Ensconced in the northeastern US, it’s sometimes easy to not see what passes for a normal school day in vast portions of the country, and it’s often hard to see how this impacts our economy and our future.\u00a0 But that makes it no less real.<\/p>\n
To start, take a gander at the video below<\/a>.\u00a0 It shows a glimpse of a high school science classroom in Dayton, TN.\u00a0 The teacher is an unabashed creationist.\u00a0\u00a0 He rationalizes that he gives actual science a fair hearing, but also admits to giving equal weight to supernatural (i.e. non-scientific) explanations.\u00a0 His students are clearly young-Earth creationists, and he admits he would do nothing to dissuade that.\u00a0 The final student is perhaps the most shocking as he can’t fathom how an African-American person would evolve from a white person.\u00a0 The level of ignorance expressed in that one statement suggests these kids are actually exposed to frightfully little science.<\/p>\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\nIt would be nice to dismiss this classroom as an anomaly, but that’s simply not the case.\u00a0 In general, kids on the coasts are mostly free of this sort of religious intrusion in schools.\u00a0 Still, some are taught “alternative science” in their churches that refutes the classroom science.\u00a0 But I suppose in these cases it at least creates a genuine two-sided debate.\u00a0 And while students may not “believe” in science, they can at least explain it. \u00a0 Yet in the country’s heartland, there is not even a 2-sided discussion.\u00a0 The students are graduating as science illiterate.<\/p>\nWhere’s the harm in that, you might ask?\u00a0 After all, these students may be science illiterate, but they are God-fearing, moral, upright, and productive additions to their local communities.\u00a0 Isn’t that a good thing?\u00a0 Yes, but…<\/p>\nFor the latter half of the 20th Century, the US was the undisputed economic powerhouse on the planet.\u00a0 Our middle class bloomed and the country enjoyed the most prosperous period of its history.\u00a0 What drove that?\u00a0 Science and technology.\u00a0 The US grew and attracted the brightest and most innovative minds.\u00a0 We generated the technology and the subsequent industry that was exported around the globe.\u00a0 It can be claimed without hyperbole that the economy was driven by our mastery of science.<\/p>\nToday we see our economy flagging.\u00a0 And I don’t mean just the latest disaster.\u00a0 Throughout most of the last decade our economy has been based on our ability to game the markets and banking system.\u00a0 Meanwhile, other countries have arisen to fill the technology void.\u00a0 Korea, China, Taiwan, India, and others have taken over the mantle of innovation and industry. They are ascending.\u00a0 Us, not so much.<\/p>\nIt’s no coincidence that US students are now consistently ranked around 17th out of the top 30 industrial nations in science and math skills.\u00a0 We usually rank right about the same level as Turkey.\u00a0 It’s not that we don’t produce any bright geeky students.\u00a0 We do.\u00a0 But we don’t produce the volume required to compete effectively in global markets against countries who grow engineers like we grow corn.<\/p>\nThe counter-argument is often that teaching creationism as science might stunt a student’s biology career, but it shouldn’t keep us from producing scads of software engineers and physicists.\u00a0 But I say that’s sophistry.\u00a0 First, a lot of the innovation space with our rapidly aging populace is in medicine and biology, so we do need people who really understand the life sciences.\u00a0 But moreover, when a child’s early exposure to science of any flavor is basically that a bunch of whackos in lab coats have this nutty idea, but really the way the world works is something else, they learn an inherent distrust of science in general.\u00a0 Why would a student want to pursue a career using the same fundamental techniques that yielded such “flawed theories” as evolution?\u00a0 It requires a pretty significant cognitive dissonance to believe that biology, geology, anthropology, cosmology, and several other sciences are fundamentally wrong, but quantum physics is right on the money.<\/p>\nSo yes, it does matter to me that students far from here are learning that science is hooey.\u00a0 It matters to me not because it’s any sort of personal affront to me, but because it diminishes the future of our country.\u00a0 We all want our children to grow up and be more prosperous and better off than we were.\u00a0 But I fear that won’t be true.\u00a0 Religious faith is a good thing for many people.\u00a0 But you can’t build industry around it.\u00a0 You can’t export it.\u00a0 And you can’t eat it. Religion has its place, but we allow it to dilute science at our own peril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ensconced in the northeastern US, it’s sometimes easy to not see what passes for a normal school day in vast<\/p>\nRead more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-madscience","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2088"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\nIt would be nice to dismiss this classroom as an anomaly, but that’s simply not the case.\u00a0 In general, kids on the coasts are mostly free of this sort of religious intrusion in schools.\u00a0 Still, some are taught “alternative science” in their churches that refutes the classroom science.\u00a0 But I suppose in these cases it at least creates a genuine two-sided debate.\u00a0 And while students may not “believe” in science, they can at least explain it. \u00a0 Yet in the country’s heartland, there is not even a 2-sided discussion.\u00a0 The students are graduating as science illiterate.<\/p>\nWhere’s the harm in that, you might ask?\u00a0 After all, these students may be science illiterate, but they are God-fearing, moral, upright, and productive additions to their local communities.\u00a0 Isn’t that a good thing?\u00a0 Yes, but…<\/p>\nFor the latter half of the 20th Century, the US was the undisputed economic powerhouse on the planet.\u00a0 Our middle class bloomed and the country enjoyed the most prosperous period of its history.\u00a0 What drove that?\u00a0 Science and technology.\u00a0 The US grew and attracted the brightest and most innovative minds.\u00a0 We generated the technology and the subsequent industry that was exported around the globe.\u00a0 It can be claimed without hyperbole that the economy was driven by our mastery of science.<\/p>\nToday we see our economy flagging.\u00a0 And I don’t mean just the latest disaster.\u00a0 Throughout most of the last decade our economy has been based on our ability to game the markets and banking system.