> In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools.
is the only mention of "unanimously approved" and "purchase" isn't even in the article.
I think he was referring to "A People’s Curriculum for the Earth", the book published by the person spearheading the measure, which it does look like they're going to be buying. The reporter seems to have asked Bigelow if the school would be buying it now and he talked around the question in a way that seemed to suggest the answer was yes.
Reality -- or our understanding of it -- also is rarely a sure thing. Knowledge can often be imperfect. Attempting to deny that the skeptics have any good points at all often serves to embolden them.
Semmelweis essentially discovered germ theory (or something close to it) but everyone knew he was wrong and as a result it took another 30 years or so before "unpreventable" deaths became preventable. How many people died because folks in charge just knew they were right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
The point here isn't that climate deniers are somehow right and that history will vindicate them, it's that pretending to know something absolutely often (frequently? nearly always?) makes you a charlatan.
But when is it pretending? I can introduce you to holocaust deniers, do they have salient points? I bet I can find people that believe the Earth is the center of the universe and the Sun does rotate around us.
There is no healthy skepticism in denying human participation in climate change. The efficacy of myriad proposed solutions are still out for discovery and debate, but that's where we should be accepting alternative viewpoints, not on whether or not human activity has any causality.
These things are relatively easy to demonstrate with experiments. I went to a church that believed in a 10,000 year old earth but accepted 'micro-evolution' because it was so easy to demonstrate. (Note: You may safely put me in the climate change denier/skeptic, etc category, but I believe in evolution and old round earths, and vaccinate my kids)
The problem with 'climate change' aka. 'observed warming is attributable to humans therefore we must start recycling, blah, blah, blah' is one it's mostly political, two, the science is not clear in a 'These are our predictions we passed the predictions', eg. it's clear the earth is warming, but it's also clear the computer models don't work, and it's really not clear what will happen if the warming continues, because a) we don't know how warm it will be, and b) we don't know what that warmth will do.
When people say words like consensus instead of hypothesis you can tell they are having a political debate that involves science rather than a scientific debate that involves politics, in the exact same way that the intelligent design people do the same thing.
The inability to predict exactly how a complex system will behave doesn't mean we can't predict, accurately, certain characteristics about what will happen.
If I light a piece of paper on fire, I might not be able to predict the exact shape of the flame at any given instance, but I can be pretty damn sure it will end up as ashes.
> When people say words like consensus instead of hypothesis you can tell they are having a political debate that involves science rather than a scientific debate that involves politics
Only because you don't have to point out that there's a consensus if it's not a political issue. Lots of things have general consensus - we just have absolutely no need to point out that most scientists agree on something unless someone doesn't believe that's the case.
There's a consensus that generally bad things will happen if we let climate change get out of hand. There's not a consensus on precisely what form those bad things will take.
It's not a question of whether humans have any influence (I think you would be hard pressed to find any serious scientist who would hold that position) but of the balance between human and natural factors. The set of people who hold dissident beliefs is not tiny, and many of them are very serious people indeed. One can't dismiss them for saying many are not specialists in the official field of climatology because insights can come from many places (and there is the matter of playing games with the journals and people deliberately using political power to shut out dissident views).
The work that has been done relies heavily on models and simulations. These are both not realistic (because there are many factors that are too complex to model, or that we don't yet understand fully) and have not predicted temperature well since the outturn of past years has been significantly lower than predicted by the envelope of such models.
The political climate clearly is not one where people feel free to speak (see other stories on attempts or proposals to criminalise the expression of dissident views under certain circumstances or to create legal liabilities) and in that situation many people will keep quiet and hide what they really believe. See Timur Kuran's work on preference falsification.
I recall Feynman having something about his experience on a textbook selection board for California public schools. I'll see if I can link an open access reference.
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition. In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
...
I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen. For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision. One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results.
...
http://www.feynman.com/science/what-is-science/
The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are. [But] you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science i...
The science is pretty clear on co2 causing global warming.
The economics of the urgency and advisability of any particular intervention are less clear.
