Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Science is pervasive directly and indirectly in every phase of modern life. While the majority are not directly involved in science, they need to understand science and how it works. It is increasingly the underlying control of social, political, and economic decisions made by them or for them. They need to understand how it works, even if they don’t make it work. This knowledge must be a fundamental part of any school curriculum.
Climate skeptics struggle with getting the majority of people to understand the problems with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) anthropogenic global warming (AGW) story. It was the theme of my presentation at the first Heartland Climate Conference in New York and many articles and presentations since. The problem is much wider because it relates to the lack of scientific abilities among a majority of the population. Based on teaching a science credit for science students for 25 years, giving hundreds of public presentation and involving myself in education at all levels from K-12, to graduate, and post-graduate, plus the transition to the workplace, I believe a fundamental mandatory change in thinking and curricula are required.
I believe abilities are an example of the ongoing nature/nurture argument. People can learn an ability, but can only achieve a high level of competence with an innate ability. For example, most people can learn the mechanics of teaching, but only a few are ‘gifted’ teachers. These concepts are particularly true of certain abilities, such as music, art, languages and mathematics. From my experience, I learned that most people with these gifts struggled with understanding why other people cannot do as they do. Often, they do not even see their ability as unique, and some deride those without their ability. On a larger scale than just mathematics, which philosophically is an art, is the distinction of abilities between those who are comfortable with science and those who are not.
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows the national percentage of students with High-Level Science Skills. Presumably, they are the ones who will pursue careers that require that level. Figure 2 shows the number of university graduates in science-related programs. By combining the data, it is reasonable to assume that approximately 15 percent of the population are comfortable with science.
Figure 2
Figure 3 appears to confirm that percentage as it shows the percentage of Undergraduates from the University of Michigan. Those graduating with a science degree include Engineers 3 percent, Mathematicians 5 percent, and Sciences 7 percent, for a total of 15 percent.
Figure 3
I was involved in many curricula fights, few of them ever resolved much. Ever subject area and discipline considered theirs essential to an education. They failed in achieving curricula useful to the student and society. This was because they were controlled by people ensuring what interested them or what ensured their job, rather than what the student needed to become an effective informed citizen. Students are not given the tools to avoid being exploited. Indeed, sometimes I think the system keeps them ignorant so it can exploit them as adults. Peoples of the Rainforest teach their children what they need to survive in the real and dangerous world in which they live. We don’t do this at any level. For most North American university or college students the experience is simply a socially acceptable and ridiculously expensive form of unemployment. Most of them learn more about life and themselves in part-time and summer jobs.
Michael Crichton, best known for his scientific novels like Jurassic Park, was a graduate of Harvard Medical School. He wrote an interesting novel, State of Fear, that used global warming to illustrate how environmentalists misuse science for a political agenda. This misuse works because 85 percent of society are unable to know what is happening. However, there are other ways to determine that misuse is occurring. For example, I am not a mathematician, but I do understand the scientific method. I knew from the start that the goal was to ‘prove’ the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, not to disprove it. Richard Lindzen’s comment very early in the debacle that the consensus was reached before the research had even begun resonated with me immediately.
It is true that the devil is in the detail. I did not have the skills to detect what Michael Mann did to create the ‘hockey sick’, but knew from knowledge of climate history and other evidence that something was wrong. To quote Popeye as my philosopher of record, “I don’t know how’s youz duz it, but youz duz it.” It took the skills of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick to identify how it was done. It was the nail in the coffin, but the coffin was already under construction. Worse, the coffin is still not finished.
Crichton also gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September15, 2003. Here are his opening remarks.
I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.
The main theme of his talk is the political use of environmentalism as a religion for indoctrination and control. His concluding remarks state:
Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better. That’s not a good future for the human race. That’s our past. So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.
I agree, but how do you resolve the problem of science being the answer when 85 percent of the people don’t understand science? I agree with Crichton about Environmentalism, but it is a wider problem. Every aspect of society is a function of science and technology that is vulnerable to political manipulation.
For me, the obvious answer is to have compulsory courses in Science. They should occur in Elementary, Middle, High School and College and University. Everyone needs to know what science is, how it works, and how it evolved. If everyone knew about the scientific method the challenges I faced in my first presentation before a Canadian Parliamentary Committee would not have occurred.
The hearing involved the issue of ozone. I did not want to attend because I knew it was pure political theater designed to exploit an environmental issue. I had no choice; it was a quasi-judicial hearing with incarceration the threat for failure to appear.
