Teaching about climate change can be injurious to your academic freedom

Although I don’t know the details, I suspect that the instructor(s) may have set themselves up to be perceived as being provocative in their response to apparent student “concerns” about grades. What are the odds that these “concerns” came from the Colorado Springs area?

After all, it’s a course about science; no apologies should be required in advance or during the course. Students taking the course should know that they will be required to know and articulate the science and not caricatures of science. I don’t see why an instructor should expect anything different.

If opportunities for “critical thinking” come up in class, then that is the time for debunking political pseudoscience to take place; and the instructors can be ready with those take-downs without announcing it in advance. One critical byproduct of taking a science course should be learning how science goes about validating evidence and debunking fraud and political obfuscation tactics.

Scientist have to slog through all sorts of confounding issues that political mischief-makers never bother to do; let the students learn how to use these processes to debunk some of their own misinformation. No apologies necessary.

J"John Carson, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, said he plans to make inquires Thursday about an email from three University of Colorado at Colorado Springs professors who advised students to drop the class if they dispute climate change."

Really? They advised students to drop the course if they don't agree with the professors? That does seem ill advised. What difference does it make to them what the student believes? If they can answer the test questions correctly, their personal beliefs should be irrelevant. How would the professors even know what those beliefs were if the students didm't choose to voice them? On the other hand, if they refuse to answer thew test questions correctly just to make some kind of contrary statement, then they might indeed be better off dropping the course. But other than that, those who do not believe are likely to benefit the most from taking the course.

Sure the course should be based on science. Sure they should not waste time debating issues that are not scientifically controversial. Sure the administration should stand by the professors and provide them with the academic freedom they need to teach their course the way they see fit. But you cannot demand that the students agree with you or they have to drop the course. that isn't academic freedom, that's abuse of academic power.

Well, "advised" is not quite the same as "forced" or "required".

It seems like practical, if not exactly friendly, advice: "If you don't believe the basic facts we're referencing here, and hope to use this class as a soapbox for science denial, then, frankly, you will be wasting your time. Our priority is to teach the science and consider its implications, and we can't allow you to obstruct that. Your time (and money) will be better spent in a course in which you're willing to learn and not ideologically opposed to the content."

Progress in science education coursework cannot be made if time must be continually taken out to rehash basic underlying principles at the instigation of active denialists.

What course critics wish is for it to include "critical thinking." Unfortunately common sense "critical thinking" is the Dunning Kruger version which is rationalizing away what disagrees with preconceptions. With limited education, rationalizing can be the only obvious form of reasoning and armchair level can the deepest perceived level of knowledge.

Reasoning about climate change requires high school level physics knowledge which most college students and most college graduates lack.

Les Lane said: What course critics wish is for it to include "critical thinking." Unfortunately common sense "critical thinking" is the Dunning Kruger version which is rationalizing away what disagrees with preconceptions. With limited education, rationalizing can be the only obvious form of reasoning and armchair level can the deepest perceived level of knowledge. Reasoning about climate change requires high school level physics knowledge which most college students and most college graduates lack.

http://www.cu.edu/regents/john-carson

Why do people who want to destroy public education get put on boards in charge of public education?

TomS said: I suggest that for many people, "critical thinking" means something like " showing where you're wrong." While college professors are talking about an in-depth understanding of the subject, and the hard thinking that that involves.

Climate change is a fable as I see it.
Is the claim that human beings are changing this great globe so settled that students will be punished or prohibited in even questioning he concept in a class on evidence for climate??
Its just like origin issues.
Its some professers declaring conclusions in a subject of nature as being settled. Then forbidding any scepticism.
In short CENSORSHIP.
Then this justify's anyone in the past, or future, stopping debate on anything in public schools.
Further its well known the public is questioning and so its a rejection of them. I think its fantaical advocates imposing their will in a academic place.
Any laws here? Any precedent? Any past discussion on if debates about common contentions is allowable?
Its indoctrination .
If climate change is real and supported by "science" then why not let that side clobber any critics amongst the kids?
Why can't the right side prevail in a free forum?
It just makes the case of thought/speech control as coming from the left wing .
It also makes the case they can't take competition.
If climate change/by people turns out, it will, to be a dumb fiction WOULD historians still agree with the clampdown on dissent?

The wrong people are professors etc.
Is this censorship a election issue?
Somebody ask Trump/Clinton, yuck, what they "think".
If conclusions are done then why criticial thinking? In critical is the word critic!
But the critic is banned?

Robert, humans are causing climate change. Period. If you don't understand how pumping tons and tons of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere - Carbon that was buried and for the most part inaccessible to the Carbon cycle - then there is little hope for you understanding the simplest of ideas.

I will send further comments from Mr. Byers to the Bathroom Wall. Pls do not respond to him here.

