Misplaced Attention

This morning’s mailbox contents:

“To learn how to learn, you have to love learning … Look at the attention Congress has focused on steroids in Major League Baseball, Mr. Barrett mused. And then look at the attention it has focused on science education in minor-league American schools.” — Thomas Friedman in Tuning in to Jon Stewart, and Britney Schmidt.

Friedman has appropriated my favorite phrase “the result of an education should not be learning, but learning how to learn” and done wonders with it. The Lexus and the Olive Tree was alright, but The World Is Flat proves to be an exciting read. Speaking of misplaced attention and science education,

Texas may ban sexy cheerleaders

Exactly WHO are we to question the motivations of the Taliban and purport to take “freedom” and “justice” to the desert heathens when we move to cover our own women, while filled with immature shame about their natural god-given beauty? Hypocrisy is a bitch with really nasty teeth.

Yes, you heard me right – hypocrisy. Modern conservatives call themselves Republicans who ostensibly want a hold on government. They talk of a government that is small, doesn’t interfere in our daily doings and keeps its hands off our pocketbooks. All those liberals want are their money and their personal liberties. So, as god-fearing Christians, they need to pass legislation which will keep god and morality IN ALL of our lives.

Whoa … wait … what??! Did I miss something on the logic train here? Can someone tell me where Movie 1 stopped and Movie 2 began? When and, more importantly, WHY did good sense disappear in the quest for a national identity?

The Talibanization of Texas cheerleading isn’t an isolated incident of senselessness: In Kansas, Darwinism Goes on Trial Once More

I’m not so concerned about the challenge of evolutionary theory, which should be able to stand up to rational scrutiny by itself, as much as:

a) most people, let alone young ones, don’t understand science, and this is going to lead to more confusion,

b) the use of federal/state funds to encourage miseducation, and

c) challenging science with faith is a useless debate that discourages critical thinking.

Now I understand why one of my introductory geology professors refused to talk about plate tectonics theory. While discussing any theory, the scientific method that led to that theory, i.e. learning how to learn and create, is forgotten.

“That’s the real news out there, folks. And it’s not funny.”