Guest Opinion by James Sawhill –
The Next Generation Science Standards provide two new science areas that teachers are to present, students are to learn, and for which K-12 US schools will be held accountable –
Weather and Climate and Earth and Human Activity
Recently, Jim Steele posted a piece here relating to A Framework For K-12 Science Education Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas – That “Framework” language has recently morphed to this newer “Next Generation Science Standards”. To be clear, we’re addressing the same teaching and learning standards. The education industry seems to be searching for what they might better name this. Jim Steele was proposing a set of activities for science teachers and students using data and graphing for learning and recognizing that such activities are lacking in anything brought forward so far. I wish us to look at a specific target standard.
[References are cited with links provided at the end of the essay. I have provided more references than citations for any who would like to explore this complex territory.]
Background
In 2011, a consortium began to reconsider the 15 year old Common Core standards for K-12 education in the US and, for the first time, codify standards for science education. They now call these Next Generation Science Standards and they are linked to the original Common Core.
The original Common Core standards were limited to English/Language Arts and Mathematics. [1] Those standards are owned (by copyright) by the National Governor’s Association (NGA). In large part the NGA financed the efforts – albeit with federal funds and state taxes – and states were encouraged to adopt them and thereby become eligible for federal grants. I’ve included references [2], [3], and [4] at the end for any wishing to probe the density of the Common Core.
“The Next Generation Science Standards were developed by a consortium of 26 states and by the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Research Council, and Achieve, a nonprofit organization that was also involved in developing math and English standards. The final draft of the standards was released in April 2013” [5], [6]
“As of March 2014, eleven states had adopted the standards: California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, along with the District of Columbia (D.C.)”. [5]
West Virginia and New Jersey have since adopted these standards while South Carolina and Wyoming have either blocked their adoption or sent consideration back to committee. Texas has decided to craft its own standards.
While adoptions to date amount to 25% of the States, there is mounting pressure from Departments of Education to have legislatures take up approval. These standards are politically and policy charged and may attract attention in upcoming US elections, although that I am aware, both Democrats and Republicans nationally have so far avoided the combination of climate and education.
Here’s a first “Standard” –
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
Guiding Principle: Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts
- Climate information can be used to reduce vulnerabilities or enhance the resilience of communities and ecosystems affected by climate change. Continuing to improve scientific understanding of the climate system and the quality of reports to policy and decision-makers is crucial.
- The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees.
- Humans may be able to mitigate climate change or lessen its severity by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations through processes that move carbon out of the atmosphere or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- A combination of strategies is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The most immediate strategy is conservation of oil, gas, and coal, which we rely on as fuels for most of our transportation, heating, cooling, agriculture, and electricity. Short-term strategies involve switching from carbon-intensive to renewable energy sources, which also requires building new infrastructure for alternative energy sources. Long-term strategies involve innovative research and a fundamental change in the way humans use energy.
- Humans can adapt to climate change by reducing their vulnerability to its impacts. Actions such as moving to higher ground to avoid rising sea levels, planting new crops that will thrive under new climate conditions, or using new building technologies represent adaptation strategies. Adaptation often requires financial investment in new or enhanced research, technology, and infrastructure.
- Actions taken by individuals, communities, states, and countries all influence climate. Practices and policies followed in homes, schools, businesses, and governments can affect climate. Climate-related decisions made by one generation can provide opportunities as well as limit the range of possibilities open to the next generation. Steps toward reducing the impact of climate change may influence the present generation by providing other benefits such as improved public health infrastructure and sustainable built environments. [13]
There’s a lot more in other Standards, but this should be a good first bite. Plus here’s the “Climate Literacy” booklet each kid will get – I encourage you to download a copy.
www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf [10]
Implications and Reactions
An early criticism appeared in the NY Times at the time of the release of the Next Generation Science Standards:
“The focus would be helping students become more intelligent science consumers by learning how scientific work is done.” and “Leaders of the effort said that teachers may well wind up covering fewer subjects, but digging more deeply into the ones they do cover. In some cases, traditional classes like biology and chemistry may disappear entirely from high schools, replaced by courses that use a case-study method to teach science in a more holistic way”. [11], [my bold]
More concern from James Rust at masterresource.org:
“However, it is clear not only that human activities play a major role in climate change but also that impacts of climate change—for example, increased frequency of severe storms due to ocean warming—have begun to influence human activities. The prospect of future impacts of climate change due to further increases in atmospheric carbon is prompting consideration of how to avoid or restrict such increases”.
