Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

timberlandko wrote:

Never seen a carrier backing up with vigor - betchya that was neat. Wake hadda be pretty impressive too, I imagine. Lotsa very busy gulls, no doubt.

A quick question george, if you don't mind - as I recall, didn't Kelly continue at Flag Rank and get promoted at least once more before his retirement?
Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think Enterprise's sojurn on the mudflats really harmed his career, but I could be wrong. Do you know any more than I do about that? Curiosity only; I never met the guy. Did see Enterprised in her embarrassment; great view from the Bay Bridge. I think thats the only time I've ever seen a capital ship's entire complement turned out on deck not in whites.

Barney Kelly had already been selected for promotion when the grounding occurred. After some turmoil it was decided to let him go ahead with the actual promotion, but he discreetly retired a year or so later.

The uniforms you saw on deck also included a few futile attempts to "sally ship" by having several thousand men run from side to side in an attempt to work the ship off the ground - it didn't work. There is a fairly tricky 110 degree turn into the Alameda channel soon after you pass undere the center section of the Bay bridge. Kelly turned late, and approached the dredged channel on an ebbing tide -- it was the combination that got him.

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georgeob, since Ive got you. Ive been told that the USAF airborne fuel transfer system doesnt work with Naval aircraft and vice versa.
Is that true?

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farmerman wrote:

georgeob, since Ive got you. Ive been told that the USAF airborne fuel transfer system doesnt work with Naval aircraft and vice versa.
Is that true?

You are correct. The Navy system is also the NATO standard system. The USAF built its system around the need to refuel B-52s & other large aircraft. A bit difficult to gingerly fly the fuel probe of a B-52 into the streaming basket (it looks like the back end of a badminton birdie, but about 30 inches in diameter) of a tanker. The Air Force then decided to use the same system on their tactical/fighter aircraft, and that sort of left the Navy out in the cold. Later add-on kits were put on the KC-135 tankers for NATO & Navy aircraft, but they had a rather stiff hose with no take-up reel and it wasn't hard to overdo it and break your probe off in the basket. The newer KC110s carry installed transfer systems for both Navy and Air Force. The Navy system has the advantage of enabling any aircraft to serve as a tanker.

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blatham wrote:

Your ex-schoolbrother Bennett is a fellow I have pretty much no use for. In a recent account I read, he explicitly described to a writer (when he was in charge of education under Reagan) that he was pushing for the dismantling of the public school system. And as I expressed here or on another thread in the last day or two, for him to speak of the evils of 'materialism' and the lack of 'virture' and at the same time be tossing down a million bucks in Vegas, the very center of vulgar materialism in the universe, is about as shallow and as elitist as it is perhaps possible to be.

Pat Buchanan is, as we all know, something of a madman but I've read some wonderful letters between him and Hunter Thompson which allow me to forgive some of his nutso corners.

I think Pat Buchanan is a refreshingly candid and clear-thinking p;olitical commentator, though I don't always agree with him. Didn't know him at school but his younger brothers were there with me. They got in fights a lot. I believe the furor over Bennett's gambling was a bit hypocritical, coming particular from the political quarters it did. I too would like to see some assaults on the growing monopoly of public education by corrupt teacher's unions, the NEA and other guardians of the waqsteful, largely incompetent status quo. One area in which I fully agreed with Hofstsdter was his estimate of our public educational system, dedicated as it is to "social adjustment'" as opposed to education.

My memories oif the Jesuits were very much like those described by Farmerman. They insisted that we learn a great deal of material, but then encouraged critical comment and even disagreement - as long as it came after the learning part and was logical and well-expressed. The atmosphere was challenging, cheerful and competitive. Very little pretense;, and no scolding. If you broke the rules you got the punishment (called JUG, which they explained, with some irony, stood for "Justice Under God" -- although as we would say - there was goddamn little justice in JUG). Once that was over all was forgotten. A very good experience.