Michael Fugate said: http://www.cu.edu/regents/john-carson Why do people who want to destroy public education get put on boards in charge of public education?

Matt, feel free to move my comment to BW. I actually meant to put it there...

I am reminded of a remark by Joseph Fontenrose early in his beginning mythology course when my mother took the class in the early 1960s. It was to the effect that for purposes of the course, the Bible would be read as mythology and analyzed on that basis. The logical corollary is that being unable to do so might adversely affect a student's ability to pass the course.

Likewise, if a professor states that, for the purpose of the course, AGW is true whether you accept that or not, if one is unable to operate on that basis for the duration of the course, dropping said course would probably be prudent.

I wonder how the right wingers would react if it was an Economics professor saying we don't want any of that commie pinko hip-pie freak Paul Krugman stuff being brought up in our discussion of the holy relics of Saint Ayn Rand.

This is not so much a debate as a clash of data with prejudice. I don't understand the complexities of the actual change to climate - exactly what will be the result, that is. But that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that I understand. That humans are increasing its proportion in the atmosphere, that I understand. It's like my understanding of evolution. The basic principles of heritable variation and natural selection are so simple that even I can follow them, without needing to understand the mind-boggling complexities of the biochemistry.

I have heard it said that we are living in an interglacial period. I understand that there have been long periods in the past when there were no permanent ice-caps at all - that it was much warmer than today. I offer, tentatively and with trepidation, the possibility that even global warming were preferable to the return of ice sheets a mile high covering New York and London.

But still I believe the science insofar as I understand it. The earth is warming, and human activity is the cause. But I am not so foolish as to think that that is all there is to it. It reminds me of a story I heard, in some philosophy course somewhere:

Student to professor: "All I need to know of ethics, professor, is the Golden Rule."

Professor to student: "All I need to know of astronomy is 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'."

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman

Dave Luckett said: I have heard it said that we are living in an interglacial period. I understand that there have been long periods in the past when there were no permanent ice-caps at all - that it was much warmer than today.

I offer, tentatively and with trepidation, the possibility that even global warming were preferable to the return of ice sheets a mile high covering New York and London.

This would be MUCH less controversial if they stuck with real raw data, rather than cherry picked and heavily "corrected" data.

KlausH said: This would be MUCH less controversial if they stuck with real raw data, rather than cherry picked and heavily "corrected" data.

Existing data have well documented biases in them. The most important bias globally was the modification in measured sea surface temperatures associated with the change from ships throwing a bucket over the side, bringing some ocean water on deck, and putting a thermometer in it, to reading the thermometer in the engine coolant water intake. The bucket readings used early in the record were cooler than engine intake observations so the early data have been adjusted warmer to remove that bias. This makes global temperatures indicate less warming than the raw data. The NOAA Sea Surface Temperature bias-correction method that is applied to the historical data from the 1940’s and earlier is based on a comparison between nighttime marine air temperatures and SSTs from ICOADS. The most important bias in the U.S. temperature record occurred with the systematic change in observing times from the afternoon, when it is warm, to morning, when it is cooler. This shift has resulted in a well documented increasing cool bias over the last several decades and is addressed by applying a correction to the data.

KlausH said: This would be MUCH less controversial if they stuck with real raw data, rather than cherry picked and heavily "corrected" data.

Dave Luckett said: I have heard it said that we are living in an interglacial period. I understand that there have been long periods in the past when there were no permanent ice-caps at all - that it was much warmer than today. I offer, tentatively and with trepidation, the possibility that even global warming were preferable to the return of ice sheets a mile high covering New York and London.

Robert Byers said: Somebody ask Trump/Clinton, yuck, what they "think".

Klaus H and Robert Byers, dumb and dumber....

Michael Fugate said: Klaus H and Robert Byers, dumb and dumber....

KlausH said: This would be MUCH less controversial if they stuck with real raw data, rather than cherry picked… data.

Henry Skinner said:

Dave Luckett said: I have heard it said that we are living in an interglacial period. I understand that there have been long periods in the past when there were no permanent ice-caps at all - that it was much warmer than today.

In the 1970s the BBC did a show The weather machine (presented by Nigel Calder) about the coming of a new ice age, how fast glaciers might form over Britain and western Europe and other nasty consequences. I can't remember details, but the greenhouse effect was mentioned as a mitigating factor. Global warming was not considered.

I offer, tentatively and with trepidation, the possibility that even global warming were preferable to the return of ice sheets a mile high covering New York and London.

I don't fancy the sea level rise associated with global warming. I happen to live in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, some 5 m below sea level. If the worst imaginable would come true, a rise of up to 20 m, the place where I live would become a shallow sea with small concrete islands poking out. The Dutch can do what they've done for centuries: put more earth and stone on their dikes, but at considerable cost. A quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works "In September 2008, the Delta commission presided by Dutch politician Cees Veerman advised in a report that the Netherlands would need a massive new building program to strengthen the country's water defenses against the anticipated effects of global warming for the next 190 years. The plans included drawing up worst-case scenarios for evacuations and included more than €100 billion, or $144 billion, in new spending through the year 2100 for measures, such as broadening coastal dunes and strengthening sea and river dikes." Selling our winter clothes won't raise that amount of cash.

