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Forums - General - New legal threat to teaching evolution in the US

steven787 on 12 July 2008
Soleron said:
MrBubbles said:
mrjuju said:

 

These scientists score much larger amounts of money by proclaiming this.  The more they scare, they more they get...so they make outlandish claims.  There isnt a "vast majority" btw, just another lie, like the one that all who disagree are in pay by oil companies.

 

Scientists generally do not profit from the work. They are usually employed by universities or government bodies, which are not profit-making organisations.

The "other" side, however, does have a large motivation to deny climate change - politicians don't want to pass laws that restrict companies' actions; oil and energy companies don't want to see a switch to less profitable alternatives; all companies don';t want to have to change their processes at all since change costs money.

 

If money is the argument you want to use, I would say that the deny-global-warming camp has the biggest motivation to lie.

 

 

That is just not true anymore.  Big U.S.and Western Oil companies are the biggest proponents of alternate energy because they have the infrastructure and the money to invest.  This is because if they are the early adopters to alternative energy they can still have their oligopoly/monopolistic competion while avoiding the fees they have to pay governments for drilling and pumping oil.

Boone Pickins, Exxon-Mobile, BP, etc.  have put way more money into biofuels and wind power than any hippie environmentalist.'

Edit:

 

BTW I thought I should throw you a couple links about Picken's Plan

http://www.pickensplan.com/

http://www.boonepickens.com/

I posted a bunch of data sheets about U.S. oil company investments in the global warming thread.  I don't feel like digging them up.



I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it.

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SamuelRSmith on 12 July 2008

They still teach creationism in the states? I'm in the UK, and the only way I found out about creationism is when my science teacher went on a rant about some museum in Kentucky, US that only showed creationism, and was misteaching people.



Kasz216 on 12 July 2008
SamuelRSmith said:
They still teach creationism in the states? I'm in the UK, and the only way I found out about creationism is when my science teacher went on a rant about some museum in Kentucky, US that only showed creationism, and was misteaching people.

No.  At least... I don't think they do.  Outside of... like... private schools maybe. (run by churches.)

 



steven787 on 12 July 2008

@Sam: The U.S. has always had a backwards educational system this is nothing new. It hasn't done too much damage except getting W elected twice.



I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it.

SamuelRSmith on 12 July 2008

@Kasz216: It's still up for debate though, isn't it? (Well that's how I interpeted it), and that seems... worrying.

@steven787:

Skinner: "I'm telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Abe: "Burn him!"



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PS360ForTheWin on 12 July 2008

Anyone else wonder if a group of dinosaurs left earth and have evolved into an intelligent species?

+1,000 for anyone who gets my reference



Kasz216 on 12 July 2008
SamuelRSmith said:
@Kasz216: It's still up for debate though, isn't it? (Well that's how I interpeted it), and that seems... worrying.

@steven787:

Skinner: "I'm telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Abe: "Burn him!"

Not really.

I mean... you've got some super religious people who don't believe evolution... but that's about it. The thing is... like minded people flock together and we have a multi-state system, so every once in a while a state does something crazy. So the occasional state will do something like this, but even then, there are general laws in place that stop it.

Education isn't handled by the central government. The Department of Education is just basically a waste of government that makes things harder on the individual states by trying to help. Except all they can do to "help" is to withold funds.

Each state handles it's own education system pretty much to limit things like propaganda and because it's hard to set curriculums for a country this huge from one office in DC.

Some states have really good educations, some have really poor.

Then some are like Ohio. Which has both because they've been using an illegal funding system for like 20+ years yet for some reason nobody has been forced to change it yet. (Each district pays for it's own school districts budget. Problem obviously being that means rich disctricts can afford a higher percentage tax and therefore get more funding.)



steven787 on 12 July 2008
Kasz216 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
@Kasz216: It's still up for debate though, isn't it? (Well that's how I interpeted it), and that seems... worrying.

@steven787:

Skinner: "I'm telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Abe: "Burn him!"

Not really.

