PrintFebruary 17, 2008
California to mandate climate change education?
A bill has been introduced to the California State Legislature to mandate teaching about global warming in the state's public schools. This would be a good idea, if two preconditions were met:
1) If the government schools already did an adequate or better job of teaching the basics; and
2) If the educational bureaucracy were capable and inclined to construct a fair evaluation of the raging scientific controversies over the unproven allegations of anthropogenic global warming.
The case of anthropogenic global warming theory offers a good opportunity to teach children about how scientific theories are formulated and tested. Thomas Kuhn's classic book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, demonstrates how scientific orthodoxy rises and falls, and could be an invaluable template to examine the issue of global warming, which has been declared "settled science" without any experimental validation. Kuhn examines such issues in past scientific theories that once enjoyed "consensus."
Unfortunately, the California schools have no time to spare for fads, and the educrats are solidly left-leaning, especially as one moves up the union and organizational hierarchies.
Children do need to be taught skepticism about scientific pronouncements based on fragmentary research. All scientific knowledge is tentative, until better evidence becomes available. But they are unlikely to get it in the context of studying highly politicized science under the guidance of highly politicized bureaucracies.
Should this bill become law, I expect to see a major row over the exact curriculum to be taught. I nominate Lord Monckton as advisor to the California authorities.
Should this bill become law, I expect to see a major row over the exact curriculum to be taught. I nominate Lord Monckton as advisor to the California authorities.
Hat tip: Marc Sheppard
