Vote Obama #2/7: The Importance of Science

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owie

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#51  Edited By owie  Moderator

@WillPayton said:

@minigunman123 said:

@WillPayton said:

@minigunman123 said:

@Owie said:

A very excellent response, and I actually only want to reply about the investment thing some more. What have we really gotten out of space flight in terms of scientific or commercial achievement?

Actually, quite a lot, especially if you look at both the manned and unmanned space programs.

Government funding for pure research, universities, and other R&D is largely responsible for much of the progress and technical proficiency we enjoy today in this country.

What did landing on the moon accomplish?

Landing on the Moon is only a part of the space program. The benefits of the space program since it started are really incalculable at this point, from communications satellites, GPS satellites, materials discoveries, and practical inventions. Perhaps the biggest benefit has been the enthusiasm the space program created for science and engineering in the US. Many, many people were motivated to study math, science, and engineering because of the space program, and those are the same people that went on to invent the internet, cell phones, and many other things that you enjoy today. I guarantee you if we'd never had the space program in the US, the entire world would be very different now.

It's also important to understand that as part of going to space, NASA has to invent and discover stuff on a daily basis. There's way too much tech that was invented by NASA to list, and all of it becomes assets for the US government and public institutions to use as basis for new discoveries. Also a lot of it is used as basis for people to start new tech companies.

Other stuff we owe to the space program:

http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/benefits.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/ten-nasa-inventions.htm

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/spinoffs/redirected/

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/benefits/index.html

Exactly. Even if you just focus in on satellites, there's a huge influence on the world today, from basic lifestyles to business. GPS, weather, spying, the list goes on forever.

@cameron83 said:

@Owie: can I ask you a question....But what does creationist mean?

I'm not familiar with that word....and evangelical

You can check WillPayton's response about this on the last page, but basically Creationists think the world was immediately created by god without the intervention of science--no Big Bang, etc. They also don't believe in evolution, because they think all life was created at once. They take all of the events in the the Bible literally. Here's an in-depth definition. Creationists in the US are determined to get rid of teaching evolution (and the Big Bang) in the schools, and have it be replaced by Creationist theories in the schools instead.

Evangelicals are a little different. Many Evangelicals are Creationists, but not all. Evangelicals are a brand of Protestant Christians who fervently believe that they must evangelize about Christ to others and convert them to Christianity. They often believe the Rapture is near--the Rapture is the moment when Christ returns to Earth and brings the true Christians to heaven. They are often reborn Christians--people who converted later in life. Like Creationists, they tend to read the Bible literally. They tend to be very purist about Christianity and take strong measures to make their branch of Christianity the law of the land. They have been very influential in making Evangelical values into law, even when those values are not shared by people outside of their faith. They have a number of colleges that teach Evangelical values and try to de-emphasize many aspects of science and history. They are very influential on social issues like abortion, obscenity, pornography, prayer in schools, etc.

@soduh2 said:

You have a lot of "pro-science" people (evolution, stem cell research etc.) working at starbucks or McDonalds, the problem isn't the right wing or religion obstructing innovation. It's the education system that needs to be improved before public policy or ideology.

I agree that improving the education system is one of the main things that needs to be improved. But a lot of the problems that people run into when trying to improve the education system have to do with religious and political obstructionism to science and history. Take the Texas school book situation for example. For complicated reasons, Texas basically gets to decide what textbooks a lot of students across the US read in school. And the people who make these decisions in Texas are infamous for making those decisions for political and religious reasons. Here are two articles that go into it in greater depth: TimesNPR

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minigunman123

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#52  Edited By minigunman123

@Owie said:

@WillPayton said:

@minigunman123 said:

@WillPayton said:

@minigunman123 said:

@Owie said:

A very excellent response, and I actually only want to reply about the investment thing some more. What have we really gotten out of space flight in terms of scientific or commercial achievement?

Actually, quite a lot, especially if you look at both the manned and unmanned space programs.

Government funding for pure research, universities, and other R&D is largely responsible for much of the progress and technical proficiency we enjoy today in this country.

What did landing on the moon accomplish?