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george, Do you really think Buchanan is a "clearn-thinking" political commentator? You're kidding, right? He asked for the assassination of a president.

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That was Robertson, C.I.--Buchanan is a loonie, but of a different stripe.

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OKay, my mistake. Sorry, george.

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Quote:

I think Pat Buchanan is a refreshingly candid and clear-thinking p;olitical commentator, though I don't always agree with him. Didn't know him at school but his younger brothers were there with me. They got in fights a lot. I believe the furor over Bennett's gambling was a bit hypocritical, coming particular from the political quarters it did. I too would like to see some assaults on the growing monopoly of public education by corrupt teacher's unions, the NEA and other guardians of the waqsteful, largely incompetent status quo. One area in which I fully agreed with Hofstsdter was his estimate of our public educational system, dedicated as it is to "social adjustment'" as opposed to education.

My memories oif the Jesuits were very much like those described by Farmerman. They insisted that we learn a great deal of material, but then encouraged critical comment and even disagreement - as long as it came after the learning part and was logical and well-expressed. The atmosphere was challenging, cheerful and competitive. Very little pretense;, and no scolding. If you broke the rules you got the punishment (called JUG, which they explained, with some irony, stood for "Justice Under God" -- although as we would say - there was goddamn little justice in JUG). Once that was over all was forgotten. A very good experience.

Jesus george. You really better re-read the chapter on The School and the Teacher because Hofstadter doesn't make the argument you claim. Nor does he attribute problems as you do. That's your own set of ideas. Setting up an effective modern school system is hugely complex. Just as a simple and to the point example... Bennett's ideas about the promotion of 'virtue' in schools is precisely 'social adjustment'. That isn't education, it is indoctrination into a value set.

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Blatham,
Well I think Bennett overdid the "Virtue" bit - hell, I didn't even read his damn book. Mostly I was responding to your reference to his alleged interest in breaking up the monopolist public school system - something that I too wish for.

Hofstadter generally (and at some length in the book)deplored the effects of Dewey's influence on U.S. public education due to its emphasis on social development as opposed to rigor in content aqnd intellectual development. I do agree with that, and this was my central point in the reference. I also believe the Jesuits were a very good model of what Hofstadter called for in education (though their system preceeded his observations by a few centuries.), though I suspect he would have seen them (incorrectly) as a somewhat dark and regressive force.

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blatham wrote:

Bennett's ideas about the promotion of 'virtue' in schools is precisely 'social adjustment'. That isn't education, it is indoctrination into a value set.

From your description of Bennett, I gather he likes indoctrination, but that is not the new element he would introduce to America's public schools. Indoctrination goes way back to the beginnings of America's public school system. Horace Mann, a Unitarian himself, wanted such indoctrination too, so long as it wasn't sectarian. So the new element Bennet wants to introduce is not indoctrination. It is parental choice among diverse indoctrinators -- a choice that would break up of the school boards' current monopoly on indoctrination.

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Monopoly on what, thomas? Please be clear and explicit. I'd like to know what elements of indoctrination you refer to and your definition of indoctrination and how it is differentiated from education. Also, please provide the evidence for your claims.

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blatham wrote:

Monopoly on what, thomas?

For purposes of our discussion, indoctrination is advocacy by schools for any system of value whatsoever. Some of those systems of value are religious, such as Christianity; some are secular, such as patriotism, environmentalism, or, liberalism -- be it the classical European or the modern American kind. Indoctrination is a subset of education. Teaching students English is education, but not indoctrination. Deciding whether to address racism in English literature classes, and whether Uncle Tom's Cabin or Go Tell it to the Mountain is the right book to use, is both a question of education and one of indoctrination. (Personally I think it does belong there, and that Baldwin beats Beecher-Stove by miles. But I digress.)