I was grouped with two other science people and we had less presentation time in total than the five “Friends of the Earth.” (Think of the arrogance of that name; if you are not in our group you are not a friend of the Earth.) I expected that bias. Biases are only problems if you are not aware of them. I also realized that the politicians knew little or nothing about science. However, the presentation of one of the scientists disturbed me most. He presented data of ozone levels over Toronto for a period when I knew there were no such measures; he particularly stressed one very low reading. I realized this was computer model generated data. He did not explain this to the politicians who thought it was real data. In a break after his presentation, I asked if he knew about the scientific method and was surprised when he said no. I decided at that point to break protocol and replace my submitted presentation with an impromptu explanation of the scientific method.
This began by explaining, as a geochemist colleague put it, that people think science provides answers. It does, but only rarely. Science works by asking and vetting questions. The questions are presented as a hypothesis based on assumptions. Other scientists, acting as skeptics, challenge the hypothesis by testing the validity of the assumptions. In other words, they try to disprove the hypothesis. I told the politicians that the CFC destroying ozone hypothesis was untested.
I then explained that a scientific hypothesis was akin to speculation based on a few selected facts. That science was constantly creating hypotheses, which in this time of environmental hysteria, received media attention but also attracted people seeking research funds. I told them I could produce several hypotheses based on a few facts that presaged global disasters. I gave one example, the potential collapse of the Earth’s magnetic field and the resulting damage to plants and animals without the protection it provided. I wanted to know what my government planned to protect the citizens.
The challenge for scientifically illiterate politicians, I subsequently found out there was only one who had BSc in biology, was to decide which of these threatening speculations warranted their attention. The current response is to fund those that will advance their career. They do this partly because of the self-serving nature of people and politics, but also, because they are ill-equipped to make a better judgment. If they knew and understood science and how it works it would be different. It certainly would be different if they knew the constituents knew.
If people knew that science involves constantly asking questions and only occasionally finding answers their understanding is measurably improved. The few acceptable answers are only those that withstood challenges and eventually made accurate predictions. All skeptics would need to do is show, to an educated mostly non-scientific public, that a hypothesis failed most challenges and produced incorrect predictions without having to involve the arcane scientific complexities that baffle the 85 percent. As I explained in another article, Aaron Wildavsky understood this when he chose only non-science graduate students, members of the 85%, to investigate environmental threats already being exploited. They found none of them withstood scrutiny.
Anybody that has read this far does it for a reason, a thirst for knowledge.
Or maybe I’m biased.
Just a note on acronyms: When I see WAIS, I think of the IQ test. I did look up what WAIS was in climate science. Acronyms are necessary, I know, but they are not always clear.
I was in a science department, and to varying extent the whole university, that made the transition (circa 1980) from emphasis on largely teaching to largely research (more of a business), some at first with my help. I recall the concern (shock?) of humanities scholars. I suspect they saw that it took away from time needed for thought and It may have corrupted humanities more than science. Our janitor said it was when the bigots moved in. I did not understand what was happening as I do now, but I did within a few years start teaching majors about logical errors.
There is no simple answer. As with climate, this is a multivariate issue. As an old engineer and now a substitute HS teacher we are dealing with:
Lack of discipline instilled in the home and then allowed in the schools = laziness as a result,
Poorly prepared/educated teachers,
Liberal bias in educational as well as most higher educational institutions,
Tha polarized US society where students come to school with minds already closed by their parents,
Liberal/and or just ignorant media dissemination of false science/information,
Government use of education to indoctrinate,
Educators’ fear of skepticism on the part of students as skeptics are more difficult to control,
The cheapening of advanced degrees ie anyone can obtain a degree in anything with enough time and money,
The over concern with students feelings of “self worth” and little concern for instilling goal driven desire,
Etc.
You can all add your own variables to this list.
And of course some propensities in students are genetic with the good traits coming from your family and the bad from one’s spouse.
LOL, that’s what my wife says all the time.
Jim G1 wrote: “Lack of discipline instilled in the home and then allowed in the schools”
I think this is a huge underreported problem in our schools. The kids can’t learn if the classroom is constantly disrupted by undisciplined kids acting out. The teachers spend all their time trying to keep order instead of teaching.
I think very soon we will see lawsuits initiated by the parents of good students against the parents of disruptive students for depriving their children their right to an education. Since the schools and teachers are not allowed to effectively discipline students, they should not be blamed.
At last. Someone who has the semblance of a grasp of the essential points after so much trumpeting of the innate superiority of science over the likes of history.