Landing on the Moon is only a part of the space program. The benefits of the space program since it started are really incalculable at this point, from communications satellites, GPS satellites, materials discoveries, and practical inventions. Perhaps the biggest benefit has been the enthusiasm the space program created for science and engineering in the US. Many, many people were motivated to study math, science, and engineering because of the space program, and those are the same people that went on to invent the internet, cell phones, and many other things that you enjoy today. I guarantee you if we'd never had the space program in the US, the entire world would be very different now.

It's also important to understand that as part of going to space, NASA has to invent and discover stuff on a daily basis. There's way too much tech that was invented by NASA to list, and all of it becomes assets for the US government and public institutions to use as basis for new discoveries. Also a lot of it is used as basis for people to start new tech companies.

Other stuff we owe to the space program:

http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/benefits.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/ten-nasa-inventions.htm

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/spinoffs/redirected/

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/benefits/index.html

Exactly. Even if you just focus in on satellites, there's a huge influence on the world today, from basic lifestyles to business. GPS, weather, spying, the list goes on forever.

@cameron83 said:

@Owie: can I ask you a question....But what does creationist mean?

I'm not familiar with that word....and evangelical

You can check WillPayton's response about this on the last page, but basically Creationists think the world was immediately created by god without the intervention of science--no Big Bang, etc. They also don't believe in evolution, because they think all life was created at once. They take all of the events in the the Bible literally. Here's an in-depth definition. Creationists in the US are determined to get rid of teaching evolution (and the Big Bang) in the schools, and have it be replaced by Creationist theories in the schools instead.

Evangelicals are a little different. Many Evangelicals are Creationists, but not all. Evangelicals are a brand of Protestant Christians who fervently believe that they must evangelize about Christ to others and convert them to Christianity. They often believe the Rapture is near--the Rapture is the moment when Christ returns to Earth and brings the true Christians to heaven. They are often reborn Christians--people who converted later in life. Like Creationists, they tend to read the Bible literally. They tend to be very purist about Christianity and take strong measures to make their branch of Christianity the law of the land. They have been very influential in making Evangelical values into law, even when those values are not shared by people outside of their faith. They have a number of colleges that teach Evangelical values and try to de-emphasize many aspects of science and history. They are very influential on social issues like abortion, obscenity, pornography, prayer in schools, etc.

@soduh2 said:

You have a lot of "pro-science" people (evolution, stem cell research etc.) working at starbucks or McDonalds, the problem isn't the right wing or religion obstructing innovation. It's the education system that needs to be improved before public policy or ideology.

I agree that improving the education system is one of the main things that needs to be improved. But a lot of the problems that people run into when trying to improve the education system have to do with religious and political obstructionism to science and history. Take the Texas school book situation for example. For complicated reasons, Texas basically gets to decide what textbooks a lot of students across the US read in school. And the people who make these decisions in Texas are infamous for making those decisions for political and religious reasons. Here are two articles that go into it in greater depth: TimesNPR

I'm willing to admit I was mostly wrong about the space program, but I still think some of it's goals were unnecessary, such as landing on the moon; what if we could've achieved the same outcome, GPS and satellites and such, without the need for landing on the moon at all? It would've saved time and money. I guess my main point was, the government doesn't do things efficiently very often, and sometimes there are scientific ventures that simply don't yield much actual benefit to society. I think these are things we should avoid, and I think America should focus more on business growth, in the short-term, than any kind of technological investment for the next presidental term, as far as the government goes, because without business, the economy will simply fade away. I don't think we should rush to spend any money on "investments" right now. We need to first encourage the private sector to grow again, since that's where the majority of the money for the country is made (both in terms of money for citizens, and in terms of taxes from the businesses and citizens working for the businesses themselves). I'm very wary of what kind of investment the country's government itself should be making anyway.

The supercollider, for instance, might have spawned some interesting technologies (although I'm unsure if it created any at all, really), but it didn't do much of anything in the way of helping anyone or providing any substantial outcome for the governments involved with it. We learned new things about particles and possibly the origin of the universe, which is a good scientific achievement, but it was a bit of a waste for governments to spend on. Perhaps private research groups can try to do things like that, with private backers such as Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, rather than using government money on it. That's what I'd really like. I'd like people to take intriguing scientific ventures into their own hands rather than spend money used for upkeeping the country, defending it (when necessary), and trading with other countries, on those ventures. That would be wonderful in my opinion. I have to wonder what interest the government has in things if it's decided to invest in it.

