Athena

In another forum someone explained how science is increasingly autocratic and why, and this goes against my belief that science is essential to democracy, so I googled for support of the idea that democracy is rule by reason, and I found this great U tube argument that relates the connection between science and democracy. http://www.ted.com/talks/lee_smolin_...democracy.html

Science is essential to democracy. A democracy needs a well educated mass to make all the decisions citizens of democracy must make, from decisions about the environment to decisions about justice. These decisions should not be based on ignorance and superstition.

It is not my argument that science is not important, and Esbo made a true statement, that does not require mind reading to know what he said. To find fault in what he said, you had to assume he was saying he personally doesn't find science important, and there why would assume this. In fact that isn't even a logical assumption, because why would someone who doesn't like science be here? What he said about most people is true. I will explain. . esbo, on 09 Feb 2013 - 18:35, said: Surely those who insist creationism in school, believe studying the bible is more important than studying science, and some of these people take their children out of public schools so their children are not corrupted with ideas that they believe are false and influence their children in a bad way. And if you check your library, you may find it has few books, if any, on math and science, indicating the people who run the library and most the people who use the library, are not interested in learning math and science. Esbo 's statement is just an observation. Math and science are not normal discussion subjects at parties, and trying to talk this stuff with most people doesn't go very well. Even in my own family, my efforts to interest people in science are frustrating. Except for my 5 year old great grandson. He is too young to be thinking about girls, or to restrict his thinking to what he must know for his job. This kid is a delight. As soon as he enters my home he is wanting to do science experiments. Do you know if you put salt and pepper on a plate, than use wool to get static electricity on a plastic spoon, it will pick up the pepper? You can clean silver by putting it in a pan of boiling water (turn burner off before putting in silver), lined on the bottom with aluminum foil, and than dumping in baking soda. That is really fun because the baking soda foams. The kitchen is a great place for science! But in how many homes do you think someone is doing science with kids in the kitchen? And math, We just do not commicate math as we do words, so of course children will learn to use words, but not math. When I realized this, I started making a point of saying as much about the shapes and numbers around as I can, just to prepare their brains for thinking math as naturally as we think words. But seriously in how many homes does this happen? You have to admit, most people act as though math and science are not important. They might be glad someone else learns math and science and gives them good medicine and electronic devices, but they personally express no interest in either, and then expect their kids to do well in school. My father who was a NASA engineer, would say people do not like to think. They want to experience life, not study it. Personally, I think this is sad, but people think I am strange.

Is it all about the words we use or might it also be how others interpret what is said? By seeing "Science education is not very important for most people". meant from these people's point of view, science is not important to them, this discussion gains a ligitimate argument when it is asked why is science important? There is a ligimiate argument that it is not important, even though you do not agree with that point of view. I think there is value in establishing there are people who do not believe science is important, and even think it is harmful. It helps us understand our reality when we know there is more than one point of view. We can explore why some people do not think science is important, and why public libraries are seriously lacking when it comes to books about math and science, and why schools have math and science teachers that really do not value these subjects and can not inspire the children to like the subjects. Then we can take steps to correct this. This is really about having an open discussion that is inclusive of all points of view, and therefor expands our consciousness, or having a closed discussion, that excludes people and also entrophies our consciousness. It is also about what kind of people we are and want to be.

I think you have made a true statement and it is most unfortunte you got bad points for a true statement. For sure science is not percieved important to my Christian friends, who actually avoid science, because they are afraid of Satan! May be if you had used the word "preceive" people here would have understood what said differently, and they would not have given you bad points. This is the problem we face, many people do not precieve science as important to their lives. Sadly, many schools have teachers teaching subjects they do not understand very well themselves. And I go crazy with home schoolers, who are great at teaching language arts, but terrible at teaching math and science, and they defend themselves as great teachers for their children. And have you checked out your local library? Libraries tend to about amusing people with literature, not spreading knowledge of math and science. There is much to say about this problem. It is really sad when someone has something important to say, and it is judged so badly, because of the mind set of the judges.

