I have awakened the believers! Where are the skeptics? Where are those who are aware of the writings of Kant, Hume and Popper? There are extremists in all social arenas. Creationists teach the certainty of God’s intervention, while extreme evolutionists teach the certainty of ultimate truth evolution. Human influenced climate change deniers teach that all climate change is natural, their opposite extremists teach that we should stop using fossil fuels and eating cattle immediately. The NOS teacher teaches that the current model for any scientific conclusion is a consensus that it constitutes our best understanding of what the available evidence predicts. The students are allowed to develop their conclusions about what to do in response. An NOS teacher can facilitate such development by setting up debates, rather than by preaching. Where are those who have read “On the Origin of Species” and remember the section titled “Problems with the theory”? I’d like to hear from a CFI member who actually reads “The Science Teacher” magazine. I have spoken with John Rudolph (“How we teach science”) and Glen Branch (of the NCSE) about the danger of deviating from the core of an NOS curriculum to piggy-back political activism onto science teaching. They admit I have a point. I’ve tried to make CFI members aware of the problem. Perhaps I have not stated it well enough. I am not important, so I would welcome a better wordsmith to speak up.
We’ve been doing this for a long time. I was waiting for that shoe to drop. Too bad, sometimes I’m wrong but this is a classic move; Take the scientific consensus, one backed up by the largest dataset in history, and accuse its defenders of being “believers”. “Extreme evolutionists”? What is that?
Right.
Yes. You do. But you are conflating this point with an understanding of “scientific theory”. You left out the part of scientific methodology that questioning everything is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. The key is, how do you question, how do you present your evidence, and how do you build on the theory.
You have defined something as “the problem” but it is not clear what, then defended it with anecdotes without even putting names to the stories.
BTW, membership in CFI is not required to post on this forum, so we aren’t some group, certainly not a monolith. We don’t represent anyone other than ourselves.
Howard the do nothing say nothing please dont change sensible centrist democrat. Who say immediately? Fake news?
The theory has moved on leaps and bounds since . Why havent you been informed?
Motivate the kids to take action and be participates in this damn world . Not spectators
I can only respond to your last two replies by stating that I am not sufficiently educated to understand your problem. Sorry, I’m just a lab scientist.
You could familiarize yourself with logical fallacies. There are many references on the Web.
“Conflation” and “anecdotal” for starters.
John, you seem to be focused on my methodology where you can score epistemological debating points. I have proposed an axiological issue that I’d like to bring to the attention of serious members of CFI. I hope they have access to the following link. The article describes an activity by which science teachers are clearly demonstrating political activism as professionals. My point is that this behavior is inconsistent with their role as interpreters of my profession. I shall not respond to your reaction to this email because, without making any judgement about its inherent worth, I have sadly concluded from our correspondence that it is not relevant to the reason that I joined CFI. Here is the link:
https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-september-october-2021/sustaining-community
Sentences like this from you are hard to parse. You addressed me directly at the beginning but now you are saying you won’t respond further. People say that a lot on forums, and then come back, anyway. I guess you are not “making any judgment about” the worth of my future responses, although you are making judgments now, so not sure what that phrase is doing there. Using words like “email” and “correspondence” throw me a bit, but I can put that aside.
As for “not relevant”, if you are referring to my posts, that is, my responses to you, then fine, I don’t see why anything I would have to say would be relevant to why you joined CFI. That is your reasoning, and I don’t stand in the way of it. You’re right, I focus on epistemological issues because they are how you make a case, and the case you made didn’t work for me. That has nothing to do with the mission of CFI or whether or not I am a “serious” member. If you have an issue that you think is important, and you seek partnership with CFI, more power to you. I’m not the gatekeeper.
NSTA.org has been a challenge to get into, only to find the articles are paywalled.
Effective climate change education connects the impacts of and solutions to climate change with the local contexts of students’ lives. In our work, we have learned from teaching practices designed to focus on local justice-oriented challenges that are facing the communities in which students live.
Below, we discuss three interconnected guiding commitments we have found important in our work as educators and illustrate how they are enacted within a community-based summer encounter for Latinx and Indigenous youth led by Coahuiltecan elders in San Marcos, Texas.
As you read about each commitment, we encourage you to pause and think about the questions we have posed.
You haven’t made any serious attempt to respond to anything in this thread. (regardless of who you name)
You complain about activist teaching, and about how bad the extremes are, after that it gets totally vague.
All we know from the words you have shared over here, is that you have a tendency towards haughtiness - and you expect others to understanding you, without putting in any effort into explaining your grip.
