Texas Board of Education rejects plan to have academics fact-check their textbooks

[Guest]

AUSTIN, Texas — Members of Texas' State Board of Education on Wednesday narrowly rejected a plan to create a group of state university professors to scour Texas schoolchildren's textbooks for factual errors. The vote against was 8-7, with all the board's Republicans except two opposing the measure. The push for more experts to be involved came after more than a year of controversy over board-sanctioned books' coverage of global warming, descriptions of Islamic history and terrorism and handling of the Civil War and the importance of Moses and the Ten Commandments to the Founding Fathers. A tipping point to add more fact checking may have come last month. A suburban Houston mom's alert that a newly approved geography text described African slaves forcibly brought to North America as "workers" set off a national furor. At issue is whether the board should continue to rely on publishers and the public to flag errors. Currently, citizen panels nominated by the board have a narrower mission — to determine whether a book fits into Texas' curriculum standards. Mostly, current and retired teachers sit on the panels.



http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/texas-board-of-education-rejects-plan-to-have-academics-fact-check-their-textbooks/

[Original Quill]

When will people learn that there is no such thing as absolute fact.  This the importance of freedom of speech.  I don't suggest that there isn't a corporeal reality out there, but there are always alternative theories and additional facts that mitigate, and sometimes alter any absolute truth.

Facts are not always fixed.  They don't change, but our awareness and full appreciation of them does change.  Granted, you must have an experiential awareness to ground facts.  But truth is always corrigible.

The free-flow of ideas allows each person to decide for him or herself.  To get involved in ideas.  To think.  To process on your own.  Isn't that what we want to teach our children?  The idea that facts are like apples or bricks or hard and fast objects of any kind, is false.  They are experiences, but always subject to some modification.

[Guest]

So you would be happy for a school to use a book by a holocaust denier to teach the holocaust of the Jews then?
Sorry but there is such a thing as works that are blatnatly untrue or for example teaching creationism as science which is fundementally wrong.
So yes schools books should be checked to see that they meet the requirment as viable to be used for teaching, otherwise how do you think qualifications are set on?

[Original Quill]

So you would be happy for a school to use a book by a holocaust denier to teach the holocaust of the Jews then?
Sorry but there is such a thing as works that are blatnatly untrue or for example teaching creationism as science which is fundementally wrong.
So yes schools books should be checked to see that they meet the requirment as viable to be used for teaching, otherwise how do you think qualifications are set on?

Yes, I am happy that we also have the freedom to speak up and challenge a book by a holocaust denier.  Freedom of speech is a process, not an end.  It serves anyone who want's to think for him or herself.  Those who would crystallize the idea of 'fact', would also crystallize the idea of truth.

We once prohibited Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei from speaking up about so-called 'facts'.  Where did that get us?  Would we be better today if we had never let Einstein speak up?

It's the same thing with political and social speak.  Even history has it's debates.  Did Roosevelt know that an attack on Pearl Harbor was coming?  Was it Richard III or Henry VII who killed the sons of Edward IV?  Yes, some questions are offensive; but better that than that we silence all inquiry.

We used to take it as 'fact' that the Negro race is intellectually inferior, or that Jews are financial predators.  It was once 'fact' that man couldn't fly. It was once 'fact' that the earth is flat, and that the sun circumnavigates the earth, rather than the other way around.  These things would still be fact, but for the freedom of our ability to think, and communicate our thoughts to one another: our First Amendment rights.

Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth.  There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind.  Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world.  But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves.  There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them.  That's what an open society is all about.

Do I want some commission to nail down for me what is 'fact'?  Do I want them, by contradistinction, to tell me what is not 'fact'?  Keep in mind that this an education commission, charged with the task of determining the minds of children at the highest level.  There's a thin wall between discovery and invention, and pretty soon the 'fact' commission will become the 'propaganda' commission.  The only safeguard against that is a free and open exchange of ideas.

[Guest]

So Quill has just abolished any need for any a syllabus.
Might as well provide doctors with a surgens guide book for dummies
That he thinks children can just be taught that there was no slave trade
Hitler was in fact a victim and that no Jews died in the holocaust.
I mean we know for a fact that there was a slave trade and Hitler was one of the most evil men in history

According to Quill there is no such thing as a fact, even though there is like for example it is a fact that Germany invaded Poland.
It is a fact that on june 22nd 1941 Russia was invaded by Germany
For some reason Quill thinks they cannot be facts


Can someone pass me a tissue as I am crying with laughter lol

[nicko]

Quill lives in cloud cuckoo land, i'v always thought so.

[Guest]

Quill needs to understand that there is some facts, that somethinges are debateable and can be questions, but to introduce works that are complete fabrications is like claiming religious books should be taught as history and geography.
There is nothing wrong with debate over who might have killled two boys, but there is no dispute over the many facts surrounding the attrocities of the holocast and why it is vital that children are not just given any bullshit to learn from, as some things are complete nonsense. Not only that to allow for every wacky view on something which has no evidence would take a life time to teach children on subjects.
Things have to be evidenced based, but to claim to allow any bullshit as books children use as their tools for lessons is fundementally important

[Original Quill]

So Quill has just abolished any need for any a syllabus.
Might as well provide doctors with a surgens guide book for dummies
That he thinks children can just be taught that there was no slave trade
Hitler was in fact a victim and that no Jews died in the holocaust.
I mean we know for a fact that there was a slave trade and Hitler was one of the most evil men in history

According to Quill there is no such thing as a fact, even though there is like for example it is a fact that Germany invaded Poland.
It is a fact that on june 22nd 1941 Russia was invaded by Germany
For some reason Quill thinks they cannot be facts

Can someone pass me a tissue as I am crying with laughter lol

You've fallen into the very trap I set for you.  I said:

Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth.  There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind.  Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world.  But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves.  There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them.  That's what an open society is all about.

