President Bush, in his Republican National Convention speech, promised to improve science and math education if he’s elected to another term:
- In this time of change, most new jobs are filled by people with at least two years of college, yet only about one in four students gets there. In our high schools, we will fund early intervention programs to help students at risk. We will place a new focus on math and science. As we make progress, we will require a rigorous exam before graduation.
Many U.S. educators and science policymakers have warned that the sorry state of science education in this country will eventually come back to bite us in an inability to compete with Europe and Asia.
Corporate leaders in the United States understand this, too, and that’s why you’re seeing more labs open up overseas. Nani Beccalli, president of Europe, Middle East and Africa for General Electric Co., said it succinctly this past July when GE opened its new technology center in Germany:
“This facility will allow us to take advantage of the great intellectual capital and high education standards in Europe, particularly in the fields of science and technology, and it is a tangible sign of our long-term commitment to grow in this market.”
GE may be as American as Thomas Edison, but it also knows where the future might appear brighter.
NanoBot Backgrounder
Imagination at Work
Since this has been delayed for story moderation by a couple days, perhaps it would be wise to remove the word “tonight” from the first sentence and just have it say “President Bush, in his Republican National Convention speech, promised….”
“Auto-post is on. A posting decision will be made after 48 hours if no threshold is reached.”
I’ve been waiting breathlessly for Autopost’s decision. It’s 48 hours after what point in time?
There must be something misconfigured… it should be 48 hours after the story was submitted for voting, which is two days ago. I just tried voting on it (since the time comparison can only trigger on a vote) and I got a server error. I’m trying to track it down right now.
I got a joke list, but politics aside, one item on it provokes some serious thought.
"Global warming" and (mumble) are fuzzy science, but Creation Science can be tought in schools.
The attitude that can construct a phrase like "Creation Science" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what "science" really is. In fact, "Creation Science" is an oxymoron.
At its core, "Science" is discovery from nature. It’s critical observation, trying to understand underlying causes and effects, and experimentation. Science is testable and repeatable. Let’s say that "magic" really existed. It would be possible to apply the scientific method to magic – observe, theorize, formulate experiments, test, repeat, etc. Of course at that point it’s no longer "magic", but "sufficiently advanced technology." (Clarke’s Third Law)
"Creation Science" is at its very core untestable, because it relies not on observation, experimentation, etc, but on the Literal Word of the Bible. Moreover, accepting the Bible as the fundamental reference, "You shall not put the Lord to the Test." So by its most fundamental tenet, it is untestable. "Creation Science" cannot be "Science," and it is itself telling us that.
Faith is a completely different matter. I like the mid-Muslim approach, back when they were enlightened. Science was learning about God’s creation, and therefore had religious merit, even pursued strictly in the scientific method.