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

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

That works up to a point, but you should keep in mind that, once there is no need for adaptation anymore, as the differences in fitness are negligible (or no longer being selected by partners), you will reach a plateau as a species.

....

How many more millions years will it last?

There have been plateaux like that that have lasted for 150.000.000 years.
Ours is just a few thousand long.

[kennyc]

Yep, the dinosaurs were around for a bit.....and many of the simple life-forms like blue-green algae have been 'relatively' stable throughout time.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by dsvick

I had a roommate once who asked "What if this is still the 7th day and god is still resting? And what if he has more plans for his next week?"

And then he said "like, woah, man" and ate a whole giant-sized bag of Doritos...

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

And then he said "like, woah, man" and ate a whole giant-sized bag of Doritos...

As a matter of fact, I believe he did

[kennyc]

And now this:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/201...aims_defe.html

".....The finger-pointing continued Wednesday, one day after 316 of 541 of the state’s school budgets were defeated. The 58.4 percent total was the highest failure rate since the New Jersey School Boards Association began keeping track in 1976......"

[rock]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And now this:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/201...aims_defe.html

".....The finger-pointing continued Wednesday, one day after 316 of 541 of the state’s school budgets were defeated. The 58.4 percent total was the highest failure rate since the New Jersey School Boards Association began keeping track in 1976......"

I live in Philadelphia. I have co-workers here who drive in from Jersey.

They say the teachers are over paid and are not even trying to improve.

I think this is them saying to the teachers, improve our student's learning, then you will get paid.

I do not fully agree, but I think this is a tactic by them to open the teacher's eyes.

Think there is a school district in Europe, if your school has subpar grades/scores, the school gets shut down. I think they are trying this approach as a kind of reform.

Though I do not put full blame on teachers, Parent's need to step up (my parent's always pushed me, and also get me things like a microscope as kid, and books whenever I said I wanted to read something and I thank them for that, it got me into the best school in the city/state for high school, and have benefited from it). But also college's that are teaching these new teachers. I have about 15 people I know from high school who are now teachers. 6 different colleges between them, but all of them were taught they have to teach for standardized testing and nothing else. That is what is killing this country eductation system. We are so tied up with standardized testing, they are not teaching the same things I learned, which really was not that long ago.

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by rock

Think there is a school district in Europe, if your school has subpar grades/scores, the school gets shut down. I think they are trying this approach as a kind of reform.

What the hell. School district and Europe in the same sentence. Europe doesn't exactly consist of districts.

Originally Posted by rock

Though I do not put full blame on teachers, Parent's need to step up (my parent's always pushed me, and also get me things like a microscope as kid, and books whenever I said I wanted to read something and I thank them for that, it got me into the best school in the city/state for high school, and have benefited from it). But also college's that are teaching these new teachers. I have about 15 people I know from high school who are now teachers. 6 different colleges between them, but all of them were taught they have to teach for standardized testing and nothing else. That is what is killing this country eductation system. We are so tied up with standardized testing, they are not teaching the same things I learned, which really was not that long ago.

While I agree on the lures of standardization of tests, I don't really get how standardized tests contribute to them not teaching the SAME things you learned.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Laz116

What the hell. School district and Europe in the same sentence. Europe doesn't exactly consist of districts.



While I agree on the lures of standardization of tests, I don't really get how standardized tests contribute to them not teaching the SAME things you learned.

That's because instead of teaching the students a topic and how to approach, remember, study, learn it they focus almost exclusively on how to take the test and the questions and correct answers.

In essence they are no longer teach subjects to students but teaching them how to pass the standardized test.

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's because instead of teaching the students a topic and how to approach, remember, study, learn it they focus almost exclusively on how to take the test and the questions and correct answers.

In essence they are no longer teach subjects to students but teaching them how to pass the standardized test.

I know, and we, here in Denmark, are falling under the lure of standardization. However, what I was complaining about was that his critique was aimed at standardized learning, while he at the same time wanted them to learn the SAME as he learned in his school days.

My point: his way of thinking is just standardized knowledge in a way that isn't quite as obvious.

Critical thinking as a part of learning in the school system is in dire straits anywhere in the world imo. It's not just in the USA.

[rock]

Sorry I am just used to saying districts.

but onto the "critical thinking"

Schools don't teach history anymore. They don't teach every thing about science anymore.

They now have enviromental science which just focuses on the Standardized tests.

They do no EDUCATE. There is a reason why the question was asked "why can't a USA student point out Iraq on a map today."

It is because all they care about are the standardized tests. When a student is now going into high school, and doesn't know what the Holocaust is or even the basic principles of science, all they know is how to fill out multiple choice questions on a test.

I was learning Latin in 3rd - 6th grade. They cut that out of the school I went to. Arts programs are being cut because they want to spend more money on test preparation.

Teachers ARE NOT teaching anymore. They are just preparing them to test.