Even when you are forewarned, you fail the Wolin test of thought before action.  Or are you merely out to win an argument?  Are you perhaps driven by ego over thought?

[Guest]

I fell for no trap at all, you claim there is no facts, I just proved there is.

You just got made to look very stupid Quill ha ha

[Original Quill]

So Quill has just abolished any need for any a syllabus.
Might as well provide doctors with a surgens guide book for dummies
That he thinks children can just be taught that there was no slave trade
Hitler was in fact a victim and that no Jews died in the holocaust.
I mean we know for a fact that there was a slave trade and Hitler was one of the most evil men in history

According to Quill there is no such thing as a fact, even though there is like for example it is a fact that Germany invaded Poland.
It is a fact that on june 22nd 1941 Russia was invaded by Germany
For some reason Quill thinks they cannot be facts

Can someone pass me a tissue as I am crying with laughter lol

You've fallen into the very trap I set for you.  I said:

Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth.  There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind.  Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world.  But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves.  There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them.  That's what an open society is all about.

Even when you are forewarned, you fail the Wolin test of thought before action.  Or are you merely out to win an argument?  Are you perhaps driven by ego over thought?

Read it and weep.

[Guest]

Weep with laughter is the right word for now the Whoopie test

So again what year did Germany Invade Poland and apply your whoppie Goldberg test ha ha

[Original Quill]

Weep with laughter is the right word for now the Whoopie test

So again what year did Germany Invade Poland and apply your whoppie Goldberg test ha ha

Did so. Did not. Did so. Did not. Ta...

[Guest]

I see the whopie Goldberg test just fell at the first hurdle over a simple historical question lol

Thank goodness you are not a teacher

[Victorismyhero]

what else do you expect from the supposed "intellectual left", the propaganda machine of the left

they make an education system in which no one can fail, and which is outstanding in its lack of teaching "how" to think. They DONT want the worker drones to think too much

look a quills supposition
"Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth. There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind. Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world. But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves. There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them. That's what an open society is all about.

Do I want some commission to nail down for me what is 'fact'? Do I want them, by contradistinction, to tell me what is not 'fact'? Keep in mind that this an education commission, charged with the task of determining the minds of children at the highest level. There's a thin wall between discovery and invention, and pretty soon the 'fact' commission will become the 'propaganda' commission. The only safeguard against that is a free and open exchange of ideas."


yet he (deliberately i suspect) ignores that fact that children must be taught the truth, AND WHY IT IS THE TRUTH (in otherwords be able to criticise the "facts" if they are inconsistant with that truth) because otherwise they cannot have an open mind they will NOT be able to indulge in a "free and open exchange of ideas" becasue they wont have any "free ideas, nor the ability to actually think beyond the rubbish they get fed.

quill is rapidly showing himself as a good marxist of the "frankfurt school" type
where the nasty right meets the equally nasty left and both become indistinguishable from one another

[veya_victaous]

Freedom of speech is not as import as absolute mathematical fact, only one is actually true
The opinions of single violent hairless ape DO NOT MATTER

[Victorismyhero]

you trying to make a monkey outta quill???

sorry Veya, you cant improve on nature...

[veya_victaous]

you trying to make a monkey outta quill???

sorry Veya, you cant improve on nature...

the opinion of this

     

Is more important than
the opinion of this





And that is why I am a true technocrat

[Ben Reilly]

what else do you expect from the supposed "intellectual left", the propaganda machine of the left

they make an education system in which no one can fail, and which is outstanding in its lack of teaching "how" to think. They DONT want the worker drones to think too much

look a quills supposition
"Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth.  There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind.  Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world.  But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves.  There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them.  That's what an open society is all about.

Do I want some commission to nail down for me what is 'fact'?  Do I want them, by contradistinction, to tell me what is not 'fact'?  Keep in mind that this an education commission, charged with the task of determining the minds of children at the highest level.  There's a thin wall between discovery and invention, and pretty soon the 'fact' commission will become the 'propaganda' commission.  The only safeguard against that is a free and open exchange of ideas."


yet he (deliberately i suspect) ignores that fact that children must be taught the truth, AND WHY IT IS THE TRUTH (in otherwords be able to criticise the "facts" if they are inconsistant with that truth) because otherwise they cannot have an open mind they will NOT be able to indulge in a "free and open exchange of ideas"  becasue they wont have any "free ideas, nor the ability to actually think beyond the rubbish they get fed.

quill is rapidly showing himself as a good marxist of the "frankfurt school" type
where the nasty right meets the equally nasty left and both become indistinguishable from one another

The people screwing with Texas textbooks are far-right wing:

Religious Right leaders in Texas have been waging war against science and history for the past few decades.  A primary target and battleground has been the state’s public schools, in particular the statewide approval process for textbooks.  People For the American Way Foundation first started working with Texans to resist Religious Right takeovers of textbooks back in the 1980s.

The Religious Right has invested so heavily in Texas textbooks because of the national implications. School districts in Texas have to buy books from a state-approved list, and Texas is such an enormous market that textbook publishers will generally do whatever they can to get on that list.  Textbooks written and edited to meet Texas standards end up being used all over the country. So Religious Right leaders in Texas can doom millions of American students to stunted, scientifically dubious science books and ideologically slanted history and social studies books.

http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/texas-textbooks-what-happened-what-it-means-and-what-we-can-do-about-it

And the Texas GOP recently took an active stance against teaching students how to think critically:

Here's the section in question:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

***

Why does the GOP care about any of this stuff? That's what Politifact missed, and it's deeper down in this very brief statement:

behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority
OBE is supposed to be about dismantling the super-standardized, centralized method of education, and replacing it with common standards. Yet somehow in the GOP platform it becomes a tool for indoctrination. The fringe right of the GOP (which, increasingly, has become its mainstream after driving out its center and moderates) has spent years spinning an intricate conspiracy theory that public schools are thinly veiled Stalinist re-education camps. You see an elementary campus; they see a Khmer Rouge re-education camp. Think I'm kidding or overstating? Check out this Fox News story from 2001. Or the American Thinker piece from earlier this year, which claimed that "The socialists and Marxists still have your children." Or how about when Bishop Joseph McFadden told CBS News that "Hitler and Mussolini" would love the Pennsylvania Public School System. Because, you know, totalitarianism.