As I understand it, schoolboards in America have a monopoly on setting school curricula; they also have a monopoly on editing the literature on these curriculae for political correctness. For evidence of how those curricula are ideologized by interest groups left and right, see Diane Ravich: The Language Police -- How Pressure Groups Restrict what Students Learn. In my understanding, school boards also have a monopoly on deciding whether or not students are encouraged to pledge allegiance to the American flag (which I consider indoctrination for patriotism, a doctrine I don't believe in.)

Do you need me to cite evidence for any of this? I thought it's pretty common knowledge.

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Actually, I don't want to get into this beyond pointing to the problematic areas related to maintenance of extant social value or reflecting on them, aspiring towards certain 'dispositions' in students as persons as contrasted with them as learners, and problematic areas related to the means by which that all might get done (drugs? threats? etc). I'm just really no longer intersted in the subject. If anyone wishes to address them, R.S. Peters is bright and thorough. The idea that indoctrination is a subset of education is entirely problematic, and may much more profitably be considered an impediment to education.

As to whom might be best held responsible for establishing curricula, that will fall out from your notions of what it is that determines the proper role of a school, which will fall out from opinions regarding the first paragraph. Trusting these matters to any unit of authority (father, local school board, priest, federal authorities) has each its own set of problems. You don't much like federal authority, so you probably won't end up there.

There are a lot of reasons, good and less laudible, that put education constantly into view as something the community ought to concern itself with. In the present situation, it will not serve you well to ignore the elements of very attractive profits for private interests if they can get their greedy hands on this huge enterprise, and it won't serve you well if you don't consider the purposive drive in 2005 America to indoctrinate (as you use the term) American children into christian values.

And I'm not going to go further on this subject because it is like fingernails on a blackboard to me now.

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That's enough dancing around Bennet. Worth considering are these 2 very salient points of Hayek's

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Those are very to the point indeed. I hope humanity evolves more persons like Hayek.

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Thomas-

Quote:

For purposes of our discussion, indoctrination is advocacy by schools for any system of value whatsoever.

As I understand it,and you will correct me if I'm mistaken I feel sure,indoctrination means the dissemination of false values by people who believe in them as opposed to propaganda which is the dissemination of false values by those who don't believe in them.

Neither have the slightest connection with education.

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From what I recall of Hofstadter's The School and the Teacher chapter he seemed to be offering an explanation,not a justification,for the feminisation of the educational system.

I don't think he passed any opinion as to the usefulness of such a process although in drawing attention to it he may have been asking a modern reader to ponder the matter in the light of events since he wrote that piece and the principle that you get what you pay for.

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Nice turn of phrase Spendius. However in your word game you have left out the possibility of false values being taught by people who know they are false, but believe in them anyway.

What is a "false value" anyway? Is this a descriptor for values the speaker doesn't like? Or perhaps ones that may lead to behaviors he doesn't like? What?

Don't want to further annoy Blatham, but I think Thomas' observations about indoctrination as a subset of education generally were certainly true. The human experience of passing down knowledge, right and wrong understanding, fact and fable, and imperfectly understood empirical guides for the avoidance of disaster and the marginal betterment of life is itself largely made up of indoctrination -- everywhere.

Timber -- thanks for the refreshment. Nice tits

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It IS good to keep abreast of things, george - helps one maintain perspective Mr. Green

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George wrote-

Quote:

Nice turn of phrase Spendius. However in your word game you have left out the possibility of false values being taught by people who know they are false, but believe in them anyway.

I presume you mean act as if they believe them.I'm not sure how one would believe in something knowing it to be false.One might easily believe in the efficacy of it for some purpose but that doesn't entail believing in it.

It is very difficult to imagine a true value given irreducible complexity but,as you suggest,pragmatism characterises human behaviour and thus social effects represent the nub of the ID/SD debate which is an idea the SDers have resisted although hardly valiantly.

I was reading this afternoon that staring into space with a glazed look in the eye is an adult outcropping of the technique of anger management which children learn by holding the breath and counting to ten.

Where's these tits?

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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