Seriously thoughtful Science Literacy in the U.S.A.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by 93terp

And like how the Texas Board of Education has now made Thomas Jefferson an also ran in their social studies curriculum.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/12/...its-textbooks/

Your example and mine highlight the major problem with allowing political/religious ideology to dictate what the "facts" are.

This sort of thing makes more more angry than just about anything....maybe fighting this is where I should spend my time and energy.

[93terp]

Originally Posted by kennyc

This sort of thing makes more more angry than just about anything....maybe fighting this is where I should spend my time and energy.

Agreed. And it's how we've gotten to a point in this country where things like evolution are now considered "debatable", or not considered to be science at all.

When 3 people running for POTUS raise their hand in a Presidential Debate and proudly claim that they don't believe in evolution, the end can't be far away. In my mind they should have been disqualified from the race at that point. What's next - the sky really isn't blue or the sun doesn't really rise in the east & set in the west? It's pure lunacy/insanity that areas of learning, such as evolution, have been reduced to political issues. The race to the bottom in this country is in hyper-warp speed as far as I'm concerned. "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" isn't just a game show - it's becoming reality.

Stepping off my soapbox now....

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Laz116

Loss of space travel dominance doesn't mean a fall from grace.

I think it does. But then again, I'm not much of a nationalist, so if America wants to plummet back into mediocrity, it will be okay as long as China and India and Brazil and other countries still on the rise choose to have space programs. A thousand years from now, it won't matter which of the various long dead nation-states did the exploration/colonization, only that it was done.

I'll put it more succinctly, though-- if America gives up on space, America has given up on the future.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I think it does. But then again, I'm not much of a nationalist, so if America wants to plummet back into mediocrity, it will be okay as long as China and India and Brazil and other countries still on the rise choose to have space programs. A thousand years from now, it won't matter which of the various long dead nation-states did the exploration/colonization, only that it was done.

I'll put it more succinctly, though-- if America gives up on space, America has given up on the future.

I think it's actually bigger than just space, it's the whole society and our focus and the initial posting I made here about (science) Literacy is at the core of it. Without understanding science and history and politics and etc. How can we as a society even make rational choices and plan a future, how can we know what is and isn't important, where we should focus our energies, what we want that future to be and how we get there?

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I think it does. But then again, I'm not much of a nationalist, so if America wants to plummet back into mediocrity, it will be okay as long as China and India and Brazil and other countries still on the rise choose to have space programs. A thousand years from now, it won't matter which of the various long dead nation-states did the exploration/colonization, only that it was done.

I'll put it more succinctly, though-- if America gives up on space, America has given up on the future.

If America plummets back to mediocrity I don't think it'll be because of the space program, but rather it will be a result of the education level in the country.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

I have a degree in physics, but the older I get, the less I care about things like evolution and cosmology. These branches of human learning have nothing to do with bettering society or improving anyone's life, so I rather suspect that the ones decrying the sad state of these useless fields of learning are mainly the ones who benefit from them: if enough people don't care, then precious funding to keep a lot of pointless archeology projects might get pulled, and a lot of archeologists might have to actually go out and get a real job. Perish the thought. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is a laudable goal, but only when all the other serious needs of society are taken care of. Otherwise, it's like sitting around reading a book when you have bills you can't pay because you haven't gone to work yet today. And even with all bills paid, in the end, who really honestly gives a flying rat's behind how many people understand evolution or cosmology?

But all that archaeology can at least give you the feeling that life used to be different, and is (arguably) better now, so that you won't give up trying to better society. If all you do is try to fix problems that are in large part created and fostered by the social system of your country, and this system cannot be changed anyway, as vested interests will block nearly all meaningful change that lowers the GINI coefficient, then you will soon get discouraged.
Moreover, if studies like archaeology didn't exist to interest people, there would be far fewer people who would need or want to get a higher education, so that you would have even more citizens who are immediately cowed into submission, or impressed by the "erudition" of the political or legalistic jargon thrown at them by the politicians and/or bureaucracy.
While it is admittedly the case that many academics despise politics and politicians, and as such are likely to stay far away from politics, I don't really see what the advantage would be of having even more mediocre businesspeople who are trained to only care about their own little bit of turf, and their performance rating.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Laz116

If America plummets back to mediocrity I don't think it'll be because of the space program, but rather it will be a result of the education level in the country.

