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Let's make America smart again

Skeptic Ginger

Nasty Woman
Skeptic Ginger
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
Messages
96,955
So says Neil deGrasse Tyson on Stephen Colbert tonight, and I couldn't agree more. Isn't that what the JREF is/was all about?

We have a hell of a lot more work to do.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So says Neil deGrasse Tyson on Stephen Colbert tonight, and I couldn't agree more. Isn't that what the JREF is/was all about?

We have a hell of a lot more work to do.
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Yeah I saw that bit. I like Tyson. I think he's a great science communicator, and an enthousiastic one at that. Not sure the country is going in the direction he wants, however.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So says Neil deGrasse Tyson on Stephen Colbert tonight, and I couldn't agree more. Isn't that what the JREF is/was all about?



We have a hell of a lot more work to do.
Click to expand...



Indeed.

What the USA seems to need is much more consistent primary and secondary education. If an American child lives in a wealthy suburb he/she will have quite decent public schools and depending on the wealth of the parents may go to the even better private schools.
If an American child grows up in a "blue collar" or urban environment, the public schools will be crap, and the private schools are financially out of reach.

This is a failure of public school funding system which restricts school budgets by the tax base of the families who use the schools. Thus there are large numbers of unhappy people trapped in their class, who have not learned any critical thinking skills, and are bound to be easily lead by a demagogue who promises to do whatever they want to hear.

Critical thinking education in ALL primary and secondary schools is much more important than free higher education a la Bernie Sanders.
 
MuDPhuD said:
Indeed.

What the USA seems to need is much more consistent primary and secondary education. If an American child lives in a wealthy suburb he/she will have quite decent public schools and depending on the wealth of the parents may go to the even better private schools.
If an American child grows up in a "blue collar" or urban environment, the public schools will be crap, and the private schools are financially out of reach.

This is a failure of public school funding system which restricts school budgets by the tax base of the families who use the schools. Thus there are large numbers of unhappy people trapped in their class, who have not learned any critical thinking skills, and are bound to be easily lead by a demagogue who promises to do whatever they want to hear.

Critical thinking education in ALL primary and secondary schools is much more important than free higher education a la Bernie Sanders.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:
 
Critical thinking is only part of the problem. There is a problem with understanding that we really are equal, no matter how we look and who and how we worshop, or even worship at all. Even if there is no profession of privelage by certain groups, there is certainly a difference in treatment. Let me expound a bit.
White, black, yellow, should not make a difference. Yet black neighborhoods are called "bad neighborhoods", and black politicians get voted for by blacks, whites by whites, and so on. Even socially - interracial dating is rare, as are interracial friendships it seems. In effect, we treat each other based on superficialities, whether we admit it or not.
Allah, God, YHWH, Vishnu, no-God - should not make a difference. And it does. Atheists can't get elected. Muslims are suspicious by default.
Basically, we have a severe kindness and respect deficiency in America. Teach Critical Thinking? You bet. Don't hang your hat on it solving the divisions in American Society, however. Teach kindness and respect to all people also - and whatever else needs to be taught to repair divisiveness.
 
LSSBB said:
Critical thinking is only part of the problem. There is a problem with understanding that we really are equal, no matter how we look and who and how we worshop, or even worship at all. Even if there is no profession of privelage by certain groups, there is certainly a difference in treatment. Let me expound a bit.
White, black, yellow, should not make a difference.
Click to expand...

Yeah but that's more about ideology than science and smarts, I think.
 
LSSBB said:
Not getting your point. Physiologically, we are all pretty much human beings, correct? What is the ideological angle?
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Well, "should" is a value judgment, first.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that you could show that black people were superior to whites athletically (on average) but inferior intellectually, due to some genetic predisposition based on the little difference between the two. You and I would agree that the two groups still need to be treated as equals in society, but you couldn't deny that there are real differences that affect their ability to perform in various fields (on average). Now, I can't speak for the latter, but black people _do _ appear better than us in athletic fields.

My point was that, although ideologically I agree that all should be treated equally as people regardless of trivial things like skin colour, it does not follow that there are no real differences that make one group better than another in some field or another. We're not the same, and might not be "really equal" in that sense.

I guess what I'm saying is that we should be careful not to project our values onto objective reality.
 
portlandatheist said:
Among white college grads, Trump got 49% of their vote and Clinton got 45%. We have a more serious problem than higher education will remedy.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html?_r=0
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Unfortunately, "higher education" is not very high. We see people on this forum routinely rejecting mainstream science for their own crackpot notions, having no regard or respect for the hard work and years of accumulated knowledge of people with expertise. People deny climate science, medical science, physics, etc. regardless of their own lack of training and understanding. It's pathetic!
 
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Perpetual Student said:
Unfortunately, "higher education" is not very high. We see people on this forum routinely rejecting mainstream science for their own crackpot notions, having no regard or respect for the hard work and years of accumulated knowledge of people with expertise. People deny climate science, medical science, physics, etc. regardless of their own lack of training and understanding. It's pathetic!
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I think this is something that populists, whether from the left or right, share: a complete contempt for expert opinion of any kind be it military, economists, scientists, etc. and also the embrace of conspiracy theories. In short, they believe whatever they want to believe and education, scientific expertise etc are simply dismissed in favor or truthiness.
 
MuDPhuD said:
Indeed.

What the USA seems to need is much more consistent primary and secondary education. If an American child lives in a wealthy suburb he/she will have quite decent public schools and depending on the wealth of the parents may go to the even better private schools.
If an American child grows up in a "blue collar" or urban environment, the public schools will be crap, and the private schools are financially out of reach.

This is a failure of public school funding system which restricts school budgets by the tax base of the families who use the schools. Thus there are large numbers of unhappy people trapped in their class, who have not learned any critical thinking skills, and are bound to be easily lead by a demagogue who promises to do whatever they want to hear.

Critical thinking education in ALL primary and secondary schools is much more important than free higher education a la Bernie Sanders.
Click to expand...

Critical thinking is important, the real issue the US faces is understanding reliable vs unreliable information sources. Back when people go most of their information from newspapers etc, sources were vetted even if you didn’t do it yourself. The Internet allows people to search for sources that tell them what they want to hear and consequently the “facts” they base their decisions on are frequently produced with the express purpose of directing them to specific conclusion.
 
portlandatheist said:
I think this is something that populists, whether from the left or right, share: a complete contempt for expert opinion of any kind be it military, economists, scientists, etc. and also the embrace of conspiracy theories. In short, they believe whatever they want to believe and education, scientific expertise etc are simply dismissed in favor or truthiness.
Click to expand...

That's because they reject the idea that other people may know better than themselves. They are suspicious of the idea that someone other than them may genuinely know what's best for them more than they do themselves. They are also enamoured with their own feelings and draw conclusions from those, trusting their gut over facts because facts are cold and uncomfortable while you can imagine any fuzzy fantasy you want.

It's a mode of thinking which is entirely alien to me, and at that I really think that there are two types of people, possibly distinguished genetically, even.
 
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lomiller said:
Critical thinking is important, the real issue the US faces is understanding reliable vs unreliable information sources. Back when people go most of their information from newspapers etc, sources were vetted even if you didn’t do it yourself. The Internet allows people to search for sources that tell them what they want to hear and consequently the “facts” they base their decisions on are frequently produced with the express purpose of directing them to specific conclusion.
Click to expand...

I blame the news media (among many people who are to blame) for being more concerned with equal time than actual investigative reporting.
 
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