I was educated in the 60s in a country that that had escaped the joys of comprehensive education up to that point and became one of those History and English majors so despised in this thread. After teaching those subjects for a few years and growing increasingly aware of the advance of political correctness in these and other fields, I returned to university and have taught Mathematics for the last 30 years. However, I do not regret for one moment any of the education I received.
If a few more people, especially the allegedly educated, knew their history properly, they would understand why immigration has become a problem, why teachers are almost as ignorant as their students, why education has become a propaganda tool, as well as a great many other things about current events.
And if a few more people, especially scientists, could read, speak and write their mother tongue competently, perhaps they would not have to get their papers edited by professionals to eliminate their gobbledegook, non sequiturs and foggy thinking.
Furthermore, there are, in the private sector especially, many mathematics teachers who strive to inculcate clear and logical thinking and presentation in their pupils as well as a delight in the subject and an awareness of the extent to which it underpins modern life. It is the multivariate nature of the situation that serves to mute their efforts.
How many universities even teach real English or history now-a-days? This is what posters are complaining about.
Education failure is across the board!
I agree, history is a really important subject, and should be included in any science course.
The most important teachers are parents. School indoctrination can be neutralized by dinner table conversation every day. We made sure that our children supported every claim they brought home from school with an example from their own world experience. Didn’t take long for them to start separating the wheat from the chaff all by themselves. And it empowered them to think for themselves because they had confidence in their ability to think critically and logically.
Indeed. I was going to say something along those lines as well. My dad gave us a desk placard which said simply THINK. He was a metallurgical engineer, and was good at solving problems.
Good discussion of a recondite subject. My own modest proposal (re Swift) to improve elementary education would be to eliminate Education as a major, and remove administrators with such a major.
I think the institution of education from k-university is the rare example where I would advocate tearing it up and starting over.
After thirty years in research I retired and considered teaching middle school science. There are two widely used tests, one on subject knowledge and one in the pedagogy, which must be passed for a teaching certificate. I took both, cold.
The subject knowledge test could be passed by a smart high school student. Despite having but one course in education some forty-three years ago, I passed the pedagogy test as well. I have to wonder how much teaching and learning takes place in acquiring a degree in elementary education.
Not much. I am blessed to have advanced degrees.
Belief trumps data. It is the rare person who does not bring some kind of preconceived belief to the Science table. Take the science of learning. Yes, it is now a biologic science. Functional MRI demonstrates the reading brain, as it does the brain that has failed to learn how to read. There is now evidence for an area of the brain that stores written language symbol recognition.
As a direct result, somewhere in the future we may be able to take regular pictures of the brain to measure how well the brain is learning. And I think the ramifications of that future terrifies many educators so much that most remain stubbornly resistant to these learning science developments.
But make no mistake, one day we will be able to objectively measure learning paired with educational strategies and weed out what works and what doesn’t in the development of reading, writing, and math skill. It may even be possible to objectively weed out ineffective teachers who cling to ineffective curriculum or instructional methods.
What I can tell you for sure is that the science of education is not making much headway into schools, where bias and belief against objective research is strong. I have been yelled at for bringing research to the discussion, by both colleagues and administrators, and have even been dismissed for being too educated (I kid you not). So I guess it is time for me to throw in the towel, admit defeat, and go fishing.
Pamala,
I’m not sure if it still holds true, but many years ago I was taught that they had already determined where many functions were located in the human brain, but that all of that was garbage when it came to left handed people. Their brains were just too scrambled to figure out. Being left handed, I figured that gave me a good excuse for a lot of my improprieties.
This is new research and it is the same for both right and left handed humans. Primates use the same area to recognize written symbols.
Pamela Gray wrote: “This is new [brain] research and it is the same for both right and left handed humans. Primates use the same area to recognize written symbols.”
I saw something the other day where they had located the area of the brain connected with writing, and it was in the very same area as the human speech center. The thinking about why they were colocated was that humans first communicated by gesturing with the hands, and then learned to talk later and the same brain area services both functions.
I have a loved one who had a stroke last year and the damage was centered in his speech area, so I found it interesting that his writing ability was also located there.
Reading the brain. Well worth a watch.
So Pamela, I have to ask where ideas such as “the new math” in the 60’s or “whole language English” in the 80’s came from if they were not scientifically derived. If they were so derived, how did that garbage get past the gatekeepers? It seems to me as a student evolved to a parent that the lunatics, even the “scientific” ones are running the asylum. The curriculum is mediocre (not sufficiently demanding) , and is taught by much,much more mediocre teachers. I know in the U.S. teachers aren’t paid that well, but they are well paid in Canada and the results are not significantly better.
