Education

Mallon said:

What other theories? There are no other scientific theories out there that account for life's diversity.

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So give me 30 lashes with a wet noodle, I was using the word theory loosely.
[edit]
errr, rereading that it doesn't read quite as clear as it should, I took not offence to your comment, just decided to play the grumpy old man[/edit]

Driver said:

I noticed that most on this board who are TEs are in their 20's or younger? Don't the younger tend to be more inclined to be TEs, since it is the doctrine taught to them exclusively in public schools.

It's interesting that the SAT scores are getting progressively lower and lower for entrance into colleges and universities.

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Actually, I went to private schools my whole life where we were taught YECism (occassionally some musing on the possibility of OEC slipped in, but that was as far as it went). My high school biology devoted its chapters on evolution to refute it. And yet I'm still a TE!

And, for the record, my SAT score was 1370 (using the old 1600 system). So, unless that's considered low now, my stance on origins can't be attributed to poor reasoning skills.

Who may I ask was the Creationist with the vote for a science degree?

I'd like to hear the story behind that.

As an academic in the sciences I think the clarification for what is and what is not a science should be obvious.

If it directly involving the fundamentals of physics, chemistry and biology to the natural world then it is a science. Social sciences and medicine are not such a beast.

Engineering is not a science - engineering physics is.
MD's are not scientists but biochemists are.
Geologists are scientists but mining engineers are not.

This should be very straightforward.

Mallon said:

What other theories? There are no other scientific theories out there that account for life's diversity.

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What about the theories of today's creationists? And of all those scientists before Darwin? And of Jesus and the apostles, the Early Church Fathers, Luther and Calvin? What about Sir Isaac Newton? Do you think they had any scientific knowledge?

Have you listened to any of today's creationists debating publicly with evolutionists?

There are over 500 audio files posted hereon this subject, of which many are radio broadcasts of debates between creationists and evolutionists.

Redneck Crow said:

Not all. I'm 50.

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And I'll reach retirement age next April.

Robert the Pilegrim said:

If you go back further you have to look at demographics ...




from http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sat.htm

In 1972, minorities formed 13 percent of all SAT takers. In 1992, that number more than doubled to 29 percent. Unfortunately, minorities tend to score lower than the advantaged white students, and including them among the nation's test-takers has resulted in an average drop in SAT scores.

This does not mean, however, that minorities and lower class whites have not been making progress over the last several decades. They have. Between 1976 and 1992, black scores rose from 686 to 797. Mexican-origin scores rose from 781 to 797. Puerto Rican scores rose from 765 to 772. The average white SAT score declined slightly, due to the inclusion of more lower class whites. Of the entire 17-year old white population, those taking the SAT rose from 19 to 25 percent, a less elite group.







​

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Those are combined scores, verbal and math, aren't they? That's pretty low, isn't it? It has been shown that colleges are now routinely admitting more and more 800 SAT-scorers, and their parents are paying bigger and bigger bucks to send them to college. It's a dangerous spiral, where they are under pressure to enroll these less able students and pass them through to keep the parents and their money coming regardless of academic merit. All the while, they are being taught by the lowest-paid class of professionals, many of whom go on to other higher-paying careers.

In California, in order to become a K-12 teacher in the public school system, you have to have a Bachelors degree and take a state test (the California Basic Education Skills Test). That state test is at an eighth-grade level of reading, writing, and math! And one-third of those who take it can't pass it!

source

Driver said:

What about the theories of today's creationists?

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Not scientific.

And of all those scientists before Darwin?

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proven false.

And of Jesus and the apostles, the Early Church Fathers, Luther and Calvin?

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Hmm, their authorative thome on Evolution is where, exactly?

What about Sir Isaac Newton? Do you think they had any scientific knowledge?

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Ah, you mean Newton who studied, evaluated the data and the drew the conclusion based on the data just as is the way of the Scientific Method?

Have you listened to any of today's creationists debating publicly with evolutionists?