The moral assumptions underlying "climate justice" are pretty unclear to me and don't seem to be an appropriate area for a government agency to be legislating what they deem the truth to be.
Be careful you don't get too happy when the government compels a point of view you happen to agree with, because once you hand over decisions about truth to a political body, it's hard to claw it back.
As long as it's only [action, that I agree with] applied to [current understanding, that I agree with] of [current issue, that I agree with], it's not a big deal!
It's not like a [government entity] would apply this to something like [other issue]!
People forget that when the [other side] is elected, they'll do the same thing but in the opposite direction.
Imagine if there were people who insisted the moon were made of cheese. You wouldn't frown upon their views not being "heard" in public schools because it's bullshit.
No, schools don't need to teach every hypothesis. The scientific community should consider them and arrive at a consensus. It has. Many years ago. Schools should teach about that process and the end result. There is very little ambiguity on this issue.
Anthropogenic global warming isn't anywhere nearly as well established as the moon not being made of cheese.
In fact, the the only thing we really know right now is that the existing models are all wrong. All of them. Wrong. Not one matches the observed data for the last 20 years.
> This isn't the government compelling a viewpoint.
Care to elaborate on that ? Administrators, who are very much part of the government (and thus, in the end, ordered around by the executive) are forcing teachers, textbooks and ... to comply with a specific view they're defending politically ...
I might understand that they do this up to the point where they present the facts (ie. historical temperature changes) and present a few different ways to extrapolate into the future. Since statistical models are what climate science uses, because first principles don't work for a system as complex as earth, I would very much like to see them teach a very simple climate model, and have them tweak the parameters to get whatever outcome they like, to show that this can be done. Then get some standard parameters in and show the IPCC position.
This would show both the strengths and the weaknesses of climate change theory, and teach kids very useful data science skills in the process. It may also teach kids the valuable lesson that standards of proof in different sciences are very, very different, and ideally have them think a bit about what that means for the amount of confidence we should have in various sciences.
Ambiguity about co2 -> warming, or ambiguity about morality of transfer payments from rich to poor nations related to climate change?
By analogy, evolution is an established scientific fact. But a public school curriculum that promote eugenics on the grounds that it is supported by evolution would be inappropriate.
Your position sounds right, but let's dig a little.
What if 20% of the teachers in public schools want to teach Creationism?
In your statements above are you making moral assumptions about the primacy of science, and if so, are you ok with the government legislating that?
When does something become "clear"? When a majority of the people see things that way?
If so, isn't that's what's happening here? A school board is not a "government agency" made up of appointed officials and their hires; it's effectively a legislative body that represents the will of the voters. They are elected into office and presumably can be recalled.
Would you accept a geography text that explains to your kids that the world may be round and that the evidence suggests that the earth is not the center of the universe?
Elememtary textbooks contain almost exclusively the seminal theories that we are very sure about. If we expressed our certianty there, kids might get the idea that all of science is similarly so.
In science, "the evidence suggests..." is a very high seal of approval. I'd place more emphasis on making them understand that than I would on adding a few nines to their certianty that the earth is round.
Can't say I know what the US curriculum is mostly like, but I was taught about the Bohr atomic model before learning about how they figured out why it wasn't exactly right and we talked about how Newtonian physics was superseded by relativistic physics. There are better ways to express the scientific ethos than to just prefix every statement with "maybe".
Any other formulation is disingenuous. We don't know that the Earth is the center of the universe. Hell, even Elon Musk said we might be in a simulation a few days ago!
Ideally, you should also tell the kids which evidence suggests a theory.
Elon Musk: The chance we are not living in a computer simulation is 'one in billions'
"Knowing" is generally considered to imply that we think something is beyond reasonable doubt. If you can only speak of knowledge in the sense of logical entailment, the word would be useless because then nobody knows anything. Words like "maybe" and "possibly" would also become useless, because they then apply to all knowledge. A distinction that doesn't distinguish between things is not a useful distinction to make.
They conveniently forget that real scientists study independently what these people's own 'God' created. Rather than confront the truth, they retreat to insane (literally: non-sane) ideas about the universe.