I don't remeber anything about an Oaklahoma case, but there are plenty of them going on in Texas. https://www.au.org/church-state/september-2010-church-state/au-bulletin/texas-educator-loses-court-fight-over The fight is going on in Louisiana. I have Christian friends and they ah, have some interesting ideas about how God works. Like one prayed to God to make a computer work, because she didn't know the steps to take to get the results she wanted. These folks seriously believe a God can violate the laws of nature and please them on the condition they are His good children. And they are politically organizing to promote their beliefs through education. http://www.wwltv.com/news/opinion/Louisiana-students-must-learn-evolution-186187302.html Right now this young man is getting all the media in the fight agains teaching creationism. http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-fighting-creeping-creationism/

This was not always true. Education was more focused on what you say is important before the 1958 National Defense Education Act. I painfully remember hating diagramming sentences. I didn't have a clue why this was important, until I began studying the education issue and learned what it has to do with teaching logic. I think Swanspont is talking about the 2012 Texas Republican agenda to prevent education in the higher order thinking skills. Their argument is teaching children to think for themselves, disrupts parental authority. Of course this goes with Texas insisting creationism be taught along with evolution theory, as equally valid science. As for the health care issue, our medical system has failed us. Doctors are ignoring information about wheat causing people with psoriasis and athritis trouble. We learn of this from each other, and it is not being non scientific. Either giving up wheat resolves these health problems or it does not, and each one of us can find this out for ourselves by adjusting our diets. Then we tell our doctors we are experiencing major improvement and we get a blank stare. Unless this is what the doctor was taught, s/he finds it hard to believe and unfortunately does not investigate information and make an independent decision.. Education since 1958, has created dependence on "experts" instead of preparing everyone for independent thinking, as was said in the OP. This is when we switched from education for independent thinking, to "group think" and reliance on authority. This is good for the rapid advancement of technology, but it is not good for a democracy that requires a mass that can think independently. It is not good for our future as it kills innovation.

Perhaps this is a better reply to Swanspont questions. He did say he really didn't care about the subject, but I still have the frustration of not completing a communication about a subject he did question. Today the characteristics of our education are pretty much the same, and no one remembers when our education was different, nor all the aguments against change, so we can discuss the social, economic, and political ramifications of a change that is not part of consciousness. However, those who opposed compulsory attendance have won their fight with laws that make home schooling legal. I have not heard of anyone being fined $300 dollar later, for a child not attending school, but before the home schooling rule parents were fined. But before education was made compulsory, plenty of parents kept children home to work. Child lobar laws applied only to industry. Parents could keep their children and make the work. I am not saying that is a good thing, but who should be the authority over children, parents or the state?

Each culture has a different consciousness and relegates different things into the subconscious by declaring them taboo. How people are educated will make a difference in how they perceive the world. We do not rely on nature as native Americans did and have a very different relationship with it. We can clear cut a forest for the jobs and revenue and have been blind to the consequences of this until recently. However, morality remains consistent, because the consequences are the same, regardless of our intentions or our awareness of them. The morality is not different, but the awareness of it differs. Aztecs had ritualized cannibalism We make cannibalism taboo We are not to even think about it. Ritualizing something that is taboo gives society control over the individual doing. We can not kill, unless drafted into the army and then we are to kill on order. A problem with this is, someone who has been conditioned to kill, may need to be conditioned to not kill when put back into society We have the science to know this, but we are ignoring it. The explanation of what happened in Germany was that people were conditioned to discredit their emotions and follow orders without question. This is presented as having superior logic and reason, and unthinkable things were done, by those "Just following orders". It was culturally expected to behave in this way, with much social pressure to do so. Human beings without the same reasoning, have judged what happened as immoral As we judge cannibalism immoral. Can we use logic to determine morality? What were the consequences of Aztec cannibalism and what happened in Germany? Everyone around these people returned on them. As Socrates said, it may take 3 generations before we realize the problem caused by our bad choices, but sooner or later the consequences will be noticeable. Like that is what makes one thing moral and another immoral, the consequences. Things are not right or wrong, because someone says so, or a holy book says so. It is the consequences of the act that makes something right or wrong.

I think your intentions are clear. I am not sure if this is what everyone says does not happen?

Would fractals qualify as the mathematics of patterns you are looking for? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal I am not sure math begins with arithmetic. People did not begin with Arabic numbers, or equal symbols. For the Egyptians the problem is figuring land boundaries after flooding, and building buildings and monuments, and art which is sacred and controlled by geometry. Greeks used stones arranged in patterns to discover fundamental concepts.

