Wednesday, December 5, 2007

U.S Lags Behind In Science And Math (What A Suprise)

It seems,to no surprise to me,that the U.S is still the runt of the litter when it comes to feeding on the nourishing nipple of science and mathematics.

New reports show that U.S students rank 16th below average compared to other OECD countries,in science.In math,we ranked an appalling 23rd below average.These rankings deal with U.S high school students 15 years old,which is quite disturbing seeing how we find that when children in their younger years of education are on top of the international rankings.

So it seems,as we are getting older we are getting dumber in the fields most important,and to which we owe all our thanks for the civil society and luxuries we all enjoy so much.For the record,when I say luxuries I don't mean only things like big screen T.Vs and fast cars,I mean things like the luxury of not dying horrible painful deaths to disease and other such like things.

In a time of such luxury and longevity you would think that we would be embracing science and math more and more with each new discovery,and with each new ancient disease defeated,but we don't.It seems,to me,that lately there has been real contempt and hatred for science. Things like the ridiculously named "intelligent design" movements have been successfully persuading our scientifically illiterate citizens that all of science is some kind of grand conspiracy theory and not to be trusted and that the real answers can be found in saying "I don't know so God did it",which is really a non-answer. We're seeing "alternative" medicine and other pseudo-scientific healing methods taking center stage on our local and national HEALTH news reports as something that really works.One such report from my local FOX station featured an ironically named "healing touch" therapist who would reduce patients pain by not actually touching them at all,as if people dying of the Black Plague and other ancient diseases missed out on the cure of NOT being touched by someone....

Do you get the point of what I mean to say? Is it any wonder to anyone that we are in this sad state of affairs?

Unless we want to return the the dark age's,we need to emphasize the importance of math and all the sciences,and recognize that we would not have got this far without them and instead turn our loathing and dis-trust toward anything,or anyone,that claims otherwise.

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