Disclaimer: I teach computing in a creationist school in London, UK. I refrain from expressing my utter disgust that such places exist.
Hmm... I'd be very interested in talking to the person(s) who downvoted this. Do you think creationists are scientists? Have you had any extended interactions with them? Have I written something that is - to this audience - inflammatory?
As someone not from the states I was genuinely surprised to see that non-science was potentially preached in schools for such well proven topics such as this. For genuinely debatable scientific theories sure I understand but this was a bit of a jarring realisation.
You obviously missed the point that all scientific paradigms, which, when they are in force, are full of all sorts of "proofs", but are ultimately just human constructs, fallible, and, history shows, vulnerable to being overturned and thereafter ridiculed, over and over again.
I was equally surprised when I learned that creationism was also subject to debate in american public schools. In France, this would draw some major criticism, even in private catholic schools where they are allowed to talk about it but genuinely stick to the state syllabus.
In my experience (teaching in Germany for about three years) it is not uncommon for Europeans to look on in astonishment at the dubious rulings of various governing levels in the U.S. and I can sympathize. But I can offer up a few random items which may dispel some of the amazement: The U.S. is a good deal more diverse than any one European country; the difference between Oregon and Texas is somewhat like comparing Iceland to Albania. The U.S. constitution is relatively ancient as compared with most European constitutions (~225 vs 75 years). The U.S. constitution has a number of provisions (first few amendments) which the European constitutions lack and which interact in unexpectedly deep philosophical ways. For instance, freedom of religion, on which substantial U.S. raison d'etre exists, can be a real sticking point when one religion, for example, declares that governmental support of birth control in any form violates their religion. oh and how often am i asked about the gun thing? but i can't really help you there - that really is nutz. So social diversity and deep freedoms of speech, religion, guns, and robust capitalism, that's your witches' cauldron (der Hexenkessel, if you happen to be German)
We all do strange things. I find it incredible that taxpayer funds provide a substantial portion of the budget for the Catholic Church in many countries, for example.
What difference is there between this and other nonprofits like ACLU or HRC? I'm genuinely interested, not claiming to know. My understanding that donations to any nonprofit are not taxable.
Pattern prediction is one thing. But what happens when your model is both unrealistic in ways that some people think matters and doesn't predict the shape of things in the future well at all ? (Anyone can fit the past)...
I note that the Portland school library system offers both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. Exposing fragile young minds to those is just fine, apparently.
(I searched at the Roosevelt Library, if anyone wants to check)
56 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 138 ms ] thread> In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools.
is the only mention of "unanimously approved" and "purchase" isn't even in the article.
Semmelweis essentially discovered germ theory (or something close to it) but everyone knew he was wrong and as a result it took another 30 years or so before "unpreventable" deaths became preventable. How many people died because folks in charge just knew they were right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
The point here isn't that climate deniers are somehow right and that history will vindicate them, it's that pretending to know something absolutely often (frequently? nearly always?) makes you a charlatan.
There is no healthy skepticism in denying human participation in climate change. The efficacy of myriad proposed solutions are still out for discovery and debate, but that's where we should be accepting alternative viewpoints, not on whether or not human activity has any causality.
The problem with 'climate change' aka. 'observed warming is attributable to humans therefore we must start recycling, blah, blah, blah' is one it's mostly political, two, the science is not clear in a 'These are our predictions we passed the predictions', eg. it's clear the earth is warming, but it's also clear the computer models don't work, and it's really not clear what will happen if the warming continues, because a) we don't know how warm it will be, and b) we don't know what that warmth will do.
When people say words like consensus instead of hypothesis you can tell they are having a political debate that involves science rather than a scientific debate that involves politics, in the exact same way that the intelligent design people do the same thing.
If I light a piece of paper on fire, I might not be able to predict the exact shape of the flame at any given instance, but I can be pretty damn sure it will end up as ashes.
Only because you don't have to point out that there's a consensus if it's not a political issue. Lots of things have general consensus - we just have absolutely no need to point out that most scientists agree on something unless someone doesn't believe that's the case.
There's a consensus that generally bad things will happen if we let climate change get out of hand. There's not a consensus on precisely what form those bad things will take.
