Your Government In Action |
Your Government In Action |
Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Dec 16 2005, 03:14 AM
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http://sciencedems.house.gov/press/PRArtic...spx?NewsID=1007 :
"[House] Science [Committee] Democrats lauded an agreement reached today on the Conference Report for S. 1281, the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Following today's approval by the conference committee, the legislation is tentatively scheduled for consideration by the full House this week... "During the conference, Rep. Jackson-Lee was a strong proponent for... more educational programs in the sciences for minorities..." I should hope so, given that she showed up at JPL a few days after the Mars Pathfinder landing and asked if it could photograph Neil Armstrong's footprints. |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
Dec 16 2005, 11:45 AM
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#2
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I remember a story when I was in an UFO association, incredible but true: a guy came to us, telling he was pursued by a round bright spaceship, at night, and from mad terror he speeded up with his car on the small countryside roads, just to find that the "spaceship" was still above him...
After one minute of questionning it appeared that the "spaceship" was just the full Moon... Still with the Moon, there are still many people here who believe that we cannot see the Moon at day. This is really incredible, they read this into a mickey comic when they are a child, and never raised their nose toward the sky to see it is not true. That people don't know about basic astronomy is already a problem, but when they even not SEE... |
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Dec 16 2005, 03:02 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
And we have a former Canadian defense minister who recently declared that the US is planning for an "intergalactic" war as the reason for raising its defense budget.
I've known college-educated people who did not know what stars were, that the Moon had craters, and that the Sun "rose" in the east and "set" in the west. I've met grown men who not only did not know what sundogs or moon rings were, but when shown them in reality were actually fearful of them. No, I did not time travel to 1305 Europe. I am thinking of ways to make a fortune during the next eclipse, however. I frequently visit a local university observatory that has open house nights on Fridays. More often than not, it is the little children who know more about the stars and planets than their parents or the students who attend the college (and it ain't no trade school). I taught an adult ed course on basic astronomy in the 1990s. I once asked my students - all adults - who was the first man to set foot on the Moon. I got mostly blank stares, with one student finally making the guess of John Glenn. I had a high school student in my class who started out really eager to become an astronomer - until she discovered that there was math involved. I kid you not. I remember an ABC news correspondent (Lynne Neary or Shear?) asking Carl Sagan when we were going to launch a manned mission to a star that was recently discovered at the time to have a protoplanetary disk. I watched Charlie Rose interview two of the head managers of the Mars Rovers shortly after Spirit's landing in 2004 and essentially spend most of his time declaring he knew nothing about what NASA did or what was going on with Mars. I remember either MacNeil or Lehrer (of the PBS MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour) become astonished to learn from someone he was interviewing that geosynchronous communications satellites orbit Earth at 22,000 miles altitude. I recall the time David Grinspoon of Venus Revealed and Lonely Planet fame being "interviewed" by the DJs of a local Boston radio station who ended up asking him inane questions about global warming and other nonsense and not about Venus, the real reason he was there. And on and on and on.... -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Dec 17 2005, 05:54 PM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Dec 16 2005, 07:02 AM) I've known college-educated people who did not know what stars were, that the Moon had craters, and that the Sun "rose" in the east and "set" in the west. Before we draw conclusions from this... do you (any reader in particular) know that some languages have postpositions instead of prepositions? That SVO and SOV are the most common word orders of languages, but all six possible word orders have been know to occur? That languages with postpositions tend to be SOV? That South America has the most native languages of any continent? That Papua New Guinea has more than any other continent? Etc... There is a whole world of less-obscure to more-obscure knowledge to be known about dozens of different fields. A common trend among people who who have specialized in one is to endlessly tsk-tsk the rest of the world because they haven't also specialized in that field. Probably the number of people who don't know the basics of comparative linguistics is about the same as the number of people who don't know the basics of astronomy. But it's not a reasonable conclusion that both of those population-wide shortcomings is a shame. What would your education consist of: 700 brief introductions to every field? All told, if someone was going to pick a field not to know anything about, astronomy is a hell of a good choice in terms of day to day usefulness. For the nth time, I'll say that the "tsk-tsk"ing is not a flattering characteristic of the cognoscenti. We can easily devise basic tests that you, too, would get a zero on. |
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Dec 18 2005, 09:31 PM
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#5
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
QUOTE (JRehling @ Dec 17 2005, 12:54 PM) Before we draw conclusions from this... do you (any reader in particular) know that some languages have postpositions instead of prepositions? That SVO and SOV are the most common word orders of languages, but all six possible word orders have been know to occur? That languages with postpositions tend to be SOV? That South America has the most native languages of any continent? That Papua New Guinea has more than any other continent? Etc... There is a whole world of less-obscure to more-obscure knowledge to be known about dozens of different fields. A common trend among people who who have specialized in one is to endlessly tsk-tsk the rest of the world because they haven't also specialized in that field. Probably the number of people who don't know the basics of comparative linguistics is about the same as the number of people who don't know the basics of astronomy. But it's not a reasonable conclusion that both of those population-wide shortcomings is a shame. What would your education consist of: 700 brief introductions to every field? All told, if someone was going to pick a field not to know anything about, astronomy is a hell of a good choice in terms of day to day usefulness. For the nth time, I'll say that the "tsk-tsk"ing is not a flattering characteristic of the cognoscenti. We can easily devise basic tests that you, too, would get a zero on. People should have at least a basic knowledge about the wider Universe they live in. They don't need to become astronomers as a result, but I think having a bigger perspective than the one they usually get stuck on this planet and self-centered group of societies will go a long way towards makig things better for all of us in the long run. Yes, everyone should know that stars are other suns, that we live on a finite planet orbiting a star in a galaxy of stars. That the Universe is composed of billions of galaxies full of such stars. If people don't know what kind of place they really live in, we might as well go back to a Ptolemaic system. There was a good reason Carl Sagan had the Voyager 1 engineers point the space probe's cameras back at the Sol system in 1990. The engineers objected that nothing could worthwhile could be seen. Sagan said that was the point. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
