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You Have No Constitutional Right To Your Own Science

Does An American Have Freedom Of Science?

  • I think my religion explains the world and I have no use for science

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    23
True, dat, wolfman. Look at all the people who won't bless euthanasia or who won't agree to donate their organs on their driver's license, because their limited understanding and distrust of science makes them think they're being set up to be murdered.
 
First I thought the poll was limited. Next science is not a freedom within the confines of law. It is a search for truth using time honored and tested methods and a rigorous process of proofs. The various disciplines have thier own rigours but share the same methodology. they each have their own vocabulary and terminology.
Unfortunately for centuries the process has been misunderstood by the general public. Observation, reproducability and severe testing are the hallmarks of good science as is objectivity.
There can be no connection between religion or politics in true science. If a theory does not prove out it must be discarded without reservation. And if a theory does prove out it must be able to withstand close inspection and be reproduced several times before it gains any measure of acceptance within the Scientific community. Any person who cannot accept this and continues on is practicimg bad science and sooner or later will be found out.
IMHO the reason so many people have trouble with scientific ideas is that the mental process that we must go through and the language of science is so foriegn most people reject it out of hand or fear it.

Excellent summation. I'd like to add a couple points though. One of the reasons I see folks reject many scientific conclusions is down to reproducability. So many scientific conclusions are not reproducible by lay people (they do not have the tools, equipment or learning to do so). Also, again, many times, the scientific conclusion is at direct odds with the individual's life experience.

However, you leave out a very important factor, which Goshin mentioned - scientists are human just like everyone else. They fudge numbers, seek advancement in their fields (sometimes to the exclusion of accuracy), cheat, deceive and downright just get it wrong. The tools of scientific inquiry are sound, the problem is the nut behind the wheel.
 
So, my fundamentalist fellow Americans: feel free to embrace your fairy tales...but do not ask me to pay for them.

That's fine. Just please don't come to me and complain that you need more or my tax money for your school system when I homeschool my kids. Also, don't demand that my children pass some stupid state graduation exam to be considered to have graduated from high school.

If I can't demand you teach Evolution as a THEORY in a science classroom, I don't want you demanding that I teach Sherman's March to the Sea as anything other than a War Crime perpetrated by General Sherman and Abraham Lincoln.
 
That's fine. Just please don't come to me and complain that you need more or my tax money for your school system when I homeschool my kids. Also, don't demand that my children pass some stupid state graduation exam to be considered to have graduated from high school.

If I can't demand you teach Evolution as a THEORY in a science classroom, I don't want you demanding that I teach Sherman's March to the Sea as anything other than a War Crime perpetrated by General Sherman and Abraham Lincoln.

Ya, history presents its own challenges -- some Louisiana voucher schools spent taxpayer money to buy history books that teach "slave owners were kind".

However, history, while fact-based, is not science.

As for your complaints about evolution in science textbooks, you cannot opt out of paying property taxes anymore than you can opt out of paying income taxes, Tigger.
 
Excellent summation. I'd like to add a couple points though. One of the reasons I see folks reject many scientific conclusions is down to reproducability. So many scientific conclusions are not reproducible by lay people (they do not have the tools, equipment or learning to do so). Also, again, many times, the scientific conclusion is at direct odds with the individual's life experience.

However, you leave out a very important factor, which Goshin mentioned - scientists are human just like everyone else. They fudge numbers, seek advancement in their fields (sometimes to the exclusion of accuracy), cheat, deceive and downright just get it wrong. The tools of scientific inquiry are sound, the problem is the nut behind the wheel.

Again, I have no quarrel with anyone who is skeptical about a new scientific theory. I am impatient with people who still want to debate whether evolution or global warming are real, but they can believe whatever they like -- as long as my tax dollars are not going into funding these mistakes in thinking.

I do not want to give out taxpayer dollars as grants to look for the Holy Grail, etc.
 
Excellent summation. I'd like to add a couple points though. One of the reasons I see folks reject many scientific conclusions is down to reproducability. So many scientific conclusions are not reproducible by lay people (they do not have the tools, equipment or learning to do so). Also, again, many times, the scientific conclusion is at direct odds with the individual's life experience.

However, you leave out a very important factor, which Goshin mentioned - scientists are human just like everyone else. They fudge numbers, seek advancement in their fields (sometimes to the exclusion of accuracy), cheat, deceive and downright just get it wrong. The tools of scientific inquiry are sound, the problem is the nut behind the wheel.

