
Is Science As Important As Football? - jlhamilton
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=6721
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noonespecial
Its an aside, but it always frustrates me to hear about the cuts at NASA and
how the budget simply won't allow this or that project when every city in
America seems to think it needs an $800mm tax-payer funded arena to "stimulate
the local economy."

No, you don't get moon bases, hover cars and cures for cancer. You spent your
allowance on football, remember?

~~~
crescendo
Football is a very important pastime to a lot of people. Just playing devil's
advocate here: can you name one reason why those NASA programs are more
important than the football arena, without making reference to your own
subjective value system which would be at odds with that of the ardent
football fan's?

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Retric
Football can and would exist without subsidies. Spending public funds to
support private industry is a bad economic decision. Funding space travel on
the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's
outside of the effecency debate.

“debating gladiator reform while Rome burns…”

~~~
bokonist
_Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist
without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate._

If activity X is to matter in people's lives, it needs to be scalable. To be
scalable it needs to be profitable. Since the U.S. government does not operate
on a profit motive, the spending on the space program will have as little long
term impact as the Zheng He fleets. You should read this article:
[http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-
or-f...](http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-fail-on-
frontier.html)

~~~
pj
perhaps the federal government should fund commercial endeavors in space like
they fund commercial endeavors in sports.

Lots of people would pay to go to space if they could afford it. Make it
affordable.

~~~
philwelch
The federal government doesn't fund sports at all. Stadium subsidies are
usually a municipal or state matter at best.

~~~
pj
It doesn't matter which entity signs the check, it all comes from the tax
payers. If the feds weren't paying for the roads, the municipalities would.
It's all the same.

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jleyank
Important to whom? To the average person-in-the-street, the answer is no.
Science isn't terribly entertaining, lacks an easily understood competitive
aspect and isn't accessible. Football, on the other hand, is something people
can and do play amongst themselves and can be watched/enjoyed at many levels
of competition.

To society as a whole is a different question. But I'm not sure it leads to a
different answer. Billions of people watched the World Cup over several weeks.
I can't imagine science, short of things like positive-net-energy fusion or
curing AIDS having anywhere near that much interest.

I've studied science and have been fortunate enough to be able to create
scientific software. I'm also comfortable with allowing people to do what they
want, and pay attention to what they want. I'm not able to do football
professionally, but I can (and do) do this science stuff professionally.
Different strokes for different folks, eh?

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wattersjames
Let's not confuse science and NASA too much in the discussion here I'd say.
Flying the existing shuttle back and forth to space for 3 decades is as much
dog and pony as it is science.

I'd like to agree with part of this article though. The science olympiad would
have been a LOT more fun if the contest was to create the biggest explosion
instead of the strongest toothpick bridge.

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param
I thought the title was flamebait. ARE YOU KIDDING! science is more important
than football. But once I went through the article, he does make some valid
points.

I just wish that he hadn't inserted so many pics from his new book - now the
article smells of a sales job. His argument should stand independent of his
book

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bgutierrez
My middle school was willing to make us play frisbee dodgeball (with the
expected results), and then spent millions tearing apart a couple of
classrooms after some kids dropped mercury on the floor and stomped on it.

I think Phys. Ed. would be a good target level for danger in the classroom.

~~~
bowman
To contrast, at my school a teacher dropped a bottle of mercury while showing
us how it ran away from heat. They cleaned it up with a mop while we played
with it.

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tybris
I don't remember my science classes to be that exciting. Then again, my sports
teacher didn't like football either.

~~~
sili
Usually in US schools there are two parts to a science course: the lectures
and the labs. The lectures and homework do get boring and tedious if you are
really not into that particular field. However, labs are meant to not only
show students science in practice but to show how cool it can be. By doing
experiments themselves and seeing real-life demonstrations by teachers, some
few students will become interested enough in the field to persue it
seriously, and others will at least gain more perspective on the world around
them.

However, with our misguided obsession with safety, science education has been
neutered of this exiting part and all that's left is dry formulas and obscure
vocabulary.

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marcusbooster
His complaint is that science education is boring, but the same could be said
for any number of subjects in school. The irony is that it's the same
scientists who've created performance targets for educators to hit in the form
of standardized testing. This has led to unimaginative teaching and a strictly
check-box approach to learning by running down a long list of curriculum items
in a very limited time frame.

~~~
xenophanes
People creating performance targets for students to hit on standardized tests
are not _scientists_.

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hujgbi
football is only a sport if we didnt had sience we would be like chimps.

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hujgbi
is much more important

------
hujgbi
sience

------
hujgbi
sience

------
hujgbi
sience

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si2
Interesting analogy. I would say the danger isn't quite in students injuring
themselves in the classroom as much as it is giving destructive chemicals to
students. Sure some of them can handle it, but the deviant ones will create
havoc given the opportunity. In football there is a certain physical
discipline allowed, where as in science its just the principals office, which
can be better than class. Good analogy, but I think far from raising the
argument...

~~~
xenophanes
Let's all worry about the "deviants". Conformity for the win!

