tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post6186268060725072916..comments2024-03-25T17:35:02.238-04:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: "The Culture Wars Are Over and the Idiots Have Won"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-24167826790576763022010-08-26T21:50:05.963-04:002010-08-26T21:50:05.963-04:00According to Watchblog.com:
•States that voted fo...According to Watchblog.com:<br /><br />•States that voted for Kerry in 2004 had 21 percent more college graduates than states that voted for Bush.<br /><br />•The states that ranked the lowest for high school and college graduates were all red states.<br /><br />•Eight out of 10 of the states that ranked the highest for high school college graduates were blue states. <br /><br />But according to another source:<br />Self-identified Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to have 4-year college degrees. Regarding graduate-level degrees (masters or doctorate), there is a rough parity between Democrats and Republicans. According to the Gallup Organization: "[B]oth Democrats and Republicans have equal numbers of Americans at the upper end of the educational spectrum — that is, with post graduate degrees.<br /><br />And there's this from the Heritage foundation:<br /><br />Democrats now control the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.<br /><br />Stats can be easily manipulated to give the impression you desire. At any rate, the situation re right and left seems more complicated than most of us might have thought.zenmite AKA Marshall Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08696178493758587271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-42866831103334305202010-08-26T20:34:48.511-04:002010-08-26T20:34:48.511-04:00ismellarat,
You probably know more about it.
Yea...ismellarat,<br /><br /><i>You probably know more about it.</i><br /><br />Yeah, I'm aware of that case, as well as others that are equally as troubling, if not more so. Which is to say that you shouldn't take my previous post as some kind of defense of the idea that all is well and good in public schools. I don't think that is true. My point was that the issue is more complex, and I would argue that the worst of our educational problems are not well understood and arise out of broader societal issues that transcend anything that we can do collectively through government or via private schools. In my opinion, neither the left nor the right have good policies towards education.<br /><br />As for the left "being in charge" of education, I'm not so convinced of that. At the national level, the left makes the most noise, but at the state level (where most educational standards get set), it is quite a mixed bag, where states like Texas actually have undue influence. For example, textbook publishers will generally not publish a textbook unless they can guarantee that big states like Texas will buy the book. This sort of thing has caused the teaching of evolution to be watered down for decades, and now states like Texas are trying to ram through their political ideologies as well (while also cutting public school funding). Overall, the left has a tendency to throw money at education without as much accountability, while the right tries to starve public education of funding, and then acts surprised when it fails and complains that government is the problem. Neither approach is a good recipe for success.<br /><br />As for misunderstanding my last paragraph... From my experience, students can get through physics, biology, and chemistry without really understanding science. They come out with some factual knowledge, and they can state what the scientific method is, but they don't have a good feel for how to apply it or how scientists in the real world apply it, and that is a very important part of what I think science literacy should be. This lack of understanding is exactly why students can come out of these high school classes and not only think that the Earth is 6,000 years old, but also that there are enough flaws in the science that they've been taught that it is reasonable to think that what they've been taught is wrong.Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009287314335622703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-22730239185094755672010-08-26T19:35:57.697-04:002010-08-26T19:35:57.697-04:00I was hoping you'd have more time to blow on t...I was hoping you'd have more time to blow on this yourself, Wesley. :) I don't have a large-scale survey to point to, but anecdotal evidence I'm aware of seems to.<br /><br />Republicans like to parade around maps of states, where the cities are Democratic, and the overwhelmingly larger (but emptier), more rural areas are Republican.<br /><br />I guess you could say many or most are "apolitical" in a sense because fewer of them bother to vote, but who would they vote for if they weren't? Someone who tells them the checks are going to stop coming? Wouldn't a representative sample of those who do vote in the same neighborhood tell you?<br /><br />I once saw a feature on inner city voter registration efforts. A journalist solemnly documented how some group was going door to door talking to people, some of whom by all appearances were too out of it to know their own names. The selling point was that their well-deserved benefits were at risk. And this wasn't even a right-wing propaganda piece. These people fully believed in what they were doing, trying to ensure that everyone was able to share in their vision of The American Dream, or whatever it was. I don't think they were Republicans, not that I am one, either.ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-65550818158923880182010-08-26T19:03:55.949-04:002010-08-26T19:03:55.949-04:00Meh - the bottom line is that this is a nation of ...Meh - the bottom line is that this is a nation of abject morons. We're the laughing stock of the developed world. The Europeans are so busy making fun of us, it's a wonder they can get anything done.Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-62409307489922380772010-08-26T19:03:42.297-04:002010-08-26T19:03:42.297-04:00ismellarat, I don't disagree that arguments of...ismellarat, I don't disagree that arguments of this type are slanted to the left, by those who are on the left. You are right to question it's objectivity if that is the case.