dajafi wrote:Ross Douthat is making sense:

To my mind, one of the more telling moments in the debate came when Palin, unbidden, latched on to a Biden reference to education, and started talking about all the teachers in her family, and how her kids attend public school, and then did her shout-out to her brother's third grade class - all of which would have been an ideal anecdotal way to lead into a more substantive argument about education policy. The fact that Palin didn't really have a substantive point (beyond vague references to paying teachers more and making NCLB more flexible) can be attributed in part to her lack of knowledge on the subject, no doubt, and perhaps to her lack of interest in policy detail - but it also reflects the fact that the McCain campaign hasn't put any energy into developing a clear, consistent, and popular message on education. etc...

Admittedly, this is an advantageous point for Douthat to make in his Long March to redirect the Republican Party away from the debased remains of the Reagan coalition toward a bright new day of values-based economic populism. Elsewhere on his blog, he actually does suggest "a way to address the liberal critique of your health care plan," which struck me as logically sound but difficult to advance forcefully in our ADD political culture. (Holy role reversal, Batman!) And he's all about talking to the middle class on taxes. But I still think he's onto something here.

i think douthat is right. ironically, and this is just a observation not a contridiction, he picked the 45 seconds the debate had on education to make the point and 40 of them belonged to palin. i acknowledged my affiliation earlier when i made this point during the debate, but all biden said in response was the usual teachers union talking point that NCLB isn't fully funded. so, as little substance as palin offered, biden offered even less. clearly, palin could offer more (or any) substance on the issues, but the jump to what biden offered, i just don't think it's as big a gap as being portrayed.

if they had the stones for it, the R ticket could take the education issue completely away from the democrats in this election (and make it a domestic competitiveness/civil rights issue - wouldn't that be a turn of the tables?), but mccain is not the guy to do it. he just doesn't care about it at all.

Woody wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

So which is which in this case

From the same article...

Is Intelligent Design the same thing as Creationism?

No. Intelligent Design adherents believe only that the complexity of the natural world could not have occurred by chance. Some intelligent entity must have created the complexity, they reason, but that "designer" could in theory be anything or anyone. In 1802, William Paley used the "divine watchmaker" analogy to popularize the design argument*: If we assume that a watch must have been fashioned by a watchmaker, then we should assume that an ordered universe must have been fashioned by a divine Creator. Many traditional Creationists have embraced this argument over the years, and most, if not all, modern advocates for Intelligent Design are Christians who believe that God is the designer.

Woody wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

So which is which in this case

i think he is saying creationism is "strict interpretation of the bible" for the beginning of life... I think there is a difference here. "Creationism" has become a christian word and the christian bible version of evolution (which was pretty darn quick eh?) and intelligent design is open to a non-christian god who sorta designs evolution to lead down some divine path (but it doesnt need the snake in the garden and all that jazz.)

Camp Holdout wrote:

Woody wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

So which is which in this case

i think he is saying creationism is "strict interpretation of the bible" for the beginning of life... I think there is a difference here. "Creationism" has become a christian word and the christian bible version of evolution (which was pretty darn quick eh?) and intelligent design is open to a non-christian god who sorta designs evolution to lead down some divine path (but it doesnt need the snake in the garden and all that jazz.)

There's no such thing as a christian bible version of evolution. Evolution involves change. The genesis account doesn't allow for that kind of change in organisms.

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

Agreed--not least because that basic view is going to heavily influence one's thoughts about what kind of policy interventions might be called for in a given situation.

Similarly, I suspect a large chunk of the public, maybe a majority, believes that "the world will end" in something like the Biblical foretelling--whether that's the "Left Behind" plot arc or something that tracks the story in a metaphorical way. But there are obvious policy implications to the difference between someone who believes that their messiah will return eventually, and someone who thinks it will happen more or less in Darren Daulton's time frame...

Didn't the PA supreme court rule that Intelligent Design was "creationism in disguise"? Didn't they find evidence that the ID folks basically took a creationism text and did and Edit>>Replace to make it replace creationism with "intelligent design"?

Mountainphan wrote:

Woody wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

So which is which in this case

From the same article...

Is Intelligent Design the same thing as Creationism?

No. Intelligent Design adherents believe only that the complexity of the natural world could not have occurred by chance. Some intelligent entity must have created the complexity, they reason, but that "designer" could in theory be anything or anyone. In 1802, William Paley used the "divine watchmaker" analogy to popularize the design argument*: If we assume that a watch must have been fashioned by a watchmaker, then we should assume that an ordered universe must have been fashioned by a divine Creator. Many traditional Creationists have embraced this argument over the years, and most, if not all, modern advocates for Intelligent Design are Christians who believe that God is the designer.

Intelligent design has the same scientific validity as Marxism.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:

The Dude wrote:LA, you know very well that creationism involves the deity creating humanity as well, takes the book of genesis literally

Actually you're wrong and LA is basically correct. As Daniel Engler points out in his Slate column, creationism has many interpretations. To paint it as only referring to book of genesis is simply incorrect.

Creationism comes in many varieties, from the strictest biblical literalism (according to which the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and flat) to the theistic evolutionism of the Catholic Church (which accepts evidence that the Earth is millions of years old, and that evolution can explain much of its history—but not the creation of the human soul). Between those extremes, there are "Young-Earth" and "Old-Earth" creationists, who differ over the age of the planet and the details of how God created life.