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yes. A bunch of lies, irrelevant blabbering and falsehoods. Not a lick of science in the creationist claims.

There are over 500 audio files posted hereon this subject, of which many are radio broadcasts of debates between creationists and evolutionists.

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So what do you think of the endless creationist lies on those tapes?

Driver said:

Those are combined scores, verbal and math, aren't they? That's pretty low, isn't it?

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That was rather the point.
Your complaint was that the SAT scores were dropping so putting back in what you deleted:
I note that Illinois has much better average SAT scores than the nation at large. This is because far fewer poor kids take the SAT here. They tend to go to state schools and take the ACTs, not the SATs.

Driver said:

Those are combined scores, verbal and math, aren't they? That's pretty low, isn't it? It has been shown that colleges are now routinely admitting more and more 800 SAT-scorers, and their parents are paying bigger and bigger bucks to send them to college. It's a dangerous spiral, where they are under pressure to enroll these less able students and pass them through to keep the parents and their money coming regardless of academic merit. All the while, they are being taught by the lowest-paid class of professionals, many of whom go on to other higher-paying careers.

In California, in order to become a K-12 teacher in the public school system, you have to have a Bachelors degree and take a state test (the California Basic Education Skills Test). That state test is at and eighth-grade level of reading, writing, and math! And one-third of those who take it can't pass it!

source

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I don't see how this affects the validity of the science degrees that are held by the people on this forum. I ask again, is your college education equivalent to a 8th grader from the 1950's? Do you have a college education in the sciences?

random_guy said:

I don't see how this affects the validity of the science degrees that are held by the people on this forum. I ask again, is your college education equivalent to a 8th grader from the 1950's? Do you have a college education in the sciences?

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Not in the sciences, but yes, I have a college degree (BS in Accounting and Finance with a minor in Economics) from a private liberal arts college, graduated magna cum laude, in 1982.

A rather comical look at today's society when it comes to the dumbing down of America (warning, you have to have a sense of humor):

http://www.protext.com/DUMBING/index.html

Driver said:

Is opposition to evolution or opposing viewpoints allowed in public schools? Was it allowed at your private school?

It is estimated that today's bacherlor's degree is about the equivalent of an eighth-grade education of 50 years ago.

see
http://deliberatedumbingdown.com/

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Now I would agree that you need a Bachelors degree to earn the money that one could earn with an 8th grade education 50 years ago. Compared to 50 years ago, today’s jobs require far more knowledge just to be "entry level" employee. Gone are the days where having a pulse will get you into a $15/hour job.

As a whole, Americans are better educated than 50 years ago. It is just that there's so much more to learn.

Driver said:

Not in the sciences, but yes, I have a college degree (BS in Accounting and Finance with a minor in Economics) from a private liberal arts college, graduated magna cum laude, in 1982.

A rather comical look at today's society when it comes to the dumbing down of America (warning, you have to have a sense of humor):

http://www.protext.com/DUMBING/index.html

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I agree that American society is dumbing down. Look at the ID movement or the Creationist movement, both of which are antiscience, the politizing of science even though most politicians have no idea how science works, or that society now idolizes the rich and famous. However, while the general population may be dumbing down, those that obtain high education in the liberal arts/sciences/engineering are anything but dumb. What you're seeing a widening gap between the educated and uneducated groups.

I'm not so sure how education makes what one person has discovered more trustworthy than another. Yeah, a person with a doctorate has more study in a field, but doesn't make them more trustworthy. There are people at all levels of education who deceive. At the same time there are people who don't have a piece of paper with their name and seal on it, but are just a brilliant and understanding of a topic.

pastorkevin73 said:

I'm not so sure how education makes what one person has discovered more trustworthy than another. Yeah, a person with a doctorate has more study in a field, but doesn't make them more trustworthy. There are people at all levels of education who deceive. At the same time there are people who don't have a piece of paper with their name and seal on it, but are just a brilliant and understanding of a topic.