Well said. We can be aware of causes of global warming, and the harm being done, and how to reverse the causes, but we can not motivate the masses to cooperate with changes we need to make. We have public broadcasting stations, but the government has cut funding to them, so we are not using this technology as effectively as it could be use to educate the masses. When public broadcasting can not make high quality shows, the average person is not attracted to the public broadcasting stations, and instead of being educated, that masses are being entertained by commercial TV that caters to our desire for entertainment rather than a desire to be informed. This makes no sense to me. We are not using the technology we have as efficiently as we could be using it to have a well educated mass. "The skepticism of scientific reason sapped our critical reason." This is the real problem of the modern crisis. Liberal education prepares everyone for critical thinking, but not education for technology. Liberal education internalized authority and education for technology prepares individuals to be dependent on authority. The reason for this is, technology advances fastest when those entering the fields rely on the experts, instead of rethinking everything themselves. Whereas, social decisions, how to vote and what actions a person may take, require independent thinking. Technology favors "group think" to independent thinking, so people work together to advance technology. You can see this cultural change by comparing the original Star Trek shows with the Next Generation. Captain Kirk of the original series is the John Wayne of space. Captain Picard of the Next Generation is of the "group think" generation. I am saying this is a major cultural change brought about a change in education. Advancing technology is the purpose of this education, not advancing a highly moral and refined civilization. The change has effected our legal system. We used to speak of the spirit of the law, and it was said, to go by the letter of the law, is another forum of tyranny. Today we go by the letter of the law and call it being technologically correct. We trusted judges to sentence those declared guilty and now Oregon has taken that power from the judge and mandates some crimes result in 11 year sentences. Added to this is no longer treating the young as different from adults. We seem to be denying the judgment of a 16 year old is very different from the judgment of 42 year old. In the past a person could hide his errors, but today there is no hiding and there is no new start, but a record open to employers and property managers. Sure there are good reasons for things being as they are, but there were also good reasons for them being different. I think we are becoming increasingly brutal. Then there are the debates about morals, and the opinion that morals are just a matter of personal preference. Okay, if morals are just a matter of personal preference, and if we are to be rational and non emotional, and an employer wants to involve you in wrong doing, what do you do? I will tell you what my public policy and administration professor told the class. "Never argue with authority because it would not be good for your career". That means if your employer is doing something that you believe is wrong, or asks you to do something you believe is wrong, you better go along with what your employer wants. That is how the horrors of NAZI Germany happened. They happened because of how the Germans used public education "to organize capacities for conduct." It happened because of Germany being authoritarian and citizens being willing to obey authority without question. A little different from Patrick Henry who is know for saying, "Give me liberty or give me death". In the US we have a tradition of questioning authority and believing our liberty means independent moral decisions, but I am not sure if this is still important in our culture. It was not important to my professor.

Not that long ago it was common to read secular moral stories to our children, and at the end of the story we would ask, "what is the moral of that story". The answer is always one of cause effect. While this is less common today, I did buy a new book of moral stories. The book not only gives the story, but also explains the moral of the story. It includes stories such as "The Little Red Hen" and "The King With No Clothes". The little red hen asked all her friends to help with the process of making bread, and none of them would, so when the bread was baked, she did not share it. The moral is, if we want to share in the benefits of labor, then we need to share in that labor. Knowing these stories is what we call cultural literacy. I have a book about what kindergarten children should know, and I was surprised by the number of very old stories the book said children should know. Unfortunately, this was not associated with the moral lessons of the stories. For adults, this information would be literacy in Greek and Roman classics. This is the foundation of our democracy and the reasoning for liberty. Cicero, a Roman Statesman is perhaps the most important when understanding the law and moral conduct. Another source of moral lessons is the native Americans of the US. The Haude No Sau Nee would say to be moral, is to "deeply understand the relationships of all living things". They speak of the Peacemaker who came to them with a message that human beings should stop abusing one another. He stated that "humans are capable of reason, that through the power of reason all men desire peace, and that it is necessary that the people organize to ensure that peace will be possible among the people who walk about the earth". From "A Basic Call to Consciousness" the Haude No Sau Nee address to the western world. I mention the Haude No Sau Nee, because of their explanation of reason and our capability to reason, is identical to morality coming from the ancient Greeks. What separates us from animals is the ability to discover the reason of things and the capability to reason. This is what brings us to good moral judgment. Science is "knowledge" and "con" when used as a prefix makes the word "conscience" mean, coming out of knowledge.

