UPDATE: New video added. See below.
Dr. Bradley Schaefer really knows how to reach young college students: spouting hyperbolic proclamations of death and nuclear obliteration. The Louisiana State University astronomy professor is filmed saying some pretty ugly things, even for the typical unhinged liberal professor. But we should give him the benefit of the doubt since the YouTube clip is heavily edited. We must consider the context in which these statements were made lest it be mistaken for anything more than bravado or how high brow academics talk amongst themselves. Yet bringing up the death toll on 9/11 is usually a loser argument in any debate.
Video after the break:
From an LSU campus reform outfit:
Dr. Schaefer’s views on the subject were well-known. At one point in class, the professor compares deaths from European heat waves to American deaths in the September 11 terrorist attacks: “Now remember, how many people got killed on 9/11? What was it? One thousand? Two thousand? Something like that. Three thousand, whatever. It’s dwarfed by this. Why aren’t people reacting?”
Students who chose a limited government response to global warming were given this question to answer: “Your professed policies have a substantial likelihood of leading to the death of a billion or more people. (A) Estimate the probability that you personally will be killed in an ugly way because of your current decision? (B) What is the probability that any children of yours will die in ugly ways due to your current decision?”
UPDATE: The professor refutes critics in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and says he harangued both sides of the political spectrum and that the video above was edited, and show him in an unflattering light.
Here’s the unedited video http://vimeo.com/16649140
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Brad is concerned with an alleged unfair depiction of the nutters who support AGW and inferring those nutters are representitive of AGW supporters; he should read this:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39750.html
AGW nuttiness is the mainstream.
Ryan Maue says: “Just imagine if this were a professor ranting about evolution — the mainstream media would be cuing it up nonstop.”
Climate Evolution–an idea whose time has come?
lsu student says: “This is like the Shirley Sherod video. It’s an hour long lecture condensed into a few inflammatory sentences, each of which is taken out of context….”
I think the context is perfectly clear, given the seating chart.
At the very least, we will all get to witness science implode on itself.
Science has become the bad news predictors.
There is no good news in science. Scientists predict the next pandemic, earthquake,
asteroid, flood, virus, disease, famine, total destruction and the end of mankind.
global warming
and all of these ads on TV are immediately followed by another ad from some law
firm, saying if you fell for this crap or took that pill, call them.
People are sick and tired of bad news.
and science is doing themselves in…….
TomG says:
November 17, 2010 at 11:01 am
I kept waiting for the people on the “US should do nothing” side to suddenly blow up.
No pressure, after all.
Nice.
At least this school has the best coach on college football.
“Your professed policies have a substantial likelihood of leading to the death of a billion or more people.”
Dear Teacher, Before answering your questions: The United States Census Bureau currently estimates the world population to be approximately 6,882,200,000. How many of these people would you say are going to die at some point, regardless of the policies I choose to follow?
“(A) Estimate the probability that you personally will be killed in an ugly way because of your current decision?” The probability that I will die is 100%. As to “ugly,” are you referring to brain cancer, a car accident, or something out of “The Naked Prey”?
“(B) What is the probability that any children of yours will die in ugly ways due to your current decision?” At some point, all my children will no doubt pass on, same as me.
High narrow intelligence sometimes comes with low emotional intelligence (and oddly, weird language error patterns). This combination can lead to off the wall and often strident beliefs, sometimes to the point of needing to “do something about it”. If I were this man’s boss, I would put a red flag on his personnel file.
Suppose for moment this idiot is accidentally right and not doing anything would increase the probability of a billion people dying. Weigh that against the effect of collapsing western civilization and turning most of the world into Somalia.
And there are many more where he comes from.
Climate Change Indoctrination is becoming the standard in schools and universities all over the world.
Brad says:
November 17, 2010 at 11:33 am
“I am not offended by the post, I just don’t understand posting it on a blog that claims to be science driven. Is Wattsupwiththat about the science, or is it a political blog driving a belief, no matter what the science says?”
We love our chuckles. Lighten up. Enjoy the chuckles.
So why didn’t someone get up and switch off the projector on the white board and all the lights ?
Hey, it’s a start
The man is barely articulate.