Dec 19 2005, 08:39 AM
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#6
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QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Dec 18 2005, 09:31 PM) People should have at least a basic knowledge about the wider Universe they live in. They don't need to become astronomers as a result, but I think having a bigger perspective than the one they usually get stuck on this planet and self-centered group of societies will go a long way towards makig things better for all of us in the long run. Yes, everyone should know that stars are other suns, that we live on a finite planet orbiting a star in a galaxy of stars. That the Universe is composed of billions of galaxies full of such stars. If people don't know what kind of place they really live in, we might as well go back to a Ptolemaic system. There was a good reason Carl Sagan had the Voyager 1 engineers point the space probe's cameras back at the Sol system in 1990. The engineers objected that nothing could worthwhile could be seen. Sagan said that was the point. Well said, ljk4-1 And if the knowledge of our position in the universe had something to do with the global bettering of the world we see since one century or two (human rights, democracy, abolition of slavery, humanitarian action...)? I think it has. If you look right now in the world, you soon notice that violence, fundamentalism and dictatures arise only where there are uneducated people. However living without knowing about space is exactly like living in a house without windows, not knowing about the sun and sky and other people. Everybody has the right to a window!!! (knowing the universe through school, correct medias, informed TV broadcast, etc) I do not want to see space-illiterate people! And at last everybody have some moral duty to look through the window at least once in their lifetime... |
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Dec 19 2005, 09:07 AM
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#7
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Member Group: Members Posts: 648 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Subotica Member No.: 384 |
QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Dec 19 2005, 11:39 AM) Everybody has the right to a window!!! (knowing the universe through school, correct medias, informed TV broadcast, etc) I do not want to see space-illiterate people! And at last everybody have some moral duty to look through the window at least once in their lifetime... Many people are just too lazy to learn or just see something for themselves...gosh, they are too lazy to even think for themselves... One of many examples: There was Solar eclipse lately, visible from where I live as a partial SE...I was at work at that time so I told my co-workers what’s happening and result was that ONE of mine 10 co-workers decided to stand up from his desk for about 10-20 seconds, take Solar Eclipse sun glasses that I brought with me and look at some 80-90% eclipsed Sun. -How about that "look through the window" Richard? Some people are just so blind to all the beauty, and so happy about it...and when they grow old they complain that they didn't see much in their lifetime...I hate that kind of people... BTW that's why I love this forum soo much... -------------------- The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
Jules H. Poincare My "Astrophotos" gallery on flickr... |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
Dec 19 2005, 09:50 AM
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#8
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QUOTE (Toma B @ Dec 19 2005, 09:07 AM) Many people are just too lazy to learn or just see something for themselves...gosh, they are too lazy to even think for themselves... One of many examples: There was Solar eclipse lately, visible from where I live as a partial SE...I was at work at that time so I told my co-workers what’s happening and result was that ONE of mine 10 co-workers decided to stand up from his desk for about 10-20 seconds, take Solar Eclipse sun glasses that I brought with me and look at some 80-90% eclipsed Sun. -How about that "look through the window" Richard? Some people are just so blind to all the beauty, and so happy about it...and when they grow old they complain that they didn't see much in their lifetime...I hate that kind of people... BTW that's why I love this forum soo much... To us to share our love of space... what do I say, it is even not love, it is just basic involvement into life. We sew seeds for centuries to come, an unrewarding process. But I would never abandon it. I France in the last total eclipse in 1998, there was ten of thousands of people gathered all along the central line. Pity that there was clouds. (I rather choose to study the meteo from myself, and try to find a good place, somewhere between Normandy and Bayern. My weather prediction was good, I found one of the very few places with some holes in the clouds). This reminds me of an eclipse in the early 20th century where children at school were FORBIDDEN to look at the eclipse!! So there is some progress. Slow, but it is. |
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Dec 19 2005, 10:40 AM
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#9
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Member Group: Members Posts: 648 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Subotica Member No.: 384 |
QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Dec 19 2005, 12:50 PM) I France in the last total eclipse in 1998, there was ten of thousands of people gathered all along the central line. Pity that there was clouds. (I rather choose to study the meteo from myself, and try to find a good place, somewhere between Normandy and Bayern. My weather prediction was good, I found one of the very few places with some holes in the clouds). This reminds me of an eclipse in the early 20th century where children at school were FORBIDDEN to look at the eclipse!! So there is some progress. Slow, but it is. That was 11th August 1999 isn't it? I saw it too...one of the most exiting moments of my life that was ...it was BEAUTIFULL!!! I am ashamed to speak here about media lies that precluded eclipse but I will... It was something like "DON"T LOOK AT THE SUN OR YOU WILL GET PEMANENTLY BLIND AND YOU WILL DIE IF YOU WANDER OUTSIDE OF YOUR PROPERLY DARKENED ROOM...BECAUSE OF ALL THAT RADIATION !!!" ...and this wasn't begining of 20th century but end of it... I SWEAR IT WAS IN STATE NEWS!!! -------------------- The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
Jules H. Poincare My "Astrophotos" gallery on flickr... |
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