Reciprocating Bill
Posts: 4265 Joined: Oct. 2006
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I'm down with N.wells:
DaveTard: Quote | Where does disbelief in Darwin lead? DaveScot
...The notion that science literacy in the U.S. is substandard is rooted in the results of science surveys that include questions about evolution. Without doubt a much larger fraction of the US populace doesn’t believe in mud to man evolution than compared to any other industrialized nation. So in those surveys they give the “incorrect” answer to questions about the origin of life. In all other category of science questions Americans score as well as or better than non-Americans. But the weight of the “wrong” answers about evolution pulls down the average and makes it appear a few other countries are doing a better job of science education. |
DaveTard is right. The 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study* (TIMSS) demonstrated that U.S. eighth graders are second to none in their preparation in mathematics and science. Second to none.
Well, except children in Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Belgium, Netherlands, Hungary, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Latvia-LSS, and Australia in mathematics**. Not that success in science is related to mathematical sophistication. And we all know that if they had taken all that evolution stuff out of those math exams U.S. kids would have kicked all those strange foreign asses, for sure. But DaveTard is right: the damage the Darwinists have done to science education is clear: U.S. eighth graders scored behind children in Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Estonia, Japan, Hungary, and Netherlands in the sciences. That's because of Darwinism, not inferior preparation in mathematics.
The recent PISA study adds the following: Quote | The US can draw on the most highly educated labor force among the principal industrialized nations, when measured in terms of the formal qualifications attained by 25-to-64-year-olds in the labor force. However, this advantage is largely a result of the “first-mover advantage” which the US gained after World War II by massively increasing enrolments. While the US had, well into the 1960s, the highest high school completion rates among OECD countries, in 2005 it ranked, with a high school completion rate of 76%, 21st among the 27 OECD countries with available data, followed only by Spain, New Zealand, Portugal, Turkey and Mexico. Similar trends are visible in college education, where the US slipped between 1995 and 2005 from the 2nd to the 14th rank, not because US college graduation rates declined, but because they rose so much faster in many OECD countries. Graduate output is particularly low in science, where the number of people with a college degree per 100,000 employed 25-to-34-year-olds was 1,100 compared with 1,295 on average across OECD countries and more than 2,000 in Australia, Finland, France and Korea (Education at a Glance, 2007). |
DaveTard especially admires U.S. prowess in engineering. Here we are poised to lead the world for another century. Per Martin C. Jischke, president of Perdue University, in 2006: Quote | At a point in time when science, technology and engineering are opening all these incredible potentials, the United States is falling behind in the production of graduates in these fields.
Indeed, if current trends continue, by 2010, only four years from now, more than 90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will live in Asia...
Twenty years ago, the United States, Japan and China each graduated a similar number of engineers, and more than twice the total coming out of South Korea.
By the year 2000: Chinese engineering graduates had increased 161 percent to 207,500; Japanese engineering graduates had increased 42 percent to 103,200; South Korean engineering graduated had increased 140 percent to 56,500; and credible and in fact very conservative estimates place India’s production of engineers today at more than 100,000 per year.
Meanwhile U.S. engineering graduates have declined 20 percent to 59,500. |
Good 'ole DaveTard. He never let facts get in the way of feel-good patriotic fiction.
*To be fair to DaveTard, the framework assessed by the TIMSS is dominated by evolutionary propaganda U.S. students know to be falseshoods, particularly within the life sciences. Here is the content domain sampled by the TIMSS:
Life Science:
• Types, characteristics, and classification of living things • Structure, function, and life processes in organisms • Cells and their functions • Development and life cycles of organisms • Reproduction and heredity • Diversity, adaptation, and natural selection <- See!! Dominated. • Ecosystems • Human health
Chemistry:
• Classification and composition of matter • Particulate structure of matter • Properties and uses of water • Acids and bases • Chemical change this area is not assessed at the fourth grade.
Physics:
• Physical states and changes in matter • Energy types, sources, and conversions • Heat and temperature • Light • Sound and vibration • Electricity and magnetism • Forces and motion
Earth Science:
• Earth’s structure and physical features (lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere) • Earth’s processes, cycles, and history • Earth in the solar system and the universe
Environmental Science:
• Changes in population • Use and conservation of natural resources • Changes in environments
Scientific Inquiry: • Formulating questions and hypotheses • Designing investigations • Collecting and representing data • Analyzing and interpreting data • Drawing conclusions and developing explanations
** The scores of the last four did not differ significantly from that of U.S. students.
-------------- Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." - David Foster Wallace
"Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down." - Barry Arrington
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