I am clear about being in favor of enforcing rules. Both posters and moderators need to be principled people. The leadership of the forum involves many things besides the action of moderators. I have not attacked the leadership of the forum, but questioned the action of those who are probably subordinate the leadership, and possibly loosely supervised or not supervised at all. I am not sure how leadership identifies and corrects errors, only that errors are made. Actually I know nothing of the leadership. I do not know if the owner of the forum is actively involved, or trusting everyone to do what should be done. I do not know if the leadership is one person or many. I have said, occasionally moderators are being reactionary, reacting emotionally to a word or a subject, without paying attention to the content. Can we go back to the original post and determine if that grievance has merit? All the rest of what has happened in this thread is me dealing with the attacks made against me personally, and me trying to convey why, we as citizens, we need to be careful about something as fragile as our freedom of speech, because if we reason against it, we could loose it, and at the same time ovoid being banned for trying to make this point. This has become a moral discussion about principles. That is not what I intended, but it is what others made of this thread.

Hum, you should take your argument to the thread about secular morality. How do we determine what is moral? NAZI Germany is an excellent case of good people committing atrocities. What are you saying is "the insufficient standard"? This thread is about censorship, and censorship without good standards is a bad thing. That was the purpose of this thread, to point out the power of being able to censor someone, needs to go with the merits of being a good moderator. Censoring someone because of the use of a word, or mention of an unpleasant subject, without consider of the context of what is being discussed, is reactionary and this is not a good thing. Moderators need to be careful before reacting. Their reaction needs to be based on reason, not emotion. Having no knowledge of a subject and saying someone is saying outrageous things, is not good judgment, because the opinion is based on what this person does not know. Jumping from this ignorance of what is being said, to accusing someone of violating rules, is equal to the church putting Galileo under house arrest and preventing him from speaking of what science can tell us. The reason the US adopted the principle of freedom of speech is because of human failing, and for the same reason we have moderators. It is not easy being human. It is a big responsibility to be a moderator. Knowing what everyone is talking about, before censoring someone is part of that responsibility. This thread was started because of two cases of moderators reacting emotional, without being careful of what was being said. The proof of bad judgment is the result of the decision. Making bad decisions does not mean the person is bad, but the person is most likely poorly informed, because in general, when we know right from wrong, we are compelled by our nature to do the right thing. However, humans also have this incredible ability to rationalize why what the know is wrong is right. That is one reason we need each other, to keep each other in check. Deming, in his explanation of good industrial management, says not only does management need to pay attention to what workers are doing, but also someone needs to pay attention to what management is doing. Moderators are not perfect gods, but humans who do not know it all and who make mistakes. It seems mostly this thread is arguing that moderators should be treated as perfect gods, who never make mistakes, because by god this forum is private property and the principle of freedom of speech does not apply here. To question this relationship to authority, is to be hateful and an enemy of the people. To say this obedience to authority is what went in wrong in Germany, is to be attacked for being intolerant of other people's opinions. I think these attacks are what we might call projection, because they are seem so completely backwards to me. I argue for freedom of speech and questioning authority and individual rights, and get treated as though I stand for the opposite of everything I value. Oh well, may be in the end everything will come out okay. If not, at least I have done my best to raise awareness and sensitive, and I have stood on principles. I did not cower to avoid the attacks, or act as though nothing matters but being liked.

