SMH
Duderonomy
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/13/teachers-support-climate-change-lessons
An organisation that has championed the teaching of evolution in America's schools is offering support to teachers who have come under attack for lessons on climate change.
The National Centre for Science Education (NCSE), which has worked for 30 years to keep evolution in the classroom, said it will begin offering teachers advice on how to deal with students, parents, and even school authorities demanding they drop classes on climate change.
"We have been getting anecdotal reports for a couple of years now of teachers getting hammered for teaching climate science ??? just like they did for teaching evolution," said Eugenie Scott, director of the centre.
The new initiative launches on 16 January ??? in the throes of a Republican primary contest in which candidates have fallen over each other to discredit climate change, or the link to human activity.
Until now, the campaign against climate science has been conducted mainly at the university level. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, is pursuing the climate scientist Michael Mann through the courts, to gain access to his email and other work documents.
Mann used to work at the University of Virginia. Cuccinelli says he is investigating fraud; university lawyers told the court on Thursday he was mounting an assault on academic freedom.
In the last two years, however, the NCSE has registered a crossover effect, with opponents of evolution also taking on climate science. "Evolution is still the big one, but climate change is catching up," Roberta Johnson, director of the National Earth Science Teachers Association (Nesta), told Science earlier this year.
A number of state legislatures have taken up bills that would limit teachers' ability to discuss topics such as evolution, climate change, and stem cells. Only one state ??? Louisiana ??? has actually voted through such changes.
But local school districts are also beginning to look more closely at the teaching of climate change.
In May last year, a school board representing 15,000 pupils in Las Alamitos, California, voted unanimously to teach "multiple perspectives" about climate change in environmental science classes. The school board later revised its opinion.
The strategy of demanding that teachers "teach the controversy" is similar to that used by opponents of evolution who have demanded equal time for the creationist ideology known as "intelligent design".
American students at the high school level typically learn only the basics about climate change ??? that the planet is getting warmer, and that human activity has been a cause of that.
But even those basics are apparently too much for those who doubt the existence of climate change, and are opposed to environmental regulations.
In an online survey last year conducted by Nesta, more than 25% of teachers reported disputes with students, parents, or school administrators who doubted the existence of climate change, or that it was caused by human activity.
Some 82% of respondents to a similar online survey last year by the National Science Teachers Association reported encountering climate change scepticism ??? including 26% who faced such doubt from school administrators. "I do fear for the upcoming generation," said Scott. "If teachers are intimidated and neglect this topic for fear of raising controversy we will have a new generation that is under-educated and less concerned about an issue than they need to be."
When did science get so unpopular in world addicted to it's application? (iphones, cars, computers, electricity etc etc etc etc etc etc etc)
America is pretty bad for this, but I think Creationism gets some billing on the curriculum here in the UK too thanks to religious lobbying (money) and Global Warming is also ignored in Academy schools funded by industry :down:
Comments
I was taught that the atom was the smallest thing and was made up of electrons, neutrons and protons (which apparently weren't things).
Nothing passed that, except that we went to the moon and had an atomic bomb.
Today science has advanced so much further and is so weird (string theory, multiple universes, black holes, quarks...)
I think the inability of many people to grasp even the basics of today's scientific world causes distrust and disbelief.
The other side of the anti-science coin is the damage (or perceived damage) that science has done.
Atom bomb
GMO
Reduced us to monkeys
Blamed us for bad weather
Created household devices we can't program.
For many an average citizen science is just something that makes our lives complicated and confusing and fucked up.
It's culture war bullshit, really. At least that's what it is in the U.S.--you tell people that science is all about destroying their religious beliefs and that it's all a big hoax (I can't tell you how many times I've seen right-wingers push the idea that climate change is a myth cooked up by scientists who want to create a gigantic central bureaucracy that will rob people of their freedom and install socialism) and blah blah blah.
Also, on a PR level, science is at a severe disadvantage because it's very difficult to distill down into the snappy soundbites that people rely on. So a creationist can say, "My grandfather was not a monkey!" and it resonates emotionally, while the scientist is left trying to explain the complexities of evolution, which loses people in about 20 seconds.
It is sad, though.
[/My 2 c/end rant]
When you have scientists who are biased and pre-disposed to a result for political reasons, lying and making up data to support their self fulfilling prophesies, it's no wonder science has gotten a bad rap....and I say that as someone who has made a living in the science field.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
But is generally the case with science? As someone who's in that field, do you think that any statistically significant portion of scientists do this? Or would you call it more a case of "a few bad apples" lowering the reputation of scientists as a whole?
SMH is right.
You know, I'm not a violent man. However, if I saw someone wearing that I may be forced to walk up to them and at the very least give them a good slap round the chops.
Smug atheists are only one rung lower than pushy believers in the ladder of annoyance.
I think most scientists are honest and honorable. But when there is big $$$ and/or politics are involved people can be corrupted. Any lawyer will tell you that they can "hire" a scientist to testify to just about any thesis if the money is right. There are indeed a good share of "bad apples" just like in any profession.
Next person I see wearing a cross or quoting astrology is getting a chop-slap, too !!
http://www.airquality.org/communicationsoffice/2011/2011Fall.pdf
Get the fuck out of here. This ain't North Korea.
(trying to convince a 14 year old climate change skeptic of the science behind climate change)
"I'd accept it if it wasn't such bad news! "
holy oil?
jesus juice?
father fuel?