I mean... you've got some super religious people who don't believe evolution... but that's about it. The thing is... like minded people flock together and we have a multi-state system, so every once in a while a state does something crazy. So the occasional state will do something like this, but even then, there are general laws in place that stop it.

Education isn't handled by the central government. The Department of Education is just basically a waste of government that makes things harder on the individual states by trying to help. Except all they can do to "help" is to withold funds.

Each state handles it's own education system pretty much to limit things like propaganda and because it's hard to set curriculums for a country this huge from one office in DC.

Some states have really good educations, some have really poor.

Then some are like Ohio. Which has both because they've been using an illegal funding system for like 20+ years yet for some reason nobody has been forced to change it yet. (Each district pays for it's own school districts budget. Problem obviously being that means rich disctricts can afford a higher percentage tax and therefore get more funding.)

 

Most states work on a system that distribute the federal funding equally and the reallocates funding in an unfair way.  But either way it is unfair to some one.  Here in Florida(47-50th in eduation 50 years running) they divide up the money fairly equally, but the urban areas get screwed twice. 

  1. It isn't evenly distributed by population, some rural areas get 3X the dollars per capita.
  2. The people who pay higher property taxes don't get back what they put in.

 

The argument isn't about the rich.  A person in South Florida pays way more in property tax to the state but then receives less for education (and everything else).  On top of that because of higher property values schools cost more to build and teachers should be paid more in South Florida but aren't paid that much more.

South Floridians, Tampanians, and Orlandonians pay 80% of the taxes and have 70% of the states population but only receive 55% of the states dispursements.

I am one of the people that wants to see Florida split in two states or fixed.



I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it.

NinjaguyDan on 12 July 2008

A southern state legislating mandatory ignorance? I'm SHOCKED!



Switch: SW-5066-1525-5130

XBL: GratuitousFREEK

Kasz216 on 12 July 2008
steven787 said:
Kasz216 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
@Kasz216: It's still up for debate though, isn't it? (Well that's how I interpeted it), and that seems... worrying.

@steven787:

Skinner: "I'm telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Abe: "Burn him!"

Not really.

I mean... you've got some super religious people who don't believe evolution... but that's about it. The thing is... like minded people flock together and we have a multi-state system, so every once in a while a state does something crazy. So the occasional state will do something like this, but even then, there are general laws in place that stop it.

Education isn't handled by the central government. The Department of Education is just basically a waste of government that makes things harder on the individual states by trying to help. Except all they can do to "help" is to withold funds.

Each state handles it's own education system pretty much to limit things like propaganda and because it's hard to set curriculums for a country this huge from one office in DC.

Some states have really good educations, some have really poor.

Then some are like Ohio. Which has both because they've been using an illegal funding system for like 20+ years yet for some reason nobody has been forced to change it yet. (Each district pays for it's own school districts budget. Problem obviously being that means rich disctricts can afford a higher percentage tax and therefore get more funding.)

 

Most states work on a system that distribute the federal funding equally and the reallocates funding in an unfair way. But either way it is unfair to some one. Here in Florida(47-50th in eduation 50 years running) they divide up the money fairly equally, but the urban areas get screwed twice.

  1. It isn't evenly distributed by population, some rural areas get 3X the dollars per capita.
  2. The people who pay higher property taxes don't get back what they put in.

 

The argument isn't about the rich. A person in South Florida pays way more in property tax to the state but then receives less for education (and everything else). On top of that because of higher property values schools cost more to build and teachers should be paid more in South Florida but aren't paid that much more.

South Floridians, Tampanians, and Orlandonians pay 80% of the taxes and have 70% of the states population but only receive 55% of the states dispursements.

I am one of the people that wants to see Florida split in two states or fixed.

Yeah... that can be a problem too.  It would be better if there was just one statewide rate, and the money got split equally or some such.

It annoyed me in school though, and i lived in one of the good districts.  The school I was at would bring in sand for "beach parties" for people who did well and just had all sorts of other wasteful activities.

While a short drive down the road gets to schools where there aren't enough desks for the students.

As it is, the "nicer" communites just got more revenue even at the same rate... and distributed by population but usually ended up getting a greater rate because they could afford to.