Russian advances in engineering (aka Sputnik) caused a re-look at our mediocre math program. The “New Math” was simply an attempt to increase its rigor, asking teachers and children to step up to more difficult concepts that went beyond (but included) memorizing math facts.
Whole Language was a concept thought accurate before MRI’s came along. Dr. Dehaene speaks to that issue in several of his lectures and research. Because good readers seemed to instantaneously read words, it was felt that decoding and instant reading were two different processes, with instant reading superior to decoding. Brain research now shows that both decoding and instant reading occur in the same exact area of the brain. It is theorized that in good readers, letter-sound pathways fire at the same time for all parts of the word, making it look like whole language reading.
Research not only discovers new things, it corrects previous misunderstandings. That is its normal course. I would be far more worried about a stagnate understanding of how things work, than one constantly evolving.
Pamela Gray wrote “The New Math was simply an attempt to increase its rigor, asking teachers and children to step up to more difficult concepts that went beyond (but included) memorizing math facts.”
As practiced here in the mountain west memorizing math facts has been abandoned. Common Core is even worse in that regard. My daughter was taught something called the “Egyptian method” of division which is woefully inadequate and unnecessarily complicated, but designed for people that never learned addition facts and the “times table”.
“Whole Language was a concept thought accurate before MRI’s came along.”
Leading and bleeding a whole generation of Americans that can read only words they have memorized, but even then they cannot memorize a word that has not been revealed to them. It’s a catch-22. One fellow at church had no problem reading “repentance” but got stuck on “wine”; he had no idea what the letters w, i, n, e in that combination and order meant or sounded like.
But he wasn’t actually “reading” the word “repentance”. It is just a shape to him, a pattern of ascenders, descenders and its length. It might as well be a Chinese pictogram.
[https]://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification
To read English, you memorize the sounds of the 26 letters; it’s a bit more complicated than that but nothing like memorizing Chinese characters. “Roughly 600 Chinese characters are pictograms (象形 xiàng xíng, “form imitation”) — stylised drawings of the objects they represent.”
“Literacy requires the memorization of a great many characters: educated Chinese know about 4,000.”
[https]://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese
(IMO:) People that actually read words tend to enjoy reading books. Those that don’t, don’t.
I had a geometry teacher in high school back in the ’50s, early ’60s that had a friend on the board that was developing the new math. Apparently the first work they did was to redesign plane geometry. For the first semester he taught us from notes he received as they were developing the course.. It started with 15 undefined terms. From those it defined more term, then stated postulates and proved theorems. It was fun developing a clear, precise language.
The second semester we had to go back to the text book. But the language of the text was so imprecise it drove us nuts trying to understand what it was trying to say. We found we had to refer back to the proof of a theorem and then translate it to the language of the new math before we could understand it. I still to this day find it difficult interpreting much of the spoken and written English.
Wow. As a counter argument against Mr. Ball, I am dumber for having read this article. More science based education would be great. However, it is well documented that learning and acting on that knowledge is very strongly related to emotional connections. The “environmental religion” as Mr. Ball calls it simply taps into that part of the human experience to effect their desired ends.
Representing science as only the scientific method is also extremely short sighted. Science is so much more. Like the work of Dr. Mann or not, global climate change, and specifically warming is simple math. More energy coming into our atmosphere than leaving equals higher temperatures. Higher temperatures equal expansion of most materials.
Ironic that the denier (skeptic) is using the same deceptions he accuses others of using to promote his own agenda.
B. Rehm says:
More energy coming into our atmosphere than leaving equals higher temperatures.
Global temperatures remained flat or declined for most of the past twenty years.
Sorry for the failure of your conjecture.
Warming alone does not prove humans are contributing. For that you need models, amplifications, etc, etc, etc, all which contain uncertainty and often fail to accurately predict. Or really a good theory based on observations alone, which is going to be difficult since most of science seems to believe statistics and models are reality. Reducing climate science to “it’s getting warmer because more energy comes in than leaves” means nothing except it’s getting warmer.
Except that Earth’s climate depends on short and long term energy imbalances whereby more energy is stored [exhausted] than exhausted [stored], thus creating the necessary pendulum energy to keep an atmosphere around. A constant equilibrium system would eventually die out.
“global climate change, and specifically warming is simple math”
Wow. Talk about dumb. If only, and you wish. Maybe try reading.
“… I am dumber for having read this article…”
Doesn’t sound like getting dumber is possible.
