Illuminate the Dark Ages of Science Education – Is It Possible?

by Gregory Wrightstone

The science teacher bureaucracy is pushing climate education to be an unquestionable adherence to the unscientific method. The cost will be paid by students who have no basis for the scientific method more than 400 years old and lack the critical thinking necessary to sustain civilization and develop humanity.

Many education observers were at one time concerned about the state of science education in America. It seems that teaching has moved from open inquiry to student indoctrination to a political agenda. Members of the science-based CO₂ The Arlington Union, Virginia was interested enough to launch an educational initiative to provide science literacy to elementary and middle school students without the climate warnings pervading the program. teaching in public schools.

Their interest spiked alarmingly with the publication.”Teaching climate science,” a stance report by the 40,000-member National Science Teaching Association (NSTA). In it, NSTA advocates for teachers to follow the “consensus” view that man-made carbon dioxide emissions will cause the Earth to overheat dangerously. Possibly worse than promoting “consensus” is their endorsement of censorship of any scientific information that deviates from consensus group thinking.

A critical review of the NSTA Statement was recently completed by a select panel of CO₂ Union experts and summaries in their publications Challenging the National Association for the Teaching of Climate Change Position Statement. The panel included some of the most respected scientists and experts in the field, including three members of the National Academy of Sciences.

The review found that the NSTA Statement of Position on Climate Change promotes educating students through indoctrination rather than critical thinking skills and the scientific method. Throughout the document, the promotion of “consensus” is enhanced, while all dissenting scientific facts are censored or ridiculed.

Instead of promoting compliance and indoctrination, the largest organization of science teachers in America should promote an open debate on scientific issues, including climate change. Right in science is determined not by consensus but by experiment and observation. Historically, the scientific consensus has often turned out to be false. The greatest scientists in history became great precisely because they broke consensus. Constantly asserting that there is consensus behind the idea that there is an impending disaster due to climate change is not a way of validating science. To quote Michael Crichton’s truly insightful observation:

“If it’s consensus, it’s not science. If it’s science, it’s not consensus.”

Credible scientific knowledge is determined by the scientific method, where theoretical predictions are confirmed by observations or disproved by failure to do so. Agreeing with observations is a measure of scientific truth. Scientific progress proceeds by the interaction of theory and observation. Observations reinforce understanding and eliminate theories that don’t work. This has been the scientific method for over 400 years.

The goal of scientists is to discern the truth. Unfortunately, the NSTA and too many climate scientists have abandoned that mission, and they have done so at great cost to their own institutions and the reputation of science.

Science, as the Muslim mathematician and empiricist al-Haytham (965 to 1040 AD) may have told the NSTA, is not done just by counting heads:

“Truth-seekers do not place their faith in any consensus, respectable or popular. Instead, he questions what he has learned about it, applies his hard-won scientific knowledge to it, and he examines and learns and investigates and examines. and check and recheck. The road to truth is long and arduous, but it is the path we must follow.”

Professor Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, elaborated on the scientific method and offered his thoughts on the scientific consensus:

“[W]compare the results of [a theory’s] calculate with nature… compare it directly with observations, to see if it works. If it disagrees with the experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.”

NSTA’s primary role is to develop students’ critical thinking skills and to impart knowledge and use of the scientific method. Students should be encouraged to look at all the facts on a topic (in this case, climate change) and make their own decisions rather than being crammed into an established political agenda. create.

Unfortunately, the NSTA has taken a strong stance contrary to the scientific method, critical thinking, and open scientific debate. Its position is to censor any scientist or science that does not support the NSTA-approved “science”. In short, the NSTA Statement of Position on Climate Change fails to draw a line between real science and political science.

We respectfully call on the National Association for the Teaching of Science to consider our comment and return science education to the foundation of reason, open debate, and tolerance for alternative thinking.

Perhaps Richard Feynman summed it up best, saying:

“I would rather have unanswerable questions than unquestionable answers.”

This commentary was first published at Real pure energyMarch 27, 2023, and can be accessed This.

Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; CEO of CO . gas₂ Arena of valor, Arlington, Va.; and author of “The Inconvenient Truth: The Science Al Gore Doesn’t Want You To Know.”