It sounds like Super Smash Brothers at first (if you’ve ever played), as any good court case does - but this is the infamous discussion on the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
What I know about ID (intelligent design) so far (PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong and feel free to add):
Intelligent design is a theory that came into use after the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District case on the teaching of “creation science” alongside evolution. It is based upon how complex life is. People who believe in ID believe that something as complex as, for example, a protein pump wouldn’t be possible without an intelligent being to guide the development of such things. ID is currently a very controversial topic - while some people believe that ID is valid and should be taught, others believe that ID is completely untrue. There are also many people in between who have many different views - one of these may be that ID is not necessarily true however to get a complete perspective students should be taught ID as one option, in case they choose to believe it.
Personally I believe intelligent design is a load of hooey (gotta love that word). To survive, creationism evolved into intelligent design. On a more practical note, we can actually see evolution in action in many types of bacteria.
I can see it from the other point of view though. How could little cellular machines like this do so much?
But then again there’s the obvious. Where else could fossils and geology and all the other evidence that’s rock hard (excuse the pun) come from? It’d be impossible for “non-believers” to fake something like fossils on such a large scale as this planet.
In preparing students for the twenty-first century we need to educate them in certain ways. Skills in certain areas will be necessary because of recent advances in technology, for example, the human race will need to accept that computers and robots may do our jobs better than we do. In other words we must learn humility. Other skills will become the norm as well, for example it will be necessary in day-to-day life to have basic programming skills in all the major languages, we will also need to be able to service the hardware side of things too.
I believe this video is the newest version, correct me if I’m wrong. It was originally made by Karl Fisch (see his blog at The Fischbowl) for a presentation on how his high school should be teaching kids. It has been remade so many times it’s not even worth mentioning who else helped.
I’ve always loved this kind of video - words that shock you along with some quiet music. This goes along with someone talking made into animations, such as Alan Watt’s videos. This was actually assigned to be watched, which is progress in our school system, however it was also assigned that we fill out a sheet and analyze the video, which totally ruined all the progress. The writing in the top paragraph is actually one answer of what I’m handing in! Even this is a connection to the video. If the right steps are made soon all classes will be on computers, and, even further along, blogs, which is why I like including my homework into something I consider fun.
This video makes me think. If a laptop available in 2049 will surpass the combined technological power of the human race put together, than what are we left to do? As much as anybody I wouldn’t like an “I, Robot” situation however this may be for the better. I choose to see these advances as an opportunity; with all the “menial” (think open heart surgery) jobs out of the way our kind will have all the time we need to express ourselves in ways we can’t program computers to; such as the arts. Think about it.
Police in the Baltic state of Estonia stopped a man who was driving erratically at the weekend, only to find he was blind.
The 20-year-old was driving in the southern city of Tartu early Sunday — helped by instructions from his 16-year-old passenger.
“At first they thought he was just drunk, but the man kept missing the tube for the breath test, then they realized he was blind” and arrested him, Tartu Police spokeswoman Marge Kohtla said Monday.
No comment.
As many as 11 million British motorists are unable to read a basic road map, according to a survey released Monday.
The poll revealed over three quarters of British drivers were unable to identify the motorway map symbol, while only one percent of motorists would pass the Cub Scout Map Reader badge test.
Ditto.
For the dog lover with everything but time - Flexpetz allows people to rent dogs by the day or the hour.
Currently available in Los Angeles and San Diego, the company is looking to expand its business to another three cities in the U.S. and to London in the UK.
Pitiful.
Food stalls attached to Beijing’s public toilets will be removed in good time for next year’s Olympics, state media said Saturday.
Complaints over toilets with poor sanitation and toilet operators turning them into commercial operations led to the ban, which comes into force in October.
“It is not proper to sell soft drinks or snacks right at the toilets,” the Beijing News said, citing sources within the Beijing Municipal Administration Commission.
No kidding? Somehow I doubt that this is a “mistranslation” issue…
Anyway, this is my post for the day… All information from Reuters. Reuter’s? Whatever.
It’s not very surprising that I haven’t blogged recently, most of the time I blog when I have other things to do that I actually want to, and summer is full of things I want to do. However, I seem to have pulled myself together a bit to post a movie I recently saw:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4]
I find it reflects a lot on my view of life; I find it very annoying when I know (to use that metaphor) that I can dance, but am unable to due to everybody around me, for example, my previous school system (HCS) was horrible and failed to meet my needs (a “larger dance floor”).
This will only be a short post because I am doing many things in the summer, including being bored, reading, being bored, biking, swimming, being bored, reading some more, using the computer, being lazy, being bored, and sleeping. With the occasional burst of eating every now and then.
Other than that, well, it’s pretty much obvious that school is now out, therefor summer has started in the minds of most non-insane people, however, the calendar says that summer starts June 21st, or something like that… So, even with legal technicalities, summer has started.