“…Like the work of Dr. Mann or not, global climate change, and specifically warming is simple math…”
That sentence required simple grammar, and you botched it royally.
“…More energy coming into our atmosphere than leaving equals higher temperatures…”
That’s not really the issue. The issue is how much of an effect man has on warming/climate, what level causes problems, what means of action to take (or not), etc. The narrative of global warming/climate change skeptics isn’t that man can never influence climate with greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a strawman argument raised time-and-time again.
“…Ironic that the denier (skeptic) is using the same deceptions he accuses others of using to promote his own agenda…”
Geez, now the Holocaust “denier” rhetoric comes out of your back-pocket. You’re a real winner.
B. Rehm,
How hilarious. You think that global climate change, “and specifically warming” is simple math? When you say things like that, I have to agree that it’s highly possible that you were as dumb as you could possibly be before you read the article.
“More energy coming into our atmosphere than leaving equals higher temperatures. Higher temperatures equal expansion of most materials.”
Well that sure does sound simple! So by all means, PLEASE present the “simple math” from which you determined with undeniable accuracy that there was “more energy coming into our atmosphere than leaving it”. We’d all LOVE to see it.
Well B Rehm, if you’d rather have a simple, but incorrect analysis from a known liar, then you should stick with that. If I draw you a straight line attached to an even simpler lie, would I win?
Thank you for your corroborating evidence that science and logic are not being taught adequately.
@ur momisugly B. Rehm: Your self-admitted dumbness is duly noted, as is your feeble attempt at a put-down of Dr Ball by referring to him as plain Mr.
When discussing the state of education one needs to look at what is being taught today. That is the level of complexity or depth of the material, in Jr. HS, HS, and College.
I retired as a manager in nuclear engineering at a nuclear power plant 10 years ago. Recently I was looking at taking one of the “free” MIT on-line courses to keep my mind occupied. Reviewing the course outline and the text, I was flabbergasted. This upper level course (junior/senior) in Chemistry looked just like the course I had in HS. At first I thought Hav I remember that much? I had the old HS text as it was given away because the school was purchasing new texts. I dug out the Chemistry book,1950 publishing date, and the depth of fundamentals was noticeably higher. The only thing the MIT course offered was more topics. Thus Less Depth and More Topics. Wondering what was going on so I looked at the Physics courses. In 1962 I was taking Physics for my Engineering requirements. The text used was “Modern College Physics” by Richards, Sears, Wehr, and Zemansky, 1019 pages, and we covered it all! Look for it on the internet. Compare it to the pablum offered as physics today. I even compared the level with math courses at two universities nearby – same downgrading.
My sister is professor at a college in FL. Upon noting the downgrading of complexity I asked her what gives? Am I imaging this? Are the courses easier today than 50 years ago? Her reply was [paraphrased – not exact words] “You are absolutely right. Not only are they easier, essentially every student passes. Mid terms and finals are often take-home and done as a group – nothing is said about the fact that 8 – 10 papers are all exactly alike!” She had been informed that “We are teaching them to learn, not knowledge. And, in the work place you will normally work in groups. Why is working together on an exam any different than working together on a report need by the company” [Her managements attitude/words, not hers.] She also added that she teaches an “AP” Biology and “AP” Science course at the nearby HS. And like me has observed that the Biology course is at the exact same level as the Biology course that was required at our HS for all “Pre-College” students. The only thing that was added was that they bisected a frog.
So basically, Education, Grade School, HS, College, in an effort to be more inclusive, diverse and available to all has been dumbed down to the point that you now get the equivalent of a 1950 – 60’s High School College Prep education in your first year of College. Note that (most) US High Schools no longer have two or three tracks. That is College-Prep, Business, and Technical (blue collar) any more. All are trained as if they are going to college. Makes no difference it their IQ is 80 or 180, they all get treated equally – that is all get trained at the level of the slowest [Other words are more appropriate but not used so as to not get censored.]
Soon, the SIFY story of the robots taking over will be true, and the population will be to d..b to do anything about it.
here is insight into big part of the problem you present in the U.S. –
http://thefederalist.com/2016/05/11/how-common-core-fulfills-hillary-clintons-education-dreams/
not just Shrillary’s dreams, but liberal dumbing down for control
Common Core standards do not dumb down educational levels. In fact they reverse it. They just don’t reverse it back to the 1910’s when few children made it to the 8th grade exit exam. And your article refers to a curriculum mandate. Common Core is not curriculum. There is nothing in the standards that speak about curriculum. Unless you are a highly trained theoretical teacher (Masters or higher in learning theory and pedagogy), you must have in front of you some kind of store-bought curriculum published by just a few textbook publishers in order to get your students to the point of being able to demonstrate mastery. Else crickets will chirp and kids will start throwing spit wads your way.
