Monday, February 25, 2008

People are dumb, seriously...

A lot of people, even my fellow Americans, like to point out the stupidity/ignorance of the average American. Personally, I don't think that comments like that go far enough. People in general are pretty stupid, as evidenced by the following:



Yup, the French are just as dumb. In case you didn't want to watch the whole thing, it basically comes down to it that the game show contestant didn't know what revolves around The Earth. More than half the audience thought that the sun went around The Earth.

What the hell is wrong with people? Do they just sit in a cave all day watching reality TV? How can you go through life being THAT ignorant? Ugh. It hurts my head.

I remember watching Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segment one time, and he asked a couple of college graduates whether the moon or the sun was bigger. They went with the moon. He also asked how many planets were in the solar system - they went with about 1,000.

Is it any wonder why half the population doesn't believe in evolution? Clearly, they're too dumb to understand it.

10 comments:

Ingrid said...

Makes you want to cry, doesn't it?

Gary Fouse said...

Yes, it's true. We are not educating our young people the way we should. Although the same young people are being tought in school that religion (specifically Christianity) is all hooey, while, of course, we must "respect" Islam.

Gary Fouse said...

* I mean "taught" in school....
Come to think of it, I graduated from public school too.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

As a public school teacher, I have no idea what you mean. Who the heck is telling them that Christianity is hooey? Sounds like a right-wing soundbyte to me with (as usual) little basis in actual fact.

If that's true, then why do the English textbooks have passages from the Bible? (My only complaint about that is that their passages are abridged and they don't include enough.)

Gary Fouse said...

Aside from individual teachers who get on the old soapbox, public schools have gone to great lengths to remove Christian references from the school. Yet, many of the same schools are shoving a positive image of Islam down our kids' throats.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Specifics? Sounds like Hannity/O'Reilly soundbites. (Keep in mind, many of O'Reilly's "examples" of the "War on Christmas" turned out to be crap that he pretty much just made up.) I'm sure that there might be one or two here and there, but I don't know of anybody at my school who does this, and I'm in the "liberal" Bay Area.

One thing's for sure, I can't imagine an atheist/secluarist/etc. being anything but scornful of both Christianity AND Islam on an equal level.

Gary Fouse said...

I don't remember the names of the schools, but there have been some that have created Muslim month, where the students are supposed to be Muslims for a month, adopt Muslim names and all that stuff. Parents complain and they are told "too bad".

Boulder (CO) HS has been in the news a lot for the nutty stuff they foster on their pupils (not Islamic) but they had a panel from calif last year that came in and encouraged the entire student body (compulsory attendance) to go ahead and experiment with unprotected sex and drugs. In the face of public outrage, they have invited these clowns back next year.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

As usual, these things have been blown out of proportion. I did a bit of research on them both, and while they're definitely issues that should be discussed and debated, your characerization of what happened isn't really giving the whole picture.

The Urban Legend Reference Pages at snopes.com even covered the whole Islam thing. Personally, I think that the one school might have taken the lesson too far, but it's hardly as bad as some people might make it sound.

But let's just say, for argument's sake, that all of this is true. There is a school that endorses Islam and another that endorses alchohol use. These are two schools in how many in this country? It is quite disingenuous to paint all of public education with the same brush based on two schools.

Shoot, my students have told me of a teacher at my school who proseletyzed Christianity and speaks of the world coming to an end in 2012. Is it fair to say that all the teachers on my campus do that? Or worse yet, claim that's what one can expect in public schools? Of course not. It would be totally ridiculous, and well, yeah, there you have it...

Gary Fouse said...

In my opinion, we teachers should stop trying to teach students the way we think the world should be. I, as a conservative, never take my views into the classroom about religion, politics or anything else. The closest I come to giving my opinion is that they should be exposed to all viewpoints, and then they should decide what is right and what is wrong.

Unlike all the university professors on the left, I don't try to shove my views down their throats.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

I agree. Of course, by the nature of what I teach, my opinions will come out, but I'm always sure to say, "But that's just my opinion, go figure it out for yourself."

I think that most teachers whom I've met feel the same way. I went to a University, and I never felt like politics were being forced upon me (except during my graduation ceremony.)