Posted on 05/29/2004 6:51:29 AM PDT by liberallarry
THERE IS BOTH good news and bad news in the flurry of reports describing the decline of American preeminence in science. Falling numbers of scientific papers and prizes, as well as the relative drop in levels of funding and students, provide evidence of this decline. The good news is that it means other governments across the globe have begun investing heavily in basic scientific research. It also means that foreign companies have been investing in research and development, creating opportunities that make more people want scientific careers in their countries. More research anywhere creates more possibilities for innovation everywhere.
Yet the reports from the National Science Foundation and elsewhere indicate that the decline is not only relative. It is also absolute: American science is growing weaker, although not across the board. The boom in research and funding for the biological sciences -- including genetics and molecular biology -- has been matched by a decline in funding for, and interest in, physics and math.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It has been suggested (in effect by the Creationists attack on science education.)
Unfortunately, government funding of science does equate to the politicization of science. That which is politically incorrect is not funded (if permitted.) Private funding has its own problems.
However, they have not done this. They have only tried to get criticisms of evolutionary theory funded by taxpayers. It's rather difficult to take people (like the IDers) seriously when they fail to even put forth any testable ideas. Until they do so, any claims to ID being a scientific endeavor is just another fraud.
Right. Were it not for the issue of socialism, which alone makes me oppose state-run schools, I would oppose them because of the idiocy of school boards in thinking they can decide scientific issues in a political setting -- with raving idiots like Hovind debating against rational people.
Curiously, this looks like (but isn't) the same reason that the creationists hate the gov't schools. Like the socialists -- the creos would be absolutely delighted with state-run schools if they won the political battle to determine what gets taught there. What separates my view from theirs, of course, is that I wouldn't want indoctrination of any irrational dogmas (whether socialism or creationism) taught in school.
Thanks for bringing your profile to my attention! Quite a rogues gallery you have put together there. Tell me, how are the last two former FReepers doing in their new forum over at LP? Last I checked, good christian ALS was put on 10 day suspension there recently (which takes a lot at LP) and gshs is once again railing against the "liberal" Lucianne and her liberal minions.
Those 2 live in a rather strange paranoid delusional universe (further evidence of this can be found on a certain website owned by a certain banned FReeper, who seems to populate his threads with FR threads). You know this. You also know that only 2 people on your list were banned by FR, the others left voluntarily. You know, like you did once too.
Not exactly good character witnesses, I'm afraid.
Thanks for noticing it, but I am not the one that brought up my profile on this thread. I don't know exactly how the others are doing, since I don't stalk people. But they are fine on DesignedUniverse. If you really wish to know, you are capable of finding out on your own. Just visit. And my profile clearly states "FOR PEOPLE WHO CANNOT DISCERN, I AM NOT THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE. THEY HAVE BEEN BANNED(OR LEFT BY CHOICE) FOR SPEAKING OUT."
The Left has been trying to politicize science, arts, etc., for the last couple of centuries. The Creationists are not doing anything new here.
Sorry about the implication, but there is a mad troll there at LP. Sorry you feel that way about the owner of DesignedU, but I sincerely doubt that you were "spied" on. Undoubtedly, he uses tools similar to the tools used on this site to eliminate previously banned individuals. I don't think you consider that being "spied" upon. As to someone being "timed out" from LP, it is a rough and tumble site, nuff said.
Yeah, I followed with mild curiousity the strange "mad trolling" recently over there and the whole JimRob posts there and the recent strange thing with ferret and gshs (IIRC). People have too much time on their hands, I think.
No, I'm not worried that the owner of DesU has any nefarious intent with my ISP(s). He just needs more members to keep my interest, that's all.
2/3 of the people I meet on a daily basis haven't figured out gravity yet, so the source of future scientists will not be here in Nashville.
Never can get those pin-heads and Angels to come out even...
Pure science is anything but.
Exactly my point.
Donh, what do you say now?
A ringing defense all told, however, there is no real defense in the grammatic construction of Article 1, Section 8. Those are parallel sentences written as paragraphs, and independent, parallel clauses ellipsed in an obvious manner in front. The defense that they are separated by "a mere semi-colon" is way off the mark, grammatically speaking--if what is contended were true, a colon would have been called for, and subsequent dependent clauses.
The argument from reasonable logical dependency is unsound on a couple of counts: 1) paragraph 1 contains bloody details about imposts and excises that are not further constrained in the body of Article 1, Section 8, and 2) the body contains constraints whose subsidiary relationship to paragraph 1 is doubtful, at best. How, for example, do you derive depriving DC of it's own local government from "providing for the Defense, or general welfare?". I don't think you can do that without kicking the phrase into generous interpretation, which is exactly what you are objecting to, is it not?
The argument from original intent doesn't seem to me to bear much weight on examination, either, #41 of the Federalist notwithstanding: The reason we appended the Bill of Rights was that many people looked at this document and didn't in the least see the constraints you seem willing to read into it, based neither on grammar, nor critical reading, nor, as I argue, on original intent. If the strictures you are imagining exist, there's no real need for a Bill of Rights--Article 8, section 1, as you have interpreted it, is an adequate defense against arbitrary government tyranny and plundering.
Finally, lets look at Buckley's old argument about some of this: Are the strictures on military spending that supposedly restrict broad interpretation of paragraph 1 stones in the road that prevented us from paying for a standing profession army to face down the communist nuclear threats with for 40 years? Or do you entertain libertarian fantasies that we could have stood up to Russia with an army of sporadically activated unpaid militia?
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