I think the issue of anthropogenic climate change is existential, and worthy of public discourse in a medium such as CFI. I respect those committed to bringing this matter to the attention of the lay public. I think that the first amendment to the constitution needs to be protected in public forums such as CFI and universities. But the people who populate these two venues are there voluntarily. The children in public schools are there by law. I am a scientist who loves science. I have to acknowledge my uncertainty and the fact that I have experienced failure. Everything I have stated in this forum includes the unstated disclaimer “as far as I understand it”. I see the current threats to science exemplified by the actions of politicians like RFK Jr as a result of the lay public’s ignorance of NOS. I have to accept some blame for this state of things. Those who teach science in the public schools are, for most lay people, the only representatives of science this cohort’s members will interact with in their lives. As John Rudolph has testified, for over a century, public school science teachers have taught science without including NOS, and the result has been a lay public with a complete misunderstanding of how science works. Many believe that you have to be an atheist to be a competent scientist. Many believe that science will lead to exposing ultimate truth by “proving theories”. Many glorify science (For example, if you are a scientist, you must be very smart.); others fear it. I am generalizing only to emphasize what I have guessed to be true after over 70 years of experience from teaching high school biology to training orthopaedic residents and bioengineers about NOS, for which “correlation is not causation”, to being a PI of NIH-funded laboratory investigations. My experience tells me that NOS cannot be successfully taught by a teacher who does not honestly represent it. Just as the Kalven committee protocol states that a public university can gain the lay public’s trust that it will foster free speech only by remaining politically neutral, the NOS requires that a public school NOS teacher gain lay public trust by also remaining neutral. If my desire to ‘stay above politics’ makes me “haughty”, I’m guilty. Although I acknowledge my transgression, I would offer some side thoughts before my hanging. Student debates in an NOS class that allow conflicting political positions to be explored would be of high educational value. I have used this approach in my bioengineering ethics course. I think that in a high school environment it would be beneficial for the social studies/civics teachers and the science teachers to cooperate to present debate assemblies or town meeting assemblies that would prepare students for their own future as an educated citizen. I readily acknowledge my deficiencies as a wordsmith. If my point is still not clear, I’ll try to reduce it to this: Science can offer much to extend the survival of our species, but it needs support from a public that understands it to realize its potential. It will not get that support if scientists cannot be trusted to be honest and unbiased in the data they present. If scientists, as exemplified (to the lay public) by science teachers, show political bias, they will lose the trust of the lay public they most immediately serve, parents who do not share their bias. The resulting polarization will make them ineffective.
To my knowledge you will not get any argument from the regulars on this forum.
If you dig back a few years, you will see that vigorous arguments, warning of AGW, have been made over and over again.
Can you help Howard articulate his problem?
What is the political bias in the climate science classroom, the evolution classroom , the public health classroom ?
What does he mean by ultimate truth?
I remember the discovery of the ozone layer, and the discussion of its hole over Antarctica that led to warnings about fluorocarbons being linked to weather changes. As a correction, I accidently hit a 7, instead of a 6, writing my last email. I had just graduated high school 70 years ago. Have you glanced at the article I that was attached to it? Thank you.
H. Winet
Is howard saying student activists that helped push govts to ban CFCs was the wrong thing to do?
Its getting awfully messy Howard.
I was one of those student activists. I also was at the Century City Police riot. Demonstrations are a great form of free speech. I am a member of FIRE. I am trying to defend the responsibilities of science teachers as honest brokers, who the activists on both (sometimes there are more than two) sides trust when they realize that they have to talk to each other, and need a knowledgeable and unbiased arbitrator. A science teacher needs to be an honest broker, at least in the classroom. I recognize that a science teacher has another life as an individual and citizen. That political person must be put aside in the classroom. Think of the physician who has taken an oath to treat every patient with equal dedication. In surgery that professional is an honest broker worthy of the patient’s trust, regardless of the physician’s politics.
Your science teacher educated you on the observable hole in the ozone layer, explained why it was a problem and showed you what actions science says need to be taken to address it.
I see where you are going. It may have been the case for others. I was a graduate student, and I read about the problem. My reaction to it was not stimulated by a teacher. But my science background, provided by teachers, which gave me the foundation to understand the implications of the finding, and editorials in science journals, motivated me to act. When I was a biology teacher I prefaced a disciplinary act by noting that I am required by law to defend the right of every student in class to an education. That requirement may include restricting the free speech rights of another student. Some may interpret my notation as advocacy, I interpreted it as professional responsibility.
Is anyone else having trouble understanding what he’s saying?
i roughly understand the words but to grok the sentence, i would need the context.
Howard would be the guy on the left
That is a fallacy, like the concept of “trickle-down” economics. These anthropomorphic concepts are not only valid with men and governments, but are human symbolic substitutes for “nature” and “natural selection”.
Let’s not forget that a hurricane or an earthquake are self-correcting functions.
A super-nova is a naturally occurring self-correcting action.
While we speak of natural self-regulating functions, that does not mean there can be no naturally occurring disasters. In nature, self-regulating functions have been responsible for the extinction of 95 % of all life that has ever existed.
As Carlin said. “We didn’t kill them all”. There are no sacred cows, nor bad “actors”.
The Universe acts the way it must and any balance can only be drawn between “existence” and “extinction” and everything in between.