\u00a0 Meanwhile, other countries have arisen to fill the technology void.\u00a0 Korea, China, Taiwan, India, and others have taken over the mantle of innovation and industry. They are ascending.\u00a0 Us, not so much.<\/p>\nIt’s no coincidence that US students are now consistently ranked around 17th out of the top 30 industrial nations in science and math skills.\u00a0 We usually rank right about the same level as Turkey.\u00a0 It’s not that we don’t produce any bright geeky students.\u00a0 We do.\u00a0 But we don’t produce the volume required to compete effectively in global markets against countries who grow engineers like we grow corn.<\/p>\nThe counter-argument is often that teaching creationism as science might stunt a student’s biology career, but it shouldn’t keep us from producing scads of software engineers and physicists.\u00a0 But I say that’s sophistry.\u00a0 First, a lot of the innovation space with our rapidly aging populace is in medicine and biology, so we do need people who really understand the life sciences.\u00a0 But moreover, when a child’s early exposure to science of any flavor is basically that a bunch of whackos in lab coats have this nutty idea, but really the way the world works is something else, they learn an inherent distrust of science in general.\u00a0 Why would a student want to pursue a career using the same fundamental techniques that yielded such “flawed theories” as evolution?\u00a0 It requires a pretty significant cognitive dissonance to believe that biology, geology, anthropology, cosmology, and several other sciences are fundamentally wrong, but quantum physics is right on the money.<\/p>\nSo yes, it does matter to me that students far from here are learning that science is hooey.\u00a0 It matters to me not because it’s any sort of personal affront to me, but because it diminishes the future of our country.\u00a0 We all want our children to grow up and be more prosperous and better off than we were.\u00a0 But I fear that won’t be true.\u00a0 Religious faith is a good thing for many people.\u00a0 But you can’t build industry around it.\u00a0 You can’t export it.\u00a0 And you can’t eat it. Religion has its place, but we allow it to dilute science at our own peril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ensconced in the northeastern US, it’s sometimes easy to not see what passes for a normal school day in vast<\/p>\nRead more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-madscience","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2088"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It would be nice to dismiss this classroom as an anomaly, but that’s simply not the case.\u00a0 In general, kids on the coasts are mostly free of this sort of religious intrusion in schools.\u00a0 Still, some are taught “alternative science” in their churches that refutes the classroom science.\u00a0 But I suppose in these cases it at least creates a genuine two-sided debate.\u00a0 And while students may not “believe” in science, they can at least explain it. \u00a0 Yet in the country’s heartland, there is not even a 2-sided discussion.\u00a0 The students are graduating as science illiterate.<\/p>\n
Where’s the harm in that, you might ask?\u00a0 After all, these students may be science illiterate, but they are God-fearing, moral, upright, and productive additions to their local communities.\u00a0 Isn’t that a good thing?\u00a0 Yes, but…<\/p>\n
For the latter half of the 20th Century, the US was the undisputed economic powerhouse on the planet.\u00a0 Our middle class bloomed and the country enjoyed the most prosperous period of its history.\u00a0 What drove that?\u00a0 Science and technology.\u00a0 The US grew and attracted the brightest and most innovative minds.\u00a0 We generated the technology and the subsequent industry that was exported around the globe.\u00a0 It can be claimed without hyperbole that the economy was driven by our mastery of science.<\/p>\n
Today we see our economy flagging.\u00a0 And I don’t mean just the latest disaster.\u00a0 Throughout most of the last decade our economy has been based on our ability to game the markets and banking system.\u00a0 Meanwhile, other countries have arisen to fill the technology void.\u00a0 Korea, China, Taiwan, India, and others have taken over the mantle of innovation and industry. They are ascending.\u00a0 Us, not so much.<\/p>\n
It’s no coincidence that US students are now consistently ranked around 17th out of the top 30 industrial nations in science and math skills.\u00a0 We usually rank right about the same level as Turkey.\u00a0 It’s not that we don’t produce any bright geeky students.\u00a0 We do.\u00a0 But we don’t produce the volume required to compete effectively in global markets against countries who grow engineers like we grow corn.<\/p>\n
The counter-argument is often that teaching creationism as science might stunt a student’s biology career, but it shouldn’t keep us from producing scads of software engineers and physicists.\u00a0 But I say that’s sophistry.\u00a0 First, a lot of the innovation space with our rapidly aging populace is in medicine and biology, so we do need people who really understand the life sciences.\u00a0 But moreover, when a child’s early exposure to science of any flavor is basically that a bunch of whackos in lab coats have this nutty idea, but really the way the world works is something else, they learn an inherent distrust of science in general.\u00a0 Why would a student want to pursue a career using the same fundamental techniques that yielded such “flawed theories” as evolution?\u00a0 It requires a pretty significant cognitive dissonance to believe that biology, geology, anthropology, cosmology, and several other sciences are fundamentally wrong, but quantum physics is right on the money.<\/p>\n
So yes, it does matter to me that students far from here are learning that science is hooey.\u00a0 It matters to me not because it’s any sort of personal affront to me, but because it diminishes the future of our country.\u00a0 We all want our children to grow up and be more prosperous and better off than we were.\u00a0 But I fear that won’t be true.\u00a0 Religious faith is a good thing for many people.\u00a0 But you can’t build industry around it.\u00a0 You can’t export it.\u00a0 And you can’t eat it. Religion has its place, but we allow it to dilute science at our own peril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ensconced in the northeastern US, it’s sometimes easy to not see what passes for a normal school day in vast<\/p>\n
Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-madscience","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2088"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}