7 ms·

Portland school board bans climate change-denying materials

52 points by mactitan 10y ago

chipperyman573 10y ago
This purchase was unanimously approved by the school board. How do we let people like that get voted on to something so important?
- setra 10y ago
  It's Portland.
- jimktrains2 10y ago
  Which purchase are you talking about? > In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools. is the only mention of "unanimously approved" and "purchase" isn't even in the article.
  - Symmetry 10y ago
    I think he was referring to "A People’s Curriculum for the Earth", the book published by the person spearheading the measure, which it does look like they're going to be buying. The reporter seems to have asked Bigelow if the school would be buying it now and he talked around the question in a way that seemed to suggest the answer was yes.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  Reality generally don't cares about votes or feelings. It is good to align the curriculum with reality from time to time.
  - msandford 10y ago
    Reality -- or our understanding of it -- also is rarely a sure thing. Knowledge can often be imperfect. Attempting to deny that the skeptics have any good points at all often serves to embolden them. Semmelweis essentially discovered germ theory (or something close to it) but everyone knew he was wrong and as a result it took another 30 years or so before "unpreventable" deaths became preventable. How many people died because folks in charge just knew they were right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis The point here isn't that climate deniers are somehow right and that history will vindicate them, it's that pretending to know something absolutely often (frequently? nearly always?) makes you a charlatan.
    - themartorana 10y ago
      But when is it pretending? I can introduce you to holocaust deniers, do they have salient points? I bet I can find people that believe the Earth is the center of the universe and the Sun does rotate around us. There is no healthy skepticism in denying human participation in climate change. The efficacy of myriad proposed solutions are still out for discovery and debate, but that's where we should be accepting alternative viewpoints, not on whether or not human activity has any causality.
      - fleitz 10y ago
        These things are relatively easy to demonstrate with experiments. I went to a church that believed in a 10,000 year old earth but accepted 'micro-evolution' because it was so easy to demonstrate. (Note: You may safely put me in the climate change denier/skeptic, etc category, but I believe in evolution and old round earths, and vaccinate my kids) The problem with 'climate change' aka. 'observed warming is attributable to humans therefore we must start recycling, blah, blah, blah' is one it's mostly political, two, the science is not clear in a 'These are our predictions we passed the predictions', eg. it's clear the earth is warming, but it's also clear the computer models don't work, and it's really not clear what will happen if the warming continues, because a) we don't know how warm it will be, and b) we don't know what that warmth will do. When people say words like consensus instead of hypothesis you can tell they are having a political debate that involves science rather than a scientific debate that involves politics, in the exact same way that the intelligent design people do the same thing.
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  I recall Feynman having something about his experience on a textbook selection board for California public schools. I'll see if I can link an open access reference.
  - krastanov 10y ago
    Maybe this http://www.greenes.com/html/feynman.html http://www.greenes.com/html/feynman.html EDIT: or this directly from his biography http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - kaleidic 10y ago
    http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition. In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another. ... I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen. For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision. One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results. ... http://www.feynman.com/science/what-is-science/ http://www.feynman.com/science/what-is-science/ The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are. [But] you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says, “Science teaches such and such,” he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such,” you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?” It should not be “science has shown” but “this experiment, this effect, has shown.” And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments–but be patient and listen to all the evidence–to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at. In a field which is so complicated [as education] that true science is not yet able to get anywhere, we have to rely on a kind of old-fashioned wisdom, a kind of definite straightforwardness. I am trying to inspire the teacher at the bottom to have some hope and some self-confidence in common sense and natural intelligence. The experts who are leading you may be wrong. I have probably ruined the system, and the students that are coming into Caltech no longer will be any good. I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television–words, books, and so on–are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name.
kevinpet 10y ago
