whew, that was a close one.  For a minute there I was afraid our students would have to be exposed to Republican propaganda like "critical thinking", and schools would be forced to teach science objectively.

This thread needs a summoning card.

The GOP incompetence buys some time, anyway.

Shouldn't have used Huntsman's staffers.

serial_crusher: whew, that was a close one.  For a minute there I was afraid our students would have to be exposed to Republican propaganda like "critical thinking", and schools would be forced to teach science objectively.

... I'll put you down as "possible double-sarcasm."

Ironic tag taking stupid tag out for dinner.

Skail: It still baffles me that, in this day and age and in this first-world country, there can be people who are "anti-science."

It scares them. Some of the disciplines take years of effort to be adequate in. The higher maths? Sorry, you keep going up or you stop.

serial_crusher: whew, that was a close one.  For a minute there I was afraid our students would have to be exposed to Republican propaganda like "critical thinking", and schools would be forced to teach science objectively.

"science" being the important word there.

2wolves: Skail: It still baffles me that, in this day and age and in this first-world country, there can be people who are "anti-science."

It scares them. Some of the disciplines take years of effort to be adequate in. The higher maths? Sorry, you keep going up or you stop.

In Brownbackistan, higher maths equate to 1+1=2 (future slaves do not need to count, only their overseers need to learn how to count).

Skail: It still baffles me that, in this day and age and in this first-world country, there can be people who are "anti-science."

Even better when they use science to try to discredit science.

Close2TheEdge: Let's get this out of the way right now.

[farm1.static.flickr.com image 288x401]

I'm not sure he still frequents fark.  Regardless though, we shall soldier on without his enlightening discourse.

you are a puppet: Most of them probably also think the Earth is 5000 years old so deadlines are tough to meet thanks to their conversion table. A 60 day deadline you say? We'll get back to you in 9 million years.

I believe the critical failing of conservatives and fundamentalists is a basic lack of imagination.

Sea's aren't boiling today, and North America is no longer covered in a mile of ice, and they can't imagine that that could ever change.

They aren't poor, can get the morning off to go vote in short lines, and have never experienced racial profiling from a police officer, therefore those things are just liberal fantasies.

They believe in a God powerful enough to create life, the universe, and everything in the year 4004 BC.  They believe that if you took Barry's time machine back to 4005 BC all you'd see is a formless void.  They cannot imagine a God powerful enough to create a universe in media res.  It's like believing that nothing happened in the Star Wars story before Vader's star destoyer shot up the princess's ship over Tattoine - despite the fact that the opening crawl is there in plain English.

They believe that limiting information on contraception will prevent their children from having sex, lacking the imagination to remember how they acted at 17.

Kansas: Too stupid to be stupid.

GilRuiz1: more science-literate a person is, the more they doubt global warming

Well the more science-literate somebody is, the more they should doubt thing in general and rely upon evidence. Scientists tend to be more skeptical as the methodology of science relies heavily on doubt and re-analysis.

GilRuiz1: To make it more interesting, there's this.   A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows the more science-literate a person is, the more they doubt global warming.

Looking at the charts in the actual study (charts are free, article isn't) it looks like the real message is that opinions on global warming are almost uncorrelated with science education, except that somehow "Hierarchical individualists" (read: authoritarian conservatives) seem to get stupider as they get smarter.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n10/full/nclimate1547.html

Interesting that people who are "anti-science" and "anti-critical thinking" seem to be so incompetent in so many areas requiring logical thought.

PsiChick: serial_crusher: whew, that was a close one.  For a minute there I was afraid our students would have to be exposed to Republican propaganda like "critical thinking", and schools would be forced to teach science objectively.

Legally forcing teachers to explain that 90% of scientists agree with climate change would have been wonderful, I agree.

OK, kids.  It's time for our legislatively-mandated class on critical thinking in science.  So here's the data:

95% of scientists agree that man-made global warming - or at least man-made climate change - is a real thing.  The other 5% of air-quotes "scientists" /close air quotes - are uniformly engineers and not actually researchers, or geologists who know less about the climate than the weather girl with the inflated ballons in her chest that swell / collapse as the barometric pressure changes - and are all paid directly by oil companies anyway.  This is akin to a drug mule arrested with 15 condoms of blow lodged in his anus telling you that crack is cool.

There is no evidence for 'intelligent design'.  None at all.  More people have sex in the champagne room than have ever found evidence of creationism.  At most creationism can poke temporary and eventually filled holes in the theory of evolution.  Which is akin to saying that because a piece of fruit is not red, it must be an orange.

WTF Indeed: To be fair, the use of a calendar was considered witchcraft at one point.

True. The count of days led to some messy human sacrifices in Mesoamerica. No wonder Republicans don't like math.

I wonder if there was some sort of a field of .. . I dunno. . knowledge? That could describe the passage of time in such a way that people could predict when something was due.

But nah, that'd be heresy.

cubic_spleen: Nothing that the GOP does "casts doubt on global warming". It may cast derp, but not doubt.

I don't know. Pretty much everything the GOP does casts doubt on the entire concept of "human knowledge" if you ask me...

quatchi: Cue Teach the Controversy pics.