From the College Fix:
Professors tell students: Drop class if you dispute man-made climate change
‘We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change’
Three professors co-teaching an online course called “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs recently told their students via email that man-made climate change is not open for debate, and those who think otherwise have no place in their course.
“The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,” states the email, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix by a student in the course.
Signed by the course’s professors Rebecca Laroche, Wendy Haggren and Eileen Skahill, it was sent after several students expressed concern for their success in the course after watching the first online lecture about the impacts of climate change.
“Opening up a debate that 98% of climate scientists unequivocally agree to be a non-debate would detract from the central concerns of environment and health addressed in this course,” the professors’ email continued.
“… If you believe this premise to be an issue for you, we respectfully ask that you do not take this course, as there are options within the Humanities program for face to face this semester and online next.”
More here: http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28825/
Just look at these people. The class is taught by professors in Genetic engineering, English (with old cooking recipe collections), and Sociology/Social Justice.
Brilliant minds, all, which probably explains why they couldn’t even get the much regurgitated 97% consensus correct, and instead say 98%.
Rich McKee’s cartoon from yesterday needs to be updated:
students who choose to use outside sources for research during their time in the course may select only those that have been peer-reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the email states.
That’s hilarious. One of the best tactics to take with alarmists is to quote directly from the IPCC reports which themselves contradict most of the alarm. If I were to take this course, I could tie them in knots simply by quoting from their own approved source.
There is also the point , which may increase the contradictions that you refer to , that the latest IPCC reports were issued in 2013 (climate science aspects) and 2014 ( impacts, adaption and vulnerability) , and new papers are coming in since then at the rate of , what ? , scores per month .
What kind of university , what breed of teacher, discourages looking at new work . I wonder what paroxysms of rage would result if an incautious pupil brought up the following news snippet noticed on “notrickszone”:
__
“Dominating Factor”…Leading Warmist Climatologist Concedes Natural Oceanic Cycles Directly Related To Troposphere Temperature
By P Gosselin on 31. August 2016
Renowned climate scientist Prof. Mojib Latif used to often appears on television, radio and speeches all over Germany to spread the word of an impending human-made climate catastrophe.
(Hat-tip Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt)
One of the highlights of Latif’s many appearances was the CO2 “fingerprint” in the atmosphere, which according to Latif is supposed to confirm the greenhouse effect. Up in the stratosphere it is supposed to cool because heat would be trapped by CO2 in the troposphere below. This of course always impressed his gullible audiences.
Profound reversal. However, it now appears that the distinguished German scientist is now changing his mind profoundly. In a recent press release he and his fellow co-scientists in Kiel, Germany, conceded that the cooling is likely more a part of the 60-year PDO ocean cycle.
__
As soon as the word “troposphere” was uttered, these three so-called sociologists’ eyes would glaze over, and you would be silenced, if not dismissed, for “obfuscation” and “sophistry”. Because “98%”.
Alums of a certain age start getting regular requests from their schools to leave them $$ in our wills.
If my schools support nonsense like this, I just tell them to go pound sand. And I tell them why.
Mizzou alums have done that, and the school is now reeling, economically and by reputation. Let’s hope it’s a trend.
A similar situation?
Decades ago in a university evolution course, on the first day the prof made an announcement that he recognized that there may be students present who might not believe in evolution. Still, he expected all students to answer the examinations using the information as taught in the class. If it made the students feel better, they were permitted to write the simple statement at the top of the exam words to the effect, “I do not believe in evolution, etc.” But then answer all the evolution questions as taught.
Were the students permitted to challenge data that supported evolution during class?
The best I can say for this is that it isn’t labelled a science course.
So back in the 1970’s I was forced to take a class on religion at my undergrad school, because it was a southern liberal arts school. Interestingly, the professor said on the first day that he didn’t expect you to believe the material, but you had to remember it obviously to get a passing grade! Many religions were discussed in the class.
This seems a little like that. Learn the material that is not open to theological debate. Climate science as religion!
