Charts and Graphs thread

[BSam]

California, probably.

[Danny G]

Based on quoting his post, I'm guessing it's from here:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2012/02/your_states_report_card/state_sci_standards.jpeg

[Johnny Roastbeef]

If you track it down, the post is here.

[Johnny Roastbeef]

scorecard for states' science education standards

As an interesting comparison to the rating of standards, here's actual performance.  Results are the 8th grade actual performance for white students (shut up it's all I could find in map form). From Here.  What's interesting is that though they have highly rated educational policy, CA, SC, and Indiana have middling actual performance.  Wisconsin, Montana, the Dakotas and Idaho have good performance but "terrible" policy.  I'm sure we can generate an argument about how worthwhile standardized testing is.

[Johnny Roastbeef]

Sorry for spamming this, but here's the government site where you can generate actual maps.  As it turns out, when you include minority students, California is second to worst, next to Mississippi.  It's not definitive, because it's just standardized test scores, but it does show a discrepancy between good curriculum planning and actual learning.

[CatAstrophe]

Minority students include lots of ESL students. You have to be able to fully comprehend what a test is asking you to answer it correctly.

[HyperGlavin]

There are many socio-economic factors at work to produce that discrepancy, many of which affect ethnic regions worst of all. It's still good to get the bigger picture, though.

[Zach]

An animation filled with lots of charts AND graphs.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg</a>

[spermus]

That's a cool video but naturally I have complaints.

(a) I'm pissed that they kept saying "known" sources of uranium, and emphasizing "known" as if to twist the knife in my brain. We stopped exploring for uranium in the 80's, because we'd found enough. Or because of environmentalism. At any rate, exploration started again in the 00's, and known sources are increasing again.

I won't mention exotic future nuclear tech, because the video anticipated that line of argument handily. But Canada already has reactors that can use thorium, which is three times as abundant as uranium.

I'm sure every energy source has fanboys who would object to something misleading in the video, but I'm also sure that the nuclear fanboys are righter.

(b) They left a Malthusian population catastrophe implied. After showing all those open-ended growth curves, they could have mentioned that at least population is expected to stabilize. It wouldn't diminish their point. The fact that they left it out just seems misleading.

[nak]

Ya in fact the 2050 total population figure is also when the global population is likely to stabilize and begin to drop. At that point total gdp per country year on year growth will be lower, even if the rate of gdp growth per person is still increasing (see Japan).

So even though the situation is dire, the current economic growth model which uses leverage does not imply doom.

[jimbob]

Spermus, just because the crisis might happen a few decades later than assumed doesn't mean we shouldn't plan to avert it or deal with it. Nuclear fission is a non-renewable energy source.

And the demographic shift that occurred in today's rich countries required exponentially increasing and seemingly unlimited energy sources and minerals. Since we predict the end of these unlimited resources, it is by no means definite that poor countries will be able to follow the same pattern and the global population will stabilise at a sustainable level.

I'm not saying that the video was the last word on the subject, but for a teaching resource aimed at children I thought it was pretty good.

[HyperGlavin]

And the demographic shift that occurred in today's rich countries required exponentially increasing and seemingly unlimited energy sources and minerals. Since we predict the end of these unlimited resources, it is by no means definite that poor countries will be able to follow the same pattern and the global population will stabilise at a sustainable level.

China is already undergoing such a change in demographics, their resource use is actually rather efficient for a country their size. It's not as simple an issue as you seem to think.

[thermus aquaticus]

"A few decades" is a very pessimistic figure for fission, but even it would make a difference. And now I'm pissed that people think I'm against the whole video's thesis because I thought one thing in it was bad.

[jimbob]

I probably misinterpreted your tone, sorry.

Maybe this is too tangential, but have they managed to make nuclear power profitable in the USA? In the UK the government has to give huge subsidies to the industry, and no one has taken responsibility for long-term disposal of waste.

[spermus]

Here's a brief history. There have been lots of bailouts.

[fermun]

source: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/historic-price-cost-presidential-elections

[fermun]

[Zach]

Welcome to Fox, where fake means facts!

[Housefly]

What on earth happened at the end of 2008?  Was that the Rapture?

[fermun]

Where were you? As a quickish summary of what that is all about, in 2003, the capital gains tax rate was lowered quite a bit, stock market investors had already pretty much filled up all of the good investments, so started investing more heavily in higher risk investments like real estate and commodity speculation. The extra money flowing in created a bubble which inflated prices on the consumer end for people who wanted to buy houses or any product that depends on a commodity, such as gasoline. The real estate bubble collapsed in late 2007 and early 2008, people who got out of real estate early enough to keep their money tossed it into commodity speculation which further inflated the bubble. The commodity market crashed shortly afterwards and gasoline's price more closely related to supply and demand.

The law for regulating commodities wasn't significantly strengthened and capital gains tax is still really low and wealth is still really concentrated so speculation money is going back into the commodity market, which is reflected in the price starting to rise again to the unreasonably high levels of summer 2008