In Oceania at the present day,Science, in the old sense has ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The empirical method of though, on which all scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. George Orwell, 1984
Even the US Department of Education, admits American students are routinely trounced by European and Asian students particularly at the high school level. Of course, that opens the debate about what can be done and who is at fault. Conservatives and pseudo journalists like John Stossel tend to blame teachers and the public school system itself. Stossel has a particular technique that has appeal and massages his own ego: he will starter with a relatively benign or reasonable question or problem statement and then do a hard right turn as soon as possible. As Sirota attests, no matter what the subject matter, Stossel rarely lets facts or reality interfere with his self appointed mission to promote himself as somebody who can think coherently. However, this isn't a diatribe against him specifically because life is short and I worry I might lose what little brain power I have thinking about him.
Oh, everybody likes to blame teachers and the public school system itself because the very people who do that really don't want a public school system. Never mind that there is a national shortage of
science and math teachers and additional slow down in young people entering teaching in any discipline.
It is under these conditions that we are being forced to have a nonsense ridden debate about whether we should be introducing intelligent design to our classrooms to balance the discussion. Apparently good old fashioned
is not enough. In fact, one of the most annoy aspects of having to deal with the whiny bleating of conservative Christians, is their insistence that they have to have their own version of everything. There are Christian cookbooks, sex manuals, sports leagues, counselors, etc etc. I don't know what is categorically different about Christian sex manuals unless the men are supposed to say," thank you, Jesus," after getting a blow job. I would think that most men do that anyway. I actually asked a fundie that I worked with who was complaining about how difficult it was to learn sex since she had saved herself for marriage what she thought the difference between secular and Christian sex was and she struggled with the answer.
The one question I would like to ask one of the many Republican candidates who do not believe in evolution is quite simple: at a time when American students are already trailing the international community in science and math scores, why do you want to make them fall even further behind by adding intelligent design to the classroom.
This embrace of intelligent design is no spontaneous eruption of non-objective event seqelae either. The Discovery Institute bills itself as a "non-partisan" organization devoted to the science and technology dialog in this country. Whenever, I hear an organization call itself "non-partisan", I know is is the exact opposite. I don't quite understand why organizations that generally have a rightist agenda even bother to try and present themselves and an objective player with no self interest. Why am I picking on the Discovery Institute? They are one of many organizations that have an explicit strategy that is very detailed in its approach about how to attack evolution as an position and essentially replace it. A closer reading of the document makes one seriously wonder whether they simply want to attack the very foundations of scientific thought and replace it with something else. They rage against materialism as a destructive force and hope to apply intelligent design to other areas of scientific thought and research. Since I don't watch cable news any longer I can only guess, but I bet somebody from The Discovery Institute has been featured as an "expert" to balance a topical science discussion.
There are broader cultural explanations that hint at why American students are doing poorly compared to others. I am a classic case, I was one of those stoner, slacker, kids in high school who spent more of my high school career staring out a window in the back of the classroom. My grades weren't bad enough to attract the attention of teachers and just good enough for entrance to post secondary education. I am more comfortable with the "soft sciences" biology, physiology and the like that I use daily in my job as an RN. I can't blame the Christian right for my own lack of motivation.
I live in Tennessee and if you are a parent with a child living in a small town and your kid is a football star, you get attention. People want to know you, they want to talk about the game, your own ego gets a boost. On the other hand if you kid got the top scores in chemistry, maths or sciences, nobody will be accosting you at the grocery store to pump your hand and talk shop. We still divide ourselves into the geeks and the jocks. I wonder: if teachers made about the same starting salary as a journeyman NFL player would we even be discussing how to bring scores up in maths and sciences and worrying how we compete against the world. I realize the debate is far more complicated than just that.
We have two choices. We can celebrate this:
Or we can end up like this:
The Christian right wants our kids to be stupid, compliant, and unable to compete with the world. Piss them off, celebrate geekdom, raise a scientist.