I propose to teach a course on the effects on the weather of witchcraft. If you do not accept that witches exist and can affect the weather, please do not take this course.
/Mr Lynn
There are a lot of things wrong with our college education today. One of those things is that we push students into college who would be far more productive and probably far happier if they were taught
a manual skill. Instead our education system treats skilled labor with contempt and we end up bringing craftsmen (craftspeople?) in from overseas.
Then we put some people into college with limited learning ability and dumb down the courses for them.
Then we graduate more people than there are jobs available and saddle many of those people with terrible debt.
Can we start a trend to teach masonry, carpentry, plumbing, electrical skills, etc in our middle and high schools and treat those who succeed in those fields with respect?
Gee, AllanJ…
“Can we start a trend to teach masonry, carpentry, plumbing, electrical skills, etc in our middle and high schools and treat those who succeed in those fields with respect?”
…that sounds like my old local Township school of the ’60s. They did have an academic track for people with the intellect to handle college level coursework as well as the trades track. I know fellow classmates that took the standard general educational track that learned more than most college graduates of today have learned. What is now college was high school stuff back when.
I guess it’s Back to The Future.
I remember the beginnings of political correctness and things have gotten much much worse. We are now in the era of trigger warnings and micro-aggression. Literally anything can result in a complaint and the gormless university administration will never support the professor. In fact, because of kafkatrapping, guilt is the only possible verdict.
Imagine my joy as I discover that things are turning around.
The University of Chicago has canceled trigger warnings and intellectual safe spaces.
The University of Windsor (in Canada) has canceled its Social Justice program.
If the link is to be believed, Professor Gad Saad (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) has been able to say the following without getting fired:
Dawn is a trigger warning.
=====
Professors Ms. Yeast Engineer, Ms. Shakespeare, and Ms. Social Justice Warrior can all go to hell. Actually now I think of it, anyone who wants to discuss climate change in their pointless little sparrowfart course is probably already on-board with the hysteria AND has their placards painted up for the next student debt-forgiveness protest march.
That said Bob, the three snippets you posted gave me hope, thanks for that.
Personally, I am offended by the implication that I, as a female student, cannot survive university without a special lounge. Women have outnumbered men at universities (overall) for decades. If anything, men need a man cave. They are a minority!!!
Those stupid centers are blackholes of waste that suck money from real collegiate needs.
Don’t forget, the only folks not part of diversity are white straight males. We were excommunicated for having in- considerately and with malice aforethought created the Age of Enlightenment, the scientific method, the industrial revolution, the technological revolution… as an effrontery to everyone else.
All tools of oppression; we need the people more attached to the land.
============
Bob,
I agree. Maybe things are turning around. I just hope it’s not too late. It’s a shame academia has to reach the point of total absurdity before a small flicker of common sense starts to take root. I just hope that letter John Ellison, the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago sent out last week was the result of that flicker rather than in response to letters of complaint from alumni and parents. It does make you wonder how so many supposedly intelligent people can fall so far down the rabbit hole before realization strikes.
commiebob – thank you SOOOOOO MUCH for the article on Kafkatrapping. Liberal fascists have been using this technique on me, and forewarned is forearmed.
Private funding sponsors a visiting “Conservative Thought and Policy” scholars program at C.U. with a new appointee each year. http://www.colorado.edu/cwctp/conservative-thought-policy
The first visiting Scholar in CT&P was Steven Hayward (2013-14). He taught Constitutional Law 1 and 2 plus a course in American Political Thought — and one in environmental studies, called Free-Market Environmentalism. I listened to an interview with him shortly after he finished his tour of duty, and it seemed pretty apparent that he had not only held his own with students, using wit and humor, but was a fairly popular, if anomalous presence among students on campus. Among professors, I suspect he was just a token gadfly.
The program continues, bringing one conservative scholar each year.
