Evolution, Big Bang Polls Omitted From NSF Report - ScienceInsider

Evolution, Big Bang Polls Omitted From NSF Report - ScienceInsider

In an era of diminishing returns, statisticians can be clever knowing (of course) that the number never lie. Don't like the skewing? Omit the factors that cause the skew et voilà ce sera parfait! In order to avoid the problem of religious objections to science and better yet avoid having to address his, the

National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), says it chose to leave the section out of the 2010 edition of the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators because the survey questions used to measure knowledge of the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs.

What an unpleasant taste this precedent leaves. I guess if you omit the horrific rate in which the US incarcerates its citizens, executes them and foreign nationals, dumbs down sexual education programmes, it is indeed the best country in the world. Just set some more comprehensive accountancy at toil and it will be perfect. Perhaps re-write history books whilst we're at it: Let Texas lead the way!

(Thanks to the Barefoot Bum for the tip on the story.)

CBC News - Montreal - Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled

CBC News - Montreal - Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled

We like the CBC, we do. We do not, however, like how comments on stories so frequently breakdown as follows:

1. Relevant comment.
2. Tangential comment.
3. Racist screed.
4. Racist screed and with added typos for fibre.
5. Ridiculous leftest counter claims.
6.+ More of the same.

This is an important, significant story for all modern liberal democracies. But there's a snag you see, it is not a simple thing, one minor on/off switch and the problem is solved or dissolved. There are really important issues (plural) here: religious freedom, secularism, women's right, individual choice and autonomy, provincial rights, states/federal rights... Not to mention that the law in question has merely been proposed. Why was this woman expelled? What will come of this?

Q:"What sort of spending would you like cut?" A:"All of it. ALL of it."

And let's be clear here it is more than just the average stupidity of people, indeed it is the tu quoque fallacy to merely to argue, "Oh well, you'd see stupid liberals/Obama supporters/left-wingers too" yet not address the underlying problem: Sarah Palin is anti-intellectual, anti-science and cultivates the ignorance seen above. Even John McCain countered such blatant xenophobia during his campaign.

Citing from the poster's sidebar on YouTube: "no politician has emerged on the national stage as undefined and unqualified as Sarah Palin, and her public persona--which is anti-intellectual by definition--discourages substance. Instead, we get winking. One could hardly imagine her giving a complex speech about race in America, or speaking eloquently about our country's relations with Islam. Not just because she couldn't write such a speech (Obama has speech-writers, of course) but because she wouldn't--such necessarily academic discussion is antithetical to the persona she's created for herself and that her supporters have come to love."

And to save y'all from having to read the damn thing read Neil Macdonald's review of Going Rogue on CBC instead.

I think it is interesting that the gentleman in the camo/hunting clothes is lamenting the end of American Exceptionalism. Perhaps I am far too left-wing to understand, but when one nation dominates another, or all others, that's a hegemony and tends not to benefit the world but that nation all but exclusively. Why would that ending be a bad thing? Oh yeah. Americans.

(I love how my spell checker finds both "Palin" and "Obama", yet not McCain, to be incorrect.)