/ [sbir.gov] program. It includes grant solicitations from DOD, NIH, and others. It can be pretty cutthroat but we've been doing okay funding R&D activities with it for almost 10 years.
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:5, Interesting)
I would like to inquire exactly how you get these type of grants. I'm all ears. I'm a computer science major in college right now.
Basically you go to the web site of a relevant funding agency like the NSF and look at their current "call for proposals". Once you find one that is relevant to what you want to do, you write a proposal detailing what you want to do, how much it will cost, and why it is important. In practice you should either have a doctorate in a relevant field or be well on the way to getting one before writing a grant. Also, it helps if you are working at university or research institute because such places have grants offices that can give you advice on how much things are likely to cost. This is important because an unreasonably high or low budget is likely to doom a grant proposal.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Go talk to a professor about doing research. They would be the ones to know. Even as an undergrad, you might be able to draw a salary working on a grant project.
Re:$300 million sounds impressive (Score:4, Interesting)
Go talk to a professor about doing research. They would be the ones to know. Even as an undergrad, you might be able to draw a salary working on a grant project.
Definitely. I'm a prof. in a math dept, my work is in mathematical biology (population ecology and epidemiology, a combination of mathematical models and computer simulation models), and I've had about 10 undergrads working with me this past year. It'll probably be going up to about 15 students, thanks to another grant I just got.
If you are a motivated undergrad, you should seek out such opportunities. When I was a student, I knocked on a lot of prof's doors looking for work. One project led to the next. Once you get a good reputation, faculty will look for ways to support you.
Re: (Score:2)
It is an increase of $300 million. The $300 million is hardly the total budget.
Re: (Score:2)
If we could avoid land wars in Asia (so presciently predicted by Wallace Shawn in _The_Princess_Bride_)
I don't recall the line (not my favorite movie) but it was a quote, not a prediction. Douglas MacArthur is frequently quoted has saying that anybody who gets the U.S. involved in a land war in Asia should have his head examined. Widely quoted during the Vietnam War. I suspect this is one of those apocryphal quotes: I can't find a direct attribution to MacArthur anywhere, and he himself commanded U.S. forces during our first big land war in Asia, Korea.
In any case, "Asia" here really refers to the Far E
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, they'd just piss it all away on something stupid and useless.
I'm torn between the fact that it's not the Federal Government's place to be subsidizing science, and the fact that it is practically the only thing the Federal Government does that has a chance of improving something.
Math and Science teachers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't that be the Department of Education's concern?
As far as I can tell, the problem with math and science teachers is that almost all of them can make more money in another profession. Teaching is crappy pay when you consider all that a science or math major has to go through to get their degree.
Re:Math and Science teachers? (Score:5, Insightful)
In America, the quality of math and science teachers is decreasing overall because of this fact. Why take a job paying such a pittance when you could take a potential lab or research job that would pay more?
This leaves us with the students who were the worst in their studies teaching. Obviously this isn't true of all teachers, it does however, seem to be a trend that is developing.
I have friends who in college had aspirations to become doctors and engineers, however after they couldn't cut it, changed their majors to education.
Two are biology teachers, one is a chemistry teacher, and the four are social studies of some variety or another.
Re: (Score:2)
This leaves us with the students who were the worst in their studies teaching. Obviously this isn't true of all teachers, it does however, seem to be a trend that is developing.
Great statistics, evidence, and argument. I'm guessing you're a teacher?
Re:Math and Science teachers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I had other options, and I have since had other offers for higher pay, but there are tangible benefits to teaching for someone who genuinely loves the subject or loves learning.
If money is your only concern, then obviously education is not a good career choice. However, teachers are not (as a rule) starving, and the pay is sufficient in most areas to maintain a decent lower middle-class lifestyle.
I had a room mate that became a highschool science (Score:4, Funny)
And ya, that's creepy.
No, it should be a local concern (Score:2)
At least if you claim to support Ron Paul.
And forcing creationism with the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Because they want it taught in science lessons. If you're going to teach science, then teach science don't teach something that hasn't gone through the wringer that is the scientific community and that has had to use the legal system to try and get into classrooms.
If these school boards want to teach their ridiculous creation myths then teach it in a religious education class, where major world religions are explained and discussed. If they don't want to teach valid scientific theories in their science clas
Re: (Score:2)
Not in science class, it isn't!
The fundamental principle of "Intelligent Design" is that it concludes, by the mere fact that we don't know how certain complex biological structures came about, that we can't possibly ever find out how they came about and therefore must have been created by God. This is exactly the opposite of the Scientific Method -- you know, that thing upon which all s
Re: (Score:2)
School districts shouldn't be taking sides and forcing religion into classrooms. A lot of schools offer religion classes, which is fine if you want to take them.