Oh, and any time the Texas GOP talks about fixed beliefs, that seems to inevitably lead to Creationism in science classes. Then that leads to Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, advising teachers to sneak bits of the Book of Proverbs into their teaching plans. After all, as she wrote, "As for other religions – the wisdom won’t do them any harm."

http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-08-18/half-true-what-politifact-got-wrong-about-the-gop-and-critical-thinking/

[Victorismyhero]

you trying to make a monkey outta quill???

sorry Veya, you cant improve on nature...

the opinion of this

     

Is more important than
the opinion of this





And that is why I am a true technocrat

yeah but....the second one can kill you...without any help....

[Victorismyhero]

what else do you expect from the supposed "intellectual left", the propaganda machine of the left

they make an education system in which no one can fail, and which is outstanding in its lack of teaching "how" to think. They DONT want the worker drones to think too much

look a quills supposition
"Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth.  There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind.  Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world.  But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves.  There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them.  That's what an open society is all about.

Do I want some commission to nail down for me what is 'fact'?  Do I want them, by contradistinction, to tell me what is not 'fact'?  Keep in mind that this an education commission, charged with the task of determining the minds of children at the highest level.  There's a thin wall between discovery and invention, and pretty soon the 'fact' commission will become the 'propaganda' commission.  The only safeguard against that is a free and open exchange of ideas."


yet he (deliberately i suspect) ignores that fact that children must be taught the truth, AND WHY IT IS THE TRUTH (in otherwords be able to criticise the "facts" if they are inconsistant with that truth) because otherwise they cannot have an open mind they will NOT be able to indulge in a "free and open exchange of ideas"  becasue they wont have any "free ideas, nor the ability to actually think beyond the rubbish they get fed.

quill is rapidly showing himself as a good marxist of the "frankfurt school" type
where the nasty right meets the equally nasty left and both become indistinguishable from one another

The people screwing with Texas textbooks are far-right wing:

Religious Right leaders in Texas have been waging war against science and history for the past few decades.  A primary target and battleground has been the state’s public schools, in particular the statewide approval process for textbooks.  People For the American Way Foundation first started working with Texans to resist Religious Right takeovers of textbooks back in the 1980s.

The Religious Right has invested so heavily in Texas textbooks because of the national implications. School districts in Texas have to buy books from a state-approved list, and Texas is such an enormous market that textbook publishers will generally do whatever they can to get on that list.  Textbooks written and edited to meet Texas standards end up being used all over the country. So Religious Right leaders in Texas can doom millions of American students to stunted, scientifically dubious science books and ideologically slanted history and social studies books.

http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/texas-textbooks-what-happened-what-it-means-and-what-we-can-do-about-it

And the Texas GOP recently took an active stance against teaching students how to think critically:

Here's the section in question:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

***

Why does the GOP care about any of this stuff? That's what Politifact missed, and it's deeper down in this very brief statement:

behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority
OBE is supposed to be about dismantling the super-standardized, centralized method of education, and replacing it with common standards. Yet somehow in the GOP platform it becomes a tool for indoctrination. The fringe right of the GOP (which, increasingly, has become its mainstream after driving out its center and moderates) has spent years spinning an intricate conspiracy theory that public schools are thinly veiled Stalinist re-education camps. You see an elementary campus; they see a Khmer Rouge re-education camp. Think I'm kidding or overstating? Check out this Fox News story from 2001. Or the American Thinker piece from earlier this year, which claimed that "The socialists and Marxists still have your children." Or how about when Bishop Joseph McFadden told CBS News that "Hitler and Mussolini" would love the Pennsylvania Public School System. Because, you know, totalitarianism.

Oh, and any time the Texas GOP talks about fixed beliefs, that seems to inevitably lead to Creationism in science classes. Then that leads to Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, advising teachers to sneak bits of the Book of Proverbs into their teaching plans. After all, as she wrote, "As for other religions – the wisdom won’t do them any harm."

http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-08-18/half-true-what-politifact-got-wrong-about-the-gop-and-critical-thinking/

ahh...you miss my point ben

quill it appears is agreeing with the OP

and HE also appeasr to qualify as the "intellectual" left

I WANT them to have these things "fact checked"
I DISAGREE with the idea presened in the op that they should not be doing so...

quill's post however........

so it seems, in this case your "intellectual left is getting into bed with your "GOP" (whatever that is) (sounds like a glue to me) to supress the presentation of fact as opposed to fiction, the difference between the two and the way to understand that difference

[Ben Reilly]

what else do you expect from the supposed "intellectual left", the propaganda machine of the left

they make an education system in which no one can fail, and which is outstanding in its lack of teaching "how" to think. They DONT want the worker drones to think too much

look a quills supposition
"Nor is arguing against a 'fact commission' the same as saying there is no truth.  There is truth, but it is grounded in an open mind.  Yes, there is a link between our minds and and facts about the world.  But it is not for some 'truth commission' to determine; it is ours, and everybody's, to experience for ourselves.  There's room enough to shut down falsity purveyors by just having the ability to talk back to them.  That's what an open society is all about.

