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.

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

A Question of Balance
 

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.

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.

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?

A Question of Balance
 

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

A Question of Balance
 

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.

A Question of Balance
 

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.

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

A Question of Balance
 

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

A Question of Balance
 

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.

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

A Question of Balance
 

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.

Trick Question . . .
 

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

S_A_M

Symbiosis.

A Question of Balance
 

Every year basic commodities decrease in real dollars in this country. Thanks to companys like Walmart and Costco. The only thing that keeps food prices in this country up are farm subsidies. But of course food is much cheaper here than in Western Europe or in Japan. Every other developed country I have ever lived in: France, Italy, Britain, and Japan have a much higher cost of living. Mainly due to market regulations that limit cost cutting businesses access to the market.

In the US our incomes are now higher and the costs of almost everything are lower in the United States. Housing in the big cities is really expensive, but there is no consitutional right to live where housing is expensive. There are many places in this country (Arizone, the South) where housing is incredibly cheap (much cheaper than the rest of the developed world).

In any event, no one has ever shown me a system that works better than ours (or at least the free market model).

The Gap is not the issue. It is a distraction used by politicians to get elected. The issue is the standard of living of the bottom third of the society. If it is getting better then great, and if it is not then you have a problem.

A Question of Balance
 

I am sorry I missed that. What is wrong with the bottom quartile getting better?

You believe in evolution?

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~stanford/gorilla.jpeg

or de-evolution?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ople/Teddy.jpg

I have some questions, too: When science cannot provide the definitive answer to a question, should we use God to fill in the gaps?

And as a follow-up, doesn't the use of God to fill in the gaps result in lazy science?

Lastly, why are there no efforts to introduce intelligent design theories into physics classes to fill in the gaps of the theory of relativity (which isn't much of theory at the subatomic level)?

A Question of Balance
 

There's nothing wrong, in itself, with the bottom quartile getting better. What's additionally important is the continuation of a large middle class, for a variety of economic, cultural and political reasons.

Dunno. Should we ridicule those who think God does?

Is that better or worse than using our imagination to dream up an answer?

even intro to Physics is a year long course. Any particular part? Maybe one that directly contradicts a portion of the bible?

Actually, in my experience, this happens all the time.

http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/miracle.gif

Belief in God/Allah/Buddah/Yahweh/FSM and acceptance of the scientific fact of evolution are not mutually exclusive - despite the best efforts of the religious right.



Not at all. The testability of the answer dicates which class it should be taught in.


Quantum mechanics is such a trip (the direction of spin of an electron is not fixed until you measure it). All it means is that FSM has not revealed all to us - but FSM did not give us the mechanisms to develop, over eons, the most magnificent brains in the history of the world so that we could intentionally refuse to use them and somehow equate that with faith. To my mind, although I cannot say for certain, it seems possible that would just piss FSM off no end.

Yes.

Worse.

What?

ETA: Wait, maybe I understand what you're saying. Are you saying we should teach the story of the burning bush as a contradictory theory to the laws of thermodynamics?

Sunny's new squeeze is that roll of fat she is developing around her waist. She retired from the dating pool once she crossed the spinster line inot her thirities bc she thinks thirty something women trying to date are pathetic. I am not making this up. I bet she even took her profile off of match. Oh wait, she never had it up = too pathetic. She emailed Lunchbox anonymously.

A Question of Balance
 

When I received your email about your unibrow this morning, I was a little confused as to why you thought to pen me a letter on the subject. But it came from you, so I didnt think too much of it. But now that I catchup, I see it was borne of a whiff. I meant the eyebrows on the Old Coot in the picture you (or whoever) posted. "You" were the old guy just like TM was Freddy Boom Boom Washington in a picture I once posted. Not literally, but for purposes of absurdism.

A Question of Balance
 

What I look at is the fact that the people who could buy 50 foot yachts last year are buying 125 foot motor launches this year, while the number of people living day-to-day, one paycheck away from the street is growing by leaps and bounds.

just say no
 

SAMMY! Who loves ya, baby? How are things on the ole DC board? Still running a tight, on topic ship? Any JWAD sightings? Mario?

Hi

"God snapped his fingers and life started" is not mutually exclusive to "A primordial ooze got zapped with lightning and a single cell was created?"




Outline a theory for how a single cell mutates into an animal having organ systems. Then sketch out a test protocal.

Hi!

Just tell me that post #3495 was too brief for you. I can expound if you need me to.

Link please.

Should we ridicule those who introduce untestable ideas into a scientific discussion? No, but they should be sarcastically told
"Thanks, pal. That really helps move the ball on this problem".

Science is problem solving. Simply saying "God's will!" may offer some comfort, but it does not move the ball.

Solutions come from imagination. Using a scientific approach ideas are tested and the poor ones are discarded or modified. The gaps are identified and hopefully filled in later.

Certainly all physics students learn E=mc^2 at some point. Should we not include a discussion of how there may be an intelligent designer who is holding subatomic particles together in a non-Einsteinian fashion? Shouldn't we present all views? In economics shouldn't we discuss how an intelligent desiger controls the markets? We don't and you know why? It's lazy and sloppy science.

Regarding the bible, shouldn't we be equally outraged at all unprovable ideas regardless of whether they contradict the bible? And what is so contradictory anyway? "God made the animals". How he did it is theologically irrelevant, but scientifically interesting.

What exactly is the hangup? Creation in six days? Making Adam from dust?

Maybe the theory you really have a problem with is not evolution, but rather "abiogenesis", which is the theory that life can arise spontaneously from non-life molecules under proper conditions.

Evolution is just a theory, but it's a useful theory. It's used every time a scientist compares the amino acid sequences of a protein from different species. Abiogenesis? Well, that's just to tweak the bible-thumpers. If you want to wage a war on abiogenesis I'm on board.

The answer to your question is no, there are no states that teach creationism to the exclusion of evolution.

On the other hand, I'm not sure what there is to teach about creationism, other than to note that there are a variety of creation myths that people around the world subscribe to, and belief in them is essentially a matter of faith.

Outline a theory for how a single cell mutates into an animal having organ systems. Then sketch out a test protocal.

What defines a living creature? Is a virus alive? A viroid? Likely a prion is not, but that cuts the legs out from divisions based on self-replication. Certainly the experiments of Stanley Miller show that random construction of higher-order molecules under primordial conditions was possible, but that doesn't get you to a membrane-encapsulated self-replicating autonomous organism.

Hey, it's Science Friday!

We'll take your inability to move the ball forward as giving up. Please put this one in the "L" column.

Can I get the teacher fired for saying there are?