The point of this thread is how Science in this country is just dropping. It is because of standardized testing. It is the theme of the thread. So yes THEY ARE NOT teaching what I learned in school, they actually taught subjects.

[mike_bike_kite]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

That works up to a point, but you should keep in mind that, once there is no need for adaptation anymore, as the differences in fitness are negligible (or no longer being selected by partners), you will reach a plateau as a species.

The differences in fitness are always negligible but over time they still count and unfortunately the changes that occur happen over many generations so you won't see any change in one lifetime. We don't really compete with other species (unless you count viruses/disease) but we still compete with each other. In my own country there is a tendency for the more intelligent to have fewer children and so the gene pool will likely move towards a lower average intelligence - assuming intelligence is inherited. I guess even governments could influence the gene pool simply by altering charity donations, hospital budgets and child aid - I'm certainly not saying they should but I believe that the possibility is there.

Any discussion regarding human genetics in the media tends to get bogged down in accusations of one variety or the other but sometimes the truth comes out in comedy - there was a fun film called Idiocracy which was quite funny until you realised the science was correct and then it became quite frightening. A while back a book called The Bell Curve also rang a lot of warning bells but was widely put down in the media - though again the science looked correct. Interestingly the book gets a lower review in the US than in the UK. Go figure.

Mike

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by rock

Sorry I am just used to saying districts.

but onto the "critical thinking"

Schools don't teach history anymore. They don't teach every thing about science anymore.

They now have enviromental science which just focuses on the Standardized tests.

They do no EDUCATE. There is a reason why the question was asked "why can't a USA student point out Iraq on a map today."

It is because all they care about are the standardized tests. When a student is now going into high school, and doesn't know what the Holocaust is or even the basic principles of science, all they know is how to fill out multiple choice questions on a test.

I was learning Latin in 3rd - 6th grade. They cut that out of the school I went to. Arts programs are being cut because they want to spend more money on test preparation.

Teachers ARE NOT teaching anymore. They are just preparing them to test.

The point of this thread is how Science in this country is just dropping. It is because of standardized testing. It is the theme of the thread. So yes THEY ARE NOT teaching what I learned in school, they actually taught subjects.

I think we are pretty much in agreement. For me the biggest issue with the education system (in my country) that it increasingly puts value in superficial knowledge. It really isn't that important to know precisely when the reformation happened or when Denmark was liberated from Nazi-Germany. The importance is in having a grasp of what such events meant.

[kennyc]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100510/coyne


"Imagine for a moment that a large proportion of Americans--let's say half--rejected the "germ theory" of infectious disease. Maladies like swine flu, malaria and AIDS aren't caused by micro-organisms, they claim, but by the displeasure of gods, whom they propitiate by praying, consulting shamans and sacrificing goats. Now, you'd surely find this a national disgrace, for those people would be utterly, unequivocally wrong. Although it's called germ theory, the idea that infections are spread by small creatures is also a fact, supported by mountains of evidence. You don't get malaria unless you carry a specific protozoan parasite. ....."

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

A while back a book called The Bell Curve also rang a lot of warning bells but was widely put down in the media - though again the science looked correct.

The late Stephen Jay Gould did a pretty thorough de-bunking of The Bell Curve. I first read of his critique in his book The Mismeasure of Man (2nd edition).

Gould's appraisal of The Bell Curve can be found at https://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/co...curveball.html

[mike_bike_kite]

Interesting read but I believe he wrote this simply because it conflicts with Gould's ideas that appeared in his book "The Mismeasure of Man". I believe Gould's book also received a fair amount of criticism but I guess that's just the nature of scientific debate:

The Mismeasure of Man has been considered highly controversial among psychologists who support the concepts Gould examined.

Bernard Davis (1916–1994), professor of microbiology at the Harvard Medical School, accused Gould of setting up straw man arguments, as well as incorrectly defining key terms (notably "reification"), choosing data in a "highly selective" manner, and in general being motivated more by political concerns rather than scientific ones.[9] Davis claimed that a laudatory review by Philip Morrison, which appeared in Scientific American, was written because the journal's editorial staff had "long seen the study of the genetics of intelligence as a threat to social justice."[10]

Statistician David J. Bartholomew, of the London School of Economics, wrote that Gould erred in his use of factor analysis[11] and irrelevantly focused on issue of reification and ignored scientific consensus on the existence of the g factor of intelligence.[12]

In an article written for the April 1982 edition of Nature, Steve Blinkhorn, a senior lecturer in psychology at Hatfield Polytechnic, accused Gould of selectively juxtaposing data in order to further a political agenda.[13]

Psychologist Franz Samelson wrote a review in Science, which tended to be critical on a number of counts.[14] Samelson, for example, was critical of Gould's argument that U.S. Army intelligence tests contributed to the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.

I've read a few book by Gould but haven't read the above one.

Mike