Sigh…
That says a lot about the environment on campus when they have to import one conservative thinker a year just to familiarize the local cadre with that ‘aberration’. I would suppose that they are very selective in both the subject and the scholar invited. They would not want someone that might cause them to question the accepted doctrine.
Colorado Public Radio interviewed Hayward in 2013, prior to his assignment.
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/cu-boulder-appoints-first-professor-conservative-thought
Worth listening to the whole, but, on his AGW position (considers himself a “luke-warmer”), you may get the gist at the seven-minute mark.
Thanks Bill. I’ll try to catch it this evening.
Since Rebecca Laroche’s area of expertise is texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the age of Shakespeare), and she is involved in recipies/cooking, I sent her this email:
Hello Rebecca Laroche,
(Subject):
Since this is the area of your expertise, I thought you might be interested in this short video/lecture by Dr. Baliunas covering the same period of your studies:
Best Regards,
J Philip Peterson
Oops, the “Subject” was included in the email: Regarding your class on “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” (forgot to paste it above)…
good on you;-)
my jaw dropped when shakespeare and cooking manages to get some dipstick a job teaching under Medical Humanities
which itself has me wondering why? a course like this CAN get funded and taught
Very nice post.
These examples of society punishing those who deviate from group think are fascinating. Similarly the Soviet Union was known to put those who objected to Communism into Mental Hospitals. I believe (not my specialty) that excommunication was more often used to punish evil thought than evil deeds.
Group think is honored as much today as ever. That is strange in an era which worships “diversity”.
Nothing like three wimmin dictating their delusions to the younger generations…
If these professors had been around in the Middle Ages, we’d still be believing that the earth is flat. Where has rigorous science, skepticism and debate gone in our academia? I once had a professor who love to have people in his class disagree with him because he loved the stimulation of the exchange of thoughts and ideas. Shameful and quite sad.
Most people only shut down debate when they are not confident in their own knowledge or belief. Contrary facts and opinions are not permitted. Deep thought is something to be feared.
Ok, so let’s start with the premise that it’s manmade and real. Can students contest the point that it’s a huge problem? Or that’s is not as rapide as told? That sentitivity is lower? Less hurricanes? Beneficial is some ways? That islands are not sinking? When you accept GW, what do you accept really?
Exactly. There seems to be an ON/Off switch, whereby if it is real and in part anthropogenic, it is a crisis. I am a 97%er, I just feel the magnitude of the anthropogenic portion is small, closer to an academic curiosity than a problem.
Hillary would probably like to make one of these professors Secretary of Education. Hopefully she won’t get the opportunity.
More importantly than any of these concerns, how do I get a job that pays me to collect recipes?
See… Trade school ads for ‘become a Chef’
Steve, Steve, Steve,
Her job was to collect recipes, not to invent recipes, nor to use them in making culinary dishes. All she does is collect them, which certainly does not require any kind of training or education.
It is totally bizarre that the trio find it necessary to issue a taboo against climate skeptics. It may be an untestable premise, but I’ll lay odds that such a ham-handed declaration actually propels more students to consider opposing points of view. The good news is that there are must be enough doubters out there that these nitwits have to deal a preemptive strike to keep them at bay.
This is interesting. I’m a student at UCCS (my major will go unstated but its not in these departments) I always assumed that UCCS was a pretty conservative school since we have a large student libertarian and republican contingent. I haven’t had any of these professors so I cant comment on their character. I will say that when I took Geology from the GES (geology and environmental studies) department that there was a strong pressure to conform to the consensus but alternative viewpoints were allowed in a post class anonymous survey. The “sustainability office” does have quit a bit of pull in school affairs and managed to get bottled water banned from sale on campus which is annoying for people who forget water bottles sometimes. I never expected to wake up to two of my daily reads talking about my school. I find many of my peers to be intelligent critical thinkers that simply keep their opinions to themselves. You get all types too since enrollment has been increasing substantially these past years. Maybe UCCS should consider solving its parking problems before telling its students what to think. Just my two cents.