I’d like to answer the questions please. A) less than one in a google. B) exactly zero (I have no children)
pwl says:
November 17, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Whoa, what kind of sick abusive teacher is this? If your teachers are like this it’s no wonder that people are so messed up. Has this guy been fired yet?
pwl, he is protected by his invincible tenure.
If tenure ended today, the streets would be flooded with raving, maniacal ideologues. This is something greatly to be desired, regardless of the temporary traffic problems. Today, tenure protects only statist ideologues. That is the measure of just how deep PC is.
Kudos to the young men and women who took the time to expose another FRAUD in the higher education system. Keep up the good work. I think what would be great…is for some of our more learned citizens on these topics to take these classes and challenge these professors at every level. Let’s see these professors who know so much defend what they have to say!!!
Resisted commenting on this one all day.
The style is obviously confrontational.
Was this style applied all over the students attending? We don’t know as this is heavily edited.
If there is video of the whole hour, I’d like to see it before making my mind up.
Part one of what might turn out to be the whole lecture is available on YouTube but having seen it, I fear it will be equally heavily edited.
I’m an AGW sceptic but this video looks like a smear campaign from what I’ve seen
DaveE.
“Also notice: the film doesn’t show him talking about the science behind global warming or the consequences of it. If they did, there would be less to blow out of proportion and get upset about.”
That has nothing to do with him using fear tactics to prove his point. I don’t care if he stated scientifically : “people will die because scientists say this.” and then states that their blood is on the students hands. No matter how you do it, there is some things that shouldn’t be said. Emotional arguments are not correct to use in science.
There is no way this language can be taken out of context, because face it, he is unhinged and instead of sticking to the science, he switched to emotional argument which has no place in a class-room.
At first blush this video is very troubling!
However without knowing the full video (no editing to put those comments in context) is it dangerous to go too far in condemning his “apparent” outbursts.
If he really believes what he is recorded saying, and typically acts that way there is a major problem, —- but there is a possibility he is doing exactly what was described in an earlier post and intentionally voicing a representative outrageous statement to see if any of the students would stand up and defend a more rational view.
Now to make clear, I am not defending his presentation, I am “being skeptical” about what the true agenda of this video is and what the full in context of his classroom presentation was.
I have no knowledge at all of this specific professor, but I did have a teacher in high school once that used the method of making totally outrageous statements periodically and then drawing out the students responses. At the end of the class period he would come back down to earth and bring it all together and point out how some of the students positions were logically inconsistent or indefensible.
I remember one day when he got some of the students so angry a few individuals were standing up and shouting at him. A few of us thought a couple of the jock students were going to go to blows with him until he revealed he had been playing devils advocate and had been getting them to examine their beliefs and how some of the positions they were trying to defend were logically inconsistent.
It was a very intense day ( he only did it a few times in a school semester) but I have seen that sort of teaching style used to get kids to actually think rather than just regurgitate pat positions.
I also worked in state government and learned from direct observation that video editing can totally mangle what actually happened, and to caution folks that without context this video could also be an angry student trying to make him look bad by exploiting his teaching style without any context pr intentionally editing it to misrepresent what actually happened.
It is even possible that he was actually trying to force the students to face just how ridiculous some of these extreme CAGW positions are, by taking them to the far edge. He might have been role playing, acting as a radical CAGW proponent rather than presenting a totally off the deep end lecture he might have been holding that sort of position up for examination, (even ridicule) and what the logical extremes are that comes from some advocates positions.
Bottom line — without context this is just a data point. It could be an example of a professor that is totally over the edge and needs serious attention from his dean, or it could be a creative teacher trying something outrageous to shock the students into being active participants rather than passive follow the herd non-thinkers.
That is what my physiology professor in high school did, so I must accept that it is at least possible he is being seen out of context, and the troubling issue here might be a gross misrepresentation by the video maker.
If we want to pride ourselves for being rational and “skeptical” we must consider that there are at least two possible explanations for the video.
In that high school class I mentioned, about 10% of the students saw through the role playing almost immediately, as it was too far out of character. About 50% of the students were taken in for a while but at the end of the class realized what was going on and what he was trying to accomplish. A small percentage fell for his act hook line and sinker and some never did buy his conclusion at the end of the day and for the rest of the year thought he was a lunatic.