The science is pretty clear on co2 causing global warming. The economics of the urgency and advisability of any particular intervention are less clear. The moral assumptions underlying "climate justice" are pretty unclear to me and don't seem to be an appropriate area for a government agency to be legislating what they deem the truth to be. Be careful you don't get too happy when the government compels a point of view you happen to agree with, because once you hand over decisions about truth to a political body, it's hard to claw it back.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  As long as it's only [action, that I agree with] applied to [current understanding, that I agree with] of [current issue, that I agree with], it's not a big deal! It's not like a [government entity] would apply this to something like [other issue]! People forget that when the [other side] is elected, they'll do the same thing but in the opposite direction.
- wrsh07 10y ago
  This isn't the government compelling a viewpoint. Imagine if there were people who insisted the moon were made of cheese. You wouldn't frown upon their views not being "heard" in public schools because it's bullshit. No, schools don't need to teach every hypothesis. The scientific community should consider them and arrive at a consensus. It has. Many years ago. Schools should teach about that process and the end result. There is very little ambiguity on this issue.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Anthropogenic global warming isn't anywhere nearly as well established as the moon not being made of cheese. In fact, the the only thing we really know right now is that the existing models are all wrong. All of them. Wrong. Not one matches the observed data for the last 20 years. So, no, the science isn't "settled".
  - 10y ago
elgabogringo 10y ago
"In board testimony, Bigelow said PPS’ science textbooks are littered with words like might, may and could when talking about climate change." Skepticism in science? Unacceptable!
- stdbrouw 10y ago
  Would you accept a geography text that explains to your kids that the world may be round and that the evidence suggests that the earth is not the center of the universe?
  - fleitz 10y ago
    I would accept one that cited the IPCC report noting a warming hiatus for the last 15 years :)
  - whatshisface 10y ago
    I'd support that. Elememtary textbooks contain almost exclusively the seminal theories that we are very sure about. If we expressed our certianty there, kids might get the idea that all of science is similarly so. In science, "the evidence suggests..." is a very high seal of approval. I'd place more emphasis on making them understand that than I would on adding a few nines to their certianty that the earth is round.
    - stdbrouw 10y ago
      Can't say I know what the US curriculum is mostly like, but I was taught about the Bohr atomic model before learning about how they figured out why it wasn't exactly right and we talked about how Newtonian physics was superseded by relativistic physics. There are better ways to express the scientific ethos than to just prefix every statement with "maybe".
  - tomp 10y ago
    Any other formulation is disingenuous. We don't know that the Earth is the center of the universe. Hell, even Elon Musk said we might be in a simulation a few days ago! Ideally, you should also tell the kids which evidence suggests a theory. Elon Musk: The chance we are not living in a computer simulation is 'one in billions' http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-virtual-reality-a7060941.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
jamiesonbecker 10y ago
Immediately after the school board meeting, residents were invited to a CO2-free book burning and BBQ.
mrmondo 10y ago
As someone not from the states I was genuinely surprised to see that non-science was potentially preached in schools for such well proven topics such as this. For genuinely debatable scientific theories sure I understand but this was a bit of a jarring realisation.
- vegabook 10y ago
  oh, because science that is "proven" is indisputable... You understand that humans are fallible, right, including when it comes to "proof"? Just go read Thomas Kuhn again.
  - stdbrouw 10y ago
    I must have missed that section where Kuhn explains that fallible evidence is worthless and that everyone should just believe what they want.
    - vegabook 10y ago
      You obviously missed the point that all scientific paradigms, which, when they are in force, are full of all sorts of "proofs", but are ultimately just human constructs, fallible, and, history shows, vulnerable to being overturned and thereafter ridiculed, over and over again.
- Fiahil 10y ago
  I was equally surprised when I learned that creationism was also subject to debate in american public schools. In France, this would draw some major criticism, even in private catholic schools where they are allowed to talk about it but genuinely stick to the state syllabus.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- wrsh07 10y ago
  Sadly, the issue has become quite politicized, and that means that millions throw their support for a cause without evidence.
user_0001 10y ago
lol, only in the US would this be a big deal.
- kaleidic 10y ago
  Pattern prediction is one thing. But what happens when your model is both unrealistic in ways that some people think matters and doesn't predict the shape of things in the future well at all ? (Anyone can fit the past)...
Harry101 10y ago
So many people are going to feel stupid, and just as many will say they knew all along there was nothing to it.
kstrauser 10y ago
Don't... read the comments. Just don't.
- abjorn 10y ago
  I wish I had taken your advice...
ta0967 10y ago
403 - This request is blocked by Admin Tools. Please change this message in the component's options. same when going to http://portlandtribune.com/ http://portlandtribune.com/ what's up?
Turing_Machine 10y ago
I note that the Portland school library system offers both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. Exposing fragile young minds to those is just fine, apparently. (I searched at the Roosevelt Library, if anyone wants to check)