If I were an administrator, I would embrace Common Core but I would turn a skeptical eye on store bought curriculum, instead insisting that my staff be well-trained Masters or above instructors versed in neuroanatomy, learning theory, student engagement practices, pedagogy, and the use of valid and reliable measures of mastery.
I’d feel a whole lot better about this if educators framed it rather than Governors.
I too am an educator …
The dumbing-down started with grade-inflation at places like Harvard, Stanford, and Cal during the Vietnam War.
To defend some college courses: covering more topics does mean less depth all other things equal…except that at the college-level, the student is expected to operate more independently. You can’t have it both ways – complaining a college course uses the same text as a high school course, then complaining the college course covers more material than the high school course.
You are correct that too many high schools treat their students as college-bound. Many cities have gone to “magnet” programs to solve the issue of “tracks”…elite college-bound students go to one, trade students to another, arts to another, etc.
I’m not sure about the U.S. but in Canada high schools education is full of “electives”, while senior algebra, chemistry and physics are noncompulsory. Thus, when students of modest ability (everybody gets a chance), arrive at university, the education has to start from behind.
@Michael, point of clarification.
You said –>> You can’t have it both ways – complaining a college course uses the same text as a high school course, then complaining the college course covers more material than the high school course.
I said –>>
I dug out the Chemistry book,1950 publishing date, and the depth of fundamentals was noticeably higher. The only thing the MIT course offered was more topics. Thus Less Depth and More Topics.
I was an instructor in the Navy. With the implementation of Transistors, one of my assignment was to develop a 4 week course (8 hours a day) on “Advanced Transistor Theory” for non-college, HS diploma only Sailors. The aim was to give them the knowledge needed to troubleshoot and repair the new transistorized equipment. Basically, I took an existing college level course (text used at UConn at the time) and developed lesson plans and training material and help from an Army Technical manual with out the calculus. Thus the course was taught using only Algebra and some Trigonometry. The colleges/universities haven’t decreased the level to that point, however, they sure are approaching that level. I noticed important, but difficult to understand/teach concepts are left out and not taught. That is my point of “Less Depth.” Often the student is given the knowledge of HOW it works, but not WHY it works that way.
“Soon, the SIFY story of the robots taking over will be true, and the population will be to d..b to do anything about it.”
More likey, soon the movie “Idiocracy” will become reality. It already is in Washington DC.
In the talks that I have given on the subject of climate, I have boiled it down to a conflict between facts and beliefs. Facts are based on the scientific method. Beliefs are too often based on consensus, another term for which is “everyone knows” (and unfortunately, they don’t).
Ian M
Ian McQueen,
That’s it exactly. It explains why skepticism is essential.
Believers are never skeptics. That would be a contradiction. Climate alarmists are never skeptics. If they were, they wouldn’t be climate alarmists.
And how exactly does science work?
George-
Here’s a brief overview of how science works. Enjoy!
http://www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html
The one minute video clip in this comment is to the point:
J. Philip Peterson May 15, 2016 at 5:34 am
“The key to science” by Richard Feynman
Based on Popper´s writings I would say:
What characterize the strive for knowledge, is the manner of trying to prove wrong, in every conceivable way, the theoretical system to be tested. The aim is not to save the lives of untenable systems but to expose them all to the fiercest struggle for survival. A system is corroborated by the possibility for proving it wrong and the severity of the tests it has been exposed to and survived – and not at all by inductive reasoning in favor of it.
I would recommend you to go to the source. The first 26 pages of the The logic of scientific discovery contains the essence of Karl Popper´s scientific method. It´s easy reading from the Master himself. Enjoy some soothing reading.
It would be nice to hear what you think of it. 🙂
Of course, lots of university students in the US in science, math, and engineering are from foreign nations. Some stay here when they’re done and others return overseas.
There is an university where I live that has an environmental science program. The program is chaired by an associate professor who also writes a science column in the local paper. Now the science column can be informative for a layman like me at times but gave up reading it for his constant AGW, CAGW bias.
