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Some people say, "Oh, there's anti-science on both sides of the political aisle." But that neglects one important fact: in only ONE political party are the leadership and the party platform dominated by science denial.
Would you believe there is a patch of trapped garbage floating in the North Pacific bigger than the state of Texas? It's called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
I just received the following update from the National Center for Science Education, which states the newest tactic that creationists are attempting to employ in pushing their ideas as “science”. The latest tactic is to have some creationists attend professional geology conferences and sometimes host a field trip afterward where they use cleverly disguised creationist language (meant to hide their overtly non-scientific notions) and then “Voila!” declare after the fact that they “presented creationist ideas at a geology conference.”
Of course, this is just plain silly, because they aren’t really presenting creationist ideas at these conferences; in fact, they are actively trying to conceal their creationist ideas except by making the most subtle references (so subtle that most people miss the references entirely!) Had they actually presented creationist ideas, such as the so-called “evidence” for Flood Geology, they would have likely been laughed out of the room because – as this link to Talk Origins shows – mainstream geological science has found creationism to be wholly flawed.
The NCSE elaborates on this latest trick up the sleeves of the creationists…
“Creationism creeps into mainstream geology,” a report by NCSE’s Steven Newton, is the cover story of the July 2011 issue of Earth, published by the American Geological Institute. In his article, Newton discusses a geological field trip conducted during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in 2010. He explains, “it was an example of a new strategy from creationists to interject their ideas into mainstream geology: They lead field trips and present posters and talks at scientific meetings. They also avoid overtly stating anything truly contrary to mainstream science. But when the meeting is over, the creationist participants go home and proudly proclaim that mainstream science has accepted their ideas.”
“During the trip,” Newton relates, “the leaders did not advertise their creationist views, but rather presented their credentials in a way that minimized their creationist affiliations,” adding, “the field trip leaders were careful not to make overt creationist references. If the 50 or so field trip participants did not know the subtext and weren’t familiar with the field trip leaders, it’s quite possible that they never realized that the leaders endorsed geologic interpretations completely at odds with the scientific community.” But clues — such as referring to Cambrian outcrops as rocks that are “called Cambrian” and hinting at the continental extent of a “massive marine trangression” — were abundant “if you knew what to listen for.”
I particularly like the last section of the article, for it points out how open and accommodating scientific conferences can be. Even though mainstream scientists may ridicule and roll their eyes, believe it or not, the argument is made that creationists should actually be welcomed to come present their ideas openly at these meetings. Just because they are heard, however, doesn’t mean they should expect to be taken seriously…
Creationists love to boast about their participation in scientific meetings, Newton observed, even when it consists only of conducting field trips or presenting unrefereed papers and posters. But he suggested that it would be counterproductive for societies such as the GSA to exclude creationists from participation in their meetings, however, arguing, “We let a thousand flowers bloom, weeds and all. The best ideas from the meetings are further subjected to peer review in journals, which is where theories are built; conferences are more freeform. Geology will not suffer if creationists participate in our meetings, but the public relations damage from the misperception that we are systematically hostile to any view — especially religious views — is real.”
The answer is YES! That’s because when you compare the tactics employed by climate-change deniers to those employed by creationists, they are practically identical. Eugenie Scott, the director of the NCSE, elaborates in more detail…
Please consider supporting the NCSE and their important work. They are a valuable resource, one with whom I have consulted (and helped others consult) on numerous occasions. Their experience in matters such as these is invaluable, so if you have any questions and/or concerns, contact them.
Climate Change Education Challenged. A petition has been submitted to the Mesa County (Colorado) School Board to prohibit “the teaching of man-made climate change theory as scientific fact in the students’ curriculum.” The petition, which has 700 signatures, was circulated by a movement called Balanced Education for All (http://www.members- aaas.org/ l.jsp?d=4954. 550777.654. 2aatBFCrt9Q. A), a group denying the reality of and human role in climate change, which also submitted a petition to “create and enforce a policy that prohibits teachers from applying their political views to the teaching and grading of students.” School Board members accepted the petition but took no action. The petition is part of a larger campaign by the Independent Women’s Forum, a non-profit based in Washington, DC, “challenging public schools to provide balanced education on the issue of global warming.” The group is promoting a documentary (http://www.members- aaas.org/ l.jsp?d=4954. 550776.654. 2aatBFCrt9Q. A), Not Evil, Just Wrong, that claims to “confront erroneous claims of environmental extremists,” and offers an allegedly “compelling and scientifically accurate film about the true relationship between humans and the environment. “
Here we see that climate science deniers are employing the same pseudoscientific & intellectually dishonest tactics often used in the past by creationists as they misrepresented evolutionary science: the “teach the controversy” and “teach all views” canards. Of course, these slogans imply that there actually is a supposed controversy about climate science within the scientific community – that is, the notion of human-influenced global warming is somehow “controversial” among scientists, when in fact it isn’t. The whole point of these kinds of arguments is to sow doubt & suspicion about climate science in particular and, among some extreme anti-science ideologues, about all of science in general.
