Do conservatives “hate science”?

Who really hates science?  The left constantly screams from their talking points about how the right is “anti science” etc., particularly in light of the recent kerfuffles with teaching evolutionary or climate change theory.  But who is actually responsible for the decline in our student’s performance in sciences and math compared to other nations as reported by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the bulk of our society’s general disaffection with science and math?  I propose that it is the public schools, controlled by the predominantly liberal teachers and their left wing unions.

In a recent post, I remarked that, contrary to the constant crying of liberals, it is our schools that have contributed the most to the demise of math and science in our country.  The accusations of the left to the contrary are yet another example of their projection of their failings on their opponents, much as their claims of racism and sexism turn out to be.  What matters more: whether someone believes in evolutionary theory, or whether someone understands basic physics or chemistry etc.?

Forget what they are saying, and watch what they are doing.

When you look at our schools today, you see a marked decline in the number and availability of AP math and science classes.  In some instances, a student can meander through high school with the barest modicum of math/science courses.  This deficit really shows if the students make it to college, where most universities have created “catch up” courses to teach the students the knowledge they should have gotten from our high schools.  For example, Boston University has a College of General Studies (CGS; formerly known as the College of Basic Studies, or CBS, popularly known as Coloring Book School), specifically designed to fill the widening gap between what a student gets from high school, and what he/she needs to succeed in college.  So the parents are spending money at college to get the children up to standards they should have met in high school, and necessitates that the college utilize facilities and faculty to accommodate these students.

When you come right down to it, isn’t this simply a form of educational affirmative action?  The left drops the ball in education, creating a problem, followed by the creation of a bureaucracy to “fix” it (of course, it never really gets fixed, because all the politicians need a cause célèbre during elections, and all those bureaucrats need jobs).  BU’s website claims that there are 38,000 applicants for 4100 incoming freshman slots.  How many students are accepted into the catch up school?  BU doesn’t say.  More importantly, the real question is: how many properly prepared applicants are turned away from BU to make room for the CGS students?

So the next time you hear some liberal braying about how “conservatives hate science”, or you see some high school kid confused by the little pictures on the keys of the cash registers at the supermarket, think about where they were educated, and more importantly, who was “educating” them.

Maybe the real complaint (or fear) about some anecdotal legislation mandating the teaching of “Intelligent Design” along with regular evolutionary theory is that it might reveal just how little science the children are actually being taught.

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Dimsdale

A TEA party partisan, guerrilla fighting in the trenches of liberal Massachusetts.

21 Comments

  1. sammy22 on September 5, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    “Who is actually responsible for the decline in our student?s performance in sciences and math”? Answer: the students and, by proxy, their parents.



    • Dimsdale on September 5, 2011 at 12:35 pm

      Absolutely.? Parent involvement/attention is key.? But you can only do so much about that.? One of my references shows that increasing expectations through rigorous and challenging curricula in the schools increases performance by students.??
      ?
      But it is liberals that are effectively in charge of the schools, and have been for at least 50 years, in which time student performance and test results have plummeted.



  2. gillie28 on September 5, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    Interesting post.? The reason many people accuse “conservatives” (who are generally?considered to be?observing?Christians)?of not accepting science is because it is believed that much of science conflicts with Biblical truths, especially Creationalism.? While there are so-called scientific theories that are treated as “truths,” it can be seen that hidden in the Bible were scientific facts that sciencists “discovered” as real truths millenium later.
    ? Look at the following two, simple examples:

    Isaiah 40:22 – he that sitteth on the CIRCLE of the earth – shows the Bible taught that the earth was round long before Magellan sailed around it.????

    Genesis 1:-17 – ??The two?”great lights” ruling day and night were created on the 4th day, allowing plenty of time for certain forms of?evolution, because? technically there was no “time” as we understand it before then.?
    2 Peter 2:8 states that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years.?

    But, although the Bible does not necessarily contradict real, scientific truths, I’m sure the Lord and the angels with Him/Her are weeping as they see what so-called science and technology?are doing…



  3. gillie28 on September 5, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    to Creation in the name of “progress.” Science can be a blessing or a curse. If humans don’t live by Godly principles it is and will be a curse because there is no moral compass to keep it within boundaries. ….the terrible behavior of kidss in schools, and resulting academic decline, is just a small example of what a lack of moral compass and boundaries will produce.

    The world is on the brink of completely destroying itself, both morally and physically. We humans have lost our spiritual understanding of natural events: the “natural” disasters that are accelerating…



  4. gillie28 on September 5, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    God’s blessings and protection are being removed for a reason.? The science that is a curse, and all that reject Truth, cannot win in the end.



  5. Eric on September 5, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    If only our public schools could teach the way the more conservative Japanese teach their children. ?They would benefit from both a superior education as well as a work ethic that’s all but ignored here in our country. ?Graduates from these Japanese schools routinely test among the highest in the world, something our public schools will never equal. ?If only our public schools were really all about education instead of politics and money!?



  6. Eric on September 5, 2011 at 9:17 pm

    … and gillie28 is right on the money too! ?What has become of the American family? ?Children giving birth to children without a care in the world for their future, human life made cheap for the sake of casual sex, absent fathers who don’t care about the plight of their offspring. ?What liberalism has done to destroy the fabric of the traditional American family goes far beyond shameful… it’s criminal. ?Their odd and misplaced retort is a silly rebuke regarding ones belief in science. ?What a glaringly obnoxious comment. ?These people have no shame at all.?
    ??



