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Originally Posted by Andross
Now, don't get me wrong. I love my country. I'm probably one of the most patriotic people out there. In my opinion, if you don't love your country, you shouldn't live there.
Anyway, just clearing that up... On to the main point.
America has been a major hotspot for scientific, cultural, and other developments for a while now. America has been ahead of the rest of the world for a while now, but, sadly, it is beginning to slip. China is probably ahead of us by now. But there is a way to get the nation back in shape. And, I have come up with three ways.
I. The reason America is behind on scientific terms is, and not because of education, but because of interest. You can educate a person all you want, that doesn't mean he wants to go into education or science himself. Now, why might there be a lack of interest? Well, it is because we live in the generation where the media has became such an influencing factor that it is just plain stupid. The liberal media (Not to poke a fight with liberals here), never glorifies educators and such. What do they glorify? Movie actors, sports players, and so on. Never any educators or thinkers. So, the way that we fix this, is that the media needs to shift focus. Shift focus big time, so that we can get ahead of the game, once again.
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Interest does play a role, but so does funding. Depending on the state American schools can receive less funding then a local sports arena, teachers are often expected to pay for basic supplies themselves, and the working conditions are horrible. This leads to fewer good teachers teaching at that elementary and high school levels, which ends up giving you teachers who promote rote learning (repeating laws and rules without being able to apply them anywhere else.), which leads to people in the government who don't see the value of education (it never did anything for them) who continue to cut funding.
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II. The reason why America is behind on scientific terms (And I am in full support of the War in Iraq and the War on Terror) is that we have been spending alot of money on the military. Don't get me wrong; I support the Military, but what I am saying is, is that after the war is over, the United States should concentrate on getting to Mars, in my opinion. And maybe putting some sort of base on the moon. I think the base should be military/scientific, to allow for both defense and research. And, we should also try and concentrate on Artificial Intelligence and robotics. You see, I believe the future of our kind is less in the development of biological advances, even though there will still be advances, don't get me wrong. I believe that the future of our kind is mainly in the exploration of space and the advancement of robotics.
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We sorta agree here. The US defence budget is massive, as of 1997 I think it was $300 billion/year, it's probably gone up since then. Science is also heavily underfunded, with NASA getting something like $8 billion a year after a recent increase in budget, now, that sounds huge, until you realize just how much that budget has to do, let me just say that there's a reason that projects are being cut left right and centre. On top of that I fully support space exploration, however, manned exploration doesn't have many benefits right now, I'd actually put more support behind a very, very, very advanced robotic mission to Mars, but that's person preference. As for a moon base, apparently one is going to be done by 2020, although I don't really see how it can be used for defence (The Moon being 3 days away by rocket and all).
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III. The reason why America is behind on scientific terms is because of the arguments and such going on. For instance, religion and evolution. America has been doing fine and was ahead of the world in science and such until recently, where such things as the taking the word "God" out of the pledge and stuff have been happening. Now, believe it or not, but religion gives people motivation. They feel like they can accomplish things. Now, this doesn't mean that atheists don't have motivation, but if an atheist person tries to take away religion from a religious person, that person will lose their motivation. Now, this isn't an attack on atheists, but this is more an attack on the idea of getting rid of religion or making everyone religious themselves. I believe the idea of banning religion shouldn't be mainstream, because people don't want to hear it. Religion should not be taken away. Now, this is the most... "Unstable" of my ideas, it may or may not work, but I think I have come on to something.
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Here we strongly disagree, religion, in many ways, is the antithesis of science. I don't mean that they can't co-exist, they can, however, one requires study, a completely open mind, ideas based on observed facts and repeatable experiments, while the other relies on dogma. On top of that, the Evolution v. Creationism 'debate' is one of the most protracted attacks on science and the scientific method in recent history, allowing it would do far more to plunge the US into the dark ages then anything else.
As for my ideas: It has been confirmed by several US government agencies that the current US government hides scientific findings they don't agree with, for instance, the ex-
PR manager for NASA (who was appointed by the current US government), didn't allow anyone to publish anything in support of Global warming or the Big bang, even going so far as to say that when NASA gave presentations to school children they were only allowed to teach science as he saw it. Similar things have been reported from other government agencies. If the US is to ever catch up with the rest of the developed nations this hiding of the facts has to stop.
On top of that, reaserch and education have both been heavily underfunded in the states, now, some states do put sufficient amounts of money into their education system, which is great, but it's incredibly hit and miss.
Finally, I agree that all this religious v. science debate is helping ruin America, the religious side is encouraging dogmatic thinking, looking at evidence selectively, and not analyzing claims, which is going to ruin the education system in no time.