Whoooo no ____ there is a blurring of religious groups and secular authority, and this is really getting nasty, with these groups on the verge of corrupting the supreme court with money used for power. In some states religious groups have gotten judges out of office for declaring homosexuals have the same rights as everyone else. The Texas Republican agenda is to prevent education from teaching the higher order thinking skills, that are essential to independent thinking, and these folks have pressured for science text books that teach creationism as equal to science. Because Texas is such a large state and buys so many text books, the decisions made in Texas determine what goes into text books. When we had liberal education, we had education for good moral judgment without religion, but we have not had this since 1958, and that brings us to what some have referred to as the modern crisis. Only highly moral people can have liberty. When the young do not learn principles and good moral judgment, that leaves only the written policy and law, to maintain order. This is devastating to our liberty. Religion in all nations stands against social change. This might not be all bad. I am unaware of any civilization that was not organized by family order. I do not think it is a good idea to be organized by the military, industrial order, because this order does not meet fundamental human needs. However, we are a civilization in transition after 54 years of education for a technological society with unknown values. We are now scrambling to determine what our new morals should be. I hope freedom of speech comes up as one the principles we decide we want to keep. I am at a total loss when it comes to family order. I am very concerned that our children are getting a bad deal, resulting from a weakening of family values, and excessively self centered motives, made by people who never learned about virtues and principles, nor what logos has to do with moral judgment. How are we to determine secular morality when we have not been prepared to do that for 54 years? A moral is a matter of cause and effect, and they have existed since the beginning of time, only our awareness of them has not. Moral is to know the law and good manners. To know the law is to know universal law. That is science. Conscience is what comes out of knowledge. If we do not know molesting a child is harmful to a child, we have no conscience of the wrong. Socrates was most concerned with our conscience, because when we know right from wrong, we are compelled to chose right. Except perhaps in a case like molesting children, where something has gone wrong in the human psychi resulting in abnormal compulsive behavior. Mental dis-ease is a social problem we must deal with, but in general, as we gain awareness, our moral judgment improves.

What or who do I hate? That is such a strange opinion to me, because it sure does not fit any feelings I have. You might be projecting something in me that is not true of me. The other possible explanation is, virtue, is synonymous strength. Personally, I am very humble person who knows how much she does not know. I have an income far below the poverty level, and this forces me to live a very simple life. I do my best to live by my grandmother's 3 rules" 1. We respect everyone because we are respectful people. 2. We protect the dignity of others. 3. We do everything with integrity. I walk my dog down the bike path and all the homeless people think I am their friend because I treat them just as I would anyone else. I just came back from managing a foster home for a week, and the 4 mentally challenged adults who live there, see me as a good friend who eats with them and socializes with them as equals. I am forever, thanking them for helping me get around town by giving me directions, or do whatever is hard for me to do without help. I don't think anyone who knows me would hold the opinion of me that you have expressed. Morale is what comes out of believing we are doing the right thing. When I speak of our freedoms, I certainly believe I am doing the right thing. Standing for our rights, when everyone is attacking me, is the virtuous thing to do, and I become as a soldier standing his duty. Only if we live by our principles, and stand for them, will we keep them, because it is not the police or the military that can protect our human rights and liberty. Laws take away our liberty. When people live by principles and morals, they do not need laws. Moderators who do not value principles, might be a problem as much of a problem as the posters who do not live with principles and values. This is something we need to be mindful in all areas of our lives. We protect our liberty by obeying the laws, and having good moral judgment and living by principles. Speaking of the education that has changed our understanding these matters, is equally important to defending democracy. Explaining the change in bureaucratic order that has shifted power and authority from the individual to the state, is just as important to defending democracy. Your awareness of such matters is what gives you power, to maintain the changes, or question if we should maintain the changes. Information is power, and I am trying to give everyone power. I speak with love, not hate. My user name is a statement of my love of democracy and human rights.

Not exactly. Our downtown is an exclusion zone. That means governing authority can determine who can enter this area and who can not, and this is strongly enforced with security guards and police. In some cities, government decided the people who live on a street are the people who have to pay for the road repair. They have no say over how the street is used, but their homes are taken if they do not pay for the street or the sewage line that runs down the street. When people do not live by principles, they do not enjoy the benefits of the principles, and it is not the police or military that defends us our rights, but our willingness to live by principles. When power and authority are not ours, we do not enjoy the benefits of power and authority, nor do we live with a sense of responsibility when power and authority are not ours. The more power an authority takes, the more it undermines the power and authority of the individual. Freedom of speech is a matter of principle. This is really a moral matter, not a power struggle. We are very good at protecting our property rights, but not so good at protecting human rights. Now if we all agree the principle of freedom of speech is meaningless, and only property rights exist, then we loose our freedom of speech. This is as sure as 2 plus 2 equals four. This is not 'opinion" but just the way things work. Only if we live by principles, do we enjoy the benefit of them.