That last 3 lines of yours is so true. I am glad you said it. I wish I had put it as sucincly as you have. I see this in the Global Warming debate and am seeing this more in the harder sciences now. Its a shame really. I love science and the rigour it imposses on your thought process. It requires flexible thinking and ingenuity and curiosty and all of our mental muscle to use scienticfic method correctly. To bad there are scientists not so constrained. Flexibility and curiosty are not in favor in large parts of the scientific communitie these days, and that is sadning.
 
Again, I have no quarrel with anyone who is skeptical about a new scientific theory. I am impatient with people who still want to debate whether evolution or global warming are real, but they can believe whatever they like -- as long as my tax dollars are not going into funding these mistakes in thinking.

I do not want to give out taxpayer dollars as grants to look for the Holy Grail, etc.

Well, you certainly jumped out on the ledge there. Evolution IS a scientific theory and global warming, especially AGW has more holes than any swiss cheese.
 
1. Discipline yes. Beat abusively no.

2. Those who want their children to be educated in a certain manner differing substantially from societal norms should put their children in private schools. This would include rabid atheists who don't want their children exposed to Christmas as much as fundamentalists who don't want their children exposed to evolution. Vouchers.

3. Denounce? As is "speak against"? Sure, anyone can say anything. Denounce as in "try to block it"? Well, the bugger's got to stand to election doesn't he? Hold him accountable at the polls.
The underlying problem here is one of extremism and intolerance.
Vouchers ?
I do not know exactly what these are, ...a conservative thing, so I am suspicious.
 
"publish or perish" is their motto, and attempting to publish theories that contract the popular scientific dogma of the moment is rarely smiled upon.

Goshin, I don't want to sound rude or anything, but I must point out:

You have no idea how the scientfic community operates.
 
Again, I have no quarrel with anyone who is skeptical about a new scientific theory. I am impatient with people who still want to debate whether evolution or global warming are real, but they can believe whatever they like -- as long as my tax dollars are not going into funding these mistakes in thinking.

I do not want to give out taxpayer dollars as grants to look for the Holy Grail, etc.

The reason this is even an OP is because there are public schools. If there were no public schools this would not be talked about. We really need to start thinking about getting the government out of the education business.
 
As for your complaints about evolution in science textbooks, you cannot opt out of paying property taxes anymore than you can opt out of paying income taxes, Tigger.

There you have the whole issue of the thing, Pinkie. How to pay for the worthless skulls full of mush that are the majority of the inhabitants of our public school systems. They, and their parents are "educational zombies", shambling through the halls of academia to do their prescribed time and pay their prescribed portion of the dole so that someone can stamp "Graduated" on their head somewhere between their 17th and 19th birthdays and kick them out into the real world.

You're absolutely right about the taxes. Unfortunately it is most often the STATE and FEDERAL income taxes rather than the local propery taxes that pay for our schools, which in turn means those higher levels of government have a say in how the school is run and what it taught, and the local school district has less say. Which is a large part of why there are more and more homeschoolers in the United States these days. Almost 2.5 million kids from an article I saw somewhere in the last couple weeks. My brother and s-i-l will pay all those taxes even though they homeschool their 3 (going on 4) kids.

All we're asking is that if you want us to stay out of "your" educational experience, that "you" have the common decency to do the same for us.
 
That's fine. Just please don't come to me and complain that you need more or my tax money for your school system when I homeschool my kids. Also, don't demand that my children pass some stupid state graduation exam to be considered to have graduated from high school.
In a strange way,I sort of agree with you on this.I sent my youngest daughter to some very fine private schools and while I wasn't thrilled to pay taxes on something I didn't use (piublic schools),but hey I paid it anyway,because that's just the way it is.[/quote]
If I can't demand you teach Evolution as a THEORY in a science classroom, I don't want you demanding that I teach Sherman's March to the Sea as anything other than a War Crime perpetrated by General Sherman and Abraham Lincoln.
If you homeschool your kids,you should be able to teach them anything you want.Just as I was allowed to send my daughter to any school that I wanted to that I was able to afford.Just don't get mad at me if when our kids enter the job market,your child ends up making 40 k a year and my child ends up making 100 k a year.
 
Do you know the difference between a scientific theory and a theory?

Do you? Do you know that it's the Theory of Evolution we're talking about. Why in the world would you teach science and not teach them how a theory works?
 
There you have the whole issue of the thing, Pinkie. How to pay for the worthless skulls full of mush that are the majority of the inhabitants of our public school systems. They, and their parents are "educational zombies", shambling through the halls of academia to do their prescribed time and pay their prescribed portion of the dole so that someone can stamp "Graduated" on their head somewhere between their 17th and 19th birthdays and kick them out into the real world.

