4 ms·

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.
      - cortesoft 10y ago
        The inability to predict exactly how a complex system will behave doesn't mean we can't predict, accurately, certain characteristics about what will happen. If I light a piece of paper on fire, I might not be able to predict the exact shape of the flame at any given instance, but I can be pretty damn sure it will end up as ashes.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        > 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 Only because you don't have to point out that there's a consensus if it's not a political issue. Lots of things have general consensus - we just have absolutely no need to point out that most scientists agree on something unless someone doesn't believe that's the case. There's a consensus that generally bad things will happen if we let climate change get out of hand. There's not a consensus on precisely what form those bad things will take.
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.

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.
    - cortesoft 10y ago
      The inability to predict exactly how a complex system will behave doesn't mean we can't predict, accurately, certain characteristics about what will happen. If I light a piece of paper on fire, I might not be able to predict the exact shape of the flame at any given instance, but I can be pretty damn sure it will end up as ashes.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      > 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 Only because you don't have to point out that there's a consensus if it's not a political issue. Lots of things have general consensus - we just have absolutely no need to point out that most scientists agree on something unless someone doesn't believe that's the case. There's a consensus that generally bad things will happen if we let climate change get out of hand. There's not a consensus on precisely what form those bad things will take.

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.