Also a lot of churches offer Sunday school, which teach all the religion you could ever want. They're perfectly free to teach children creationism in that environment if they feel like it.
Re: (Score:2)
If the US government gave a rats ass about Science they'd crush creationism once and for all. It seems like a hypocritical gesture to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars for science R&D and allowing creationism to be taught in science classes. Which is effectively sabotaging the next generation of scientists. Teach the controversy and all that crap. Isn't the expanding earth theory a viable alternative to gravity? Crystals work better for treating cancer than Chemo Therapy, sin causes Aids. It's all valid when you don't think about it.
I am not familiar with your Creationism, but I've never heard the expanding earth theory, the crystals for cancer theory, nor the sin-aids relationship theory. Is this what American schools really teach?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, in contrast to bullshit like "Intelligent Design," I think the "expanding earth" theory is useful, if only as a pedagogical exercise. (First, let me make sure we're talking about the same thing: the theory that there's no such thing as a force of gravity, but that everything in the universe is constantly increasing in size so that it seems that way.) By having students think through this theory, and find evidence to refute
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you can't really attest to anything before you were born.
If that's the case, I guess we can throw away the fields of history, astronomy, geology, and so on. Hardly; we have plenty of evidence that the world existed long before any one of us. That evidence (stuff like documents, fossils, etc) is what makes it science. If tomorrow we find evidence that suggests that dinosaurs wrote the constitution, historians and biologists alike will be wrestling each other to be the firsts to document that and turn our knowledge base upside down. And that right there is the dif
Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)
There is a lot we don't teach children. We don't teach them that the sun revolves around the earth. We don't teach them 2 + 2 = 5. We should also not teach them the fairytales of a few deranged retards that creationism is.
Science is based heavily on faith,,
It isn't. Don't fool yourself. What you might think is faith, is the gap between a model of reality and reality itself. Simplified it goes like this:
- Observe a phenomenon that you can't explain with current theory;
- Think what could/should be changed about the current model of reality (the theory) to make this fit;
- With this new model, predict some other phenomena;
- Experiment to check this;
- If there is experimental evidence, hooray! You now have a better theory! If not, go to step 2.
With this, you end up with a better theory, a better model of reality. And YES, scientist KNOW that this is not the truth, that everyday a rival theory could explain reality better, simpler or more complete. This is the scientific method. No faith required.There are always bits of evidence that don't fit our theories or models, and we have to be honest about that.
Yes, these gaps are what make good scientist go "hmmm, I wonder if...", right before they go off to do science.
Evolution isn't as obvious as people like to claim. If it is, then why did it take until 1859 for The Origin of Species to be published, which was more than 100 years after Linneaus described the systematic nature of biology?
The fact that the earth revolves around the sun isn't as obvious as people like to claim, If it is, why did it take until Galileo, which was more than thousands of years after the Greek had access to math?
The single most important handbrake on the development of human intellect has always been religion.
Re: (Score:2)
If you do an experiment, your application of the results to the material beyond which you directly observe is a leap of faith of some kind. You might simply have had a freak result. It happens a lot. You might be able to give your level of faith a p-value, or modify it based on further experiments, but it's still faith, however well documented.
You begin to understand this if you explore the different arguments that statisticians put forward for how to draw inferences from data. None of them are right,
Re: (Score:2)
With comments like this, you do nothing to help your cause; quite the contrary, a creationist could quote you as evidence that his opponents are arrogant morons who's arguments are kindergarden insults, and thus shouldn't be listened on.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to try to refute your overall claim, but the answer to your question is, it didn't. Various ancient cultures (I forget which, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it included the Mayans and I think it even included the Greeks) knew perfectly well that the Earth revolved around the Sun. It's just the ignorant
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
The best thing to do, and the best way to develop young minds is to show them all the evidence,
All the evidence supports evolution. Every last bit of it. So while I agree that "showing them all the evidence" is a great idea, that's clearly not what creationists have in mind.
describe to them all of the ideas,
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of creation myths out there, from religions past and present; if we include mythology in the category "all the ideas," then a quick summary of those myths would t
Re: (Score:2)
and then let them make up their own minds.
Indeed. They'll do that regardless, of course. But if we teach them critical thinking instead of blind faith, and evidence instead of fairy tales, then the choice they'll make is a lot more likely to be one that has some relation to reality.
Well quite. That was kind of my point, although I don't seem to have expressed it very well.
Re: (Score:2)
> There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of creation myths out there
Indeed, in Finnish mythology kalled Kalevala, the world was born from an egg of a bird. I don't know any Finnish person who would still bulieve in this story, but obviously they should teach this theory in US schools.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Evolution is a theory because it has been verified multiple times. (Selective breeding is a rather nice example.) 'Intelligent Design' is an unfalsifiable hypothesis that says all living beings were created by a being we can never hope to observe.