Do I want some commission to nail down for me what is 'fact'?  Do I want them, by contradistinction, to tell me what is not 'fact'?  Keep in mind that this an education commission, charged with the task of determining the minds of children at the highest level.  There's a thin wall between discovery and invention, and pretty soon the 'fact' commission will become the 'propaganda' commission.  The only safeguard against that is a free and open exchange of ideas."


yet he (deliberately i suspect) ignores that fact that children must be taught the truth, AND WHY IT IS THE TRUTH (in otherwords be able to criticise the "facts" if they are inconsistant with that truth) because otherwise they cannot have an open mind they will NOT be able to indulge in a "free and open exchange of ideas"  becasue they wont have any "free ideas, nor the ability to actually think beyond the rubbish they get fed.

quill is rapidly showing himself as a good marxist of the "frankfurt school" type
where the nasty right meets the equally nasty left and both become indistinguishable from one another

The people screwing with Texas textbooks are far-right wing:

Religious Right leaders in Texas have been waging war against science and history for the past few decades.  A primary target and battleground has been the state’s public schools, in particular the statewide approval process for textbooks.  People For the American Way Foundation first started working with Texans to resist Religious Right takeovers of textbooks back in the 1980s.

The Religious Right has invested so heavily in Texas textbooks because of the national implications. School districts in Texas have to buy books from a state-approved list, and Texas is such an enormous market that textbook publishers will generally do whatever they can to get on that list.  Textbooks written and edited to meet Texas standards end up being used all over the country. So Religious Right leaders in Texas can doom millions of American students to stunted, scientifically dubious science books and ideologically slanted history and social studies books.

http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/texas-textbooks-what-happened-what-it-means-and-what-we-can-do-about-it

And the Texas GOP recently took an active stance against teaching students how to think critically:

Here's the section in question:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

***

Why does the GOP care about any of this stuff? That's what Politifact missed, and it's deeper down in this very brief statement:

behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority
OBE is supposed to be about dismantling the super-standardized, centralized method of education, and replacing it with common standards. Yet somehow in the GOP platform it becomes a tool for indoctrination. The fringe right of the GOP (which, increasingly, has become its mainstream after driving out its center and moderates) has spent years spinning an intricate conspiracy theory that public schools are thinly veiled Stalinist re-education camps. You see an elementary campus; they see a Khmer Rouge re-education camp. Think I'm kidding or overstating? Check out this Fox News story from 2001. Or the American Thinker piece from earlier this year, which claimed that "The socialists and Marxists still have your children." Or how about when Bishop Joseph McFadden told CBS News that "Hitler and Mussolini" would love the Pennsylvania Public School System. Because, you know, totalitarianism.

Oh, and any time the Texas GOP talks about fixed beliefs, that seems to inevitably lead to Creationism in science classes. Then that leads to Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, advising teachers to sneak bits of the Book of Proverbs into their teaching plans. After all, as she wrote, "As for other religions – the wisdom won’t do them any harm."

http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-08-18/half-true-what-politifact-got-wrong-about-the-gop-and-critical-thinking/

ahh...you miss my point ben

quill it appears is agreeing with the OP

and HE also appeasr to qualify as the "intellectual" left

I WANT them to have these things "fact checked"
I DISAGREE with the idea presened in the op that they should not be doing so...

quill's post however........

so it seems, in this case your "intellectual left is getting into bed with your "GOP" (whatever that is) (sounds like a glue to me) to supress the presentation of fact as opposed to fiction, the difference between the two and the way to understand that difference

GOP = "Grand Old Party" = Republican Party.

And no, the intellectual left is not about teaching creationism or downplaying slavery. And the anti-intellectual right are certainly not about to get in bed with anybody who's been labeled left wing in the U.S. Here's right-wing TV host Glenn Beck with his opinion on the intellectual left:

[Victorismyhero]

kind nice folks you have over there ben....

however the fact is quill is arguing AGAINST having books etc "fact checked"

hmmm

same policy...different apparant agenda????

[Ben Reilly]

kind nice folks you have over there ben....

however the fact is quill is arguing AGAINST having books etc "fact checked"

hmmm

same policy...different apparant agenda????

I disagree with Quill on this issue. We're not members of a tribe, we're not required to agree on everything

And yes, really nice folks, huh? That guy lives within a half-hour drive of me. In light of that, can you understand me a bit better now?

(Hint -- we don't have left-wing TV pundits calling for conservatives to be shot in the head.)

[Victorismyhero]

kind nice folks you have over there ben....

however the fact is quill is arguing AGAINST having books etc "fact checked"

hmmm

same policy...different apparant agenda????

I disagree with Quill on this issue. We're not members of a tribe, we're not required to agree on everything

And yes, really nice folks, huh? That guy lives within a half-hour drive of me. In light of that, can you understand me a bit better now?

(Hint -- we don't have left-wing TV pundits calling for conservatives to be shot in the head.)

well perhaps true...you would just have them silenced (if you could...but you cant)...which is the intellectual equivalent.

[Original Quill]

kind nice folks you have over there ben....

however the fact is quill is arguing AGAINST having books etc "fact checked"

hmmm

same policy...different apparant agenda????

I disagree with Quill on this issue. We're not members of a tribe, we're not required to agree on everything

And yes, really nice folks, huh? That guy lives within a half-hour drive of me. In light of that, can you understand me a bit better now?

(Hint -- we don't have left-wing TV pundits calling for conservatives to be shot in the head.)

Ben, when that idiot gets drunk, it's not worth talking to him.  And when he's sober, he has nothing to say.  His whole argument here is a red herring.  He's so busy trying to make his LW/RW aspersions, that he loses the plot on the underlying discussion.

