Here is an example of dumbing down for instance, from today's headlines:
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It rather common these days especially in public schools. Public education is not about teaching truth, it's not about quality. It's often more about teachers making the grades to get funding for their school systems.
Another source is parents that don't know what they are talking about telling schools what to teach and schools afraid of annoying parents. I agree that there should be some national standards and some state standards that depend purely on quality of education and not any political considerations. History curriculum should be set by historians, math curriculum my mathematicians, science curriculum by scientists, etc.
You could have the states set the standards for graduation from elementary school, and the program for middle and high school, and the federal government or a board made up of state universities, set the standards for graduation from high school, thus the authority setting the graduation standards are the ones that get the product and they are independent of the ones setting the programs. No conflict of interest with making it easier to turn out graduates.
I also think we (society) may want to consider stopping mandatory public school with 10th grade, but then provide public funding for anyone that wants to continue at any time with further education in a combined high-school / technical college of their choice. They would graduate with an associates degree, and the standards for that graduation would be set by the state universities to replace freshman year in university degree programs (thus reducing costs to parents by ~25%). This would let those that want to drop out to try it for a while with little cost, and it would let classes focus on topics of interest to students who want to continue rather than ones they are required to take.
Why is this happening? It's not only happening in schools it's happening in a portion of the church too.
Perhaps a large factor is population increase overtaxing the systems. Since I was in high school the population of the US has doubled, and this means the interactions needed have ~roughly speaking~ quadrupled.
The title of the thread is not just 'evolution' RAZD. the word 'cost' implies something altogether different from science. look it up. and the phrase 'other things' is pretty wide open I'd say.
So your off-handed "character assassination" of homosexuals and teachers teaching evolution just happened to be included in the rest of your diatribe, and people are free to just rant about anything? They shouldn't take any such comments as valid evidence of your personal beliefs? Perhaps you only want people to respond that "bobble" their heads in agreement with you?
The fact remains that you singled out evolution in the title. You did not call it "The cost of evolution, homosexuality, low school standards and things affecting ethics" you called it "The cost of Evolution, and (maybe some) other things."
The fact remains that you blatantly portrayed homosexuals and teachers of evolution as evil, and suggested that the behavior of homosexuals and teachers of evolution caused those kids to kill. Sorry, but I just do not think it is ethical or rational to make such broad statements, and pretty blind not expect to get called out on it. Such statements amply demonstrate ignorant bias and unreasonable intolerance, which are just polite (PC?) words for bigotry.
You may be right about the behavior of Ted Haggard, but not because of his homosexuality so much as his blatant full bore foaming at the mouth hypocrisy.
The entire quality of our society is affected by these deceptive practices that begin with our children.
How would you subjectively measure the quality of society, so that you aren't just making judgments based on personal opinions? Would you say we could compare states on a number of relatively arbitrary standards such as (feel free to add any):
- rates of divorce
- rates of domestic violence
- rates of murders
- rates of abortions in teenagers, un-married 20+ yr old women and married women
- rates of hate crimes against people for religious beliefs
- rates of hate crimes against doctors and nurses running pregnancy alternative clinics
- rates of hate crimes against people for sexual behavior
- rates of hate crimes based on race or ethnic background
- rates of people living below the poverty level
- rates of homeless people
- rates of people going to soup kitchens
etc etc etc.
It seems to me that a lot of these have been around a long time and are not a modern phenomena. Personally I think it would be wonderful if the worst one we could come up with was the rates of speeding tickets.
You sound like an angry guy. Have you considered a cup of chamomile tea before bed?
I like warm milk and a cookie actually.
Now, unlike Russ, I won't automatically assume that this comment is a sign that you are lying, just that you are running out of reasons to defend your sad argument in the opening post. That is usually my experience when people start using
ad hominem comments about the author of a post rather than deal with the substance of the post.
We've already established that you don't know jack about evolution, are confused about ethics, and use poor logic, to say nothing about the evident bigotry in your beliefs. You're running out of options, so either you have to realize your mistake(s) or attack your critics.
Enjoy.
ps - modified policy: [color:"blue"]My time is limited, but I have time to answer more than one response it seems. Therefore, I will continue to post on threads that interest me, but may reply to more than the first response if they discuss the issue(s).[/color] I expect other people to do the same. Thanks for your consideration.