A failure of the space program is a symptom, not a cause.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

A failure of the space program is a symptom, not a cause.

In what way has the space programme "failed"? It's been an enormous practical benefit to everybody in the world, from weather forecasting to GPS navigation to satellite communications.

[kindlekitten]

the space program in the US is about to fail if Obama has his way

[Angst]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I think it does. But then again, I'm not much of a nationalist, so if America wants to plummet back into mediocrity, it will be okay as long as China and India and Brazil and other countries still on the rise choose to have space programs. A thousand years from now, it won't matter which of the various long dead nation-states did the exploration/colonization, only that it was done.

I'll put it more succinctly, though-- if America gives up on space, America has given up on the future.

I respectfully disagree. You place too much emphasis on exploration/colonization. What matters most is the information gained per dollar spent. We learn far more from projects like the Hubble space telescope and the Large Hadron Collider, on a per dollar basis, than we we learn from planning a mission to Mars.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

the space program in the US is about to fail if Obama has his way

I heard his speech yesterday, and certainly didn't get the impression that he was abandoning space. On the contrary, he's encouraging commercial exploitation of space, and commercial competition is the best way to encourage innovation and drive down costs. The only way to make space "mainstream" is to take it out of the hands of government, and into a commercial proposition.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I heard his speech yesterday, and certainly didn't get the impression that he was abandoning space. On the contrary, he's encouraging commercial exploitation of space, and commercial competition is the best way to encourage innovation and drive down costs. The only way to make space "mainstream" is to take it out of the hands of government, and into a commercial proposition.

I did not hear the entire speech, but I agree with Harry that is what I took away from it as well.

The space shuttle program has ended. (as it probably should) but it's not like Nasa was closed down. Many programs are still running, including the Orion Project here in Colorado -- but it has been re-purposed for space-station rescue.

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by Angst

I respectfully disagree. You place too much emphasis on exploration/colonization. What matters most is the information gained per dollar spent. We learn far more from projects like the Hubble space telescope and the Large Hadron Collider, on a per dollar basis, than we we learn from planning a mission to Mars.

I must respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement - sort of.

I don't think we learn *far* more from those project, we just learn different things the Hubble and the LHC will tell more about the fundamentals of the universe while planning a mars (or any extended space mission) will yield us more practical results.

For all of the detractors and those that insist on focusing on what is in front of us, what better place to discover more efficient, more environmentally friendly technology than in planning and carrying out a mission to mars? Where better to find ways of producing clean, inexpensive power? Is there anything that would provide more incentive for devising a recycling program that returns as much of the input as possible? I don't think so.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by HarryT

In what way has the space programme "failed"? It's been an enormous practical benefit to everybody in the world, from weather forecasting to GPS navigation to satellite communications.

The MANNED space program (and that is what this conversation has been about) is failed because the US went from Apollo to spending 30 years wasting time piddling around in LEO in a glorified delivery truck. And now we are soon to not even have the delivery truck.

But what I was referring to in that reply, of course, was the poster trotting out the creeky old hat that "science X should not be done until every problem on Earth is solved first."

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Angst

I respectfully disagree. You place too much emphasis on exploration/colonization. What matters most is the information gained per dollar spent. We learn far more from projects like the Hubble space telescope and the Large Hadron Collider, on a per dollar basis, than we we learn from planning a mission to Mars.

I was unaware that a manned Mars mission was intended to answer questions of astrophysics or particle physics.