In addition, note the language in the petition which implies that when teachers try to teach actual, substantiated science that they are actually pushing a political agenda. This kind of argument is intended to poison the well and explicitly politicize the issue of climate change science so that anyone who, likely for ideological reasons, doesn’t like the science can just dismiss it as part of a conspiracy.
Don’t fall for it. Fortunately, we’ve seen all these tactics before from creationists & various other pseudoscientific woo-woos, so hopefully we can recognize & fight this junk when those with an anti-scientific agenda push it. When confronted by those who would distort & misrepresent climate science, or someone who is legitimately confused, a great way to fight back is to download the free app for the iPhone or iPod Touch called Skeptical Science!
I wanted to share with you a recent post I saw over at The Panda’s Thumb, a pro-evolution blog which keeps tabs on creationists. The nature of this post has to do with the finances behind various creationist organizations & how we need to provide more support to pro-science groups like the National Center for Science Education (NCSE)…
Todd Wood, a young earth creationist at Bryan College, provides summary data on YEC organizations’ finances over the 2003-2008 period. There are several interesting things about those data.
First, as Wood points out, AIG’s share of the creationist dollar grew over that period, from 61.6% ($9M) of the market in 2003 to 68.2% ($22.7M) in 2008. AIG’s growth in market share came at the expense of all the other YEC organizations, with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and and the Creation Research Society (CRS), the two elder U.S. creationist organizations, contributing most of the change. While ICR’s revenues also increased over those years, from $4,5M to $8.7M, as a percentage of the total creationist dollar it decreased from 30.6% to 26.2% and CRS’s percentage declined from 1.7% to 1.0% as its dollar revenues declined from $250K to $230K. The smaller YEC organizations also lost share.
Second, Eric Hovind, offspring of jailed tax evader Kent Hovind, entered the list in third place in 2008 with his “GodQuest” (DBA Creation Science Evangelism) at $930K for 2.8% of the creationism market, far behind ICR’s $8.7M but well ahead of CRS’s $230K.
Third (and pretty depressing to see), NCSE’s gross revenue as a percentage of AIG’s gross revenue has steadily declined over those years, dropping from 7.8% in 2003 to just 5.7% in 2008. In 2008, 85% of NCSE’s revenues ($1.1M of $1.3M) came from direct public support–memberships and donations from you and me. While the amount has increased in absolute terms over those years, as a proportion of creationist revenues it has dropped significantly. C’mon, people. Let’s put our money where our mouths are.
In an unusual last-minute edit that has drawn flak from the White House and science educators, a federal advisory committee omitted data on Americans’ knowledge of evolution and the big bang from a key report. The data shows that Americans are far less likely than the rest of the world to accept that humans evolved from earlier species and that the universe began with a big bang.
They’re not surprising findings, but the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), says it chose to leave the section out of the 2010 edition of the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators because the survey questions used to measure knowledge of the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs.
“Discussing American science literacy without mentioning evolution is intellectual malpractice” that “downplays the controversy” over teaching evolution in schools, says Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit that has fought to keep creationism out of the science classroom. The story appears in this week’s issue of Science.
But why is it this information, which has been part of every previous Indicators report to date, been removed at the last minute without any oversight? Here’s a clue…
Board members say the decision to drop the text was driven by a desire for scientific accuracy. The survey questions that NSF has used for 25 years to measure knowledge of evolution and the big bang were “flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because responses conflated knowledge and beliefs,” says Louis Lanzerotti, an astrophysicist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology who chairs NSB’s Science and Engineering Indicators Committee. …
The board member who took the lead in removing the text was John Bruer, a philosopher who heads the St. Louis, Missouri-based James S. McDonnell Foundation. He told Science that his reservations about the two survey questions dated back to 2007, when he was the lead reviewer for the same chapter in the 2008 Indicators. He calls the survey questions “very blunt instruments not designed to capture public understanding” of the two topics.
“I think that is a nonsensical response” that reflects “the religious right’s point of view,” says Jon Miller, a science literacy researcher at Michigan State University in East Lansing who authored the survey 3 decades ago and conducted it for NSF until 2001. “Evolution and the big bang are not a matter of opinion. If a person says that the earth really is at the center of the universe, even if scientists think it is not, how in the world would you call that person scientifically literate? Part of being literate is to both understand and accept scientific constructs.”
So what exactly was the offending material deleted from the report? Here you go…
The deleted text, obtained by ScienceInsider, does not differ radically from what has appeared in previous Indicators. The section, which was part of the unedited chapter on public attitudes toward science and technology, notes that 45% of Americans in 2008 answered true to the statement, “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” The figure is similar to previous years and much lower than in Japan (78%), Europe (70%), China (69%), and South Korea (64%). The same gap exists for the response to a second statement, “The universe began with a big explosion,” with which only 33% of Americans agreed.
