- "A gracious, hospitable, genuinely caring, and respectful person with an appreciation for the South."
That it sucks. I have started to see exactly just how much the South really sucks. We Southerners are fatter. We're poorer.
We're dumber. We have more STDs. We're a bunch of godidiots (exhibit 15). We have the highest crime rates of any region in the US. But goddamn can we make our white lightning!
Before you roll your eyes and move on, dismissing this as an uninformed diatribe, consider that I was born and raised in the heart of the Appalachian mountains in Virginia, where in just one instance in 2000, the ATF disrupted a moonshine trade at one small country store worth millions of dollars. I am railing against the culture I know best. And that is why I have such a hard time appreciating it. I do realize that socio-economic factors are all inextricable from one another and that if any of the above is the primary causation of the others, it's the $$$.
Facts are ugly, but that doesn't change a damn thing. Now, let's hone in on one of the South's deficiencies -- education. When you look at the breakdown of how schools are trending in SC, the facts are sobering:
| Schools | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | ||||||
| Excellent (%) | 6.4 | 11.6 | 15.2 | 20.4 | 19.9 | ||||||
| Good (%) | 19.6 | 21.8 | 27.4 | 33.9 | 32.3 | ||||||
| Average (%) | 33.6 | 32.0 | 31.5 | 28.5 | 29.8 | ||||||
| Below Average (%) | 26.2 | 22.3 | 20.0 | 14.6 | 13.8 | ||||||
| Unsatisfactory (%) | 14.1 | 12.1 | 5.9 | 2.6 | 4.2 |
| School Districts | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | ||||||
| Excellent (%) | 0 | 3.5 | 5.9 | 10.6 | 10.6 | ||||||
| Good (%) | 8.2 | 4.7 | 32.9 | 43.5 | 30.6 | ||||||
| Average (%) | 45.8 | 49 | 38.8 | 30.6 | 37.7 | ||||||
| Below Average (%) | 25.9 | 29 | 17.6 | 14.1 | 11.8 | ||||||
| Unsatisfactory (%) | 20 | 11 | 4.7 | 1.2 | 9.4 |
It's hardly news to most people that science education in the South suffers from the daily onslaught of creationist ignorance and general religious superstition. Now, PZ just mentioned how creationists were continuing to affirm that ID can be taught in science classes, and the fact that they claim SC state science standards allow this raised my eyebrow. The biology standards don't seem to give them this capability, unless they're seizing on these paltry morsels:
The whole "critical analysis" meme belies the weakness of intelligent design: it offers no positive evidence, only criticisms of evolution. Does it fill in the gaps in our knowledge? Not in the slightest; it simply identifies and spins them.
- B-5.5 Exemplify scientific evidence in the fields of anatomy, embryology, biochemistry, and paleontology that underlies the theory of biological evolution.
- B-5.6 Summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.
So, in short, I don't see how the ID-iots find reason for hope in the SC science standards.
According to an extensive national assessment report (p. 50 of report, p. 80/409 of .PDF), our national science scores are failing:
When we move to the South, we're adding extra poverty, religious superstition and pseudoscientific nonsense to the already serious problem we face nationally in science education. Intelligent Design creationism serves to further nothing but the widening gap we face in competing globally for the status of "scientific superpower". I like the way Mac Johnson, a hardcore conservative, describes ID:
So in light of the issue's new prominence and with a desire to improve the mental hygiene of others, I would just like to say that Intelligent Design is a really, really bad idea --scientifically, politically, and theologically. I say this as a dedicated conservative, who has on many occasions defended and espoused religion and religious conservatism. I also say it as a professional molecular biologist, who has worked daily (or at least week-daily) for years with biological problems to which the theory of evolution has contributed significant understanding -- and to which Intelligent Design is incapable of contributing any understanding at all.Well said.
Scientifically, attributing every aspect of biology to the arbitrary design of a divine tinkerer explains as much about biology as attributing the eruption of volcanoes to the anger of the Lava God would explain geology. A theory, by definition, makes predictions that can be tested. Intelligent Design predicts nothing, since it essentially states that every thing is the way it is because God wanted it that way.