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To be sure, you, PastorKevin73, could publish in a peer reviewed journal if you were to make observations and propose and execute tests to distinguish your ideas from those of others. The difference between a person with an accredited PhD and a person without one is that the person who has the degree has testimony - on the authority of others within the scientific community - that he has undergone a substantial breadth and depth of study and has demonstrated the capacity for original and rigorous thought. This is not to say that someone without a PhD has not done any of these things. But someone who has done these things and come out with a PhD rightfully has credibility in his area of study.

Again, this is not to suggest that he is necessarily right about what he says. In fact, a journal is not going to publish something by Richard Dawkins merely because it is from Richard Dawkins. It has to stand on its own merits. But the fact that he is widely published makes what he says, within the field of evolutionary science, credible.

Thus, when there is a panel of people with PhDs in evolutionary biology saying that evolution doesn't say a particular thing, but says something else, being disputed by a panel of people without PhDs saying that it does say the first thing, the common observer can't help but wonder why one whole panel is missing PhDs in the appropriate fields. Consider, next, that the panel with PhDs consists of the movers-and-shakers of the evolutionary world. Who better ought to know what evolution says and doesn't say? The papers that define the science, itself, are largely written by those very people.

In a simpler sense, consider the difference between someone who has spent his life observing a particular thing in nature and someone who has not. Certainly the second person could totally refute everything the first person has come to think. But this is not a common scenario. We cannot suppose that this is the case with every person who argues against someone with a PhD. As Augustine says, "Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics." (Augustine, "The Literal Meaning of Genesis" ch.19)

Driver said:

A rather comical look at today's society when it comes to the dumbing down of America (warning, you have to have a sense of humor):

http://www.protext.com/DUMBING/index.html

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www.protext.com said:

American Children are now Much Dumber, because of:
"Barney". Exception: When Ted Kennedy dressed in an anatomically correct
Barney Costume at an exclusive party in Martha's Vineyard.

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What? The Barney suit had a cloaca? They could tell?

Assyrian said:

What? The Barney suit had a cloaca? They could tell?

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LOL

I liked the part about Airplane II: The Sequel

The Movie: "Airplane II, the Sequel", 1982, starring Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty.
Especially the part when the Space Shuttle makes an emergency landing on the moon.

...especially where they are going "warp speed" between the sun and the moon with millions of stars passing by. They did something similar to this in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?

pastorkevin73 said:

I'm not so sure how education makes what one person has discovered more trustworthy than another. Yeah, a person with a doctorate has more study in a field, but doesn't make them more trustworthy. There are people at all levels of education who deceive. At the same time there are people who don't have a piece of paper with their name and seal on it, but are just a brilliant and understanding of a topic.

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Even a person who is brilliant is not likely to understand a topic unless they take some time to study it. Their intellectual prowess may mean they come to understanding more quickly than others, but they still need to study in order to understand. And that means their own understanding is derived from the understanding of the experts in the field.

No, neither natural gifts of brilliance, nor university degrees make a person trustworthy, but that is why science does not depend on the conclusions of single individuals, but on the shared experience of the scientific community.

KerrMetric said:

If it directly involving the fundamentals of physics, chemistry and biology to the natural world then it is a science. Social sciences and medicine are not such a beast.

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Sorry mate, I am a doctor and I beg to differ

Yes there is a lot of "art" to medicine, but plenty of hard science too including knowledge of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, anatomy, physiology and microbiology. All of these subjects make the case for evolution very convincingly.

jereth said:

Sorry mate, I am a doctor and I beg to differ

Yes there is a lot of "art" to medicine, but plenty of hard science too including knowledge of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, anatomy, physiology and microbiology. All of these subjects make the case for evolution very convincingly.

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With all due respect, practicing medical doctors (as opposed to those doing research) are more like engineers than scientists; they use the results of science rather than doing science.

Whether or not they understand science is another question. Having been exposed to so much science they, like engineers, have a better chance than the average person, but it is not a slam dunk.