It is a dangerous tactic for a teacher to try, unless he/she is really good.
I have had some absolutely terrible teachers too, so I could also fully believe he is a nut job and should not be teaching anyone anything.
I will wait for more background and context before I decide which case is most likely.
It would be interesting to see student evaluations from previous years to see if they show a pattern of lunatic rants or a dynamic and unconventional teaching style that forces students to defend their positions.
Larry
Brad says:
November 17, 2010 at 9:33 am
“More non-scienctific right wing crap being posted, Wattsupwiththat loses cred with each of these posts.
Stick to the science guys!”
=========================
Huh??? Stick to the science???
As far as I am concerned this IS science because it is about exposing the truth:
Here you have a nutbag basket-case “astronomer”….safe in his tenured position… completely wasting these students’ time (and their money) on a subject that has NOTHING to do with astronomy.
Oh….I forgot….James Hansen is an astronomer, too, but I digress.
This was well-posted and should be given the rightful derision that it deserves.
And if I were those LSU students….I would be demanding my money back.
Just WHO is the customer here??
The one who pays the tenured radical whack-box’s salary, with their tuition, that’s who!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
This video has been edited to show only part of the lecture.
http://chronicle.com/article/Professor-Rebuts-Charges-of/125426/
Ah, perfessor, so you say our Children will die? In unpleasant ways? where? a Socialist
Re-education camp? a Government Gulag? Freezing in a Siberian-like winter?
To do what you want, you need a Pol Pot or a Mao,Stalin, Castro….
I was thrown out of a sociology class as I dared to critique a novel “EcoTopia”
in a light that compared it to Cambodia under Pol Pot…
This looks staged. Could it be one of those ruses hidden in a a ruse that the media so often produce for us? Are they playing those who fall for it for fools?
There is no lunatic left or lunatic right, just those dedicated to leading their sheep from either direction towards the trap of totalitarianism. This type of stunt has been pulled before and sadly the sheep can’t get the wool out of their eyes to see the manipulation.
Pamela Gray says:
November 17, 2010 at 6:30 pm
High narrow intelligence sometimes comes with low emotional intelligence (and oddly, weird language error patterns). This combination can lead to off the wall and often strident beliefs, sometimes to the point of needing to “do something about it”. If I were this man’s boss, I would put a red flag on his personnel file.
Pam, as ever, your wisdom hits the nail on the head. The sadest (and possibly scariest) thing about this lecture is that the professor is a physicist. Admittedly the video was heavily edited, but it does appear that the Professor is a picnic short of a sandwich, and in desperate need of some rational thinking. Shame that none of the students were versed enough in the science to enlighten him with regard to the CO2 delusion. I would have liked to have seen some of the students ask him:
There is good geological, archaeological, anthropological and geo-physical (ice core) evidence for average temperatures to have been 2-3C higher (than present) in the Holocene Optimum and the Minoan Warm Period and around 1-2C higher in the Roman Warm Period, and around 1C higher in the Medieval Warm Period. Given than anthropogenic CO2 emissions in these historical periods were insignificant, and that these variations in global temperatures therefore must have been the result of natural longer term oceanic/solar-magnetic/orbital cycles, and that CO2’s contribution to the radiative forcing from ‘green house’ gases is only around 10% of the total (water vapour is responsible for around 80%), and that the relationship between CO2 concentration and the resultant radiative forcing is logarithmic, (i.e. any increase in CO2 concentation above 250ppm (0.025%) will have a negligible effect due to Beer-Lambert’s Law), explain how there can be any confidence in the IPCC’s AGW hypothesis that the 0.7C warming in the 20th Century was caused by the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration from 0.028% to 0.038%.
Okay, I can dream on.
jcrabb says:
November 17, 2010 at 8:10 pm
This video has been edited to show only part of the lecture.
http://chronicle.com/article/Professor-Rebuts-Charges-of/125426/
==============================
Yeah yeah yeah….understood.
What I don’t understand is exactly what in the hell does his lecture have anything to do with…astronomy?
As I said earlier…if I were a student forking out thousands of dollars for this course….I would demand my money back.
I mean really…who is the customer here?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
hotrod (Larry L) says:
November 17, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Lots of good points there, hotrod! At least his students dont fall asleep.