Wiki isn't the best source on this topic, but here is one list, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_...
The work that has been done relies heavily on models and simulations. These are both not realistic (because there are many factors that are too complex to model, or that we don't yet understand fully) and have not predicted temperature well since the outturn of past years has been significantly lower than predicted by the envelope of such models.
The political climate clearly is not one where people feel free to speak (see other stories on attempts or proposals to criminalise the expression of dissident views under certain circumstances or to create legal liabilities) and in that situation many people will keep quiet and hide what they really believe. See Timur Kuran's work on preference falsification.
EDIT: or this directly from his biography http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
The economics of the urgency and advisability of any particular intervention are less clear.
The moral assumptions underlying "climate justice" are pretty unclear to me and don't seem to be an appropriate area for a government agency to be legislating what they deem the truth to be.
Be careful you don't get too happy when the government compels a point of view you happen to agree with, because once you hand over decisions about truth to a political body, it's hard to claw it back.
It's not like a [government entity] would apply this to something like [other issue]!
People forget that when the [other side] is elected, they'll do the same thing but in the opposite direction.
Imagine if there were people who insisted the moon were made of cheese. You wouldn't frown upon their views not being "heard" in public schools because it's bullshit.
No, schools don't need to teach every hypothesis. The scientific community should consider them and arrive at a consensus. It has. Many years ago. Schools should teach about that process and the end result. There is very little ambiguity on this issue.
In fact, the the only thing we really know right now is that the existing models are all wrong. All of them. Wrong. Not one matches the observed data for the last 20 years.
So, no, the science isn't "settled".
Care to elaborate on that ? Administrators, who are very much part of the government (and thus, in the end, ordered around by the executive) are forcing teachers, textbooks and ... to comply with a specific view they're defending politically ...
I might understand that they do this up to the point where they present the facts (ie. historical temperature changes) and present a few different ways to extrapolate into the future. Since statistical models are what climate science uses, because first principles don't work for a system as complex as earth, I would very much like to see them teach a very simple climate model, and have them tweak the parameters to get whatever outcome they like, to show that this can be done. Then get some standard parameters in and show the IPCC position.
This would show both the strengths and the weaknesses of climate change theory, and teach kids very useful data science skills in the process. It may also teach kids the valuable lesson that standards of proof in different sciences are very, very different, and ideally have them think a bit about what that means for the amount of confidence we should have in various sciences.
By analogy, evolution is an established scientific fact. But a public school curriculum that promote eugenics on the grounds that it is supported by evolution would be inappropriate.
What if 20% of the teachers in public schools want to teach Creationism?
In your statements above are you making moral assumptions about the primacy of science, and if so, are you ok with the government legislating that?
When does something become "clear"? When a majority of the people see things that way?
If so, isn't that's what's happening here? A school board is not a "government agency" made up of appointed officials and their hires; it's effectively a legislative body that represents the will of the voters. They are elected into office and presumably can be recalled.
Does popularity == truth? If not, who decides?
Skepticism in science? Unacceptable!
Elememtary textbooks contain almost exclusively the seminal theories that we are very sure about. If we expressed our certianty there, kids might get the idea that all of science is similarly so.
In science, "the evidence suggests..." is a very high seal of approval. I'd place more emphasis on making them understand that than I would on adding a few nines to their certianty that the earth is round.
Ideally, you should also tell the kids which evidence suggests a theory.
Elon Musk: The chance we are not living in a computer simulation is 'one in billions'
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
Scientists believe the Grand Canyon could be evidence of a global flood 4000 years ago.
They conveniently forget that real scientists study independently what these people's own 'God' created. Rather than confront the truth, they retreat to insane (literally: non-sane) ideas about the universe.
Disclaimer: I teach computing in a creationist school in London, UK. I refrain from expressing my utter disgust that such places exist.
You understand that humans are fallible, right, including when it comes to "proof"? Just go read Thomas Kuhn again.
same when going to http://portlandtribune.com/
what's up?
(I searched at the Roosevelt Library, if anyone wants to check)