“Even greater dangers from the science portion are teaching people to accept the political use of science and not follow fundamental principles of scientific inquiry – propose a theory about the behavior of Nature and continually test that theory by experiment”. [12] [my bold]
UK Precedent against Propaganda (we’re not alone in the US)
About the time that the new US Standards were released, The Global Warming Policy Foundation issued a report, Climate Control—Brainwashing In Schools. [15]
Statements in the Report’s Executive Summary are as follows:
“We find instances of eco-activism being given a free rein within schools and at the events schools encourage their pupils to attend. In every case of concern, the slant is on scares, on raising fears, followed by the promotion of detailed guidance on how pupils should live, as well as on what they should think.
In the main body of the report is the statement, ‘The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri has suggested that a focus on children is the top priority for bringing about societal change, and that by ‘sensitizing’ children to climate change, it will be possible to them to ‘shame adults into taking the right steps’”. [15]
Shame on us. And, please move to higher ground.
References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative
[2] http://www.corestandards.org/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_model
[4] http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/stem/030/standards.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Science_Standards
[6] http://www.achieve.org/next-generation-science-standards
[7] http://www.nextgenscience.org/search-standards
[8] http://www.nextgenscience.org/msess-wc-weather-climate
[9] http://www.nextgenscience.org/ms-ess3-5-earth-and-human-activity
[10] www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf
[12] https://www.masterresource.org/debate-issues/common-core-climate-indoctrination/
By James Rust — April 21, 2014
[13] http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/stem/030/standards.html
[14] http://www.thegwpf.org/ The Global Warming Policy Foundation
[15] http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/04/Education-reducedportrait-5.pdf
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Holistic teaching is B.S. promulgated by lazy teachers. Kids under the age of 12-13 typically cannot learn broad principles and apply them to specific instances, they learn the other way around, they learn from the specific to the general … some kids aren’t suited to conceptual learning at all, yet they can still develop the interests in a subject matter that allows them to successfully pursue a vocation. If you push the non-conceptual learners into holistic b.s. you set them up for failure. Add on the indoctrination aspects of this mess and we’re looking at a train wreck.
But if you’re an intellectually lazy elementary school teacher the touchy-feely-holistic stuff is better suited to your lack of mental discipline.
I don’t know how it is in the midwest but in Canada the classroom teacher, the one on the front line, face to face with the students, who knows what will work and what won’t, has zero input into curriculum. It comes down from on high from essentially liberal brainwashed neo-marxist academics who have no clue what goes on in a classroom and don’t want to know. Typically championed by political opportunists in the various boards who can slap it on their resume and be long gone up the ladder before it implodes or dies off from neglect.
With many friends in both the classroom and administration – there are those who see what’s coming and are either bailing or hunkering down to keep a roof over their heads, and those who don’t see because it tastes like the cool-aid they are used to.
That pamphlet they are passing out would be worth an article all by itself judging by the untruths packed in on some of the pages.
Thanks iMac. I have been saying this for years up here in Canada. The dumbing down was not at all done by most of the teachers many of whom I spoke with expressed their frustration with the curriculum. Thank god we got out of the city and into a rural area were a lot of the teachers kind of “by-passed” the curriculum and really helped our kids especially in K-7 after that we had to help our kids a lot more at home.
Utter nonsense. Your claim is poorly stated and without valid and reliable evidence. Yet another example of why we need reading and writing standards that produce students capable of cogent thought. Try again.
Pamela, this isn’t you talking, dismissing someone like this. He must have touched a sensitive nerve, which at least means you aren’t too happy with the situation yourself. The relatively few students capable of cogent thought are not the product of public schools and the evidence is all around us in the empty sound and light show that the meaning of life is entertainment and the easy path. Those capable of cogent thought got that at home if they were lucky to have a home like that and I fear the proportion of such homes is declining. You must know that the progressive government wants all to be dependent on them and they are the ones designing all this core crap as an outline to be filled in over time with things like Agenda 21 type stuff. The only hope is to have a separate education outside the schools where eclectic thinking is encouraged and there seem to be fewer and fewer parents able and even aware enough to do this. I advised mine to go as far as they could with disagreement, but for the marks, they better give the “right” answer.
