Friday, May 09, 2008
Getting Hot Over “Global Warming”
Part One: The Spark
In response to my 6th grade son viewing An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) in his science class, and his experiences challenging the teacher on its factual basis, I am in touch with a receptive school Science Coordinator who is willing to entertain suggestions for a more balanced curriculum dealing with climate change and possible anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This gives me a good opportunity to offer the school some contrasting views, better coverage of the underlying science, controversy, and public policy implications, and even some excellent object lessons in scientific method and critical thinking. (I really appreciate the unusualness of the opportunity, and the receptivity of our school.)
While I’m sure some school systems were eager self-starters in screening AIT and similar proselytizing, it looks like some organized non-profits have made a serious effort to create and promulgate packaged, pro-AGW curricula and get it installed in public schools. Mostly, it looks like the established curriculum consists of showing the movie and talking about Gore’s Nobel Prize. I see no such organized effort for a more balanced, even handed approach to the science, issues and public policy options behind study of climate change and possible human causation.
I have found a lot of resources supportive of AGW. I have checked out Climate Skeptic and a few others in contrast. I will be purchasing The Deniers.
[Interestingly, in addition to the many paid advertisements supporting AGW that appear, several of the common internet search engines seem to have a much higher than coincidental weighting of pro-AGW than anti-AGW search results when searching for global warming or climate change. Given the known political shenanigans that have taken place at Google or Yahoo, I strongly suspect manipulation of the search algorithms.]
Has anyone come across a balanced curriculum, or know of an organization or individuals who are preparing or have prepared such a curriculum? Rather than reinvent, I thought something might already exist.
I would be relieved and pleasantly surprised to find out somebody’s already been down this road.
Upcoming in Part Two: Thoughts on recent developments, with links to other postings.
Labels: global warming, science
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Science as Dogma
The New York Times has published a pathetic science report that ought to be included in the Religion section of the Times. Here’s the basis of their report:
In January 1955, Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, published a paper called “Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life” in American Scientist, the journal of Sigma Xi, the scientific honor society.
In it, Dr. Jacobson speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, “one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive.”
Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, he said in a telephone interview from his home in
So after 52 years, he has retracted it.
Dr. Jacobson referred to those citing his paper as refuting aspects of Darwinism “hideous.” He evidently hated what these skeptics of Darwinism were able to do with this little bit of science he created, so he decided to do something about it.
He re-read his paper, straining to find some rationale for retracting the paper. He found it. He made a couple of misstatements, in essence drawing some of the same preliminary conclusions that those who doubt classic Darwinism as a logical explanation of the creation of life. Not that any of the actual science in his paper was wrong. It’s just that in light of today’s scientific orthodoxy, it’s unpleasant to acknowledge the obvious problems with a theory that doesn’t adequately explain the real hows behind the how life developed.
American Scientist Editor Rosalind Reid defends the retraction:
His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, “the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction,” and people who “cling to dogma.”
Or, it shows the orthodoxy of those who hold that Darwinism can never be challenged on the basis of science, but must always be accepted as “gospel.”
Since creationists were able to use the actual science contained in Dr. Jacobson’s original paper, it was better to erase the science than allow any challenge to the orthodoxy.
Talk about people who cling to dogma, they can’t even let the old dogmas lie. Pathetic.
(Via Memeorandum)
Labels: science
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