“A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require ‘climate change’ to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught,” according to a recent story in the Mercury News. The measure would also “mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change.”
“You can’t have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn’t deal with the science behind climate change,” said the legislation’s sponsor, state Senator Joe Simitian, Democrat representing Palo Alto. Well, yes, but there’s just a couple sticky points in all this worthy of discussion.
First, climate change is already incorporated into science readers; remember learning about the ice ages? The earth, its atmosphere, and oceans have been in a constant state of temperature flux from the beginning, phenomena incorporated long ago into public school educational programs. The innovation, then, of Mr. Simitain’s proposal moves beyond instructing pupils about normal climate change and into the realm of ”the worst potential catatrophe in the history of human civilization: a global climate crisis that is deepening and rapidly becoming more dangerous than anything we have ever faced,” as Al Gore calmly put it. Therein lies the rub; just whose version of GLOBAL WARMING science will be taught?
Teaching our youngsters about GLOBAL WARMING will present educators with unique challenges. At least three areas of study should be included in any objective GLOBAL WARMING course. First would be an overview of exactly what is happening to the earth’s temperature. This is the relatively easy part; almost everyone agrees the planet has warmed about one degree fahrenheit during the last hundred years. Of course, the past century has seen warming and cooling trends — recall the predictions circa 1970 of a coming ice age — but as things stand today the world is a little warmer than it was around 1908, give or take a year or two. Or a decade or two, but heck, we can discern the pattern.
From there on out, things become much more, shall we say, dicey. Thousands of scientists swear up and down that GLOBAL WARMING is being caused in large part, if not primarily, by human activity. The burning of fossil fuels, release of CO2 into the air, and other man-made pollution has created a greenhouse effect producing ever-higher air and water temperatures leading inexorably to the life threatening misadventures so passionately described by Vice President Gore. On the other hand, equally numerous scientists claim human behavior contributes insignificantly to GLOBAL WARMING. Solar, volcanic, and bovine activity are the real culprits. Worse, say these GW naysayers, mankind is powerless to slow down, let alone reverse, the perpetual pattern of earth’s climate fluctuations. If Mr. Gore has convinced you of a scientific consensus in favor of his interpretation of GLOBAL WARMING, do yourself a favor and Google “scientists debunk global warming,” or anything close to that. Make sure you have plenty of time and a full pot of coffee; the entries go on and on.
In addition to presenting the agreed upon facts and disputed research, student’s understanding of GLOBAL WARMING will be incomplete without including the political and sociological elements: who is for and against implementing the Kyoto Protocols, and why. I’d love to sit in on those editorial discussions.
The question is, just whose version of reality will be incorporated into California’s textbooks? As state Senator Tom McClintock, Republican representing Thousand Oaks, said in the Mercury News article, “I find it disturbing that this mandate to teach this theory is not accompanied by a requirement that the discussion be science-based and include a critical analysis of all sides of the subject.” (Did Tom say “theory!?”) Could Mr. McClintock’s fears of a biased academic presentation promoting conjecture as fact be well-founded? Can anyone recall that ever happening? Anyone!?
I see that hand! You say some evolutionists have perpetrated frauds in the name of science? Go to the head of the class. Time does not permit a full discussion of the multiple evolutionary fabrications foisted on unsuspecting students over the decades, but three of the more infamous are:
Piltdown Man, a flat-out deceit sold as evolutionary fact for 40 years.
Ernst Haeckel’s embryo drawings “proved” similarities between species until they were discredited in the 1950s. Students were duped for 50 years.
The Black Peppered Moth, my favorite as I remember reading a college textbook proclaiming the truth of evolution based the moth’s adaptations, turns out to be an outrageous, created falsehood, nevertheless taught as Darwinian gospel for 40 years. Interested readers may research in the archives of the New York Times, “The Moth That Failed,” by Paul Raeburn, August 25, 2002. To the surprise of no one, the moth hoax was still appearing in textbooks 5 years later.
There are many other problems with the Theory of Evolution never mentioned in public school study material. The Cambrian explosion and lack of inter-species fossils are but two difficulties hidden from inquiring young minds. This is not a call for removing Darwin from all textbooks, nor am I advocating for Intelligent Design. The simple request is, if educators want to teach evolution, then teach all of it, the good, bad, and ugly. That the Theory is often presented as fact absent any mention of its promoters’ fraudulent tendencies, or the enormous gaps in evidence, or the Theory’s inability to explain countless physical phenomena — for instance, the eye — is cause for concern when left-leaning legislators propose required courses on GLOBAL WARMING. Will students be educated or indoctrinated?
If Senator Simitian wants all sides of the GLOBAL WARMING debate presented to students, I’m all for it. Anything less isn’t education.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Education, Global Warming