Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A study published in Science reveals that a number of teachers are rebelling against Federal education directives – that a significant number of school teachers are failing to indoctrinate their students with the politically approved position on climate change, or worse, are teaching students that there are forcings other than CO2, which might be driving changes in global temperature.
According to the Washington Post;
A major new survey of U.S. middle school and high school science teachers has found that across the country, a majority are teaching about climate change in their classrooms — but a significant percentage are also including incorrect ideas, such as the notion that today’s warming of the globe is a “natural” process.
The study, published in Science Thursday by Eric Plutzer of Penn State University and a number of collaborators from Wright State University and the National Center for Science Education — which supports the teaching of evolution and climate change in schools — consisted of a mail survey of 1,500 teachers nationwide. They included both middle school science teachers and also high school biology, chemistry, physics and Earth sciences teachers, since it wasn’t entirely clear which classes might cover the subject (unlike evolution, which clearly belongs in biology class, climate change stretches across many disciplines).
One of the most striking findings: 30 percent of teachers said in the survey that they tell students that the current warming “is likely due to natural causes” — contradicting major scientific assessments of the matter. Thirty-one percent of teachers also said that they include both the scientific consensus position — that global warming is human-caused — but then also a “natural causes” position that contradicts it, thus presenting “both sides,” in the study’s words.
The abstract of the study;
Climate confusion among U.S. teachers
Although more than 95% of active climate scientists attribute recent global warming to human causes (1, 2) and most of the general public accepts that climate change is occurring, only about half of U.S. adults believe that human activity is the predominant cause (3), which is the lowest among 20 nations polled in 2014 (4). We examine how this societal debate affects science classrooms and find that, whereas most U.S. science teachers include climate science in their courses, their insufficient grasp of the science may hinder effective teaching. Mirroring some actors in the societal debate over climate change, many teachers repeat scientifically unsupported claims in class. Greater attention to teachers’ knowledge, but also values, is critical.
Read more: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6274/664
From the study itself;
… Although most students will hear something about climate change in a science class, the median teacher devotes only 1 to 2 hours to the topic (table S7), inconsistent with guidance from leading science and education bodies [e.g., (9)]. Of course, quality of instruction is more important than quantity, so we turn to how students are introduced to climate change science.
MIXING MESSAGES. Notably, 30% of teachers emphasize that recent global warming “is likely due to natural causes,” and 12% do not emphasize human causes (half of whom do not emphasize any explanation and thereby avoid the topic altogether). Of teachers who teach climate change, 31% report sending explicitly contradictory messages, emphasizing both the scientific consensus that recent global warming is due to human activity and that many scientists believe recent increases in temperature are due to natural causes (see the first chart). Why might this be the case? Some teachers may wish to teach “both sides” to accommodate values and perspectives that students bring to the classroom (6, 10). Beyond that, the survey data allow us to evaluate three explanations.
…
Our data suggest that, especially for political or cultural conservatives, simply offering teachers more traditional science education may not lead to better classroom practice. Education efforts will need to draw on science communication research and acknowledge resistance to accepting the science and addressing its root causes (17, 18). College and university instructors will need help reaching teachers and teachers-in-training who bring diverse political and value commitments to the classroom—particularly in avoiding “boomerang effects,” in which attempts to promote a particular view can instead harden opposition. …
Read more (paywalled): http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6274/664.full
Where will this end? Everyone knows that scientific knowledge advances when everyone agrees the same settled position, that questioning established viewpoints, or dissent from politically approved ideas, is anti-scientific, and should be punished somehow.
Color me yellow, but when I was a science teacher, I just taught the curriculum like I was employed to do. Evolution, Ozone, and Global Warming, I had strong doubts about all 3 of them, but I taught it anyway. The only thing I tried to do was to impress on my students that they should always do their own thinking and own observing, which admittedly was a little off-topic in a science class, and I am not sure how relevant it was to 17 year olds who were just trying to pass another subject.
“If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.”
Science is settled. The answer is 42. (Adams, 1978 HHGTTG)
Wrong.
It’s 42 (2) + 13.
I’m posting this in case a teacher or two is online. It’s not meant to be a political endorsement. He discusses the power of the less than 10%. I liked the inspiration it provided.
Why I Have Hope By Ron Paul
I think the most exciting message for me today is that things are changing.
Often, when I come to these events, people ask me, “isn’t this grueling, isn’t this very tough?” It’s not, though, and it’s actually a bit selfish on my part, because I get energized when I meet all the young people here. It’s true there is a spread of ages here, but there are a lot of young people and some of them even come up to me and say “you introduced me to these ideas when I was in high school a few years ago.”
And it’s not just people at events like these. When I landed at the airport on my way here, I was approached by two young people who came up to talk to me. They didn’t know each other, but both spoke with foreign accents, and both said they were from Africa. They said they heard the message of liberty over the Internet, and they had been following me ever since 2008.
