
Portland school board bans climate change-denying materials - mactitan
http://portlandtribune.com/sl/307848-185832-portland-school-board-bans-climate-change-denying-materials
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kevinpet
The science is pretty clear on co2 causing global warming.

The economics of the urgency and advisability of any particular intervention
are less clear.

The moral assumptions underlying "climate justice" are pretty unclear to me
and don't seem to be an appropriate area for a government agency to be
legislating what they deem the truth to be.

Be careful you don't get too happy when the government compels a point of view
you happen to agree with, because once you hand over decisions about truth to
a political body, it's hard to claw it back.

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wrsh07
This isn't the government compelling a viewpoint.

Imagine if there were people who insisted the moon were made of cheese. You
wouldn't frown upon their views not being "heard" in public schools because
it's bullshit.

No, schools don't need to teach every hypothesis. The scientific community
should consider them and arrive at a consensus. It has. Many years ago.
Schools should teach about that process and the end result. There is very
little ambiguity on this issue.

~~~
iofj
> This isn't the government compelling a viewpoint.

Care to elaborate on that ? Administrators, who are very much part of the
government (and thus, in the end, ordered around by the executive) are forcing
teachers, textbooks and ... to comply with a specific view they're defending
politically ...

I might understand that they do this up to the point where they present the
facts (ie. historical temperature changes) and present a few different ways to
extrapolate into the future. Since statistical models are what climate science
uses, because first principles don't work for a system as complex as earth, I
would very much like to see them teach a very simple climate model, and have
them tweak the parameters to get whatever outcome they like, to show that this
can be done. Then get some standard parameters in and show the IPCC position.

This would show both the strengths and the weaknesses of climate change
theory, and teach kids very useful data science skills in the process. It may
also teach kids the valuable lesson that standards of proof in different
sciences are very, very different, and ideally have them think a bit about
what that means for the amount of confidence we should have in various
sciences.

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elgabogringo
"In board testimony, Bigelow said PPS’ science textbooks are littered with
words like might, may and could when talking about climate change."

Skepticism in science? Unacceptable!

~~~
stdbrouw
Would you accept a geography text that explains to your kids that the world
may be round and that the evidence suggests that the earth is not the center
of the universe?

~~~
tomp
Any other formulation is disingenuous. We don't _know_ that the Earth is the
center of the universe. Hell, even Elon Musk said we might be in a simulation
a few days ago!

Ideally, you should also tell the kids _which_ evidence suggests a theory.

 _Elon Musk: The chance we are not living in a computer simulation is 'one in
billions'_

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-
virtual-reality-a7060941.html)

~~~
stdbrouw
"Knowing" is generally considered to imply that we think something is beyond
reasonable doubt. If you can only speak of knowledge in the sense of logical
entailment, the word would be useless because then nobody knows anything.
Words like "maybe" and "possibly" would also become useless, because they then
apply to all knowledge. A distinction that doesn't distinguish between things
is not a useful distinction to make.

~~~
kaleidic
Reasonable doubt is a legal term, not a scientific one.

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mrmondo
As someone not from the states I was genuinely surprised to see that non-
science was potentially preached in schools for such well proven topics such
as this. For genuinely debatable scientific theories sure I understand but
this was a bit of a jarring realisation.

~~~
theophrastus
In my experience (teaching in Germany for about three years) it is not
uncommon for Europeans to look on in astonishment at the dubious rulings of
various governing levels in the U.S. and I can sympathize. But I can offer up
a few random items which may dispel some of the amazement: The U.S. is a good
deal more diverse than any one European country; the difference between Oregon
and Texas is somewhat like comparing Iceland to Albania. The U.S. constitution
is relatively ancient as compared with most European constitutions (~225 vs 75
years). The U.S. constitution has a number of provisions (first few
amendments) which the European constitutions lack and which interact in
unexpectedly deep philosophical ways. For instance, freedom of religion, on
which substantial U.S. raison d'etre exists, can be a real sticking point when
one religion, for example, declares that governmental support of birth control
in _any form_ violates their religion. oh and how often am i asked about the
gun thing? but i can't really help you there - that really is nutz. So social
diversity and deep freedoms of speech, religion, guns, and robust capitalism,
that's your witches' cauldron ( _der Hexenkessel_ , if you happen to be
German)

~~~
Spooky23
We all do strange things. I find it incredible that taxpayer funds provide a
substantial portion of the budget for the Catholic Church in many countries,
for example.

~~~
ec109685
They do in the US as well by subsidizing charitable donations to churches as
tax free.

~~~
omonra
What difference is there between this and other nonprofits like ACLU or HRC?
I'm genuinely interested, not claiming to know. My understanding that
donations to any nonprofit are not taxable.

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jamiesonbecker
Immediately after the school board meeting, residents were invited to a
CO2-free book burning and BBQ.

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chipperyman573
This purchase was _unanimously approved_ by the school board. How do we let
people like that get voted on to something so important?

~~~
forgotpwtomain
I recall Feynman having something about his experience on a textbook selection
board for California public schools. I'll see if I can link an open access
reference.

~~~
krastanov
Maybe this
[http://www.greenes.com/html/feynman.html](http://www.greenes.com/html/feynman.html)

EDIT: or this directly from his biography
[http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm](http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm)

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kstrauser
Don't... read the comments. Just don't.

~~~
abjorn
I wish I had taken your advice...

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Turing_Machine
I note that the Portland school library system offers both _Mein Kampf_ and
_The Communist Manifesto_. Exposing fragile young minds to those is just fine,
apparently.

(I searched at the Roosevelt Library, if anyone wants to check)

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ta0967
_403 - This request is blocked by Admin Tools. Please change this message in
the component 's options._

same when going to [http://portlandtribune.com/](http://portlandtribune.com/)

what's up?

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user_0001
lol, only in the US would this be a big deal.

~~~
kaleidic
Pattern prediction is one thing. But what happens when your model is both
unrealistic in ways that some people think matters and doesn't predict the
shape of things in the future well at all ? (Anyone can fit the past)...

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Harry101
So many people are going to feel stupid, and just as many will say they knew
all along there was nothing to it.