  7. JollyRoger on September 5, 2011 at 11:10 pm

    I see science as grounded in natural laws; if you want to fly around or play with electricity, you’ve got to obey the rules of nature- or it’s game over.? The progressives have an autoerotic love affair with change; an enduring institution 2,000 years old, we’ve got to change it.? A 200 plus year old nation, and Barry’s got to mark his territory and piss all over it…



  8. joe_m on September 6, 2011 at 9:31 am

    Today education is so politicized, it’s a joke. We do not allow teachers to teach. They are required to use “curriculums” that they know will not benefit the students. Higher level processes are taught but students do not have the basics. Like building a house without a foundation. It does not work. We have allowed the federal government to control our educational system. No child left behind is all children held back. Teach to the slowest learners, let the rest get bored and tune out.

    Ask a “seasoned” teacher, how frustrated they are because they are not allowed to teach.



  9. JBS on September 6, 2011 at 10:46 am

    ?
    Do conservatives hate science? No.
    Conservatives are simply identifying liberal scientific findings as flawed. Witness the global warming shibboleth. On that, scientists can?t even agree amongst themselves. As new data emerges, we learn that the earlier findings were based on incorrect and incomplete data. Researchers then fit the existing data to preconceived notions in order to get funding. Funding has to be obtained in order to continue research. Couple all of that with the? ?publish or parish? mentality of grant guidelines.? Garbage is produced. It’s a vicious cycle.
    Incomplete data results in incorrect conclusions, preconceived notions are the result of personal and institutional biases, and the rush to publish, in order to be first or at least in the chorus, places scientific conclusions prematurely before the public to then be heralded by the liberal media as absolute truth.
    Conservatives don?t hate science; they are reacting to? ill-considered, faulty but liberally fashionable scientific findings for what they are, junk science.



  10. sammy22 on September 6, 2011 at 11:25 am

    Finger pointing every-which-way. No “mea culpa” to be seen. Are the Conservatives really the victims of the Liberal education steamroller?



    • Dimsdale on September 6, 2011 at 11:47 am

      How do you do a mea culpa when you don’t control the schools, and you can’t shake loose the lefties in control?
      ?
      At least you admit it is a steamroller.



  11. sammy22 on September 6, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    As I said: blameless and victimized. You have to control the schools to have an impact? Sounds like a sorry state of affairs. What is the “appeal of joining” a Conservative movement?



    • Dimsdale on September 6, 2011 at 2:51 pm

      No, as we agreed earlier, parents have a huge effect, but most of the parents are a product of the same liberal “education” and don’t know any better.? That is why students of new immigrants perform so well in class: they haven’t been “through the process”.? Getting back to the basics, instead of touchy feely courses and preserving the self esteem of students would be a good start.
      ?
      You’ve spent your rejoinders pointing fingers: what is your answer to the problem?



  12. sammy22 on September 6, 2011 at 7:13 pm

    Set up “filtering” systems like other countries do. Institute uniform testing at different ages (6th, 8th, 12th grade), like other countries do. Repeat the year if you don’t pass and eventually throw out those who don’t pass, like other countries do. BTW, let professionals decide on curriculum, not “local amateurs” , e.g. Boards of ED who think they know better than the Board of Ed of the next town.



    • Dimsdale on September 7, 2011 at 10:38 pm

      Exactly!? This is precisely the way schools used to be, before the touchy feely, self esteem is all liberals overrode the system!
      ?
      Dare I say this is what “No child left behind” was intended to do.? Makes you wonder if we let the inmates do the testing…



  13. Lynn on September 7, 2011 at 7:43 am

    To the title of the post, I LOVED science, especially biology. I was lucky enough to have Mr. Cunningham, as a teacher in the advanced section 7th grade at a public school. He thought enough of us, that he used a Wesleyan University text book for the class. He taught us the value of using scientific method for doing research. Sadly, I have seen very little use of this especially in the data collection for Global Warming. But also in research for pharmaceuticals.? I had a wonderful rich educational experience in the 60’s where parents supported the teachers that taught, and could eliminate those that took up space.? As a member of a local school board when my kids were in school, education has deteriorated and continues to deteriorate,? as the Unions gained strength, just as Dims says.



  14. sammy22 on September 7, 2011 at 11:39 am

    Victims and blameless, as stated above. And soo….. nostalgic too.



  15. Lynn on September 7, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    Agreed Sammy, I am guilty of being nostalgic. I am? sorry that the kids today do not have access to an education which gives all sides to an issue and not a biased “one? side fits all” education.? But also, I have fought for better education on a school board and I am still in the schools as a Readers Aloud volunteer where I can interject thought provoking books and lively non PC discussion. The kids love it and I love giving them food for thought.? Education can come from everywhere even by us non elitist conservatives.



  16. sammy22 on September 7, 2011 at 6:14 pm

    Hey, I did several stints as a tutor in a inner city school. The kids were great, the staff was great and we lost them to the streets when they got out of elementary school.? We all try. Bashing the system is not the answer either. Demanding something better and making it happen is hard work. Seems like nobody really wants to do the hard work!



  17. gillie28 on September 9, 2011 at 5:58 am

    Sammy, having taught in inner city schools (middle and high) agree that the kids are “lost” somewhere in the first year after Elementary.? Obviously, a lot to do with the influence they are exposed to once they change schools.? Also, the educational system today has become so politicized – from every conceivable point of view – that it is practically impossible to change anything without being ostracized, bullied, fired or end up with severe?emotional problems!!!!? Most administrators have self-interest at heart and won’t make the tough decisions that are not “politically correct,” lest they either be sued and/or lose their jobs.? The entire system has become too institutionalized and entrenched to seriously improve.? The political solution (refer to President’s job speech last night) is to throw more money at it.? Following that reasoning the schools should be pretty much perfect.? Yet, with all the money supposedly “given” to inner city schools, don’t understand why us teachers often have to buy the kids supplies.? Where is it all going????



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