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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (114458)	5/31/2012 1:48:36 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

In the last 5 days, a man was killed while trying to eat another man in Miami and 6 people died yesterday from a shooting rampage in normally peaceful Seattle. Remember when a mass murder was absolutely shocking? Now it hardly makes the front page. Yup. And there is no place that's immune or safe from the violence. Yesterday, the guy here in Seattle killed himself 4-5 blocks from where I use to live. But what's even more disturbing is this country's terrible need for drugs. Now its bath salts that people are using to get off. What is it about our culture that causes so many to use illegal or prescription drugs indiscriminately?

To: Road Walker who wrote (114458)	6/1/2012 12:12:36 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

This is really hard for me to get my head around.................46% of Americans believe in creationism. That means those of us who believe in evolution are barely in the majority. The value of scientific literacy By Steve Benen - Fri Jun 1, 2012 11:30 AM EDT Gallup released the results of a new national poll this morning on science, and unfortunately, modern biology didn't fare well: "Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." There are all kinds of relevant crosstabs, most of which aren't surprising -- the more politically conservative you are, the more likely you are to believe the creationist argument. The more educated you are, the more likely you are to accept evolution. But even if we put all of that aside, I tend to consider the same question when reports like these are published: does scientific literacy within the American mainstream really matter? At first blush, it's tempting to think that if millions of Americans choose to be wrong about science, it doesn't seem especially consequential. In our daily lives, it's an issue that doesn't often arise. There is, however, reason for concern, and it ties into a larger context about the public's understanding of and appreciation for the scientific basics: if the United States continues to fall behind other nations in science education, our future dims. The country just can't afford confusion on a grand scale about scientific basics -- not just about biology, but also in areas like climate science. When activists, mainly on the right, launch anti-science initiatives, such as changing school curricula, there are real and broad consequences in the long term to public confusion. The competitive edge the United States used to enjoy is vanishing. The country needs to start taking science seriously again -- our economy depends on it -- and ignorance costs far too much. Results such as the new Gallup poll on biology should serve as a wake-up call. Neil deGrasse Tyson gave a lecture a few years ago that stuck with me on the " philosophy of ignorance," in which he said a lack of appreciation for basic scientific principles will hurt America's scientific output, which has traditionally been the nation's largest economic engine. "If nonscience works its way into the science classroom, it marks ... the beginning of the end of the economic strength this country has known," Tyson said. To care about American economic competitiveness is to care about science.