52 points by mactitan 10y ago

This purchase was unanimously approved by the school board. How do we let people like that get voted on to something so important?

setra 10y ago
It's Portland.
jimktrains2 10y ago
Which purchase are you talking about? > In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools. is the only mention of "unanimously approved" and "purchase" isn't even in the article.
- Symmetry 10y ago
  I think he was referring to "A People’s Curriculum for the Earth", the book published by the person spearheading the measure, which it does look like they're going to be buying. The reporter seems to have asked Bigelow if the school would be buying it now and he talked around the question in a way that seemed to suggest the answer was yes.
venomsnake 10y ago
Reality generally don't cares about votes or feelings. It is good to align the curriculum with reality from time to time.
- msandford 10y ago
  Reality -- or our understanding of it -- also is rarely a sure thing. Knowledge can often be imperfect. Attempting to deny that the skeptics have any good points at all often serves to embolden them. Semmelweis essentially discovered germ theory (or something close to it) but everyone knew he was wrong and as a result it took another 30 years or so before "unpreventable" deaths became preventable. How many people died because folks in charge just knew they were right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis The point here isn't that climate deniers are somehow right and that history will vindicate them, it's that pretending to know something absolutely often (frequently? nearly always?) makes you a charlatan.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    But when is it pretending? I can introduce you to holocaust deniers, do they have salient points? I bet I can find people that believe the Earth is the center of the universe and the Sun does rotate around us. There is no healthy skepticism in denying human participation in climate change. The efficacy of myriad proposed solutions are still out for discovery and debate, but that's where we should be accepting alternative viewpoints, not on whether or not human activity has any causality.
    - fleitz 10y ago
      These things are relatively easy to demonstrate with experiments. I went to a church that believed in a 10,000 year old earth but accepted 'micro-evolution' because it was so easy to demonstrate. (Note: You may safely put me in the climate change denier/skeptic, etc category, but I believe in evolution and old round earths, and vaccinate my kids) The problem with 'climate change' aka. 'observed warming is attributable to humans therefore we must start recycling, blah, blah, blah' is one it's mostly political, two, the science is not clear in a 'These are our predictions we passed the predictions', eg. it's clear the earth is warming, but it's also clear the computer models don't work, and it's really not clear what will happen if the warming continues, because a) we don't know how warm it will be, and b) we don't know what that warmth will do. When people say words like consensus instead of hypothesis you can tell they are having a political debate that involves science rather than a scientific debate that involves politics, in the exact same way that the intelligent design people do the same thing.
forgotpwtomain 10y ago
I recall Feynman having something about his experience on a textbook selection board for California public schools. I'll see if I can link an open access reference.
- krastanov 10y ago
  Maybe this http://www.greenes.com/html/feynman.html http://www.greenes.com/html/feynman.html EDIT: or this directly from his biography http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- kaleidic 10y ago
  http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition. In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another. ... I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen. For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision. One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results. ... http://www.feynman.com/science/what-is-science/ http://www.feynman.com/science/what-is-science/ The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are. [But] you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says, “Science teaches such and such,” he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such,” you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?” It should not be “science has shown” but “this experiment, this effect, has shown.” And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments–but be patient and listen to all the evidence–to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at. In a field which is so complicated [as education] that true science is not yet able to get anywhere, we have to rely on a kind of old-fashioned wisdom, a kind of definite straightforwardness. I am trying to inspire the teacher at the bottom to have some hope and some self-confidence in common sense and natural intelligence. The experts who are leading you may be wrong. I have probably ruined the system, and the students that are coming into Caltech no longer will be any good. I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television–words, books, and so on–are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name.