I’m sure you are one of the very dedicated ones that aims to produce such students, but you must know your distant masters who design these things don’t share the same goal. I’ve met more than a few disillusioned teachers in my life, (and indeed professors, too, in my case), and I’ve confronted a fair number when my large talented brood was going through the system. You have to be a cynic these days who knows how to hide his cogent thoughts and run the gauntlet safely out the other side. I mourn this fact.
I am sorry Pamela . He is correct. As past members of our kids PACs and sitting on boards to require funding for our schools and districts and helping in the political arena. The situation as he describes is on the mark. Some of the fights we had with the powers that wrote some of the curriculum were vicious left wing people that would not stop at anything to discredit honest people trying to help. We were there!
No need for more such “dumbing down” — our student achievement levels in science, reading and maths are already at the bottom of industrialized nations.
Are these statistics showing low achievement based upon common core standards? If so, then perhaps it is the common core standard that is lacking, and we are really the high achievers. I certainly hope my children score low on the sheeple standard and continue to be non-conformists.
If they score low on any Common Core ELA/Math based exam, your students are not non-conformists. They may need some remedial instruction however. A well-educated non-conformist should be able to ace the exams and not once have to mark an answer or write an essay conclusion they “don’t believe in”.
The scientific method has always been very difficult to understand. Throughout history, people learn ‘facts’ but not process. Learning process is an uphill battle. The #1 lesson of science is, don’t impose dogma on data. Yet it is a very human tendency to see only confirmation of bias.
Many ‘breakthrough’ moments in science is when someone forces the rest of the ‘scientists’ to see what is in front of their noses. Denial of incoming information is a very powerful force in humans. We all fall prey to this sort of thinking which is why I often say, the hardest thing a person can do is to change their minds about something they ardently believe.
Score: 9 out of 10. You should write like that more often. However, I would restate your opening statement to say that the “…scientific method has always been very difficult to follow with any kind of fidelity”.
emsn and PG,
At the risk of opening myself up to incoming (but Friday night wine helps), I would revise and combine both of your statements thusly (is that a word?): (ems) The scientific method
has always been very difficultis easy to understand“ but (PG)scientific methodhas always been very difficult to follow with any kind of fidelity”.Please go easy on me. I’m a Luddite when it comes to html and hope I got the tags (and gist of the statement) correct. 🙂
Phil, great edit.
Many ‘breakthrough’ moments in science is when someone forces the rest of the ‘scientists’ to see what is in front of their noses.
You said it.
Setting a “standard” like that breaks my heart. It’s nothing more than child abuse.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/polar-bears-going-extinct-yawn/
Pointman
Marx said to control a nation, you only need control of the press and schools. Where did the 60’s radicals go? Media and education. Think “Ayers”.
Goes much farther back. See the Foundations, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and the Dewey person. Norman Dodd. Reece commission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Dodd
The Frankfurt School is where it began. Indoctrinate through media and education the Marxist narrative, those ideas that could not be done politically at the time. We are now seeing the result as those that were raised in this way are now in politics.
Knocking the wall down let a lot of freedom in, but a lot of unseen dark matter also came out and to its surprise found a ready and inviting structure for their highly honed skills in a socialized Europe (and world universities and institutions), a new world order UN, well financed anti-capitalist, marxist NGOs, particularly the green ones (green in name only) and half their work done for them in the US to their surprise, probably. These chess players from behind the iron curtain didn’t lose the war after all.
” Long-term strategies involve innovative research and a fundamental change in the way humans use energy.”
Hmmmm…energy to grow food, energy to transport, energy to build shelter, energy to provide warmth, energy to provide light; keeping hospitals running, ambulances and fire trucks ready, clean water pumped and distributed, and of course energy to brew beer. The uses are only limited by the creativity of the human mind.
To accomplish the task of teaching “climate change” without ever defining “climate” simply destroy individuality (the can be no differences under common core), punish expressions of wonder, isolate and defame any child (or adult) who deviates from the common message. In brief, destroy human creativity. Too bad for those who seek this, for it will never be possible.
Check me on this, but if they continue in this direction, shouldn’t we be able to make the case for a ‘tax strike’ until they cease and desist using our tax dollars to teach their religion in our public schools? Seems only fair.