“I find many of my peers to be intelligent critical thinkers that simply keep their opinions to themselves.”
Think of how much better the education experience would be if everyone were permitted, even encouraged to express and debate their opinions.
I only now do recall getting talked down to by a physics professor for expressing a dissenting opinion on global warming when I first started taking classes. At the time my peers said that I “shouldn’t question the professor.” It shocked me at first but I realized that its wise to know when to pick your battles. Like i said you do get all types though so there are some highly militant students (and teachers apparently if this and trumps visit to the campus have proved anything) but I find that Colorado springs is a strongly conservative town still. It does bother me that I should have to keep my views quiet and that i’m considered “fringe” for having them.
RedComet –
It’s great to have students coming to WUWT. Welcome.
Contrary to popular belief not all of us millennials are lazy brainwashed socialists incapable of individual or critical thought though I cant fault anyone for thinking that way considering what makes the news. I found my skepticism at a pretty young ageand I have been reading this site and many other related sites since.
The politics of Colorado Springs in general are overwhelmingly conservative/libertarian, and UCCS is still a mostly commuter school. As a result, your assessment is is not a surprise. The engineering department is certainly not about safe spaces, I can guarantee.
This must be how IPCC meetings start as well.
“The point of departure for this meeting is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be considered or discussed in this meeting.”
It’s nice to see that freedom of speech is alive and well at Colorado as is the desire for free and open discussion.
It is not as bad as the course on the poetic of Beyonce, but it is bad. The real question is why do the taxpayers have to pay the salaries of these ninnies, and subsidize the dissemination of what is apparently very thinly disguised political propaganda. It is about time to start defunding some of these places.
What the heck does “medical humanities in the digital age” have to do with climate change? OK, I got my degree a few years ago now, but it is only 10-15 years since I left academia and I can’t for the life of me remember such stupid titles for course – let alone titles quite so unrelated to the subject matter that the professors feel the need to prescribe what opinions will be valid for students who take the course?
In reading the research fields of the professors I still have no idea what they are doing running a course with this title.
Can someone tell me if this is what all US colleges are like these days?
OK, managed to find the course description and there is nothing to do with climate change mentioned. Quite why the professors should have felt it necessary to write to a prospective student about this escapes me.
The course itself looks pretty ridiculous to me (a mish-mash of alternative medicine, history of non-medical healing, on-line resources and modern social medical issues), but that is neither here nor there. I still don’t know why climate change is an issue for these professors?
Almost all colleges are in the business of collecting tuition and not just admitting students but retaining them. A few private universities, such as Harvard, have such huge endowments that they can guarantee that if you are admitted, you may attend, even if you need a full scholarship. In other cases, the retention business model has produced courses, programs, and entire degrees that are meant to get students in and keep them rather than teach and learn. This has caused many of the professors I worked with to question the ethics of “higher” education and many have taken retirement.
There is virtually zero content in any program named ______ studies. Those are just ads for students. Had a student (i was his adviser) who majored in “leisure studies”. He then learned to become a butcher and works in grocery store.
I posted a comment on “Can someone tell me if this is what all US colleges are like these days”? but it seems to have gone into the bit bucket. Check back and maybe it will appear.
So, (in the order in which tehy are listed above): the first is trying to figure out what ails her and how to get rid of it, the second still can’t figure out what’s for lunch, and the third just doesn’t have a clue… about much of anything.
When the CU Alumni office comes begging for money, I urge everyone to refuse and point to this course description.
Clearly they realize that their arguments in favour of CAGW will collapse under even basic questions from undergraduates. I think I agree with Scott McNealy – it’s time to eliminate tenure in universities.
Wow, do I feel bad for Skahill what an unfortunate choice of specialization. No wonder she doesn’t want to debate. It would be like spitting on her career choice. I kind of feel for these folks that have devoted their lives to making the world a better place, but having such poor guidance along the way.
They have no clue about the world.
I consider Rosling’s video as evidence that chimps evolved from US! 🙂