I suppose we'll be teaching Flat Earth Theory in geology classes next?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, you can't dismiss the issue of whether it's viewed as science or not; that's the very crux of the problem! If all the creationists wanted was to have Christian mythology taught in the same context as Greek, Norse, and whatever other kind of mythology, then we wouldn't have a problem. But they don't. They want it to b
Fiction (Score:2)
Should be noted these increases are not expected to go through. The media
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-nasa1908jun19,0,253051.story [orlandosentinel.com]
has stated they're what would get passed if the next president supported increased spending, but under the current tightwad, voters should expect everything except defense to be held at current levels.
Heaven forbid another penny pinching tightwad get elected.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Bush is hardly a tightwad, keep in mind, with one exception (stem cell bill) he never vetoed a spending bill before the Democrats took control.
Re: (Score:2)
You really need to do a better job screening the candidates in the primaries if they keep doing the opposite of what the party is after.
ITER? (Score:2)
Re:ITER? (Score:4, Informative)
No, not really.
Wait a minute. (Score:5, Funny)
They're *offsetting* *reductions* of *increases*? Well, I guess that makes sense if the decreases in reversing the upticks in reduction rates have oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.
Pork! (Score:2)
What a porkbarrel spending bill! There are much wiser and better ways to spend this money. For instance, simplify the requirements for specifying no-bid contracts, and we could easily spend 10 times as much that way.
(For the sarcasm impaired, add appropriate emoticon here.)
Wow. _Almost_ a day in Iraq (Score:2)
Must have taken some real testicles to feel they could justify that much for "mere" science.
[ABC News: Cost of the Iraq War Hits $12B/Month] [go.com]
The All or nothing problem. (Score:2)
A serious issue in Science education is the All or nothing brinkmanship put on by creationists. For example, the idea that if there is something we can't explain or don't understand. Then Science is wrong, and the Kent Hovinds' are correct. Because we make a mistake doesn't make all of science wrong, it just means we made a mistake and we'll try better next time.
But as far as I can tell, until people stop believing in Christian mythology, and thats what it is, mythology, stories, fairy tales.Then we will tu
how far will this go? (Score:2)
Because of the debacle last year, the science agencies have lots of IOUs out there.
At my University, in physics and chemistry, we're owed at least $20 million (that's two departments at one school). Until the NSF decides that they either can or can't pay us, we can't look elsewhere in the government for money. So we work on those projects for free, look for private funding, or do something else.
Piggy "Scientists" Respond (Score:2)
Not enough (Score:2)
Re:Spending that in Iraq every day? (Score:5, Informative)
In other news, $162 billion [foxnews.com] was just approved for the war in Iraq. Oh, and a few more billion for some congress people's pet projects.
<sarcasm>Good to see we have our priorities straight. Also good to see the democrats following through on their promise to stop funding the "war" now that they're the majority. I'd hate to think democrats and republicans were both equally useless.</sarcasm>
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, sorry to complain, but how is this off topic?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
NIH: A bunch of self-serving PhDs that make policies about public health then go on to corporations that benefit from those policies. The NIH has yet to do a scientific study on weight loss. (Note: combining diet /and/ exercise in a study is not scientific, as you can't tell if it was diet or exercise that produced the result.)
That's quite a bizarre statement. The NIH does really run any studies, it's a funding body. The have an entire center dedicated to funding obesity research. Here's [ajcn.org] an example of an NIH funded diet and weight loss study.
Obviously any trial of say diet and weight loss has to involve exercise as a factor to be held constant, otherwise you never will be able to separate the effects. Having said that since we know both diet and exercise affect obesity there isn't a lot of point studying them both separat
Re: (Score:2)
Dear Government,
Please stay out of my personal decisions. Thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like it was abandoned long ago. But it does prove one thing: the space race did in fact kick the US into gear and to rethink it's education system. Too bad they went from one extreme to the other, and then back again. At the risk of karma, that is typical of American politician. "Big changes!" rather than evolution of the system. Just like in software development, this leads to much unexpected breakage.
Re: (Score:2)
Enjoy your ignorance. Those of us doing useful research that private industry chooses not to fund will go on doing what we do, and people like you will go on benefiting from it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hear, hear! Basic research is just that, basic and almost impossible to draw a straight from that to some widget the proles can enjoy. Should we fund Mathematics? Gee, I don't know, most modern industry is using the results of investment in Math. How about Logic? Ever hear of computers? Quantum theory? Maybe them chips were built by elves following plans supplied by the Spaghetti Monster.
Gerry