Dump chemistry and biology in favor of a more holistic approach?
” . . . accept the political use of science and not follow the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry . . .”
Friends, we are inside the looking glass.
While this “secular” movement has the appearance of a moral philosophy (i.e. religion), it has a notoriously materialistic perspective that is amoral and opportunistic, which includes denigrating individual dignity and debasing human life. As for science, it routinely practices science outside of the scientific domain and resorts to conflating the logical domains: science, philosophy, faith, and fantasy, when it progresses the myth. For example, they replaced or supplemented biology and moral teaching with “sexual education”. As if boys and girls, men and women, need guidance to interpret the fundamentals of human life.
The most expensive education system on the planet with a product that is not even in the top 10. The focus on establishing political myths (e.g. “green” development, diversity, equality, “science” philosophy and fantasy) to grow special interests explains this extreme imbalance or misalignment.
Political myths are best established through indoctrination of the young and immature. A common misconception is the belief that this practice is limited to “religion” or moral philosophy, and family or community traditions. It seems that Western civilization has been infiltrated by a competing interest with the intent to displace and replace the traditional order and population. Pass the opiates.
Not even in the top 10? I am afraid that it works splendidly.
Wow! That “Climate Literacy” booklet is not only propaganda, but full of out and out lies.
I would love to see an edited version (Using Acrobat Pro) which corrects the assumptions and lies throughout. This is the first time I have seen concrete evidence of the true evilness of “common core”.
Most if the time you read about common core – common core is bad, common core is this and that, but this is hard-core stuff as far as I can see. This has to be dealt with, and the sooner the better…
Just as a for instance, they show a giant photo of Muir Glacier, a small glacier which has been retreating since around 1780. It was 18 miles in length, and is now 11 miles in length. I hate to keep harping on this, but why don’t show Hubbard Glacier, just “around the corner” which is the largest tidewater glacier in North America. It has been advancing since 1895. It has a length of 76 miles and like I said: status: Advancing.
And, also they show the “smoke” from a power plant, but don’t explain that that is mostly steam/water vapor, etc. etc. etc…..
I am getting really mad… Thanks a lot James Sawhill, and Jim Steele. What am I going to do about it??
Whatever I can, in some small way, to get the word out.
As far as the booklet, I tried editing using Acrobat Distiller, and was able on the cover to change Climate Literacy to “Climate Illiteracy” and the line under it to “A Guide for Useful Idiots and Communitarians”.
But actually my thought was to edit the booklet to change it to true science and actual data and truth about climate – however that could be done. Then we will print out millions of copies (funded of course by the Coke or maybe Pepsi brothers – sarc) and distribute them to school students.
It is easy enough to make this kind of thing. A few hours with Publisher, or Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator and presto, there’s your PDF, complete with totally irrelevant clipart photos.
For instance the “photo of a dry stream” isn’t a stream and never was a stream. It is the clay bottom of a very shallow pond with a concrete rim around the edge. The strange color of the clay suggests it is either a tailings pond or a sewage treatment pond drained and dried for routine scraping.
The entire caption for the photo was originally “Agricultural engineers Clarence Richardson (left) and Daren Harmel inspect a dry stream channel below a 15-foot flume”.
It appears to be an irrigation channel downstream from a controlled outfall, but it is hard to tell for sure. The “streambed” gives the appearance of drought and death, when in the real world the only water that the “streambed” ever sees is that which has been diverted to it.
Some guy (Bauer) that works for the USDSA has a photo library that is available to anyone that wants to use his photos. Each photo has a an original caption … this one was edited for effect.
(good propoganda lets the viewer jump to their own (emotional) conslusions. maybe common core should include “marketing through appropriate propoganda” as a portion of its curriculum. maybe the individual school districts should include classes on the “uses, advantages, and recognizition of propoganda”.)
J. Philip Peterson – I’d like to say you’re welcome, but I take no thanks in bringing bad news.
Incidentally, I sent this to Jim Steele for his excellent comments before shipping it here.
I think creating our own booklet for/with perhaps NIPCC and maybe through Heartland is an excellent idea.
I winder if they are teaching “the key to science” as taught by Richard Feynman?
I was thinking of not a propaganda piece as they have done for common core. (but sadly, if it has the Heartland name on it, they will label it a propaganda piece). They will not allow it in the “common core” schools, no matter how unbiased or accurate it is.