A recent xkcd gives a very dramatic visual depiction of how temperatures have fluctuated during the Holocene.

http://xkcd.com/1732/

Not to mention that the additional CO2 in seawater makes calcium more soluble than it used to be. (Think critters that have shells. )

This is something I directed to a climate denier in another forum. It was ignored (not replied to, and in a sign of incredibly deep denial, not even "down voted"). These are the types of questions they should be asked.

I detect that you are not convinced that humans are contributing to climate change. I'd love to have a civil, rational conversation.
I'd like to ask these questions -

1) Is there any evidence, now lacking, that would convince you of human contribution to climate change? Anything, even something imaginary? If yes, what is it? If not, are you saying that human activity simply cannot impact on Earth's climate, no matter what, and if you are, how would you defend this?

2) How certain would we need to be to take any common sense steps like more efficient use of fossil fuels, and increasing the use of non-fossil fuel sources of energy? Would we have to be 100% certain that human contribution to climate change is real and having a negative impact? What if we were only 95% percent certain? 80% certain?

3) Do you agree with this - deliberately using more fossil fuel than is needed as a gesture would possibly help the economy of fossil fuel producing regions, such as Texas, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, etc. However, it would harm the economy overall. This is easy to see. Substitute "potatoes" for "fossil fuel". If you buy a lot of potatoes just to take one bite out of them and throw them away, that might help the economy of Idaho but would harm your own finances by causing you to waste money. So there is no net benefit in terms of "economic growth" to be gained by deliberately burning vast amounts of fossil fuel when similar effects could be achieved with less. Do you agree with this logic?

SLC said: Actually, at the time, the notion of onset of a new ice age was very much a minority opinion in the climate science community. A survey of papers published in the peer reviewed literature indicated most of them supported a warming scenario rather then a cooling scenario.

IIRC from way back when I was a kid and the various items I've read over the last couple of years since the denialists made the whole "past prediction of global cooling/coming ice age" thing a meme/trope, much of it is due to people remebering shows like the one Henry Skinner mentioned.

I recall seeing the In Search Of episode "The Coming Ice Age" that aired in the late 70s in the US. For those who aren't familiar with the show it aired from 1977 to 1982 (and of course was rerun for many years afterward) and was pretty much like today's "Ancient Aliens" and covered all the usual suspects like bigfoot, ufos, and the like. Have a quick gander at the episode list and you'll see what I mean.

I believe those shows, and the pop-science articles exploring the idea, that cropped up at the time were largely inspired, or perhaps more accurately spun, from the work of a scientist whose name I can't recall and was unable to find in the past. Although admittedly it's been quite a long time since I've tried to search for his name and it was a half-hearted attempt. Anyway, as I recall, this scientist had written a paper that became somewhat controversial, although the "controversy" was driven and existed in the media than within scientific community. Que surprise, eh?

My memory of the scenario is vague but I believe the paper that he had written was not in a definitive predictive sense, but more of a loose "what if" sense. As in, if this particular trend continues, and that one reverses, and that one increases, etc., etc.. As is noted in the abstract of the paper I posted a link to in my last comment, climate science at the time was still in it's infancy and certainly not as advanced as it is today. We now have a greater variety of tools and techniques available and of course computational power that was all but non-existent. When the paper started generating hype in the media he then wrote a book that became fairly popular that was based on the "what if" and explored what would happen to the planet, life on the planet, and naturally how mankind would be affected.

Those television shows, the articles of the day (didn't Time run an article too?), and that book are what is in the collective memory of those old enough to recall anything about it. And as it is today, how much of the public is exposed to the actual science let alone back then before the internet? So anyway, there's the origins of the "science predicted Global-Cooling-Coming-Ice-Age-therefore-they-don't-know-anything-science-is-always-changing-it's-a-conspiracy" meme. As I recall it anyway.

Now I freely admit my memory is quite fuzzy on this and some of my details might be slightly off, but I think I'm pretty close generally. Perhaps when I've had some rest I'll try to look up the scientist/author and comment later.

Well it's true. The natural cycle that has been occurring for millions of years means that we are headed for another ice age. It should be here some time within the next one hundred to two hundred thousand years. What is not true is that pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is an appropriate or effective strategy to forestall such an ice age. That's like saying we might run out of firewood some time in the next hundred years, so let's set the house on fire now and hope we can get it under control before the entire house is destroyed. That's just nuts. Setting the house on fire is never going to be the answer, no matter what the weather does.

The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around...

Or it will be, until it all melts.