Nobody has said that there is no truth.  The conversation is a totally different one.  The point is that truth-seeking is a process.  If you look over the course of history, what was once considered truth is now laughable.  Flat earth?  An old man who walks on clouds?  Earth as the center of the universe?  Gravity as magnetism?  History is full of examples where man got 'truth' wrong.  Yet the drunk Englishman seems to have the notion that we have found truth, like nirvana, just now…today.  

All that remains is for a commission to write a report on it, and we can close all universities and go to the pub.

Truth is not a fixed entity.  The ontological world is in a constant state of discovery. What we once considered the 4th-force, is now thought to be actually the curvature of time/space in reaction to mass.  The world is not flat. But, the Englishman is incapable of conceiving of the world in dynamic, changing terms.  No doubt this is why he assumes the very-English presumption, that Muslims are inferior to the white man.  The biggest mistake he makes is on another level: he is assuming that truth is static, and not dynamic.  Think of the implications: his logic means that we have discovered all there is to discover, today.  We should probably close the patent offices.  Oh…and get to the pub.

Because Europeans think that knowledge can no longer be improved, they want to close all the doors to research and learning.  They are aided by the fact that they acted very badly in the first half of the 20th-Century, and now as their mia culpa they want all expression to be suppressed, or their wishes written in stone.  They have passed laws to that effect: thou shalt not say things that offend.

I have no problem with some commission determining what should be written in stone…as long as it is the truth.  But, as we’ve seen, the truth cannot be improved upon if you write everything in stone…well, unless you assume you have all the truth you need.  Which is what the drunk Englishman must assume if he is right.

A commission in a southern US community is probably going to write that the world is approximately 6,000 years old, that god created man, that evolution is false, that our world is the center of the universe, that the sun goes around the earth and....that blacks came here of their own free will, that they should not learn reading, nor least of all be permitted to vote.  Freedom of speech, thought, and association is the only real counter to truth by the southern commission.

But Europeans are against freedom of speech and expression.  They are given to static thinking, as has been their habit for 2,000-years.  They don't realize that open society is the only thing that fosters truth.  They have had their Germany and Italy, and their Francos and Salazars...and they don't aspire to higher levels of thought.  That's the gravamen of this discussion.

[Guest]

That was poor quill using abuse to make your argument when your argument has no validity. We have such a thing as then nothing ever being wrong in any school tests by your poor thought process and that then nobody learns anything because anything can be seen by your poor methodology as right. It would make the view that it was okay for the genoicide of the Jews, and that again even worse the Slave trade was okay. There is many things that are undeniable facts, like for example dates of events, like the day Kennedy was shot dead.

You either set how a school and a country is going to teach and what they will teach their children and allow in some subjects for deliberation on events like in history or you just allow nothing to ever be learnt or taught, which of which the later is what you are suggesting. We already have such deliberation but to say holocaust denial and other claims that are based on lies and fabrications should be taught as if they benefit teaching is making a mockery of teaching itself.

To claim Europeans are against Freedom of speech when fundementally it was Europeans that rose up against Kings and dictatorships shows how far removed you are from reality. The first being with the formation of the Magna Carter or clearly the fact you have never read Voltaire. To claim that Europeans do not are incapble of enlightened thinking when you are descended from Europeans, is making fundementally a racist argument that Europeans are racially different from Americans, which is inherantly absurd. We are all one human species capable of many indepdent thought and it is has been the secular west that has been free thinking in who have champion equality, where the US in fact lagging way behind.
Just accept that you made a very poor argument here.

[Victorismyhero]

oh dear poor old quill made a twat of again, so he resorts to abuse....

well I got news for you quill boy, you are full of pseudo intellectual waffle, large words (most of which you misuse) and long meaningless posts.

no wonder I call the yanks out after meeting folks like you

[Victorismyhero]

Indeed quill, if it were to be the case that at any point I was drunk, at least I have the ability to sober up.

Stupidity such as yours however is, in itself, incureable and permanent

[Original Quill]

That was poor quill using abuse to make your argument when your argument has no validity. We have such a thing as then nothing ever being wrong in any school tests by your poor thought process and that then nobody learns anything because anything can be seen by your poor methodology as right. It would make the view that it was okay for the genoicide of the Jews, and that again even worse the Slave trade was okay. There is many things that are undeniable facts, like for example dates of events, like the day Kennedy was shot dead.

You either set how a school and a country is going to teach and what they will teach their children and allow in some subjects for deliberation on events like in history or you just allow nothing to ever be learnt or taught, which of which the later is what you are suggesting. We already have such deliberation but to say holocaust denial and other claims that are based on lies and fabrications should be taught as if they benefit teaching is making a mockery of teaching itself.

Bit of the pot calling the kettle black, right didge?  You want to murder all Muslims in the wake of the Paris attack.   "Islamic State cannot be defeated with kindness. It's time to kill or be killed", in the UK News Section.  That’s not only ‘using’ abuse to make your argument, you argument is abuse!

You want to argue that all truth is absolute.  But, you side-step the absurdity of that premise by dragging red herrings across the path.  I point out that science and truth are corrigible, and you reinterpret that to mean that science and truth are without standards.  If I wanted to be equally disingenuous, I would argue that your ignorance leads to the conclusion that all science must stop…we have all the answers, and need only jot them down.

If at any time in history, mankind had taken up that philosophy we would have annihilated all of humanity long ago.  If, for example, Hitler had said “we have all the truth we need”, would he not have exterminated the Jews altogether?  After all, he had his ‘truth’ and no further inquiry is necessary.

You idiotic position fails to realize that science is an inquiry, not a destination.  Like the fellow who sees his entire trip as the terminus, you ignore the scenery along the way.  You want to get there and have some commission write it all down…fini…no need to look further.  If science adopted that view, we would still be picking up berries on the forest floor.  Fortunately, we have been blessed with an inquisitive nature, and consequently mankind survives.