I wonder….??
“I would love to see an edited version (Using Acrobat Pro)”
Maybe start with PDF-Xchange viewer from http://www.tracker-software.com/. This will allow you to add text and imaging to a pdf. Basic versions are free. I do a lot of pdf editing as part of my work so I have the paid-for editor that looks like it is about $78 these days. The editor can also “flatten” the amendments so they can’t be edited, add pages, join documents etc.
The pdf file format is in the public domain, ISO 32000-1:2008, so there are other editors available that don’t cost a bomb, eg PDF Fusion by CorelDraw.
Example is here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf2brnm7rbrsddk/climate_literacy_booklet-pdfx.pdf?dl=0
I have added a one-liner to the subsidy farming image on page 2.
It would absolutely have to be measured, cautious, sober, and entirely devoid of ad homnem, scorn, or any reference to politics. Utterly non-polemical.
(Hint: any reference or implication of the word “lie”, “fraud”, clever names of refs., etc., etc., or any hint of sarcasm is to be considered polemical.)
What, no polar bears or tornadoes on the cover? That can wait for the next phase and the student workbook covers.
Sounds more like activism than science. Remember when schools tried to take values out of public education? We can now confirm this was only a pretext. They wanted to remove traditional values from education and substitute with progressive values.
Exactly. Like you, I was looking for the science and not finding any.
I used to have a teacher who objected to value judgments.
Now I object to value judgments.
According to UK media, two useful idiots have today blamed “climate change” for an increase in reports of sink holes (it causes extra rain, you see) and for the flood of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe (they’re trying to escape droughts in their own countries).
Words fail me!!!
It rains almost as much here in Sarasota Florida as it does in Tampa about 50 miles north, but they have far more sinkholes. They have far more limestone.
is this “common core ” similar to http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/
Our common core is what Michael Barber pushed in the UK when he worked for Tony Blair. Then he pushed globally via McKinsey and now as head of of Pearson’s Ed Division. UK is involved in GELP that I noted above. My book that I mentioned above also describes the crucial role being played by nef-new economics foundation in this ed push as well as the UN’s favorite contractor Mott MacDonald.
Note the use of the word common, they are close to giving it its proper name.
There go first principles. Now it’s pure propaganda, which can only be memorized, not understood. I am glad I’m getting old….
At least I have real scientific training, but increasingly that matters not. How can I argue about thermodynamics or CO₂ chemistry to someone who has never seen a periodic table? They will shoot back: “The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees!!”
THIS is a perfect meshing with Cook & Lew’s online “Denier-crushing Course”. Get the kids at the outset, then get as many adult stragglers as possible. And sit dumbfounded as Presidents give meaningless speeches in Swamps.
Or you can read the Pentagon report which is highly correlated.
MBtK,
I’m not glad I’m getting old. Other than that, I agree. I have one son getting ready to graduate high school and one just starting as a freshman, and am doing the best that I can to force them to think for themselves.
When the kids are given some introduction as to how to think and then told facts I was always relaxed that they would come up with some new thing that was an improvement ( OK, Goth was an error ). It seems tho’ that these educationalists cannot let the kids go without instilling their view of how things are. I am getting a bit despondent that I will ever see any sort of sensible, science led society in the UK.
( I am not a scientist, I am like an artistic type 🙂
Goth was not the error. Emo is the error.
I suggest for a few readers a strange but relevant movie called “Snowpiercer” which started out life as a comic book or graphic novel and put to film by a Korean director. The idea is that humanity decided to do something about global warming and sprayed something in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back out to space (something already true with aerosols) resulting in “snowball earth” and the survivors ride a railroad train that travels around the planet. It’s really about social stratification, everyone is assigned to a caste and/or a role in life, naturally those that the bottom don’t like it very much and those at the top love it.
The likely outcome of “common core” is to create classes of citizen most of whom will be conditioned to accept their decarbonated fates somewhere near the bottom. The upper classes won’t be subjected to that drivel and will thus rise to the top. It is a class maintenance tool, stratifying society by the very persons that proclaim the evils of social stratification.