You're absolutely right about the taxes. Unfortunately it is most often the STATE and FEDERAL income taxes rather than the local propery taxes that pay for our schools, which in turn means those higher levels of government have a say in how the school is run and what it taught, and the local school district has less say. Which is a large part of why there are more and more homeschoolers in the United States these days. Almost 2.5 million kids from an article I saw somewhere in the last couple weeks. My brother and s-i-l will pay all those taxes even though they homeschool their 3 (going on 4) kids.

All we're asking is that if you want us to stay out of "your" educational experience, that "you" have the common decency to do the same for us.

This is not my conclusion -- I can see why there'd be a "fairness" appeal to you, but it's not different from tax protestors in the 1970's who refused to pay income taxes because they opposed the War. This is a specious idea, IMO.

Science is reality, Tigger. You have no right to ask me to pay for textbooks for you to use to teach your child a bunch of fairy tales, and you have no right to withhold tax dollars you owe so I cannot teach my child science.
 
Goshin, I don't want to sound rude or anything, but I must point out:

You have no idea how the scientfic community operates.

Goshin seems to understand scientific communitie just fine to me. At least the academic side of things.
 
Do you? Do you know that it's the Theory of Evolution we're talking about. Why in the world would you teach science and not teach them how a theory works?

Would you also like science teachers to cast doubt on the theory of gravity?
 

Yes. It's your bolding of the word 'theory' implies that you are stressing it, in order to disenfranchise it.

Do you know that it's the Theory of Evolution we're talking about. Why in the world would you teach science and not teach them how a theory works?

Of course we teach what a sceintific theory is. A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. It significantly differs from a laymans term "theory".
 
The reason this is even an OP is because there are public schools. If there were no public schools this would not be talked about. We really need to start thinking about getting the government out of the education business.

WTH? You'd prefer to live among mostly illiterate people?

 
In a strange way,I sort of agree with you on this.I sent my youngest daughter to some very fine private schools and while I wasn't thrilled to pay taxes on something I didn't use (piublic schools),but hey I paid it anyway,because that's just the way it is.

If you homeschool your kids,you should be able to teach them anything you want.Just as I was allowed to send my daughter to any school that I wanted to that I was able to afford.Just don't get mad at me if when our kids enter the job market,your child ends up making 40 k a year and my child ends up making 100 k a year.[/QUOTE]

Dittos. Well said friend.:)
 
Goshin seems to understand scientific communitie just fine to me. At least the academic side of things.

I've had discussions reagrding the sceintific community before with Goshin and can safely say that he continues to lack an understanding of how the scientific community operates.
 
Goshin, I don't want to sound rude or anything, but I must point out:

You have no idea how the scientfic community operates.

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Would you also like science teachers to cast doubt on the theory of gravity?

Actually, yes. That's what science teachers do. It's part of the reproducibility lesson we teach.
 
There you have the whole issue of the thing, Pinkie. How to pay for the worthless skulls full of mush that are the majority of the inhabitants of our public school systems. They, and their parents are "educational zombies", shambling through the halls of academia to do their prescribed time and pay their prescribed portion of the dole so that someone can stamp "Graduated" on their head somewhere between their 17th and 19th birthdays and kick them out into the real world.
Umm,both me and my wife went to public schools growing up,and we both make a whole lot more money than you do.Just saying.

You're absolutely right about the taxes. Unfortunately it is most often the STATE and FEDERAL income taxes rather than the local propery taxes that pay for our schools, which in turn means those higher levels of government have a say in how the school is run and what it taught, and the local school district has less say. Which is a large part of why there are more and more homeschoolers in the United States these days. Almost 2.5 million kids from an article I saw somewhere in the last couple weeks. My brother and s-i-l will pay all those taxes even though they homeschool their 3 (going on 4) kids.

All we're asking is that if you want us to stay out of "your" educational experience, that "you" have the common decency to do the same for us.
[/quote]
I'm all in favor of people "homeschooling". I want my kids and grandkids to have every advantage they can get in these economic times.Less qualified applicants is better for their chances on landing good careers.
I say,if people want to homeschool their kids to turn them into clones of themselves,I have no problem with that if I allowed to educate my children the way I want to be these peoples bosses.
 
I think I should have voted option 1 or 2. More likely 2.

Also, some of you may hate me after this post.

Anyway. As a general rule, stupid people infiltrate every aspect of society, including science and religion. It is these stupid people who eventually lead to a public image deterioration. Look at what stupid people are doing to religion... they are radicalizing it (either actively or they themselves become radicals) and making it one-dimensional so that every other moron on the face of the world will have an easy time understanding it. Certain strains of evangelicals... or the westboro baptist church comes to mind. The latter has successfully managed to reduce a 2000 years old philosophy with a further 6000 years old background to 3 very simple letters: GOD HATES FAGS!. Never underestimate the potential of stupid people to reduce everything down to size for it to be easily memorized.