<br /><br />But what's got me scratching my head is the somewhat strange statement that "50 million functional illiterates are mostly Democrats". From your comments I presume you make that conclusion because most of the illiterate live in big cities. I'm happy to concede that illiteracy is concentrated in big cities, but it's another thing to assume they are Democrats. Most illiterate people I would assume to be fairly apolitical, and don't vote for the most part. Do you have any studies or links that would back up your assumption? I'm not being facetious at all, I would very much like to read this info if you have it . . .Thin-icehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10395122483673080901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-78299534827553194722010-08-26T18:59:46.658-04:002010-08-26T18:59:46.658-04:00Sorry, I mostly meant cipher, not Shane, when he d...Sorry, I mostly meant cipher, not Shane, when he disputed who had the privilege of claiming the most illiterates.ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-23029576262785424982010-08-26T18:44:36.714-04:002010-08-26T18:44:36.714-04:00Steven, I mostly wrote what I did because the arti...Steven, I mostly wrote what I did because the article seemed to heavily slanted in favor of the left.<br /><br />I haven't seen literacy stats on Christian schools, but of course I'd welcome them. I can't see parents going out of their way to pay for school twice, and then to keep paying if the kid doesn't even learn to read. You may have heard of a court case home schoolers love to bring up, where a public school district was sued because a "graduate" couldn't read, and the court held that the primary function of a public school is "custodial." I wish I had a link handy. You probably know more about it.<br /><br />I just brought up the NEA stat as food for thought. The left seems to be in charge, yet the right seems to get more of the blame.<br /><br />If I'm wrong as to who has more illiterates, I'd love to see something on that. I'm just guessing: big cities are generally Democratic, and generally tax-eaters. And I guessed the level of literacy is lower in areas that demand a greater proportion of social services than others. Maybe that's not so, but I'd love to see some evidence.<br /><br />No disagreement on student attitude as being a factor, but a good attitude is much harder to keep up in an otherwise bad environment. Who wouldn't worry if their kids were bused to Watts?<br /><br />And I agree that better neighborhoods can have much better public schools. If I only considered the one I went to, I'd be wondering what all the fuss was about. I don't think mine had ANY illiterates. But the system as a whole sucks. 50 million adults are functional illiterates, of which 43 million can't read at all?! The mind boggles. I don't see how more funding is the answer. NYC spends tons of taxpayer dollars, but it simply doesn't get the results.<br /><br />I don't get your last paragraph. A person can pass basic courses in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology and still believe that we were created 6000 years ago. You could learn and accept 95% of the material in a standard course and still think that. The question of origins just doesn't come up in a physics lab.ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-59091831350084637112010-08-26T18:22:06.314-04:002010-08-26T18:22:06.314-04:00The Republican power brokers are the haves. The lo...The Republican power brokers are the haves. The lower classes comprise their base. They've spent the past three decades engineering this.Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-47227755923913926622010-08-26T18:10:04.104-04:002010-08-26T18:10:04.104-04:00...but that would be hard to explain, in light of ......but that would be hard to explain, in light of the Republicans being the "haves and the have mores." How do so many illiterates manage to make it in life? Maybe literacy isn't all it's cracked up to be.ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-41091530917233814092010-08-26T18:06:39.537-04:002010-08-26T18:06:39.537-04:00I wish I could keep up with all these posts, Shane...I wish I could keep up with all these posts, Shane. If I'm wrong on that, please send me a link, so I can laugh at the Republicans instead. :)ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-48414121832636982302010-08-26T18:04:55.599-04:002010-08-26T18:04:55.599-04:00We are seeing a similar phenomenon in Northern Ire...<i>We are seeing a similar phenomenon in Northern Ireland, where our *culture* minister FFS is a creationist, and wants museums to display creationist nonsense as "an alternative theory" alongside the science</i><br /><br />That's very depressing. I keep barking to my friends and family about how much more enlightened than we you Western Europeans are. Go ahead; make a liar out of me.Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-28285099255816002562010-08-26T18:01:55.710-04:002010-08-26T18:01:55.710-04:00Which presumably would have nothing to do with soc...Which presumably would have nothing to do with social disadvantage? Define "mostly". Are you talking about 51%? 75%? 90%? Also, coming from a UK perspective, to say that someone "is" a Democrat or "is" a Republican seems very quaint.<br /><br />Almost like saying a child "is" a Catholic, or "is" a Muslim.<br /><br />John, that was a very good post. We are seeing a similar phenomenon in Northern Ireland, where our *culture* minister FFS is a creationist, and wants museums to display creationist nonsense as "an alternative theory" alongside the science, and has darkly warned that any attempt to place it into a mythological context would be viewed as a "calculated insult to Christians". These are the sorts of fools we have to deal with.Shanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11064454267395375567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-57286515166533779082010-08-26T18:01:01.102-04:002010-08-26T18:01:01.102-04:00I guessed the 50 million functional illiterates we...<i>I guessed the 50 million functional illiterates we have are mostly Democrats.</i><br /><br />I would certainly disagree. The Republicans have spent the past thirty years convincing the working classes and the underclass that they're their best friends. Certain ethnic groups who have always identified with the Democrats - African Americans, Latinos - have largely resisted this trend (and even that isn't as sure a thing as it used to be), but I think that poor whites, especially in rural areas, are pretty much in the Repubs' collective pocket these days. <br /><br />They believe pretty much whatever the Republican machine and their pastors tell them (that's why it's called "authoritarianism"). The imbeciles who went to McCain rallies to support him, but ended up booing him when he told them Obama wasn't a "Mooslim", are an example of this phenomenon.Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-52669804308297102122010-08-26T17:50:03.773-04:002010-08-26T17:50:03.773-04:00Wesley, I'm sure an otherwise ignorant person ...Wesley, I'm sure an otherwise ignorant person deserves points if he says, "I'm ignorant, and I know it," versus believing he's not, but I'm not sure if this affects the bigger picture much, of the idiots having won the culture war - which is much bigger than the debates over creationism.<br /><br />I only mentioned creationists because they seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention when "idiocy" is brought up, as if we weren't facing much, much bigger problems.<br /><br />I'm not sure how you can say "I sense that you were trying to make a case for equal idiocy and ignorance on both sides. If so, you failed" after what I pointed out. (Actually, I'm making the case that there's more ignorance on the other side! :) )<br /><br />I guessed the 50 million functional illiterates we have are mostly Democrats. Do you disagree with that?ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-45478419023002958232010-08-26T16:32:09.284-04:002010-08-26T16:32:09.284-04:00ismellarat:
I sense that you were trying to make ...ismellarat:<br /><br />I sense that you were trying to make a case for equal idiocy and ignorance on both sides. If so, you failed.<br /><br />Most liberals or democrats who know little about solid science will not present themselves as knowledgeable or authoritative in it.<br /><br />However, most conservatives (especially the religious ones) who know little about solid science will talk and preach till the cows come home about global warming and evolution as if their beliefs are based in scientific fact.Thin-icehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10395122483673080901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-64579500350158714802010-08-26T15:58:31.771-04:002010-08-26T15:58:31.771-04:00Concerns about the literacy of voters were exploit...Concerns about the literacy of voters were exploited in rather ugly ways in the history of the USA.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06021695543568366127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-14366295363830453732010-08-26T15:52:41.487-04:002010-08-26T15:52:41.487-04:00ismellarat,
Are you implying that Christians scho...ismellarat,<br /><br />Are you implying that Christians schools have a better literacy rate? You *might* be right, up to a point, anyway. <br /><br />I'll be the first to admit that public education is a sticky problem. It's so sticky, in fact, that I would say that your NEA statistic is meaningless. And the reason it is meaningless is alluded to in the second sentence of your second item... I would ask the question, how many of those 42 million illiterates could have afforded to go to a Christian school if they wanted to? And your assumption that these are mostly democrats would be false as well, but that's a different issue.<br /><br />In my experience, as someone who worked in the science education field for about 10 years, and it was part of my job to look at education disparities. I found that the biggest indicator of student success wasn't necessarily what school a kid goes to, but the degree of importance that parents put on education in the first place. If the student took their education seriously, they did much better than those that didn't, the amount of money and the stability of the learning environment had an impact as well, but student attitude was the most significant indicator. <br /><br />The fact is, the performance of students that go to public schools where the schools are well funded, and the parents instill a sense of the importance of education and discipline are as successful as the best students around the world. These students consistently score into the top percentiles on all those international tests that show that the average scores in the US are abysmal in comparison to other countries. (As a side note those international scores are skewed in other ways as well, in most other countries only their very best students take those tests in the first place, so they aren't valid comparisons anyway). Public education is not the horrible failure that conservatives make it out to be (although they are doing a hell of a job at making it worse, which does explain your NEA statistic).<br /><br />And as for 6 day creationists knowing more about science than "illiterate democrats," as someone who has had the displeasure of having to deal with such people, they actually don't know more about science than the illiterates. They may be able to read and write, but they have no sense of what science is, how or why it works, and they are entirely incapable of thinking critically. They are just as lacking in science literacy as those students who never had or applied themselves in a science class.Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009287314335622703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-37006398551470182292010-08-26T15:20:52.590-04:002010-08-26T15:20:52.590-04:00America has had this problem for generations. Ferd...America has had this problem for generations. Ferdinand Lundberg in his 1968 book,<i>The Rich and the Super-Rich</i>, <a href="http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/030304lberg/030304ch13.html" rel="nofollow">writes</a>:<br /><br /><i>What is evidently the case is that a large section of the population is dependent-emotionally, intellectually, economically and politically--and is unable inherently or by conditioning to function in its own behalf under free institutions. A large section of the population, indeed, if it is to be properly served, should be regarded as public wards, ethically subject to rather close highly informed benign guidance in making life dispositions. No doubt much of this dependency arises from its conditioning, from its unreasonably inculcated faith that provision will be made for it, if not by man then by some remote deity.</i>Mark Plushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03859046131830902921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-81865930715448298502010-08-26T14:52:37.620-04:002010-08-26T14:52:37.620-04:001. 93% of NEA lobbying dollars went to Democrats.
