Phi for All

Really? Traits that allowed high intelligence to thrive became more and more refined (tool use, for example), the body adapts over time (bigger craniums requiring bigger birth canals, etc), skills like communication and cooperation find a ripe environment full of intelligence, and then more emergent phenomena happen (consciousness, for example). Probably the best thing about intelligence, imo, is that it's a bit like having a crystal ball that lets us see the future. When you understand anything to a high enough degree, you can make predictions about what will happen with that thing in many scenarios. Figuring out migratory patterns of various prey animals, planning for weather events, and making traps are just a few of the ways we can predict behavior so we can overcome it. Predictive power is also one of the greatest assets of the scientific method.

Why is not a science question. But if you look at available evidence, one could put together a decent argument that a planet with life on it needs at least one species that can leave to spread life to other planets.

Quite possibly. Seriously weakens his stance against the Iran deal, considering ZTE was fined over a billion dollars for violating sanctions against Iran. To me, it points out how play-it-by-ear real estate negotiations are a far cry from a workable geopolitical policy. The Kim family has a LOT of experience dealing with US presidents. It also seems like more confusion infusion, designed to provide a distraction so you don't see what the other hand is doing. America First, right after we help this Chinese company with a track record of questionable decisions involving national security.

Last month, the US prez claimed China would be the first to buckle when it came to his trade war gambit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-08/trump-vows-that-china-will-take-down-its-trade-barriers Now he's lifting the trade ban on ZTE so he can help fasttrack this Chinese company's recovery: http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-trump-tells-commerce-department-to-help-chinese-company-2018-5. Is this the great negotiator in action? ZTE buys a lot of US parts but they broke the law and were only a month into a multi-year ban. Is this commercial diplomacy, or weasel ethics, or investment opportunism, or what?

! Moderator Note Thread closed.

I was, up until CharonY mentioned colleges, then I responded to that. Do you imagine this problem isn't present in grade school education?

! Moderator Note Moved to Speculations. Please read the special rules for this section. Support for you ideas needs to come from more than just your saying it. The rules require you to provide some supportive evidence when someone calls for you to back up a claim.

! Moderator Note Moved to Speculations. Please read the special rules for this section, and be prepared to support your extraordinary claims with evidence.

Vril has been banned as a sockpuppet of JohnLesser and company. If you can't support your ideas, changing accounts won't help you here.

! Moderator Note And it turns out it's rubbish he's never been able to defend, no matter how many sockpuppet accounts he creates. He's gone now, and this stinker is closed.

! Moderator Note Civility first, folks. Let's attack ideas, not each other.

For the brazillionth time, NO! we are not starting a Supervillainry section just so you can advertise your Tesla coil hoola hoops!

! Moderator Note OK, so you asked what science is to make it seem like you wanted to discuss this, but then you switched over to telling us what you think science is, which is speculative in nature, and doesn't belong in our mainstream sections anymore. I'm going to move this where you can defend your extraordinary claims, hopefully with more than just your incredulity. Please use evidence to support your claims.

In colleges, we could maintain an inexpensive public system with the funds currently available, but instead we have this convoluted system involving private sector actors. I had a link to a .gov study from Sen Harkin's office showing how we give up to 25% of our federal aid to private vendors, but it's been disabled since he left office. I'll try to find the study tomorrow.

But it's profitable. Nobody said anything about the amount of money. The arguments were about the way it's spent. Don't you think your education would have been different if the public funding for it wasn't so diluted by private profit? At the very least, they might have been able to prepare better food, or teach you more.

Are STEM subjects affected when lobbyists are actively trying to push anti-climate change agendas? We know funding is being cut as we speak for climate monitoring, and with SO much privatization already in public schools, their influence on future young minds will most certainly be felt. I think grade school curriculums need to be free of these kinds of pressures, so they can do what they're supposed to do. The only people who should be making a great living off public education are the educators. Education is one of those areas where everyone is better off if we invest heavily in making it work. It's publicly funded education, too much is being siphoned off for private profit, and I think it negatively affects the way US children learn.

