I’m against nuclear pronunciation myself. I mean, do you want a nuclear-armed Brazil?
Oh, that’s nuclear proliferation. Never mind. :eek:
It is only disputed by fairy tale believing cracknuts that have no rational thinking skills or knowledge of how the scientific method works. Not by those that matter.
Without defending the anti-evolution nutbars in any way, we should take note that denigrating science and the scientific method is not strictly a conservative phenomenon.
Quite a few attacks on science come from the left, with “New Age” types promoting crystals, astrology, aromatherapy, etc., etc.
It’s not the conservatives who make “Western” an epithet when applied to words like “medicine”, “science”, “culture”.
Ignorance is a bipartisan activity.
FWI, there have been quite a few thread in GQ about why people have problems pronouncing “nuclear”. I have to admit that my skin still crawls a bit when I hear nukooler, but how many of us say Wed-nes-day instead of Wends-day? Language is fluid.
As for evolution, it astounds me that there are so many folks who think it’s “just a theory” and therefore not science. Polls in the US routinely produce large % of the populace who “won’t have no truck with that evolution stuff”.
Yes thats quite true. Politicias definatly shouldnt play at being scientists whatever the party.
The problem is that politics is trying to drive science, when the two are quite incompatible in many ways.
Politics is trying to minimally satisfy the largest amount of people, whereas science tries to describe the facts of nature. Facts are facts, whether or not the vast majority votes otherwise. It doesn’t matter how many people vote against it; the vast majority of evidence, and indeed converging evidemce from multiple disciplines (archeology, microbiology, etc), supports evolution.
The real problem here IMO is that when the public, through ignorance, votes to include the teaching of ignorance (such as Intelligent Design) then we have an ignorance feedback loop created. The next generation believes ignorance, because they were taught that such ignorance is a valid scientific theory, then will vote that the ignorance continues to be teached when they get to voting age.
The actual judging of theories based on their scientific merit becomes secondary.
“for about the umpteenth time, the fact that a person does or does not mispronounce “nuclear” has absolutely nothing to do with his overall intelligence”
This is a point of fact? Seems to me that people of higher overall intelligence are liklier to pronounce technical terms correctly.
No it isn’t. Not all alternative views are “equal” and treating them as such is a disservice to students who aren’t properly able to discriminate among different sources of information.
Forcing schools to treat creationism or “intelligent design theory” as valid criticisms of scientific theories is not a “good idea”. These aren’t ideas based on science. Evolution is just as much a fact and “theory” as meiosis or the atomic theory, and yet these concepts are left alone by the skeptics. No one’s forcing geneticists to teach alternatives to Mendelian genetics. Why should laypeople have a say on how evolution is taught?
As a scientist, why should I be obligated to hold Sunday School in my classroom? If students want alternative ideas to evolution, they should take religion or philosophy classes. Or go to Sunday School.
Creationism should definetly be taught in schools. It’s a great example of what science is NOT. It’s also a great topic to teach critical thinking skills, and how to identify false arguments.
Just kidding. Creationism has no place in public schools. We teach astonomy, not astrology, and the same should be true in Biology. There is no reason to accept one religion’s creation myth over any other religion’s creation myth.
People of higher overall intelligence not only frequently mispronounce technical terms, but also routinely use terms like “irregardless” and “between you and I”. Conversely, there are plenty of sub-human anthropoids, pundits, minor celebrities, and the like who know perfectly well how to pronounce “nuclear” and who wouldn’t dream of using constructions such as “irregardless”, having been told by Marilyn Vos Savant or Miss Manners that it’s ungrammatical and Non-U.
There’s no direct correlation between “intelligence” and “correct pronunciation and vocabulary”.
His unwillingness to correct his pronunciation in major speeches does suggest the level of importance he ascribes to such matters.
I really doubt his pronunciation has anything to do about whether he is concerned or not.
He’s not concerned about how the nation or the world perceives him. He doesn’t care that he’s seen as (relatively) uneducated and ignorant.
Sorry, this has nothing to do with the thread, but I just have to stand up for my country on this one.
What are you talking about? Did you mention Brazil because it was the first thing that popped into your head when you tried to think of an unknown weird foreign country, or you just really know nothing about modern Geography? Not all Latin American countries are dictatorships, ruled by lunatics. Right now, Brazil is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t have enemies at any part of the globe, therefore not representing a threat to anyone. Besides, we have other things to worry about (i.e., poverty, unemployment, urban violence, etc.) rather than enter the WMD race.
I know you probably didn’t do it intentionally, but just be careful next time not to get caught up with stereotypes. :rolleyes:
It was more or less just popped into my head.
I suppose I’m just lucky I didn’t go for my first choice, which was to say “nuclear-armed Thailand and Senegal.”
Well, I guess that put me into my place. I am one of those that don’t matter, in your idealistic opinion. Kind of glad I am still a free thinker. Now show your proof.
I believe in truth, not science. In truth, not religion. Both systems are man-made methods and rules. As such they are fallable. Schools of all places should teach truth.
I would not want someone with your mindset in control of anything.
Father and Son were eating breakfast:
Son: “Dad, I will be 18 next week, and I don’t know whether to move out now, get my own apartment, or wait a few years.”
Father: “Son, I would rather you move out now, while you still know everything.”
“Nuclear” is about as technical a term as “tuna sandwich”.
bolding mine
Seems to me that people living in glass houses (and having the advantages of both spell-check and preview) would be likelier to spell correctly.
Care to retract your earlier comments?
You’re both bad candidates for “control of anything.” Indeed, the whole premise of liberal scientific method is “no one should be specially in control of everything.”
You want schools to teach truth… but how do you suggest they go about determining what is the “truth” that they should teach? Should you be the one to tell them since you have a special relationship with the truth, or should it be something that comes out of an ongoing social process of worldwide criticism?
They’ll have a lot of teaching to do. I’m just trying to imagine how a school would go about incorporating different ways of knowing truth without giving more weight to one.
On Mondays, students will learn the truth produced by Western science.
On Tuesdays, they will learn Catholic truth.
On Wednesdays, it will be Southern Baptist truth.
On Thursdays, it will be Islamic truth.
On Fridays, it will be Hindu truth.
I guess will have to squeeze Jewish, Satanic, Jehovah Witness, and Voodoo truth in next week, boys and girls.
Now, if what you meant lekatt is that schools should offer courses where students can learn about different philosophies and religions, then please ignore the sarcasm above. But if what you meant is that schools should teach religious ideology in the same fashion as they do scientific thought, then I vehemently disagree.