I have decided that the cycle must complete itself; it is “Darwinian”. During hard times, such as the Little Ice Age, natural selection eliminates the “stupids”. But every generation breeds a Gaussian distribution of intelligence (and other traits); socialism ensures survival of the weakest until such time as the entire organism (nations, species itself) becomes vulnerable to a natural or unnatural disaster. That starts the cycle over and prunes the decayed branches from the tree of life.
I dunno, when I was at school when we didn’t like it we took over the colleges.
“socialism ensures survival of the weakest”
No it doesn’t. See, when the state guarantees free toilet paper for all there will be no more toilet paper, see Venezuela. Who gets the toilet paper when MONEY can’t buy it? (as that would be CAPITALIST) When MONEY can’t VIOLENCE can. Which is just a different fitness function, not brains, but connections, brutality, muscles, guns.
Socialism is for wars, lifeboats, and ants.
DirkH,
Maybe that should be revised to, “socialism ensures
survivalcreation of the weakest”hilarious.
creationists blog react the same way to biology / evolution in schools like WUWT to Climatology / AGW in schools….
That reminds me, Daniel, has a missing link between apes and humans already been found? Last I checked Homo Erectus now counts as highly developed, basically full Homo, while Australopithecantropus turned out to be just an ape sceleton, though, the most famous one.
70% percent of Americans believe that Jesus is the son of God, who created the earth with a few blast of lightening a wave of wand, and his son took off after his death to fly around the moon. So we’re not that advanced yet.
“Australopithecantropus turned out to be just an ape sceleton”
ha that is funny coming from an ape.
Hmph. Beware comparing European cities with rural America.
When I studied it, Homo Erectus was considered an offshoot, evolving from Homo Ergaster, which is at the root of the true transition to modern man. Homo Habilis was considered likely to be essentially a dead end. Even Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis is considered an elder brother, not a father, to Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
You mean Australopithecus. Lucy et al., no they were not ape like. Give the Palaeoanthropologists some credit, they know the difference. The homo genus and precursors, (hominids/hominins)separated from the higher primates or apes, chimps etc., 6 million years ago.
Some died out or became extinct or just evolved gradually. Homo florensesis ‘The Hobbit’ was a line that became separated because of isolation on the island of Flores, and somehow seemed to be related to Homo erectus. But it is a mystery still. They lived it is believed until 18,000 years ago, but killed by a volcanic eruption and I think some interference from the Homo sapiens who lived there. The Hobbit did have longer arms than Homo sapiens, that is most probably what makes you think they were ape like? They had small brains but comparison to their size and they made rudimentary stone tools. So the Lucy and ilk did not.
I assume that was a derogatory comment aimed at WUWT, the only problem was that it was incoherent.
Care to try again ?
He has to wipe his spittle off of his keyboard first.
I think what he meant is that there is a consistency in mental process of certain types of brains or mindsets focused on a belief, and that any challenge to that belief is met with similar defensive reactions regardless of the subject. It tends to be more prominent in conservative type minds (not political cons but one more likely to go straight to work for a large corporation than travel to India, or one less likely to try new foods if it’s served on a leaf or unique manner), rather than liberal minds who are more likely to congregate near universities because they learn new things, hear new music and are generally open to new ideas, right or wrong. I don’t think he’s actually laughing though.
Let him miss the trend of the recent peer-review literature — at his peril.
While I agree with you in part regarding your analogy, at WUWT posts and comments are roundly criticized, sometimes well, and sometimes not very well at all. It is up to the readers to use whatever education they have received in how to apply close reading strategies to written work as to whether or not a claim is substantiated, valid, and reliable. In this thread, very little meets that criteria in my opinion. We have a lot of babies thrown out with the bathwater.
Criteria is plural. The singular is criterion.
The federal regime has no place in education, IMHO. Common core is statist tyranny.
“…those criteria.” Thanks.
creationists blog react the same way to biology / evolution in schools like WUWT to Climatology / AGW in schools….
Why, yes. The minor difference being that one is essentially incorrect and the other essentially correct.
indeed Evan. Creationsits and WUWT are wrong, science is correct 🙂
There is a gigantic difference. Evolution is an exceedingly well-formed and extensively tested, falsifiable scientific theory that has withstood experimental and observational testing repeatedly. Anthropogentic climate change isn’t even a coherent set of statements, much less a testable hypothesis.
AGW is an exceedingly well-formed and extensively tested, falsifiable scientific theory that has withstood experimental and observational testing repeatedly.
