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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aladin who wrote (53449)	7/8/2004 6:01:54 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793783

Amish and the like are pretty harmless (or at worst they only harm themselves). I don't think it's just a matter of grieving for over their lost potential. I think there's a real danger of our country falling behind. China will clean our clock one of these decades unless we stay ahead. We don't stay ahead by teaching kids creationism. We teach science. We teach critical thinking skills. We brave the brave new world. Those who can't function in that environment are dead weight just as welfare mothers are dead weight. Sure, a few Amish and creationists won't get us to a tipping point, but we can't afford to let their numbers grow to a critical mass. Marginal increments in productivity will be essential. This is a free country and people can bury their heads in a horse and buggy or a literal reading of the Bible if they want to, and there's room in society for some of that, but there's risk to society in encouraging it. The other way they hold us back is they have the numbers to stall advances in science. If we want to keep up, we do stem cell research, to pick a topical issue. We lose competitiveness if we don't. Shooting ourselves in the foot. Might as well buy stock now in Chinese flags. Well that’s the $64k question isn't it :-) I thought we had answered that question in favor of a war paradigm. Clearly it's not a classical one and needs modifications. We seem to be working through them. I imagine the new hybrid paradigm will be a work in progress for some time.