Jesus would go into a mental coma if he would see these people if he hadn't already. Maybe that's why he wanted to die in first place... he knew stupid people would make such a thing possible and decided he would take leave from Earth until this whole thing blows over. You see, 2000 years ago, stupid people knew that they were stupid and when their betters addressed them, they would shut up and listen. Nowadays, stupid people think they're smart, and that is part of the problem.

That problem has indeed given birth to what may just be, the greatest irony in the entire world so far. And that is saying something. Because stupid people think they are smart, they have thus ventured into the new found land of science and they did this using things that were developed by technology. Here i find the internet to be the top ranking villain and I shall explain why and some of you may hate me here. Stupid people have ventured into the scientific world reading half-assed news stories, written by other technologically incompetent people and then pushed those stories further into the world in a damaged form. Other stupid people fell victims to the stupidity and incoherence without being able to realize the correct message.. and spread the word further. And like a pool of bad ideas, the worst always surfaces and is generally adopted as being the common, lowest denominator that all bad ideas can relate to... but need the support of the entire community to have weight.

This gives birth to endless streams of stupidity in various ways. There are 3 types of scientifically illiterate idiots who roam the internet while at the same time, praising science. And I do mean praising science in a semi-religious way.

1) the born-again stupid atheist. Not all atheists are like this... this is a group of people who are generally found between the ages of 12-22 whom, at a very young age, have been intoxicated by other atheists of public reknown. They have since then roamed the world trying to understand things that is beyond their understanding and praising, with a sort of holy passion, the cult of atheism as a cult dedicated to science. Now some of these people may not be complete idiots but if you travel through the reddit-sphere you will see some of these people post comments saying that science nullifies this or that.. or proves this thing wrong or right. I repeat, not all atheists are like this. In fact, most atheists are atheists in the correct fashion of the notion... but stupid atheists are the atheist community's Westboro baptist church.

2) The Apple addict. Not all people who are apple addicts are like this.. only the people who want the latest and greatest because somebody told them its the best thing ever... people who rushed to get the iphone5 despite having iphone4 in good working order for no good reason are listed here. Now, there are people who wanted the iphone5 for legitimate reasons... but those are I think, a minority of the consumer base. Most, are just the herd.

3) The para-science individual. These are people who put up all sort of wierd **** that doesn't really have any tangent to science and call it such. Not the case here.



That being said I will like to set a few things straight. There are a lot of well-intentioned people who make a few errors of judgement... and these people fall in category #4 which is the only good category of people who appreciate science but who are not people who are specialists in any scientific field. A theory is not a fact. Evolution is a theory. It may be a well founded theory with many adepts, but it is still a theory. It may still be proven to be false, though it is highly unlikely. Because it is still a theory it leaves room for speculation, interpretation and other theories to emerge. The reason it is not fully proven is because there is still the question of the missing link. The problem with that 1 missing link is that it has been a missing link in repeated numbers. 100 years ago there were people who claimed to have found the missing link only to discover that their discovery gave birth to another missing link. And then another, and another. The missing link is a recurring event. We are still hunting for said missing link... and if history is indeed something to go by, once we do, we may just find another missing link to our past and evolution.

I personally believe in evolution. I am not doubting it. It is the most likely theory. Does this discredit the Bible? Perhaps. Does it make it null and void? Not really. There are hundreds of pages of scientific data for every single link in the evolutionary chain. You can't make a best-selling book, or a religion, with tens of thousands of pages.

I may be derailling here... but the big bang theory (the real one, not the show) is also a theory. And unlike evolution, there is little evidence to support it. It is however the most well accepted theory out there. It doesn't make it true. It may be so that God made the universe. It is not out of the question. Just because people reject the notion doesn't make it void. The greeks rejected the notion of "0" it didn't make it unreal. It did make it unreal for them... but not for the world.

A lot of people thought the world was flat a long time ago... it didn't make the world flat. We have no evidence to suggest that the world wasn't flat before it was fully explored, that it bended into shape once people started changing their minds in light of new discoveries... but that is just highly illogical now isn't it? What about all the thing with atmosphere, magnetic field and day/night cycle. Couldn't be explained if the world wouldn't have always been spherical (ovoid, but w/e). You don't have such similar things to other theories like the big bang theory. You do not have impossibilities present themselves should you deny a theory.

That is the real test of a theory. If you take the theory away, do illogical things... impossible things start emerging? If so, then said theory is most likely the correct one provided it accounts for all aspects of the question.
 
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