There is an interesting parallel between your philosophy and religion, however.  Religion, like you, wants to stop with a few allegedly immutable ‘truths’ and write them down in a little book…call it, the Holy Bible, the Koran or the Book of Mormon.  

All of these religions settled on their one, final ‘truth’.  Then they turn corrupt.  Having settled on their ‘truth’ they look around for where they might impose it.  After all, isn't it right that, having obtained the final 'truth', all the rest of the world must conform to it?  It is then that the true believers come up with intolerance, and say things like:  "Islamic State cannot be defeated with kindness. It's time to kill or be killed."

Final truth...to final solution?  I guess that’s where evil evolves from.

[Guest]

Here we go again inventing lies and making the worst accusations possible.
At no point have I stated to murder or even kill all Muslims but to tackle the problem of extremism and extremists and have made very clear my views. Where again I believe stronly in ensuring Muslims have he same equality in law as everyone else.
So you poor ly deflect making up lies to things I have never said because fundementally you know your argument is very weak.
You are also now abusive so clearly there is little point continuing when you have accused me of the worst lies going Quill that there is no where ever I have backed any such view.
I more than anything want to see Muslims seperate from extremoist views and which then would make Islam very seperate from the extremist view points.

I want equality for all but obtaining that also means being able to speak out against fundemental wrongs. At no point do I wish any genecoide of all Muslims, but to eradicte the worst stain since the Nazis, and that is ISIS.

Sorry but to use such underhand tactis Quill and you have just now ruined this debate

Laters

[Guest]

water is wet .....Fact
ice is cold    .....Fact
lava is hot    ....Fact

you cant slam shut a revolving door FACT

[Original Quill]

To claim Europeans are against Freedom of speech when fundementally it was Europeans that rose up against Kings and dictatorships shows how far removed you are from reality. The first being with the formation of the Magna Carter or clearly the fact you have never read Voltaire. To claim that Europeans do not are incapble of enlightened thinking when you are descended from Europeans, is making fundementally a racist argument that Europeans are racially different from Americans, which is inherantly absurd. We are all one human species capable of many indepdent thought and it is has been the secular west that has been free thinking in who have champion equality, where the US in fact lagging way behind.

No, I’m sorry. Europeans did not come up with freedom of speech. Americans did. Europeans—in the form of the French—then came along and said, “Oh yeah, that’s right, us too...Egalite, liberte and fraternite!” Up to that point Europe was the source of the problem, not the answer.

Britain (and you) continually makes the mistake of calling America their own, when they miss the point that America was trying to distinguish itself from Britain. You were the bad guys, remember? You wore the black hats and never, never rode the white horse. You were the hated Redcoats.

It was Europe who came up with the dictators. Henry VIII, Napoleon, Bismarck, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar and Hitler…remember? You came up with most of this cast of characters long after we wrote freedom of speech. These were lessons y’all had to learn, and America was the teacher.

[Guest]

Exactky Korbem but sadly Quill has deflected the debate to make it personally about me where again even on the kill or be killed thread I allowed for the option of surrender, This I made very clear.
I cannoyt believe you would resort to such an immature cheap shot quill and speak about nothing of the debate but make such pathetic lies.


You could have some of the best debates with Victor and instead you act like a child with him and all because you defend Bee, when it was Bee that constantly attacked Victor for absolutely no reason what so ever and Nicko. If you were a true friend to him you would tell him if he was being out of order , as many of us do to each other on him.

Anyway, I am cool, you lowered yourself to such poor stadards because the reality is your argument had no validity,

All the best Quill

[Original Quill]

water is wet .....Fact
ice is cold    .....Fact
lava is hot    ....Fact

you cant slam shut a revolving door FACT

Haha...not so fast. You also came up with:

Earth is flat .....Fact
Sun goes around the earth .....Fact
Man is the center of the universe .....Fact
Gravity is electromagnatism .....Fact

God is great ...Fact

Remember?

[Original Quill]

Exactky Korbem but sadly Quill has deflected the debate to make it personally about me where again even on the kill or be killed thread I allowed for the option of surrender, This I made very clear.
I cannoyt believe you would resort to such an immature cheap shot quill and speak about nothing of the debate but make such pathetic lies.


You could have some of the best debates with Victor and instead you act like a child with him and all because you defend Bee, when it was Bee that constantly attacked Victor for absolutely no reason what so ever and Nicko. If you were a true friend to him you would tell him if he was being out of order , as many of us do to each other on him.

Anyway, I am cool, you lowered yourself to such poor stadards because the reality is your argument had no validity,

All the best Quill

So...um, I won. Didge, when will you learn that when you abandon the subject you are tacitly admitting defeat? It's more about you wanting to avoid the conclusion, than it is about me. I'm only a convenient tree to duck behind.

[Original Quill]

Indeed quill, if it were to be the case that at any point I was drunk, at least I have the ability to sober up.

Stupidity such as yours however is, in itself, incureable and permanent

Vic, I make a point of your drinking because I want to underscore where your inane ideas come from.  In the morning you make a lot more sense. Your mental acuity is much better and you become a real person.

I see it day after day because my mornings are around the time of your cocktail hour.  You would acquit yourself a lot better by waiting until morning to post.

[Guest]

water is wet .....Fact
ice is cold    .....Fact
lava is hot    ....Fact

you cant slam shut a revolving door FACT

Haha...not so fast.  You also came up with:

Earth is flat   .....Fact
Sun goes around the earth   .....Fact
Man is the center of the universe   .....Fact
Gravity is electromagnatism   .....Fact

God is great   ...Fact

Remember?

Er....i made no such claims ?

