Johnny Coli

You are entitled to your own opinion, of course, but I haven't seen a single thing that he has done in any game or practice footage or said in any interview that would suggest his convidence is shattered.

I don't see the Bills' offense being as vanilla and boring as the Pats' offense. The Pats are the NJ Devils of the NFL...dull, meticulously plodding along following their scheme. Effective, yes. Exciting, hardly. The Bills will be both this year. Let the trolls in.....

The most obvious question, yet one that never gets asked is what do you want him to get out of it? Lessons are cool and all if you want him to play jazz (shudder) or metal (gasp), but the best way to learn how to play is fire up the amp and start wailing away. Does he have any friends that want to start learning drums and guitar as he learns how to play the bass? He'll learn a hell of a lot more by playing with his buddies than he will from some music store "superstar". Lessons will only crush his creativity. There's a reason those guys are giving lessons and not playing in bands. People throw "garage" around like it's a bad thing. What the hell does it matter if the kid is having fun? "Cover band" is a bad thing, but the term "garage" has a rich history of DIY rock and roll. And for crying-out-loud make him use a pick. Guys that use their fingers and guys that slap the strings irritate me. Make sure the strap is long enough so the bass hangs down below his waist. That's another peeve of mine. And get him a black leather jacket, a bowl haircut, and start calling him Dee Dee.

You popped in again to add that bit of wisdom to a thread that hasn't been posted in for 4 days?

He's been recycling the same schtick for years, now. He was funny back when he was writing a column twice a week for the AOL Boston city thing. He would rip on the sportscasters and columnists. Then he got some guest radio host time, blew someone down in Bristol, and sold out, all the while re-using stuff he'd written back in 97/98. The guy's a tool.

Figures Simmons would jump on something like that for a cheap laugh. The guy has been stale for years. If it wasn't for the ESPN/Red Sox love-fest, he wouldn't have a job. He's an a-hole and a has-been.

It is not a public (or secular private) HS science teacher’s job to bolster a student’s faith in a higher power. It is their job to teach science and the scientific method. There is nothing to fix or examine with the way they are teaching science, because in my mind teaching a student evolution has nothing to do with atheism, and other than 1001 bumper stickers in upstate NY there isn't any evidence that says otherwise. You say above that there is no direct correlation between evolution and god. Then why should a science teacher address it? If that child’s faith is that fragile and that easily shaken, how the hell is that the teacher’s fault? Should all science lessons begin with the caveat "This lesson in no way has any bearing on the existence of God/Allah/Zeus"? I am surrounded by scientists, scientists that studied evolution in HS, college and grad school. By your assumptions I should be surrounded by atheists. I’m not. I don’t see any Darwin fish in the parking lot either. Maybe they all migrated to upstate NY?

If students learn about darwinian evolution in HS, and subsequently lose their faith in a higher being, how is that the fault of the educator? Isn't that a failure of the church, seeing as how it's the church's function to teach about that subject? I really don't see the connection, I'm sorry.

Faith

Last time I checked they weren't teaching religion in Math, Chemistry or Physics, either. That's a lot of atheists we're churning out. If students learn about darwinian evolution and subsequently lose their faith in a higher being, how is that the fault of the educator?

I'm kind of lost on where you were going with this. I just don't see how a bunch of bumper stickers qualifies as an assault on Jesus by scientists and educators. Certainly not at the same level as loading a school board with creationists and attempting to change a state's science curriculum.

And we owe it all to science.

"went" is a bit non-descriptive in my case

Politicians, man! Let the scientists run this country and you'll all be as happy as highly evolved clams.

I'm probably agnostic as well, but I was brought up catholic and it haunts me to this day.

Good science leads to answers , but usually leads to more complex questions, as well. That's what makes it fun. Plus, research is my job, so if all the questions got answered I'd have to go back to being a cook. I do not dissagree with your premise that we have the knowledge to affect change. But we also have the technology to right some wrongs, as well. However, getting back to the point of this thread. What it all boils down to, and this is clearly my opinion, is that this has absolutely nothing to do with evolution and science, and everything about getting religion back into public schools.

I dissagree. Evolution and the Scientific Method are clearly under assault here. As long as it is done in a philosophy class, and not taught as "science". How exactly is teaching evolution fostering atheism? There were atheists before Darwin, there are atheists now.

Nope...Liberal Arts education. All I'm trying to say is that there is a scientific process for answering questions about the natural world. ID does not follow that process, therefore ID should not be included in a science class.

Striving to seek a scientific explanation for the unexplained does not deny the existence of a higher power. Man is who he is because he can ask those questions...because he seeks to find a scientific answer for that which he does not understand.

I'll apologize if I offended you with my first post. I was being glib out of frustration. That being said, where the hell is it written that all scientists are atheists? What seems to distiguish the scientists from the ID fanatics is that they are able to seperate science from their faith. WE DO NOT WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RELIGION. But, we do want to keep religion out of science class. Of that, I think we agree. Pondering and looking for the evidence of god is philosophy and theology, and does not belong in any discussion of the Life Sciences. I taught Genetics as a grad student. A lot of the students could barely put a coherent sentence together when they started my class. We have enough problems with education today without mucking it up with religion. As for the shot about those of us being accomplished in our fields, yet still finding the time to post every once and a while on a messageboard...eat me.

In all seriousness, I can't believe this is even a subject of debate in the year 2005. Have our educational standards fallen so low that we would allow children to be taught that the key to that scientific "black box" that we haven't been able to open is "God did it"? That is not education, that is indoctrination. Intelligent Design is not science. Intelligent Design is Creationism camouflaged by a seemingly innocuous term to lend it credibility. If the whole thing wasn’t so dangerous it would be laughable. Time to start looking for that theory of De-Evolution, because it looks like the species has plateued and may actually be spiralling back toward the ooze. To equate some people with monkeys is an insult to monkeys.

Hey-ho. Just popping in while I'm taking a break from my job as an actual scientist. Thought I'd say hello before getting back to work disproving the existence of your god. Carry on, mutants.

Awesome! Thanks, AD. Substitute beer for vodka, and "sitting on my ass" for the sprite and grenedine, and I'll be knocking back an ice cold Dirty Shirley in Chuck Black's honor tonight.

The Shirley Temple fan page (Losers) says that there are two drinks named after her. The Shirley Temple Cocktail and The Dirty Shirley. Anyone know what goes in a Dirty Shirley (besides the obvious, which is no longer true...you know exactly what I mean)? I'm at work and there is no way I can get away with Google-ing "Dirty Shirley".