Now.. What's this about the government getting involved in education? What specifically do you (the reader) think the government should do about education? What problems of education do you think there are? The only one I can think of is affordability, and making textbooks cheaper (by a long shot, dear lord, a low level math book is not worth $150-$200) and slightly lowering tuition should be more of a university's individual problem, not a government problem...

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willpayton

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#53  Edited By willpayton

@minigunman123 said:

I'm willing to admit I was mostly wrong about the space program, but I still think some of it's goals were unnecessary, such as landing on the moon;

I always appreciate when someone admits they're wrong. It's hard to do, but no one is perfect or knows everything. I certainly dont. Admitting you dont know something is the first step to knowledge.

The thing about landing on the Moon is that it was a political goal. I'm not sure how much you know about the 50s and 60s as far as geopolitics and the Cold War, but we were deep in the Cold War with the Soviets at the time. They had just put the first satellite into orbit, causing a huge scare in the US. People were afraid that the Soviets would be able to drop nuclear bombs on them at any time without warning from space. The result is that Kennedy committed us to putting a man on the Moon before the end of the 60s.

That's the short answer. But I think going to the Moon was a huge win for us. It created massive interest in math, science, and engineering in schools and public funding, and spawned whole generations that later would go on to build our modern world. Once we got to the Moon and started losing interest in space travel, we started losing this motivation, and eventually started getting surpassed in education by other countries such as China.

The moral of the story: Support basic science and tech research and space program funding from the government. Instead of wasting trillions of dollars on wars to fund our oil addiction, we could be spending the money on something that is guaranteed to give us many times more in benefits in the future. This is what we learned from the space program. The money we spent then keeps yielding returns today, and so we must spend money now to secure these benefits later.

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soduh2

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#54  Edited By soduh2

@minigunman123: Now.. What's this about the government getting involved in education? What specifically do you (the reader) think the government should do about education? What problems of education do you think there are? The only one I can think of is affordability, and making textbooks cheaper (by a long shot, dear lord, a low level math book is not worth $150-$200) and slightly lowering tuition should be more of a university's individual problem, not a government problem...

There are issues at all levels.

At the very least we've become overly concerned with test scores (which is a negative effect of government controlled education), many classes around the united states attempt to teach the test so we can compete with East Asia. Yet despite our lower scores they typically come to the United States universities after High School. Not to mention we don't even teach subject matter efficiently despite the 12 years we spend in the general public school system. I'll go into more detail here via PM.

At my university there is supposedly an increased demand for individuals in the Medical field (RNs and MDs), yet our affiliated medical school increased the standards for admission instead of placing more responsibility on the professors in yielding more applicants. Not saying they should lower the standards on the applicants but they should expect more out of the professors as well. Affordability is an issue but there are also high demand jobs that aren't getting filled up and society is basically sitting on their hands hoping magically students at all levels will become more motivated.

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#55  Edited By soduh2

@Owie said: ////"I agree that improving the education system is one of the main things that needs to be improved. But a lot of the problems that people run into when trying to improve the education system have to do with religious and political obstructionism to science and history. Take the Texas school book situation for example. For complicated reasons, Texas basically gets to decide what textbooks a lot of students across the US read in school. And the people who make these decisions in Texas are infamous for making those decisions for political and religious reasons. Here are two articles that go into it in greater depth"///// I t should go either way, in my opinion. Ideology shouldn't be enforced in any respects. Don't assume that there aren't any pro-life, YEC individuals in high profile science careers. Neither should you assume that these individuals are the "LCD" in their fields either. Often times schools like in Texas teach "both" ID and Evolution, as well as creationist friendly history as well as mainstream. Whats worse to me is that secular people are concerned with creationist and ID ideology while there are strongly anti-science believers who deny dinosaurs even existed (let alone evolution). Science denial is worse than trying to bridge science with faith, but they are unfairly treated equally bad. Thats why I say improving education is more important than shifting ideologies.

