LawTalkers - Waiting for Fitzgerald

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
lat night I attended an open house at my kid's school. the Philosphy class went ahead as if it was just another class.

The topic was "Should evolution AND Creationism be taught in Biology Class." The fellow traveler my liberal district has empowered to attempt and brainwash my children, told us of Schools, as she put it, "in - well I'm sure you can guess in which states where they don't teach evolution at all, but only teach Creationism." Now i didn't call bullshit, but I don't think that true is it?

Anyway her impartial prompts kept coming back to be asking the one religous kid in the class "doesn't it violate separation of Church/ state to teach creationism?"

So i finally ask her "What was the purpose of the separation, and in partiucular in schools?" She says we don't want to force a religion on people and if we teach Jesus to a class that is 90% Christian it's not fair to the other 10%." So then i had her-
"But how is that different than teaching evolution to a class that includes this young man who doesn't want to hear it?"

Ole' Stalin had no answer.

I sense that the Little Chinaskis will learn to use this devastating line of argument to shame literature professors into abandoning Faulkner as well, or at least to agree to the use of stickers proclaiming that As I Lay Dying is only a theory.

futbol fan

10-21-2005 02:16 PM

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You really stuck it to the Man that time! Profiles in courage.

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

10-21-2005 02:31 PM

A Question of Balance

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Originally posted by Spanky

When they use these stats it implies that the rich are getting rich and the poor are getting poorer. That is not the case. The only stat that really has any significance is look to are every quartile of income and see if people are getting better off. As long as the prospects of the bottom fourth are getting better who cares how much the rich are getting. That is just political exploitation of people's envy.

I think the percent increase is larger as well, contrary to your example.

Also, there are legitimate problems with increasing divisions of wealth. Doesn't mean the fix is better, but those divisions can create societal problems. A rising tide may lift all boats, but some of them may still be rotting in the hull.

Sexual Harassment Panda

10-21-2005 02:35 PM

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Your kid is being taught by at least one truly stupid person.

It doesn't violate church/state separation to teach creationism in a biology class - it violates science/nonscience separation in a biology class. Creationism doesn't provide testable hypotheses, and thus is unscientific. If you must, cram creationism down kids' throats in Sunday School class, where it belongs.

Gattigap

10-21-2005 02:49 PM

Clearly, WaPo is a stickler for detail, even in captions:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...p10-21-05e.jpg

"The former House majority leader speaks to one of his unidentified attorneys (R) during his court appearance. (Reuters)"

Hey, who's to say that the unidentified attorney isn't, say, an Independent?

Gattigap

10-21-2005 02:53 PM

A Question of Balance

Quote:

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I think the percent increase is larger as well, contrary to your example.

Also, there are legitimate problems with increasing divisions of wealth. Doesn't mean the fix is better, but those divisions can create societal problems. A rising tide may lift all boats, but some of them may still be rotting in the hull.

Additionally, it sounds like a defense of the Gilded Age.

Spanky

10-21-2005 02:54 PM

A Question of Balance

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So far the system that works the best to help the least fortunate in society is free market capitalism. Estonia has adopted a free market system with a 24% flat tax and they have the highest growth in post communist world.

The free market system helps the bottom third of a country's population better than any other system, the problem is that it also makes the top fifth really really rich.

Yes, that disparity is a problem, but you shouldn't cancel the system just because the rich get so rich. You deal with that problem. Because, so far any fix that has been attempted hurts the bottom third the most.

Spanky

10-21-2005 02:56 PM

A Question of Balance

Quote:

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I think the percent increase is larger as well, contrary to your example.

The precent increase may be larger but the part to focus on is the person making a $100 gets a ten percent increase. Any system that tried to reduce the disparity between the two ends up providing less than ten percent for the bottom third. The focus should be on the bottom third, and if the rich get really rich, so be it.

soup sandwich

10-21-2005 02:56 PM

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Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Your kid is being taught by at least one truly stupid person.

It doesn't violate church/state separation to teach creationism in a biology class - it violates science/nonscience separation in a biology class. Creationism doesn't provide testable hypotheses, and thus is unscientific. If you must, cram creationism down kids' throats in Sunday School class, where it belongs.

2, with the caveat the intelligent design may have a place in a statistics class, for example, in a discussion of specified complexity.

Secret_Agent_Man

10-21-2005 02:57 PM

A Question of Balance

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
As long as everyones incomes are rising who cares how much the rich are getting.

I think you're completely wrong in what you've just said. (Not about who cares how much the rich get, but in your rejection of the concept of a growing gap.)

There is at least one other factor to consider . . i.e. how much does the important shit cost as time goes on? How much are the prices for housing, health care, insurance, higher education, etc. rising each year?

That is why a person whose income goes from 100 to 110 isn't necessarily making any progress, and may be worse off. It is also why: (a) the relative and absolute gap between the bottom half (or pick a group) and the top 5-10% (which includes most all of us) has been notably increasing in the past 30 years; and (b) why the gap matters.

S_A_M

Spanky

10-21-2005 02:58 PM

A Question of Balance

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Originally posted by Gattigap
Additionally, it sounds like a defense of the Gilded Age.

What is wrong with defending the Gilded age? That was when the US experienced incredible growth and sucked in immigrants from all over the world. Yes there were problems with wealth disparity but can you cite a system that existed in another country during that period that provided as well for the working classes.

Hank Chinaski

10-21-2005 02:59 PM

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Before calling anyone stupid please explain how single celled organisms could develop organ systems?

Gattigap

10-21-2005 03:01 PM

A Question of Balance

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
What is wrong with defending the Gilded age? That was when the US experienced incredible growth and sucked in immigrants from all over the world. Yes there were problems with wealth disparity but can you cite a system that existed in another country during that period that provided as well for the working classes.

More precisely, it sounds like a defense of the Gilded Age without any acknowledgement of its problems (which, as it turns out, you've done above).

Your original comment seemed to suggest that the gap doesn't matter, so long as the bottom quartile improves in an absolute sense. I disagree, for the reasons that Burger and SAM mentioned above.

Secret_Agent_Man

10-21-2005 03:03 PM

Trick Question . . .

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Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Before calling anyone stupid please explain how single celled organisms could develop organ systems?

If you don't already know, I'm not telling.

S_A_M

Sexual Harassment Panda

10-21-2005 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Before calling anyone stupid please explain how single celled organisms could develop organ systems?

Symbiosis.

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