This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

So why is it correct to paint it as only the broadest interpretation?

I said "basically correct" because LA's interpretation is so general that it leaves room for all the varities while Dude's viewpoint only leaves room for one.

dajafi wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

Agreed--not least because that basic view is going to heavily influence one's thoughts about what kind of policy interventions might be called for in a given situation.

Right--people who believe in intelligent design are going to be in favor of the bailout, and all kinds of interventions in the free market, because there's no way a complex economy could emerge from spontaneous market forces. It must have been planned.

creationism is stupid.

srsly.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Camp Holdout wrote:

Woody wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Woody wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:
This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

dude wait what

There is an important difference between the people that believe that the universe is 6,000 years old, and those that believe that a divine being was watching over it all (big bang, evolution, etc).

So which is which in this case

i think he is saying creationism is "strict interpretation of the bible" for the beginning of life... I think there is a difference here. "Creationism" has become a christian word and the christian bible version of evolution (which was pretty darn quick eh?) and intelligent design is open to a non-christian god who sorta designs evolution to lead down some divine path (but it doesnt need the snake in the garden and all that jazz.)

There's no such thing as a christian bible version of evolution. Evolution involves change. The genesis account doesn't allow for that kind of change in organisms.

well i did call it "darn quick"

but yeah. i think we're on the same page here.

i guess i should be fair since im talking about bill maher's film and mention that ben stein made a film about intelligent design (it's pro intelligent design being taught in schools) called ExPelled... might also be interesting (especially for a teacher) http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

Which one does Carl Everett believe in?

Mountainphan wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:

Mountainphan wrote:

The Dude wrote:LA, you know very well that creationism involves the deity creating humanity as well, takes the book of genesis literally

Actually you're wrong and LA is basically correct. As Daniel Engler points out in his Slate column, creationism has many interpretations. To paint it as only referring to book of genesis is simply incorrect.

Creationism comes in many varieties, from the strictest biblical literalism (according to which the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and flat) to the theistic evolutionism of the Catholic Church (which accepts evidence that the Earth is millions of years old, and that evolution can explain much of its history—but not the creation of the human soul). Between those extremes, there are "Young-Earth" and "Old-Earth" creationists, who differ over the age of the planet and the details of how God created life.

This column is also interesting because it points out the diiference between Intelligent Design and creationism.

So why is it correct to paint it as only the broadest interpretation?

I said "basically correct" because LA's interpretation is so general that it leaves room for all the varities while Dude's viewpoint only leaves room for one.

I used the definition that is used in discussions on evolution vs. creationism, and LA was doing a typical semantic argument, knowing full well what the OP meant

Trent Steele wrote:Which one does Carl Everett believe in?

The Flintstones

Can I get a Carl Everett graemlin that says "AINT NO DINOSAURS"??

gr wrote:i acknowledged my affiliation earlier when i made this point during the debate, but all biden said in response was the usual teachers union talking point that NCLB isn't fully funded. so, as little substance as palin offered, biden offered even less. clearly, palin could offer more (or any) substance on the issues, but the jump to what biden offered, i just don't think it's as big a gap as being portrayed.

if they had the stones for it, the R ticket could take the education issue completely away from the democrats in this election (and make it a domestic competitiveness/civil rights issue - wouldn't that be a turn of the tables?), but mccain is not the guy to do it. he just doesn't care about it at all.

I'm with you here on about 75 percent of this, probably because I still haven't fully worked out my own opinion of NCLB. (My bias is that however badly the program has been mismanaged or how corrosive it is or might be to top-notch pedagogy, its basic contention--that we are entirely fucked if we don't close the educational attainment gap between racial/ethnic groups--is IMO the single most important problem for New York City leaders to solve over the next 20 years. So I'd rather swim in fetid bathwater than toss that baby.)

What I completely agree with--and I'm pretty sure I posted this here months and months ago, in whatever political thread was going at the time--is that the Rs had a great shot at swinging this race by fully engaging on education policy. (Rhee '16!?!) Against Hillary, this would have been easy; against Obama, it would have been tougher (because he took a principled stand on merit pay during the primaries) but still doable (because he subsequently shut up about it).

But McCain was never the guy for that job, and the only one of their candidates who even might have given it a try was the Hucker. More broadly, it's probably tough to advance that sort of argument when your party is largely predicated on the idea that government sucks, and should be drowned in a bathtub... which is also why Huckabee never had much of a shot to begin with.

If the Douthat faction can push aside the unholy Dobson/Norquist alliance--or just wait for them to croak, I guess--all sorts of policy and political avenues would open for the Republicans. I hope we get to see it happen.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Werthless and MP, do you guys really think that McCain is super-spiritual?

He doesn't pretend to be.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Werthless and MP, do you guys really think that McCain is super-spiritual?

He doesn't pretend to be.

Which is why I like him.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Werthless and MP, do you guys really think that McCain is super-spiritual?

He doesn't pretend to be.

He's a heretic--left the true church for some crackpot group.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Werthless and MP, do you guys really think that McCain is super-spiritual?

He doesn't pretend to be.

Jeez, I can't even remember what I was referencing and I don't want to go figure it out. These last three pages have been brutal.