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TheNooseIsLoose

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#56  Edited By TheNooseIsLoose
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minigunman123

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#57  Edited By minigunman123

@soduh2 said:

@minigunman123: Now.. What's this about the government getting involved in education? What specifically do you (the reader) think the government should do about education? What problems of education do you think there are? The only one I can think of is affordability, and making textbooks cheaper (by a long shot, dear lord, a low level math book is not worth $150-$200) and slightly lowering tuition should be more of a university's individual problem, not a government problem...

There are issues at all levels.

At the very least we've become overly concerned with test scores (which is a negative effect of government controlled education), many classes around the united states attempt to teach the test so we can compete with East Asia. Yet despite our lower scores they typically come to the United States universities after High School. Not to mention we don't even teach subject matter efficiently despite the 12 years we spend in the general public school system. I'll go into more detail here via PM.

At my university there is supposedly an increased demand for individuals in the Medical field (RNs and MDs), yet our affiliated medical school increased the standards for admission instead of placing more responsibility on the professors in yielding more applicants. Not saying they should lower the standards on the applicants but they should expect more out of the professors as well. Affordability is an issue but there are also high demand jobs that aren't getting filled up and society is basically sitting on their hands hoping magically students at all levels will become more motivated.

I hear you saying we should try and get people excited and motivated to work in high demand areas, rather than whine about the way things are; this sounds intelligent, and probably a good idea, but I don't know if it's the government's job to do that, in fact I think universities should take it upon themselves to try and increase the ability of themselves. Protesting of some sort, and boycotting some universities, would be an extreme but likely effective method to get them to realize what's up.

Tests are inevitable. There's not a ton of better, and reliable, ways we can measure a person's knowledge and ability to dispense that knowledge, other than giving them a knowledge test. The time limit is to ensure they have the knowledge readily available, have been paying attention, and can work well under pressure, which will become important in every person's life at some point, and it will teach people to try and raise their own personal standards if they get a bad grade. I don't love tests, and in reality you're not going to encounter a problem that's like "OK, I have to solve this triangle in 10 minutes or the universe explodes!!!", but still, it is a way to ensure people can ingrain the knowledge and methods into their brains. What method do you think we should use to test people's knowledge and capabilities reliably and fairly?

One of the reasons school is not a primary concern of people in the USA, and is a huge concern to East Asians, is because of availability. People in East Asia have to compete much, much more thoroughly, to get to any colleges, least of all top universities, than we do in America, because we have fewer people and more universities, and in general more opportunity per person. People in East Asia are regularly accomplishing amazing things, at the very least in their own education, while Americans seem dumber than dirt sometimes, because they're more pressed to become great than we are; we live in a land of opportunity, if people are willing to take it, but years of not having to be under a ton of pressure have made people softer.

That's just my take on things. I think I've also said in this or another thread that there are tons of programs to help people that don't work, and there's basically no way for someone to completely be on their own in America, since there's always people or the government to mooch off of, so I think getting rid of some of them while also teachign peopel to invent their own jobs (something me and my Dad both do, in the technology field, and our family's upper middle class for it), could help get the economy jumpstarted a bit, again. Small business also needs to get helped out, and ObamaCare should be repealed. Thoughts?

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#58  Edited By soduh2

@minigunman123:

Its not just encouragement, we do plenty of that but its really all talk and no show. I don't think assuming everyone is lazy or satisfied is really the complete truth, though it is true that we take the opportunities in our nation for granted. Frankly I'd say the solution is year round school years and more narrow curriculums. Stop teaching things that will just be forgotten latter, this applies both to the K-12 and University level. Find a way to normalize higher learning, (this can be done with a narrow curriculum). As far as testing goes, I'm not saying they should be totally eliminated just that over emphasis on testing shifts the public school curriculum to "teach the test" rather the the actual subject matter. The "teach the test" ideology goes double in low income communities, yet despite this we aren't competing with the rest of the world. The emphasis on testing was the governments fault in the first place, they should at least have a hand in rectifying the change.

EDIT: "Teaching people to invent there own jobs" sort of builds upon my normalization of higher learning, concept.