Here part of the course outline,
The Environmental Science Bachelor of Science degree is an interdisciplinary degree in which students take a core curriculum along with an area of specialization. The core curriculum is designed to provide students with knowledge of the fundamental biological, chemical, physical and applied aspects integral to the field of environmental science. In addition, students receive exposure to many of the human dimensions that underlie environmental issues. This approach ensures a uniform preparation among students and allows for the development of a diversity of expertise necessary to address the complexity of present environmental problems and future unanticipated ones.
Did you notice this, “In addition, students receive exposure to many of the human dimensions that underlie environmental issues”. Would I not be correct in saying somewhat biased. They are training scientists in dogma.
My high school science class, around 1980, was really at an elementary school level. Several other classes were also at a very low level. The dumbing down of education was well under way by then.
On a separate topic, joelobryan May 15, 2016 at 8:37 am said;
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Government per se is not the problem, it is usually politics and religion practiced by the governing political class that interferes to create the problem of biased science.
Here in the US, our 1st Amendment bars the government from practising religion by forbidding the passage laws based on religions….
…What happens when a faith-based belief system comes along to control a society, but does not call itself a religion?
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The 1st amendment interpretation you offer is not the interpretation intended by its original authors of the establishment clause. Rather, you are referring to the re-definion of the words by the Supreme Court. The irony is that those who support the government’s establishment of the atheist faith in things like science curriculum, have the ability to do so, according to the original writers of the constitution. But, it manages to get other views excluded by the schools, by using the redefinition of the establishment clause.
-Joe Dunfee
It is past time for science to be a mandatory course at all educational levels. For all college students an introductory science course should be required that includes the history and philosophy of science as well as the basics of the scientific method (you know, the real one, that starts with ‘the scientific method works by disproof, not by proof). All science majors should be required to take a similar, but more intensive course.
Also,from the MasterResource website, a quote from Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
Key points:
1) What did Obama do in 8 years to improve education? Nothing.
2) What did Obama do regarding education? Ended the DC voucher program.
3) What happened to tuition over the past 8 years?
Facts are liberals have absolutely no answers or solutions for education because they are beholden to the very organizations that are destroying it.
Best way to improve education:
1) Hire experts to teach in their areas of expertise. No more teaching certificates. I have an MA and Dr degree and can not teach in the public school system, but I can and have taught at the universities.
2) Teachers must pass qualifying board exams. If they claim to be professionals, they should be held to professional standards.
3) Professionals don’t and can’t unionize.
4) Incentive pay for better teachers. Bad teachers get fired.
5) Teachers must show a population adjusted improvement for the students that they teach. Teachers that teach in bad neighborhoods would be compared to other teachers teaching the same children.
6) School choice is mandatory.
7) Proper metrics about each school and teacher would be published so parents can make informed decisions.
8) Public schools must be willing to lease unused property and rooms to private schools.
9) Cost saving mechanisms must be instilled in the system, where a parent that choose as less costly school can pocket some of the cash in a 529 college saving plan. The private school my son attends costs 1/3 of what is spent on the public schools. If you gave me a $15,000 voucher, I would spend $5,000 on the better private school, $5,000 could be returned to the State/Local Gov’t, and $5,000 could go into a 529 College Savings Account for my son. That is now obscene the spending on public schools is. You can literally pay for a college education with the waste spent in the public school system, and the education they provide is pure garbage.
For college costs: No college or university increasing the total cost of tuition and mandatory fees more than the CPI of the previous year will be allowed to participate in the government student loan program for five years.
If something is “free’ on a nationwide level, then some are profiting in someway. (“Profit” isn’t always measured in dollars and cents.)
And what science are they being taught? Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” with any rebuttal being failed?
I don’t know. Do you?
PS I remember in grade school back in the 60’s (vaguely) an article about Finland with it’s scarce resources turning to recycling on a major scale.
Mr. Ball,
First, I think this, like the many presentations I’ve read (or watched) of yours, is excellent. Thank you.
“Climate skeptics struggle with getting the majority of people to understand the problems with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) anthropogenic global warming (AGW) story.”
It seems to me, nobody special, that part of that difficulty stems from terminology used as “shorthand”, to describe those who are skeptical of there being a climate crisis, as alleged by the UN. Folks keep hearing that some people deny or are skeptical of climate, when in truth, it’s the crisis aspect that those some (most here) are skeptical of.
According to polling I have seen, so are the vast majority of people at large, since concern about climate change consistently ranks at or near the bottom, when people are presented with a list of potential concerns. That, to me, indicates folks in general are skeptical that there is a climate crisis.
Therefor, I suggest you (we) insert the word ‘crisis’ into the shorthand label (or just use ‘skeptics’ when using it mid discussion, as you did in that sentence I quoted). This would, perhaps, get some unconcerned people to realize they are, by definition, also climate crisis skeptics . . .
