Dark sarcasm in the classroom
By Michael J.W. Stickings
In Colorado -- home to many of America's most dangerous purveyors of darkness, America's anti-Enlightenment -- a sixth-grade class has put global warming on "trial" and found humans not guilty of causing it. The teacher, Ken Poppe, is a global warming denier (and he says he doesn't "believe" in Darwinism). His son was the "lead prosecutor".
There's so much wrong here, so much wrong with the "trial" itself and so much wrong even with holding one as an allegedly educational exercise, but see Pharyngula's PZ Myers for a sensible debunking.
Poppe claims to have done this in the name of neutrality -- which is why, he says, he didn't just show An Inconvenient Truth -- but, as Myers puts it, "'[n]eutrality' is not a desirable characteristic in a science teacher," not when, as in this case, neutrality is a justification to present alternative theories on an equal plane even when there is overwhelming consensus in support of one of the theories:
As with global warming denial so, too, with so-called intelligent design. Both the deniers of global warming and the opponents of evolution -- that is, in both cases, the opponents of science and enemies of truth -- have taken to advancing "anything-might-be-true" relativism as a cover for their moralistic crusades.
In Poppe's classroom, as in so many others, the victims are the children. Beyond that, such thought control affects us all.
We certainly don't need this sort of "education".
In Colorado -- home to many of America's most dangerous purveyors of darkness, America's anti-Enlightenment -- a sixth-grade class has put global warming on "trial" and found humans not guilty of causing it. The teacher, Ken Poppe, is a global warming denier (and he says he doesn't "believe" in Darwinism). His son was the "lead prosecutor".
There's so much wrong here, so much wrong with the "trial" itself and so much wrong even with holding one as an allegedly educational exercise, but see Pharyngula's PZ Myers for a sensible debunking.
Poppe claims to have done this in the name of neutrality -- which is why, he says, he didn't just show An Inconvenient Truth -- but, as Myers puts it, "'[n]eutrality' is not a desirable characteristic in a science teacher," not when, as in this case, neutrality is a justification to present alternative theories on an equal plane even when there is overwhelming consensus in support of one of the theories:
When the two positions are a) supported by the evidence, and b) not supported by the evidence, you are not doing your job to claim that a and b are equal. To do so is to unfairly promote the status of the unsupported premise…which is exactly what Ken Poppe is doing. He is lying to promote crackpottery in the science classroom.
As with global warming denial so, too, with so-called intelligent design. Both the deniers of global warming and the opponents of evolution -- that is, in both cases, the opponents of science and enemies of truth -- have taken to advancing "anything-might-be-true" relativism as a cover for their moralistic crusades.
In Poppe's classroom, as in so many others, the victims are the children. Beyond that, such thought control affects us all.
We certainly don't need this sort of "education".
Labels: education, global warming
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
12:15 AM
2 Comments:
Amanda Marcotte had an interesting post on this general subject recently. As she said:
"More and more often, the debate over reproductive justice is about information and who gets to have access to the truth. It starts with abstinence-only “education”, which I put in scare quotes for a very simple reason—withholding knowledge from people is not educating them. It’s the exact opposite of education, in fact. That’s pretty much tautological, and yet in our topsy-turvy wingnut world, people have grown accustomed to doing one thing and calling it the opposite of that."
Likewise, here purposely lying to children gets to be "education," and ignoring scientific evidence "neutrality." It's enough to make you want to vomit.
By
., at 1:36 AM
"alternative theories."
Denial of the scientific method is not a "theory."
By
MSS, at 12:06 PM
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