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To: metmom; CE2949BB
The inconsistency of that position is another reason that I don't believe that it's *just about science* rather than control.

It's difficult to address this properly, since Gramsci's techniques *work* -- for both sides.

If you get people into a particular mindset, they become inured to contradictory evidence: they tend to reject anything which tends to go against their adopted worldview.

This applies to liberal vs. conservative, Catholic vs. Protestant, Creationist vs. Evo.

The evo's would get a lot more buy-in if they'd just phrase it like this:

"I know *you* don't want to accept evolution. And I understand you don't want your kids having things shoved down their throat at school which *you* disagree with -- as with sex strikeindoctrination education. However, if we taught things the way you liked, a lot of kids who would otherwise be neutral, would end up being resistant to learning about evolution scientifically later on, when they have the intellectual wherewithal to handle it. The problem is not that we want to indoctrinate people -- the problem is that a lot of people, for the sake of wanting to avoid evolution, will shy away from careers in biology, medicine, and drug development, and we need all the folks in those fields we can get. In addition, of those that *do* go into those fields, we will have to work extra hard to overcome their resistance, when we should be getting on with all of the other time-consuming and necessar work of training them."

But, of course, they don't. They engage in foaming-at-the-mouth hyperbole, and bigoted stereotyping, and turn off a lot of the "middle 20%" who would otherwise support them: although with the dumbing down of education, you are getting now > 20% in the middle...

...and to make it worse, those 20% are not rejecting Christianity (superstition, the scientists would call it) in favor of reason; they are instead descending into complete paganism, and complete nonsense. Christianity has a fine historical record of learning and respect for the mind, and Christianity provided the philosophical bedding for empiricism (a rational God left his mark by creating a rational universe; we can understand God by examining His handiwork; which morphed over time to "Cool! If we figure out how this works, we can control it" and then to "screw just controlling it, we can get RICH" and finally to "who needs God anyway?" These are all labeled by historical association "science" but they are not all really science.)

Cheers!

367 posted on 01/28/2009 9:43:00 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers
But, of course, they don't. They engage in foaming-at-the-mouth hyperbole, and bigoted stereotyping, and turn off a lot of the "middle 20%" who would otherwise support them: although with the dumbing down of education, you are getting now > 20% in the middle...

When perusing these threads, especially this one, a reader might conceivably not know of which group you refer.

371 posted on 01/28/2009 9:55:04 PM PST by going hot (Happiness is a momma deuce)
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