I guess nobody ever played peek-a-boo with them.

Unless magpies and goldfish can add and subtract, that is.

I'd venture it's a safe bet though that they can play xBox better than a goldfish, but some might lose to the magpie.

until I watched the video and saw the chart.

everyone totally got it!

Amazing!

I opened the thread thinking, oh gods what have we teachers "done" now that we're going to catch flak for.

unfortunately

Conservatives. I've heard them argue that since they didn't see it, it must not have happened.

http://www.11points.com/Books/11_Eye-Opening_Highlights_From_a_Creationist_Science_Textbook

It's as bad as the entries on Conservapedia on a thread we had last night.

And God said:

And there was light!

Electricity is not a mystery. It hasn't been a mystery since Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, Carl Friedrich Gauss, André-Marie Ampére, Allassandro Volta, and, most importantly, James Clerk Maxwell whose four equations of electricity and magnetism are a synthesis of the work of the others is illustrated above.

Meanwhile, a second grade patent clerk in Switzerland simplified these four equations into two. This gave rise to two equations which not only were equivalent to the four, but opened up an entirely new physical interpretation which explained why the experiments were correct and previous theoretical interpretations were wrong.

This happened several times since, always preserving the previous equations as a partial solution. Prominent in this endeavor are Paul Dirac, Richard Feynman, Stephen Weinberg, Frank Wilczek, among others.

All extended the science of Franklin, Gauss, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Dirac, etc., and all the others who worked on the problem of what the fuck is electricity?

What humans (apparently not the folks and Conservapedia, or their followers) know about electricity, magnetism, light and the entire so-called electro-magnetic spectrum, is one thing, describable precisely by a simple equation, or set of equations (depending on your theoretical or physical viewpoint).

But these idiots claim that the Bible says that's all wrong.

Fuck these simpleton douche bags.

This was all common knowledge at one time. Everything you said - I learned before I graduated high school.

My problem with this learned regressive mentality, is that as old as I am, we were taught evolution in public schools in the South in 1950s. There was no drama, no contesting it. That was normal -scientific advancements were good.

We were taught before we left the lower grades, about hydro-electric power, atoms and current. This was basic stuff. We were taught civics, different ways that countries were governed. We learned the names of all the Presidents, what wars and other events during each term; what happened from before the Revolution; labor and civil rights history; difference in styles of government, even the dreaded socialism. We were taught the Humanist Manifesto, Das Kapital, Mein Kampf and the development of language. We wer taught about the New Deal programs, and a lot of things that kids aren't taugh now. This was not advanced studies, this was basic information to finish school.

We learned the names of all the world capitols, states, provinces, oceans, rivers and climates as part of geography and all of that. We were there to learn from 8 AM to 3 PM with no fooling around. No A/C. No television, no computers, no movies.

That was in the sixties, and then in the eighties I'm talking to a high school kid who was the son of my best friend. So, it was one of those, 'what did you learn in school this year' summertime talks. He wasn't shining me on, either, I knew this kid very well. He proudly informed they'd just finished that year - 10th grade he was - and now knew everything that had ever happened in the history of the world - all the way up to that year.

But he didn't know the president's name, or the capitol of the state we lived in. The conversation went to geography, and he asked me the name of the country north of the USA. He finished school and then went into the service to get college, and he's now into pharmacy at a hospital.

But I've talked to other kids, and they aren't getting the hard stuff, my own was in class and I find out they've got them watching movies that have nothing to do with school all day long one day a week, and outings that have nothing to do with school another day a week. I look in the history book, and they've got thirty pages of Hollywood movie stars. I was... WTF?

And this was before the wacky religious schools and home schooling and charters. I believe the GOP, conservatives, etc. want to create a dumbed down class of people to control them. The ones whose parents will make sure they get a real education with science such as Obama is encouraging are going to rule over these people eventually. And they won't even know what they're missing, either.

I get very discouraged seeing how bad this is in some states. I live in a blue state in a liberal district - but the fundies and baggers are getting more powerful.

I started school in like 1953-4 (who can remember which) in Detroit (yes, in the city).

We had all the stuff you mentioned. In 1963-4, I had BSCS Biology in 10th grade at Cooley High School with Mr. Lockett (the only black teacher in the school -- but he was a Cracker Jack, the best of the best). We learned the synthesis of glucose to DNA until we could recite it in our sleep. We did all sorts of biological experiments. And yes, evolution was the primary focus of the curriculum.

The USA has lost its edge in science at the K-12 level thanks to ignorant, uneducated religious morons who increasingly are making the decisions.

If we do not coagulate our defication and take these douche bags on, I fear our country, and our world, will be lost in a dark age of fundementalist religion, post modernist obscurantism, and mystical woo woo.

We have to fight it. But it's like herding fucking cats, or wacking moles.


Excuse me. Benny Hinn is on TV. I have to get a boil on my ass healed. And PBS has a program during their pledge break that promises to balance my chakra. I think it's Deepak Chakra... Er, Chopra.

I gotta go.

Remaining ignorant and abstaining from critical thought. There is no truth in their faithfulness and devotion to those things they refuse to question. A pathetic and dangerous method of control.

it's the educational people that will be running to avoid being beaten up, or in our nation, gunned down, by fundie mobs. They could get employment in private security or other functions and do their mischief. It's happened before. Don't laugh at unbridled ignorance. Such people are dangerous and easily led.

Or in China too? Because that meant they could read and were therefore dangerous???

I tested her to see if she thought I could see her if she couldn't see me. When she covered her eyes, she really thought no one could see her. Very interesting.

doesn't send this thread into nonexistence? How disappointing!

Actually, I found the video quite amusing.

Another reason Fox fired Sarah.

Is a most difficult time time to leave toddlers in child care.

They don't understand 'later' and 'I'll be back', as far as they are concerned, if I can't see you, you don't exist, and you may never come back. It's called infant time.

It is even part of what makes break ups, unbearable.

it is a basic survival concept.

I don't see how people like that could function.

When my dog was a puppy she used to crawl on her belly trying to sneak up on people even though they were looking right at her.

She will literally be in my direct line of sight--sneaking up on me.

I have seen cats do that. They act surprised when you pick em up.

"I haven't seen her in forrrrrrrrevvvvvver..." "Where could she have gone?" -and then I snag her up at the last second.

I have a rule, don't startle critters with claws.