...1. 93% of NEA lobbying dollars went to Democrats.<br /><br />http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/tax-dollar-dependent-nea-lobbying-senate-for-edujobs-99778064.html<br /><br />2. 42 million Americans (generally the product of public schools) can't read. I'd love to see some illiteracy stats on Christian schools.<br /><br />3. As the review said, Republicans are generally the "haves and the have mores."<br /><br />4. Illiterates generally are the "have-nots."<br /><br />Dumb as hell as the Republicans may be in matters concerning religion, they're the least of our worries. I'd think a Republican six-day creationist generally knows more about science than a Democrat who's unable to read.ismellarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798650524118603772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-29925975079348626362010-08-26T14:04:01.038-04:002010-08-26T14:04:01.038-04:00I have a small hope that Sam Harris' ideas of ...I have a small hope that Sam Harris' ideas of a moral landscape will take hold and help lift us out of it. I love the idea of using actual knowledge and science to help us clarify the decisions we need to make about right and wrong. It's rebuke of accommodationalism and vitriol against moral relativism are a huge added bonus.wubbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15406891580715857583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-67219973169578243582010-08-26T13:46:31.030-04:002010-08-26T13:46:31.030-04:00Barry Goldwater...
If he could see what's goi...<i>Barry Goldwater...</i><br /><br />If he could see what's going on now...Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-67120790040788553552010-08-26T13:36:19.327-04:002010-08-26T13:36:19.327-04:00Woops, Cipher, I meant that as a response to Crowh...Woops, Cipher, I meant that as a response to Crowhill. Sorry. But yeah, I agree with you. The sillyness on the left is small potatoes compared to what has been going on among the conservatives for the past 40 years.<br /><br />The telling thing is that by the end of his career, Barry Goldwater was strongly distancing himself from the conservatives of the time, and he often criticized Reagan for cozying up too closely to religious conservatives.Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009287314335622703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-18359855127808552812010-08-26T13:26:25.557-04:002010-08-26T13:26:25.557-04:00Steven,
Doesn't matter - the Right has done u...Steven,<br /><br />Doesn't matter - the Right has done us in. It's too late for the Left to get in on the game.Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-42756918732619600022010-08-26T13:19:22.201-04:002010-08-26T13:19:22.201-04:00Cipher,
Finding the idiocy on the left is just as...Cipher,<br /><br />Finding the idiocy on the left is just as easy. Just go take a look at the "living" or "religion" sections on the Huffington Post to see it in spades. <br /><br />The difference between the idiocy on the left and the right is that left wing has been less organized and generally less successful at mainstreaming it. While the right has been focused not just on being well organized, but also institutionalizing it. <br /><br />The left is really only just getting started in doing this on their end of the spectrum. But it is there and people like Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra, and Jenny McCarthy are big purveyors of it. <br /><br />Perhaps the biggest difference is that left wing woo hasn't impacted our politics to the degree that it has on the right. It is there to be sure, but it is not (yet) nearly as bad on the left as it is on the right. Unfortunately, the left is learning how to do it though.Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009287314335622703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-57331113179338512652010-08-26T12:46:32.040-04:002010-08-26T12:46:32.040-04:00GMPilot.. you read my mind, I was thinking the sam...GMPilot.. you read my mind, I was thinking the same thing.<br /><br />But it's actually easier than that, you don't need the saddle to start this conversation... how the heck did Adam and Eve EAT anything.. digestion, decomposition etc... all requires death. <br /><br />Did Adam S#!T in the woods?Dan DeMurahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09402985472547749466noreply@blogger.com