The US entered WWI crying "Democracy and autocracy can not co exist". However, US industry is built on England's model of autocracy. Later, replacing liberal education with education for technology, and thinking of students as products to prepare for industry, had ramifications that are not good for democracy. Edwards Deming dealt with the problem of our autocratic industry, and his institution carries on his work. I write because I believe a return to education for democracy and replacing the autocratic model of industry with Deming's democratic model, would correct many of the problems we are experiencing, including our present economic problem. http://en.wikipedia...._Edwards_Deming

What are the benefits of meritocracy? What are the problems with meritocracy? http://en.wikipedia....iki/Meritocracy

What is not privately owned? Why did anyone bother to put something about freedom of speech in the US constitution? Who enforces freedom of speech? And I will even give you these forums are privately owned, does that excuse moderators bad judgment? How can the logic of an argument be judged when the judge is ignorant of the subject? If you knew nothing of physics, would you enter a discussion of physics and start attacking the logic of someone well educated in physics? Why aren't mods suppose to participate when they are wearing their moderator hat? Would you please be more specific? Please, copy and paste the evidence, of the charges. Especially list what you think I said that is not a fact, so I can provide the source of the fact you question.

What's wrong with having morality just because you want to? Okay, what morality would you have us have?

Excellent reply. I wish some mods would learn from you. You have identified the point of possible disagreement, making it possible for me to address this point. Let me start with confessing my head is really spinning as all of sudden I am hearing cries from everywhere about our moral dilemma, and a need for a new religion, and there are new books about democracy being written, explaining how democracy is being destroyed, or explaining what an ideal democracy looks like and all the morality that goes with it. I am not alone with concerns about a "modern crisis", although my understanding of how we got in this mess is different. I came to my understanding of the problem by studying the history of education, and did so by collecting and reading old books. My information is not common because the source is not common, however, it is factual. Just now, in a geology thread, I was ranting about this crisis from a different point of view. In general the public is extremely ignorant of geology, and some of noticed their local libraries do not have good books on geology. No matter how good our logic or our reasoning may appear, if it is too narrow, and in fact ignorant of a field of study as important as geology, it is bad reasoning with destructive ramifications. In the geology thread, the greater problem of our present industrial life style was identified as global warming. I threw in the terrible ramifications of being ignorant of where our oil comes from, the reality of it being finite, and the economic, military and political realities of oil. I don't know what is meant by " the axioms for pursuing the reason or I guess using any part of it are purely emotionally driven" means? I think it is reasonable if we have an emotional reaction to the destruction of our lives. Actually I am reminded of a few Star Trek shows that address this question of the value of our emotions. I like what I learned from a diabetic pamphlet about anger. It explained anger is our natural warning system that something is warn. When we become aware of the anger, we are to check for what is wrong and think what needs to be done to correct the wrong. I tell children and their parents that fear is a sign of intelligence. Emotions are not a bad, but are an important part of survival system. What is really scary is humanity can self destruct with complete ignorance of what it is doing! We need a new frame work for thinking. To ignore this is to remain on the path Germany followed. That is the path to the horrors of NAZI Germany. Let me repeat, there are many cries for an urgent need to gain awareness and change how we think. Others see what I am seeing, but they do not normally mention NAZI Germany. The link I used does mention NAZI Germany, but not what I think is essential to this understanding. What I think is essential to the understanding is, how education for technology is different from liberal education. I have been told I can not talk about this, by those who have no understanding of what I am talking about, so I used a link to make a point. It is really hard to talk about something I have been told not to talk about, but I think it is very important we have awareness of what is happening, why and the ramifications of it. There was a line of philosophy that lead to the idea that planners should plan our lives for us, and this is what we have educated for, a society that is planned and run by policy, while public education conditions the citizens to be lead by the planners.