[Guest]

To claim Europeans are against Freedom of speech when fundementally it was Europeans that rose up against Kings and dictatorships shows how far removed you are from reality. The first being with the formation of the Magna Carter or clearly the fact you have never read Voltaire. To claim that Europeans do not are incapble of enlightened thinking when you are descended from Europeans, is making fundementally a racist argument that Europeans are racially different from Americans, which is inherantly absurd. We are all one human species capable of many indepdent thought and it is has been the secular west that has been free thinking in who have champion equality, where the US in fact lagging way behind.

No, I’m sorry.  Europeans did not come up with freedom of speech.  Americans did.  Europeans—in the form of the French—then came along and said, “Oh yeah, that’s right, us too...Egalite, liberte and fraternite!”  Up to that point Europe was the source of the problem, not the answer.

Britain (and you) continually makes the mistake of calling America their own, when they miss the point that America was trying to distinguish itself from Britain.  You were the bad guys, remember?  You wore the black hats and never, never rode the white horse.  You were the hated Redcoats.

It was Europe who came up with the dictators.  Henry VIII, Napoleon, Bismarck, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar and Hitler…remember? You came up with most of this cast of characters long after we wrote freedom of speech.  These were lessons y’all had to learn, and America was the teacher.

It is thought that ancient Athens’ democratic ideology of free speech may have emerged in the late 6th or early 5th century BC.[5] The values of the Roman Republic included freedom of speech and freedom of religion

i have to say this habit of America claiming they "invented" things they did not invent is a bit ....well a bit needy IMO and unnecessary given the really cool things they actually did invent

[Original Quill]

Haha...not so fast.  You also came up with:

Earth is flat   .....Fact
Sun goes around the earth   .....Fact
Man is the center of the universe   .....Fact
Gravity is electromagnatism   .....Fact

God is great   ...Fact

Remember?

Er....i made no such claims ?

Your position is a great platform for pointing up the great misinterpretation that Didge and Vic have made here.

I am not saying you made such a claim. Indeed, I am not talking personally to anyone about any claims. Nor am I saying that truth is not attainable. Yes, material states alter with temperature. Those are only examples...so I gave you counter-examples.

What I am saying is that truth would never have been attained in any of those situations without keeping the question of truth open. It's ironic that you bring up the metaphor about the revolving door. I'm the one who should be saying the door never closes. The door never closes on truth. Truth, at any given level, is but a way station on a journey.

Of course there are standards. I am an empiricist, after all. But those standards are grounded in experience. Experience has done a lot of misleading, as well...after all, the earth we find is not flat, and we will not drop off into the abyss if we sail off to the west. Experience is still the teacher...but we must widen our experience in ever greater leaps. Once the stars were mythical creatures; the sky the interior of a sphere. Now we not only conceive of the universe as infinite, but we envision multiple universes. See, Lisa Randall, Knocking on Heaven's Door (2011).

All of this would not have been possible had we not had an open mind. I am not conveying the message that truth is insecure; I am saying that truth is made even more secure by continuing the search. It will confirm most of what we believe, but help us refine and revise that which was not so certain.

[Original Quill]

No, I’m sorry.  Europeans did not come up with freedom of speech.  Americans did.  Europeans—in the form of the French—then came along and said, “Oh yeah, that’s right, us too...Egalite, liberte and fraternite!”  Up to that point Europe was the source of the problem, not the answer.

Britain (and you) continually makes the mistake of calling America their own, when they miss the point that America was trying to distinguish itself from Britain.  You were the bad guys, remember?  You wore the black hats and never, never rode the white horse.  You were the hated Redcoats.

It was Europe who came up with the dictators.  Henry VIII, Napoleon, Bismarck, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar and Hitler…remember? You came up with most of this cast of characters long after we wrote freedom of speech.  These were lessons y’all had to learn, and America was the teacher.

It is thought that ancient Athens’ democratic ideology of free speech may have emerged in the late 6th or early 5th century BC.[5] The values of the Roman Republic included freedom of speech and freedom of religion

i have to say this habit of America claiming they "invented" things they did not invent is a bit ....well a bit needy IMO  and unnecessary given the really cool things they actually did invent  

We need to put this into context.  America happened for a reason, and that reason was itself the product of mega-changes in the course of western civilization.

Do you believe in the Copernican Revolution?  Do you believe in the Renaissance?  Do you believe in the Protestant Reformation?  Would you believe they were all part of the same movement?  As man released the idea that his world was self-centered, enclosed by a religious enclave, he embraced the idea that the world was out there, and that to 'know' the world you reached out to it.  Just as men like da Vinci and Galileo were laying the foundations for empirical science, so were men like Martin Luther, operating upon the same premise, were saying you can reach out and personally know your god.  There was an emerging awareness that man existed, not in a cocoon, but sitting on the top of the cocoon.

The same mindset that prompted Galileo to search the heavens, caused the explorers to sail to the west.  Despite what Edmund Burke told you, America wasn't Englishmen seeking to be English, it was a New World.  By the time the American Revolution came along, they were well aware of the Renaissance, and what philosophers had said about new awareness, new thought, new politics.  Men like Jefferson and Adams were well-versed in the writings of John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu.  They were building the new politics, in the new, experimental nation, in the New World.

Freedom of speech?  Freedom from religious persecution?  Freedom from search and seizure?  Right to due process of law?  Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment?  Yes, even freedom to bear arms...it was all part of the new, and entirely different world than Europe.  You can't couple America to Europe, except in distinction.  If you try to, you will only completely misunderstand the close of the Renaissance and the doorstep of the next era.

You want to equate Ancient Athens to America?  No chance.  We use terms like democracy, equality and aristocracy without realizing that the Greeks would have no idea what we are talking about.  They are borrowed words, with entirely new meanings.  