I teach geology classes at 3 different colleges to non-science majors. I have a sneaky way of teaching them some basic chemistry, math, and physics that they need for some of their lab exercises. They actually pay attention and get macho about it. When I teach climate change, I use some of John Coleman’s slides 🙂 – I start with “How did all this global warming stuff start in the US?” When I teach energy resources – I draw from Donn Dears book, “Nothing to Fear” and I teach them how to evaluate energy resources from an “economics” point of view. Face it, non-science majors will never get into the nitty gritty of science training. It turns them off. But you can get them into thinking about certain topics in a more comprehensive way.
Unfortunately, teaching jobs have become so political and the big trend that I see lately is for schools to get federal money for “sustainability” classes and “green” projects on campus. Science departments are keen on getting into that. I think we should steer clear of adding more fuel to the fire. Luckily for me, I can always refer back to “what do we see in the rock record?” and I keep the politically charged issues light. The students make posters on the theme of energy, mineral, and water resources of our state and they find out how much fluff there is out there. I even have them reading their electric bills (though I don’t tell them to) and they know the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours.
loisannjohnson,
Teachers like you give me hope.
You might want to teach some basics of United Nations Agenda 21. Look up Rosa Koire…
The limited frame of reference encouraged by the scientific method is constraining and inconvenient. The conflation of logical domains and intellectual processes has progressed with each generation.
And it’s responsible for most human progress.
“The limited frame of reference encouraged by the scientific method is constraining and inconvenient.”
Not as constraining and inconvenient as the results of creating policy based on misconception. Bringing down civilization because it’s too inconvenient to think or to ask questions is no rational solution.
The first one to find out that poor children could be taught advanced mathematics–and cheaply at that–was Joseph Lancaster in the slums of London in the mid-1800’s. His secret was getting the kids to do most of the work by working in groups together, with a reward system not so different from today’s stickers. This became the basis of the American One-room schoolhouse that once made America the greatest country on Earth. With the replacement of this system with the current usual “Taylorian” sysetem, starndards declined, not only in academics, but discipline, Socialization in the best sense of that word, and civic character. A great deal of what is wrong with America (and even Europe) today can be found in that change.
An excellent 3-page introduction can be found at http://www.constitution.org/col/one_room_schoolhouse.htm
Feminist Glaciology:
https://www.google.at/search?q=anita+ekberg&oq=anita+e&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.13936j0j4&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
aka Anita Eisberg
Henry Bauer argues that what students need to understand science as citizens is not science courses, but courses in the sociology of science, otherwise known as STS–Science and Technology Studies.
Thanks to a singularly persuasive geography lecturer at an adult education college in the eighties, I was a true believer in man-made global warming. My epiphany occurred a few years ago when I realised that not only was I actually in possession of the information needed to disprove the theory but that I had known this for over forty years. When I was a boy, I had read the Icelandic, so I knew that the Norse had grown crops in Greenland which do not grow there now because it is too cold. Therefore, it was warmer then than it is now. From Peter Connolly’s discussion of where Hannibal crossed the Alps (with its citation of H Hubert Lamb’s work on the snowline) I knew that it was warmer in Roman times than it is now. Archaelogical work showing that the Romans grew vines as far north as what is now Lincoln in England, where they don’t grow now, confirm that it is colder now than it was then.
I had had all this information for decades yet failed to make the connection because I had compartmentalised ‘science’ and ‘literature’ and ‘history’ etc in separate little boxes in my mind. When I broke free of this box mentality, I was easily able to understand John L Daly’s ‘The Hockey Stick: A New Low in Climate Science’.
My point is, we do not all need to be ‘climate scientists’ to understand what is happening, or what is possible or not possible. But we do need an approach to education that widens the frames of reference in which we consider science. For example, somebody above suggested that Mathematics is an art, as well as a science.
Well, consider the two times table. Is this not a poem displaying a perfect example of the artistic technique of incremental repetition whereby as in each verse one item is altered, the conclusion to that verse is changed?
Consider an algebraic formula, eg: a2 + b2 = c2
Yes, it is Pythagoras’ Theorem, but is it not also the instructions for drawing a picture?
For most people, I suspect it is this box mentality that is the problem.
It would be sufficient if it was widely understood that science can disprove bad guesses, but never prove good ones. “I knew from the start that the goal was to ‘prove’ the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, not to disprove it.” so that goal is doubly hopeless — proving a bad guess.