I will just say, the difference between moral and immoral is the outcome. Ignorance is the biggest reason humans do destructive things. I think destroying our planet is the ultimate immorality. The best we can do is spread information and hope knowledge overwhelms ignorance. I think we need to discuss education, why we have it and who controls it, but that is a different subject. I just don't think the Military Industrial Complex has a motivation to assure students understand things that are really important to their lives. Mike, you give new meaning to "from dust to dust". Nature must be carefully balanced, and we could say "evil" results from imbalance. We learned a lot when we reintroduced wolves to their habitat. All life forms did better from trees to animals and the river and everything in the river. The moral is, too much of a good thing makes things go wrong. I want to direct this away from blaming humans, to broaden our point of view. When there are no wolves, to keep the deer population in check, the deterioration of the environment can be blamed on deer. Now, like the deer, humans are just doing what humans do. The problem is there are no forces that keep us in check. We have over come most the threats to our lives, and actually are doing a good job of prevent violence against each other too. Our biggest problem now is our success. On the bright side, unlike deer we can become aware of the impact we are having, and we can change our behaviors. But darn, we have to do something about education, because humans seem to think they know everything they need to know, and are not seeking information. We need education to prevent this. That is somehow instill in young minds a burning curiosity so everyone is engaged in these forums, instead of watching mindless TV shows, or sitting at Star Bucks trying to look cool. I want to keep this on track- "conventional industry based on physics and chemistry mainly..." Who is regulating this? I few fanatic women have started screaming about how we are being poisoned by pesticides, but who pays attention to these hysterical women? Unless they are acting up, what is said in our media about the use of these chemicals? A problem with relying on the bible for our understanding of reality and morals, is the book was written long ago. We had more laws against sodomy than laws regulating the pollution of our planet, and I am not sure this what we should be talking here, because this about human beings, not geology. But maybe the bible has some people fussing about the wrong things, and ignoring the things that should not be igored? Several years ago, my local newspaper ignored a local author's book titled "Mineral Resources and the Destinies of Nations". This is essential information, directly impacting our daily lives, from the price of oil, to the wars we get into, and the newspaper ignored it. The author's second book, "GeoDestinies" got the author a special award from the Geological Association, and this time I was able to get the editor of the paper to pay attention to it, so just before everyone realized we have an oil supply problem, the local newspaper did acknowledge this problem. I mean talk about the problem ignorance can cause! Being ignorant of the connection between oil and our economy and oil and war is about the worst! Ah, we seriously need to rely on something besides the bible to understand life, and I think we need to rethink education, and stop preparing products for industry who are unprepared for life in a modern world.

Did you read the link? I don't know how to deal with your response because it is so far off the point. Sincerely, can you help me here? Did you get the part that this school of education is directly related to what happened in the US in the 1960's and the following cultural change? Yipes, your post brings us to the complexity of the subject. The 2012 Texas Republican Agenda is to prevent public schools from teaching the higher order thinking skills, because they believe this undermines parental authority. To teach higher order thinking skills is to teach independent thinking, and leads to people questioning authority. Personally I think this is vital to our democracy and morality, and it is why I keep bring this up. It goes with liberal education, so there is a connection with liberal education and morality, and it also goes with every revolution against state authority making citizens subjects to authority. What is sacred is math and logos and our earth. Why is something sacred? Because it is a power much greater than our own and our lives depend on it. Math is the language of God and with it we can understand logos and then we can make moral decisions, and life on earth gets better instead of being destroyed. I forget the German words, but one means being a generalist and other means being specialized. Education for technology specializes everyone, and this is in part what brings us to a mechanical society. Pericles funeral oration explains why Athens is worth fighting for and how it is different from Sparta. Athenians had education for generalist, and were they expected to know something about everything, so when they voted they did so with a broad understanding of life. Sparta specialized and took pride in being as German long before there were Germans. The difference between the democracy we were and the Germany we fought against, was the same as the difference between Athens and Sparta. We are living with this clash today in a new way, because as Athens did, following its war with Sparta, we have also internalized our enemy and now the culture of our enemy has replaced the one we had and we are realizing the problems this manifest. Education for technology is education for specialist, and because everyone is specialized instead of generalist, they are no longer capable of governing themselves as they once were, but this doesn't matter because we also adopted the German model of bureaucracy that goes with specializing individuals. I don't know how to say this in a way that is not offensive, but if it is not understood this stuff, we can not deal sanely with the reality we have created. We do not have the individualism of the past, which resulted from a very different education than our present education for technology, which replaced education for independent thinking with "group think". In the past, the compass for moral decisions was not self interest and how we "feel" about things. In the past we were united by education that transmitted a culture with logos, or God, at the center, and built on decisions were based on learned principles. This was not perfect because it lacked the science we are gaining today, but without it we are realizing serious problems. What is needed is a better balance of the old and new. We are entering a new age with a consciousness so completely different from past consciousness that those of the future will not be able to relate to the history that got us to this point. Just look at the other forum about geology and your post of the thousand cords. Scientific discoveries like this are revolutionizing our consciousness. But to get where we must be, we must now go from education that specializes, back to education that generalizes. That is having citizens who know a little bit about many things, and a belief in human beings as having a responsibility to the rest of humanity and the planet.