Positive Trends
These are just examples, but I do think they represent a larger change that is taking place right now. Things are changing dramatically and in a favorable way.
We’re in this transition period right now where the attitudes are changing. But our views have been out there a long time, so we have to ask ourselves why we’re seeing more success now among the young and many future leaders.
Part of this is just due to greater availability of ideas. The Internet certainly helps, and a lot of the credit must go to organizations like the Mises Institute that make the ideas of liberty more easily available to everyone.
I also never imagined that my presidential campaigns would get the attention they did for our ideas. Our success in bringing new young people into the movement surpassed anything I thought was possible.
Change Will Come Whether We Like It or Not
But the reason we see more success for these ideas is not just because it’s easier to find them and read them. We’re living in a time when people — especially young people — can see that the old ideas aren’t working any more.
The young generation has inherited a mess from the older generations, and the young can see that what they’ve been told isn’t true. It’s not true that you can just go to college, run up a bunch of student debt, and then get a good job. The young can see that the middle class is being destroyed by our current economic system. And they can see that our foreign policy is failing.
Whether we like it or not, change will come. The troops will come home. They probably won’t come home for ideological reasons, but simply because the United States is broke and can’t afford all its wars anymore.
We’re also living in a time when the economic system is going to come unglued. The old Keynesian economic system isn’t working and young people can see it.
If it is true that we’re in the midst of an end of an era, though, the question remains as to what’s going to replace the system we have now. There are still plenty of socialists — popular ones — who are out there saying that what we need is more government control and more war to fix the economy and the world. So, we still have a lot of work to do, but I think we’re in a better place now than we’ve been in a long time.
We Don’t Need a Majority
When thinking about all the work we still have to do, it’s important to keep in mind that we don’t need majority support. If you’re waiting for 51 percent of the population to say “I’m libertarian and I believe everything you say,” you’ll lose your mind. What we need for success is intellectual leadership in a country that can influence government and the society overall.
That’s where the progress is being made. We’re only talking about 7 or 8 percent of a country that is necessary to provide the kind of influence you need. This was the case during the American Revolution, and it’s true today. You are part of that 8 percent.
When doing this work, though, there are many things that can be done. People often ask me “what do you want me to do.” My answer is: “do what you want to do.”
There is no one way. Some people can use the political system, and others can go into pure education. Lew Rockwell started the Mises Institute, but what you do for the cause of liberty is personal to you, and you have to find what makes sense for you.
Also, you can’t know all the positive effects your work is having. I certainly had no way of knowing all these years how I was having an effect on those young Africans I met at the airport.You can’t always know what effect you’re having either.
Where To Start
So, say that we are successful, and our 7 or 8 percent continues to gain influence. What should we be doing? I think there are three basic places we need to start.
First off, we would see to it that there would be no income tax in the United States ever again.
Second, we would take the Federal Reserve and all its leadership and relegate them to the pages of history.
We would then pass a law that the US government cannot commit any crime that it punished other people for. It’s wrong to steal and hand people’s property over to other people, no matter how much people who do that win the applause of others.
And finally, we would bring all the troops home. Randolph Bourne was right when he said that war is the health of the state. Peace is the friend of liberty and prosperity.
We Need Humility
As a final note, I’d like to say that humility and tolerance need to be an important part of our efforts.
Yes, we need a foreign policy based on humility. We can’t know what’s right for people around the world, and we certainly shouldn’t force anything on them.
But right here at home, we need humility also. In fact, libertarianism is based on humility. We can’t know what’s best for other people. No one can, and that is why we want people to have the freedom to do what they think is best for themselves.
This is true in economics, of course. Do you think Janet Yellen knows what the “correct” interest rate is? There are many things that economic planners can’t possibly know. And for that reason — and others — there are so many things they shouldn’t be doing.
And yes, there are a lot of people out there living their lives in ways we might disagree with. But intolerance is what government is based on. The far left, they are very intolerant and are happy to have people with guns tell other people how to live.
We need to keep in mind that if other people aren’t hurting us or using government to force their way of life on us, they should be left alone.
Unlike the left, we want tolerance for other people’s morals and for how other people work for a living and what they choose to do with their money.
We need more tolerance and humility in every aspect of life, and that’s how we get a free society.
So, let’s all go to work and preserve the cause of liberty.
Thank you very much,
Ron Paul
O.K., O.K., Ron Paul – but what has all that got to do with teaching school students about natural climate variation??
Eh, he was talking about seeds that are planted along the way that you may not currently realize … blah blah … it sounded good and happens to be true.
There is hopeful optimism that teaching AGW as a theory and not scientific truth will get through. That the predictions of doom have never panned out is powerful evidence and common sense against AGW.