See https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostScienceTech/videos/10154086208461083/
The Future can be better when we think!
The Future is worse when we do not think!
America become great via "Yankee Ingenuity"! Now, people promoting, "Make America Great", are mostly folks who disparage science and thinking.
Education should not be about filling students heads with facts, it should be about giving students some tools so their curiosity and drive to explore allows them blaze a path to a better world. Education is about opening student's eyes so they can see the world around them. Not just looking at at what is around them, but actually seeing and understanding it.
Not withstanding the Louisiana Purchase and Alaska, America did not become great by doing deals; rather America become great by accepting reality, seeking to understand reality, and working together. Chinese, Polish, Italian, Jewish, and Irish immigrants were all disparaged, and discriminated against; and all helped to build a greater America than would have been possible without those waves of immigration bringing new blood and new ideas to the American process.
Trump Tower would be impossible without the work of a Polish immigrant; Charles Proteus Steinmetz. America could not have won WWII without the work of immigrants (e.g., http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/physics/brau/H182/Term%20Papers/Eric%20Weiss.html ). America could not have settled Kansas or Texas without Irish working in the steel mills or laying track. The wealth of California was made possible by rail roads built with Chinese labor. The railroads fed America's East Coast cities including Boston, NYC, and Washington, DC. You cannot point to anything that has made America great that was not helped along by immigration.
I am not an advocate for immigration, I am a advocate for the truth.
The scientific method, which underpins these achievements, can be summarized in one sentence, which is all about objectivity:
Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into thinking something is true that is not, or that something is not true that is.
This approach to knowing did not take root until early in the 17th century, shortly after the inventions of both the microscope and the telescope. The astronomer Galileo and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon agreed: conduct experiments to test your hypothesis and allocate your confidence in proportion to the strength of your evidence. Since then, we would further learn not to claim knowledge of a newly discovered truth until multiple researchers, and ultimately the majority of researchers, obtain results consistent with one another.
This code of conduct carries remarkable consequences. There’s no law against publishing wrong or biased results. But the cost to you for doing so is high. If your research is re-checked by colleagues, and nobody can duplicate your findings, the integrity of your future research will be held suspect. If you commit outright fraud, such as knowingly faking data, and subsequent researchers on the subject uncover this, the revelation will end your career.
It’s that simple.
See https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostScienceTech/videos/10154086208461083/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-degrasse-tyson/what-science-is-and-how-and-why-it-works_b_8595642.html
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3 comments:
It's interesting that you mention the Chinese and the railway system but not black slaves. You do know that the Chinese were forced labour and that railway production was considered slavery, right? Or are you skimming over that piece of history? Their contribution to the railway system is the equivalent of the African contribution to cotton production in the US.
"Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into thinking something is true that is not, or that something is not true that is."
You would do well to take this to heart Aaron, because it is something that you appear to be woefully at odds with.
I am very careful not to fool myself, very careful!
What happens is that I tend not to accept the conventional wisdom. I do not accept stuff just because many experts say something is true. I do the math. You miss that part. You think I am just blowing stuff off. No, I check the details, and find where the popular statement of an issue, glossed details that matter.
If Trump says something, I look at it very carefully, because he tends to state both sides of an issue, so at least one of the contradictory statements must be wrong. However, Trump is exceptionally talented, and he can state both sides of an issue, and get something wrong in both statements.
Economies are measured by "Gross Domestic Product" (GDP), which includes a lot of bad stuff, like pollution and . . . slavery. see http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/basics/gdp.htm
Make your points as to how immigration does not tend to increase GDP!
If you cannot make economically literate points as to which waves of immigration to the US (or the earlier American Colonies, or the earlier settling of North America by Native Americans) did not lead to increases in GDP. then you run the risk of sounding like Donald Trump.
Do not be like Trump. Do your homework.
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