kevinpet 10y ago

The science is pretty clear on co2 causing global warming. The economics of the urgency and advisability of any particular intervention are less clear. The moral assumptions underlying "climate justice" are pretty unclear to me and don't seem to be an appropriate area for a government agency to be legislating what they deem the truth to be. Be careful you don't get too happy when the government compels a point of view you happen to agree with, because once you hand over decisions about truth to a political body, it's hard to claw it back.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
caseysoftware 10y ago
As long as it's only [action, that I agree with] applied to [current understanding, that I agree with] of [current issue, that I agree with], it's not a big deal! It's not like a [government entity] would apply this to something like [other issue]! People forget that when the [other side] is elected, they'll do the same thing but in the opposite direction.
wrsh07 10y ago
This isn't the government compelling a viewpoint. Imagine if there were people who insisted the moon were made of cheese. You wouldn't frown upon their views not being "heard" in public schools because it's bullshit. No, schools don't need to teach every hypothesis. The scientific community should consider them and arrive at a consensus. It has. Many years ago. Schools should teach about that process and the end result. There is very little ambiguity on this issue.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  Anthropogenic global warming isn't anywhere nearly as well established as the moon not being made of cheese. In fact, the the only thing we really know right now is that the existing models are all wrong. All of them. Wrong. Not one matches the observed data for the last 20 years. So, no, the science isn't "settled".
- 10y ago

elgabogringo 10y ago

"In board testimony, Bigelow said PPS’ science textbooks are littered with words like might, may and could when talking about climate change." Skepticism in science? Unacceptable!

stdbrouw 10y ago
Would you accept a geography text that explains to your kids that the world may be round and that the evidence suggests that the earth is not the center of the universe?
- fleitz 10y ago
  I would accept one that cited the IPCC report noting a warming hiatus for the last 15 years :)
- whatshisface 10y ago
  I'd support that. Elememtary textbooks contain almost exclusively the seminal theories that we are very sure about. If we expressed our certianty there, kids might get the idea that all of science is similarly so. In science, "the evidence suggests..." is a very high seal of approval. I'd place more emphasis on making them understand that than I would on adding a few nines to their certianty that the earth is round.
  - stdbrouw 10y ago
    Can't say I know what the US curriculum is mostly like, but I was taught about the Bohr atomic model before learning about how they figured out why it wasn't exactly right and we talked about how Newtonian physics was superseded by relativistic physics. There are better ways to express the scientific ethos than to just prefix every statement with "maybe".
- tomp 10y ago
  Any other formulation is disingenuous. We don't know that the Earth is the center of the universe. Hell, even Elon Musk said we might be in a simulation a few days ago! Ideally, you should also tell the kids which evidence suggests a theory. Elon Musk: The chance we are not living in a computer simulation is 'one in billions' http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-virtual-reality-a7060941.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

jamiesonbecker 10y ago

Immediately after the school board meeting, residents were invited to a CO2-free book burning and BBQ.

mrmondo 10y ago

As someone not from the states I was genuinely surprised to see that non-science was potentially preached in schools for such well proven topics such as this. For genuinely debatable scientific theories sure I understand but this was a bit of a jarring realisation.

vegabook 10y ago
oh, because science that is "proven" is indisputable... You understand that humans are fallible, right, including when it comes to "proof"? Just go read Thomas Kuhn again.
- stdbrouw 10y ago
  I must have missed that section where Kuhn explains that fallible evidence is worthless and that everyone should just believe what they want.
  - vegabook 10y ago
    You obviously missed the point that all scientific paradigms, which, when they are in force, are full of all sorts of "proofs", but are ultimately just human constructs, fallible, and, history shows, vulnerable to being overturned and thereafter ridiculed, over and over again.
Fiahil 10y ago
I was equally surprised when I learned that creationism was also subject to debate in american public schools. In France, this would draw some major criticism, even in private catholic schools where they are allowed to talk about it but genuinely stick to the state syllabus.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
wrsh07 10y ago
Sadly, the issue has become quite politicized, and that means that millions throw their support for a cause without evidence.

user_0001 10y ago

lol, only in the US would this be a big deal.

kaleidic 10y ago
Pattern prediction is one thing. But what happens when your model is both unrealistic in ways that some people think matters and doesn't predict the shape of things in the future well at all ? (Anyone can fit the past)...

Harry101 10y ago

So many people are going to feel stupid, and just as many will say they knew all along there was nothing to it.

kstrauser 10y ago

Don't... read the comments. Just don't.

abjorn 10y ago
I wish I had taken your advice...

ta0967 10y ago

403 - This request is blocked by Admin Tools. Please change this message in the component's options. same when going to http://portlandtribune.com/ http://portlandtribune.com/ what's up?

Turing_Machine 10y ago

I note that the Portland school library system offers both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. Exposing fragile young minds to those is just fine, apparently. (I searched at the Roosevelt Library, if anyone wants to check)