So rather than report the honest truth about the state of scientific literacy in the United States on these topics, it seems the NSF has chosen to hide the embarrassing facts. But, thankfully, it didn’t work. We cannot change the poor state of science education in this country by hiding such information, either to save political face or to kow-tow to religious fundamentalists who push creationism; rather, we must face the challenge head on.
If you pay attention at all to the creationism/evolution struggle, then you know that (in the United States) there is a great group dedicated to furthering good science education while battling the attempts of creationists to push their extreme religious & pseudoscientific flummery into public schools. That group is the National Center for Science Education, and now the NCSE has another tool to use in the fight. NCSE has put together a great webpage which tracks polls & surveys on the issue…
NCSE is pleased to announce a new section of its website that provides information on polls and surveys relevant to the creationism/evolution controversy. You’ve seen the alarming statistics:
Evolution is accepted by 97% of scientists in the United States, but by only 61% of the public.
Among thirty-two countries surveyed, the United States was next-to-last for its public acceptance of evolution.
One out of eight high school biology teachers in the United States presents creationism as scientifically credible.
Now you can find it all in a single spot — NCSE’s coverage and links to external resources — organized in the categories of general polls, international polls, polls on creationism, polls on evolution, polls on religion, and scientist, student, and teacher polls.
So the next time you need to reference a poll when in the midst of a discussion of the creationism/evolution issue, you have a great resource. In addition, I just want to give a general shout-out to the NCSE because they are, in my humble opinion, the go-to folks for dealing with creationists. In fact, I encourage you to support them by becoming a member!
I’ve blogged here before about various claims made & tactics used by climate science deniers (I refuse to call them “skeptics” because they are not guided by evidence, merely ideology), but what I have to share in this post is truly damning stuff. One of the things which is really interesting is what happens when a group of pseudoscientific ideologues (like global warming deniers) gets caught red-handed playing fast & loose with the facts…
Recently, one of the claims making the rounds has been that, contrary to the consensus within the climate science community, the Earth is actually entering a period of global cooling – this claim is patently fallacious, and anyone who has a basic understanding of statistics knows it. But what happened recently, as reported in a widely-circulated AP story, really slams the door shut on this bogus claim: the temperature data for the planet was analyzed by a series of independent statisticians, all of whom found a warming (not a cooling) trend in the data. And here’s the kicker: these statisticians didn’t know what the data were – in other words, the examination of the Earth’s temperature data was a blinded test!
Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book. Only one problem: It’s not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press.
The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It’s been a while since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather’s normal ups and downs?
In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.
“If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a micro-trend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect,” said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina.
This result puts paid to the oft-repeated claim by GW-deniers that there is a cooling trend in the data. Of course, the only reason why these pseudoscientists were able to get away with their false claims for so long was because they, as professor Grego said, have been cherry-picking the data and presenting it incomplete & out-of-context in order to give the impression that the Earth is cooling. But, as we’ve seen, once the experimenter & statistician bias is removed from the analysis, which is the whole purpose of doing blinded tests, a very real and consistent warming trend is revealed.
Okay, I was shown the following Youtube video by a physics teaching colleague. I cannot do it justice by attempting to write a description, you just have to watch it for yourself. Just… wow…
I really hope this is a joke or a spoof, because if not, this is one of the most whacked out displays of scientific ignorance & conspiracy mongering that I’ve ever seen. My favorite line: “This cannot be natural.”
This, of course, is an excellent display of how necessary it is for people to have a basic scientific education that teaches not only certain facts but also methods of logical & critical analysis. Because, though you and I may laugh at the silliness of this video, there are those out there who are ignorant, paranoid, and – well – crazy enough to take what this woman is saying at face value. And while we can laugh or giggle at the stupidity of this woman’s argument, what isn’t a laughing matter is that this exact same method of argumentation is employed time and time again by a variety of conspiracy theorists & pseudoscientists, whether they be Holocaust deniers, creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Birthers, New Age gurus, alt-med quacks, anti-vaccinationists, physics cranks, etc. And there are plenty of people who buy into that crapola.
And one more thing: they get the same vote as you and me during election time – that’s what I find scary!
As I’m going through my day at school earlier this week, I did the usual thing – after lunch I went by my mailbox. Inside I find an article from a colleague of mine with the following message on a sticky note: “It’s nice to see a newspaper giving time to the conservative viewpoint on global warming.” Argh.
Full disclosure: I tend to be more liberal than conservative in my personal politics, but to imply that there is such a thing as “conservative” science and “liberal” science does a grave disservice to science in general. I might add this goes the other way as well – when Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” (AIT) came out a few years ago, I refused to watch it even though many of those on my side of the political isle were encouraging me to do so.
The Skeptical Teacher 