Daniel, Is it hard to imagine a person who would react to both the same way? No, that’s dumb. That probably wouldn’t even happen in your circle of preempted thought. I see you react to the creationist/biology vs evolution with derision and yet accept CAGW on the same kind of authority. You wouldn’t be a democrat by any chance?
Notice how the word “climate” has morphed into “climate change”, clearly an attempt at brainwashing. It would be tough for school children, and even physics graduates, to learn the basics of how the climate system works. They should leave it at that, ditch the BS about “change”.
All the more reason for Private Schools, Parochial Schools, Home schooling…etc.
The “government factory schools” are beginning to look more like places running “Obama Youth” cadres. (And I don’t mean Obama!)
There is no mention of fact checking and model error evaluation. That alone makes it bad science education.
Common Corpse; Kill all original thought and the ability to think and reason.
hmmm. I have read the ELA and Math Common Core standards, and some of the newly minted Science standards. The ELA and Math standards do not at all kill original thought and the ability to think and reason. In fact, that ability is a major foundational focus. It does, however, seem less so with the Science standards.
And along with that, most future innovation will not come to pass.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Federal-Government-Assets-and-Student-Loans.php
It is worse than you think.
From the Climate Science Literacy Guide:
During the 20th century, Earth’s globally averaged surface temperature rose by approximately 1.08°F (0.6°c). additional warming of more than 0.25°F (0.14°c) has been measured since 2000
Is this statement true?
Well, how to lie with statistics.
The mean surface temperature rise throughout the 20th century was probably around 0.6 deg.C, or maybe a fraction more.
But, If we look at temperatures measured by satellites then the warmest year is still 1998 and it has been cooling since 2000 (though not to a significant degree).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2000/to:2014/plot/rss/from:2000/to:2014/trend
If we look at ground station estimates, such as Hadcrut4, then there is no warming this century.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2014/trend
But, of course, you can also look at some other data set and perhaps get a different answer. But that fact that just confirms what we mean by ‘there has been no significant warming for 18 years’. It requires cherry-picking insignificant data, from a particular data set over a particular time period, to pretend otherwise.
But, to paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies’s famous remark, they will do that, won’t they?
2000 is a pro-warming cherrypicked start-point. Always avoid startpoints and endpoints between 1998 and 2000 if you are going to use the study period as an assessment of the amount it is warming (or not). The Nino/Nina whipsaw leads to cherrypicking by both sides in this.
(Note that we use both, but we are not portraying those trends as typical, but merely using them to assess effects of warming and cooling periods on stations/microsite.)
There were a few cool years after 1998, IIRC. So choosing 2000 as a start year might give you a rise till 2014 on the GISS data set. It would be a cherry pick, tho.
A small chide. That is not how this statistic works. You start from the present (which provides maximum information) and work back to some date depending on the data set and the test method. There are two methods: zero positive slope in a regression (which Monckton used) and zero stastitically significant slope in a regression (which McKittrick used in his 2014 paper). Both properly done require statistical care about autocorrelation, which untreated produces a non random error bias violating the BLUE theorem. The warmunist starting point cherry pick criticism always was logicaly invalid. It confuses the end result with the starting point. Its fun slapping warmunists with that tidbit, since in addition to destroying their criticism, it reveals their ignorance of statistics. (Throw in autocorrelation and BLUE and watch them run for the hills rather than continue that particular debate.) Particularly fun at cocktail parties where you can sidle up later and hammer them on other matters like no accelerating SLR, no extinctions, no increase in extreme weather…
ristvan, your comment is eye candy.
kokoda
No.
That sounds about right to me, actually. But it is not particularly significant, and Y2K is a cherrypicked startpoint. (Arguably, 1900, as well.)
I find it absurd that the climate priesthood consider it essential that climate only be discussed by “real climate scientists” and then they propose that the Articles of Faith should be taught to schoolchildren as a substitute for learning the science necessary to understand what little we can of the climate. That is of course the point – the children will need to work out the science for themselves.
I shall have to paraphrase, as I do not recall the exact quote, but President Reagan said, ‘… if our educational system had been designed by a foreign government, we would have to consider it an act of war … … ‘
And if we don’t improve our instructional strategies, standards design, and math performance we will lose that war.