It's a simple case where a coincidence of terms creates a confusion in ideas.  Athens was a face-to-face society, with no concept of the abstract thinking that grew up around the Renaissance.  They had no idea of freedom, which was an absolute mental prerequisite of the early modern era.  Greek democracy was an inclusive, tribal notion; Hobbes' notion of the social contract (democracy) was almost a mathematical deduction.  There is no comparison...at least that any ancient Athenian would recognize.

[nicko]

WE must not forget that the Yanks retrieved the German Enigma machine that enabled us to listen to UBoat communications, that was good of them.lol

[Guest]

WE must not forget that the Yanks  retrieved the German Enigma machine that enabled us to listen to UBoat communications, that was good of them.lol

And invented the Internet lol

[Guest]

It is thought that ancient Athens’ democratic ideology of free speech may have emerged in the late 6th or early 5th century BC.[5] The values of the Roman Republic included freedom of speech and freedom of religion

i have to say this habit of America claiming they "invented" things they did not invent is a bit ....well a bit needy IMO  and unnecessary given the really cool things they actually did invent  

We need to put this into context.  America happened for a reason, and that reason was itself the product of mega-changes in the course of western civilization.

Do you believe in the Copernican Revolution?  Do you believe in the Renaissance?  Do you believe in the Protestant Reformation?  Would you believe they were all part of the same movement?  As man released the idea that his world was self-centered, enclosed by a religious enclave, he embraced the idea that the world was out there, and that to 'know' the world you reached out to it.  Just as men like da Vinci and Galileo were laying the foundations for empirical science, so were men like Martin Luther, operating upon the same premise, were saying you can reach out and personally know your god.  There was an emerging awareness that man existed, not in a cocoon, but sitting on the top of the cocoon.

The same mindset that prompted Galileo to search the heavens, caused the explorers to sail to the west.  Despite what Edmund Burke told you, America wasn't Englishmen seeking to be English, it was a New World.  By the time the American Revolution came along, they were well aware of the Renaissance, and what philosophers had said about new awareness, new thought, new politics.  Men like Jefferson and Adams were well-versed in the writings of John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu.  They were building the new politics, in the new, experimental nation, in the New World.

Freedom of speech?  Freedom from religious persecution?  Freedom from search and seizure?  Right to due process of law?  Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment?  Yes, even freedom to bear arms...it was all part of the new, and entirely different world than Europe.  You can't couple America to Europe, except in distinction.  If you try to, you will only completely misunderstand the close of the Renaissance and the doorstep of the next era.

You want to equate Ancient Athens to America?  No chance.  We use terms like democracy, equality and aristocracy without realizing that the Greeks would have no idea what we are talking about.  They are borrowed words, with entirely new meanings.  

It's a simple case where a coincidence of terms creates a confusion in ideas.  Athens was a face-to-face society, with no concept of the abstract thinking that grew up around the Renaissance.  They had no idea of freedom, which was an absolute mental prerequisite of the early modern era.  Greek democracy was an inclusive, tribal notion; Hobbes' notion of the social contract (democracy) was almost a mathematical deduction.  There is no comparison...at least that any ancient Athenian would recognize.

this is a perfect example of why American history books need to be fact checked

[Victorismyhero]

Indeed quill, if it were to be the case that at any point I was drunk, at least I have the ability to sober up.

Stupidity such as yours however is, in itself, incureable and permanent

Vic, I make a point of your drinking because I want to underscore where your inane ideas come from.  In the morning you make a lot more sense.  Your mental acuity is much better and you become a real person.

I see it day after day because my mornings are around the time of your cocktail hour.  You would acquit yourself a lot better by waiting until morning to post.

quill You are a rude ignorant boor, who has "got on my case because I "called out" your slimey viscious pet "Bee" who is little more than an australian "phil"
you are full of huff n puff nonsense which you dress up in obscure terms and obtuse quotations from musty old tomes in order to sound erudite and attempt to give your argument some sort of validity

let me tell you...it doesnt work

you simply look a right prat...and a pompous prick to boot. Indeed I have more respect for what Tommy has to say, even when I disagree with him. At least he says what he means, and, means what he says. Which gives his arguments a kind of internal consistancy, thus even when hes wrong, at least there is something other than words to argue against...

you are just "words"

[nicko]

I just think he's a prat, always have!

[Original Quill]

Vic, I make a point of your drinking because I want to underscore where your inane ideas come from.  In the morning you make a lot more sense.  Your mental acuity is much better and you become a real person.

I see it day after day because my mornings are around the time of your cocktail hour.  You would acquit yourself a lot better by waiting until morning to post.

quill You are a rude ignorant boor, who has "got on my case because I "called out" your slimey viscious pet "Bee" who is little more than an australian "phil"
you are full of huff n puff nonsense which you dress up in obscure terms and obtuse quotations from musty old tomes in order to sound erudite and attempt to give your argument some sort of validity

let me tell you...it doesnt work

you simply look a right prat...and a pompous prick to boot. Indeed I have more respect for what Tommy has to say, even when I disagree with him. At least he says what he means, and, means what he says. Which gives his arguments a kind of internal consistancy, thus even when hes wrong, at least there is something other than words to argue against...

you are just "words"        

Temper, vic. Watch your blood pressure.

Maybe if you worried yourself less about me, you wouldn't have to drink so much. Pay attention to the subject matter, and something might click for you. Then it won't be all words,        .

It works...the less bored you are, the less you try to blitz the time away with alcohol.

[Victorismyhero]

who's in a temper quill?

you are hardly worth it, but like bee, you amuse me....

I refered to bee as "the village pig"




you however are the urbane version




pig in a suit.....

[Raggamuffin]

You're just a bunch of drunks, an absolute shower ...

[Victorismyhero]

shurrup yah dumbbelle ! hic!

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