I think it has a lot to do with wealth. Research requires a huge amount of money that many nations cannot afford because they have to use their’s on trying to survive and keep afloat.
I saw an interesting item in the paper this weekend about international attitudes towards global warming.
47% of Americans surveyed thought that climate change was a serious threat. On the other hand, 45% of British surveyed thought that it was a serious threat.
There’s a 2 percent backwardness gap! We need to catch up!! 
Oh yes it has. While ID/creationism is not taught, schools are so scared of upsetting parents that evolution gets ignored. My son’s middle school biology book - a weighty tome of several hundred pages - mentioned neither evolution nor Charles Darwin.
When I called the county science curriculum person (can’t remember her exact title), I was told that I was the first parent ever to complain to her that evolution was not being taught enough.
And how is it comedy ?
Before you take on this battle, be advised that if you actually begin to force him to debate his more illogical stances, he will stop posting in the thread because you are picking on him.
Do a search, just in the pit, for threads devoted to Der Trihs.
Really, there are better things to post about.
But you will be back anyway, won’t you?
BWHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA
That’s a lie. I simply don’t bother responding to Pit threads, because being the target of a bashfest by people who only want to throw insults and veiled threats of violence isn’t much fun, and accomplishes nothing.
You’re using big words to say “picking on” but it means the same thing.
And if someone threatens physical violence, you tell a Mod, and it stops.
Sadly, the pit is where some of the best debates go, because you don’t have to dance around the niceties as one does in GD. Here you’re free to call a fuckwit a fuckwit. Your loss.
Thus the “thinly veiled” part.
True. But not in bashing threads. Which, fair being fair, I try to avoid posting in ones aimed at other people.
True enough, I suppose, but in particular in threads aimed at yourself, you would be surprised to see how much actual conversation gets stirred up. Your viewpoints do tend to bring out extremes and force them to talk, one way or the other. It’s a shame you miss that.
Sentient, if you’re returning at least to read the responses, please consider that the opponent you’re dealing with is not necessarily the most important factor. It’s the lurkers who read but seldom post upon whom brilliant people like you have the most effect. Please keep in mind also that refusal to accept your premises does not necessarily constitute a disrespect for your worldview. You are the board’s greatest apologist for atheism and all forms of materialism. If it loses you, there are precious few others who understand their own worldview enough to express it intelligently or to argue it coherently. I will be willing to do almost anything if it will encourage you to stay.
No, it’s always couched as “dare you to say that in a bar…” kind of comments. Not moddable, which as it should be, but not exactly threat-free, I think. The implication being “If this was IRL and *I *heard you say [in-Iraq troops are murderers, religionists are deluded] I’d kick your ass” - but of course, one can’t say that, so one improvises.
The difference is that in the UK we don’t take that shit seriously. No - I take that back - we do take it seriously which is why Blair had to hide his Catholicism under a rock until he skipped out.
College?
That’s too bad, that thread was going places. Everyone stick around, soon I will be inviting persons with fundamentally illogical beliefs to debate me only on a logical basis. When that’s over I will climb off my cross and leave in a bigoted, drama-fueled huff.
Oh, come on. There were serious candidates for the Presidency (or at least the Republican nomination therefor) who raised their hand when the debate moderator asked “do any of you not believe in evolution”.
That’s backward.
No other Western country is still struggling with the issue of whether or not evolution should be taught in schools. It isn’t, and shouldn’t be, any more controversial than calculus - and yet still the “debate” continues.
That’s backward.
Whether or not the United Kingdom has an established religion is immaterial. Would you judge one of the Southern states because it still has a statute on the books ostensible prohibiting miscegenation?
hump hump whine hump
Dead horses don’t whine…
There’s a lot more to science than evolution. It probably represents less than 5% of a science curriculum, and most people forget it all anyway. Teaching creationism or ID in school is stupid, and it’s unconstitutional. But the idea that the US is somehow falling behind in science because of the vocal minority trying to get creationism taught in school doesn’t make much sense.
Too bad SentienMeat decided to quit, but this board still has plenty of smart, engaging posters. And the swipe at Americans in the OP tainted his departure, if you ask me.
I think it was plainly obvious how thoroughly you destroyed all of ITR’s arguments, I don’t see why it’s necessary to leave over his failure to get a clue. I know people like him are frustrating, but I don’t see the SDMB being any worse in the obstinately anti-scientific IDiot department than anywhere else online. And if it is, I must be reading the wrong science blogs.
For what it’s worth, this thread was the main reason I joined the board, though I couldn’t afford to until a year later, and is still the only one I have ever bookmarked.