That's my point. How much do private business models applied to public education skew the focus of that education? Is the curriculum being guided by profit motives, or by education motives? In France, they use lunch at school as an opportunity for learning social and nutritional skills. In the US, the food is prepared by outside vendors, and the kids typically have about 15 minutes to eat their Pizza Hut pizza after waiting in a cafeteria line. Even more to the point, flaws in the public education process aren't being properly addressed, and I suspect all the for-profit assessment testing and learning centers designed to help your child "fit in" to public schools have a great deal to do with it. For-profit education is being jammed into our public system, and I think it's another instance of conservative extremist capitalists keeping their foot on public education's neck so they can bitch about how it can't seem to get on it's own feet.

How does an answer to "What is Science" help with this? And perhaps you should explain what you mean by "divide" and "events", since separating between phenomena seems more like time's job.

I don't think most people understand how for-profit, capitalist-based business models affect the interaction with public concerns like schooling. I tried explaining to the person who cuts my hair that if she adopted Facebook's business model, and found a vendor that would buy bulk cut hair from her, she could cut her customer's hair for free. But then they would be her product, and it wouldn't take long before she was recommending the shortest cut possible for every person. The model you use as an economic solution needs to be the right one. In a similar way, mixing business models with public schools is the best way to GROW public schooling, which really isn't our problem. The system is big enough. We need to focus on the quality of our education, but too many private concerns have latched on to what should be completely publically funded. We allow private contractors to dictate how they'll service the schools, and now it's all about making money instead of teaching children basic accumulated human knowledge. This makes public education look expensive, so conservatives keep reducing spending on it (but not the spending that helps private businesses flourish). I think we need to stop diluting the strength of public funding by paying for private profits. Education should be about arming big intelligent human brains with all the knowledge they'll need to be a prosperous member of society. And I think we need to stop the idea of making a profit from projects the People of the United States of America fund with their tax dollars. We need heavy restrictions on lobbying, imo.

Ooooh, new thread!

When we ban someone as a spammer, it not only removes the links, I was told it also sends the spammer's IP address to Invision so other forums using the same software are warned about that particular spammer. I nuked the members in question because they posted obviously fake news designed to draw attention to a questionable site. You have to stop thinking of them as "wacky" and start thinking of them as "resource thieves". They love it when you get so intrigued.

Thanks for all the help reporting spammers, folks! They keep getting trickier, and we appreciate your vigilance.

In much the same way it might be interesting to have unrelated hostages released from the US who were all named Jones. By the authorities, for "hostile acts". Science discussion site! We need some evidence to elevate your guesswork, otherwise you're just a political crackpot. You can support your speculations with some better background info. Kim has a set of goals his family has been trying to achieve, and pretty much everything he's done falls in line with them.

Seriously?! I always considered your stances more reasonable. High intelligence requires a great deal of sacrifice. Just because it exists in humans doesn't mean it works for all animals. Toolmaking past the stick phase also requires more intelligence than most animals will ever have, for multiple reasons. And this extra-sensory perception that seems akin to mind reading is also an offshoot of high intelligence, so again not many animals will be eligible. The flying example is bizarre. We all know why it's not a generalized trait. The point is, since ESP is described as a mental function, it would only manifest in species with human-like intelligence. And since our entire society is based on uses for our high intelligence, any group that can gain added knowledge through mind reading is going to be measurably different. How could they not? What mechanism is there that would stop ESP from being an advantageous trait among highly intelligent creatures?

I'd like to see this as its own discussion. I'm appalled that some of the same things I bitched about when I went to high school still aren't being addressed. In my state, no part of the curriculum is aimed at practical application, so most kids graduate with the math skills to balance their checkbooks, but have never been taught to actually balance their checkbooks. Schools don't teach the best ways to find an apartment, or write an ad for a roommate, or even how to look for a better job while doing your best and maintaining a good relationship at your current job. We're fixated on the symptoms of a lack of media awareness, like cyberbullying, while we leave the root cause alone. News is entertainment now, not information, so it just has to interest you rather than inform you.