Kansas state bill would force teachers to question climate change in class – HB2306 calls climate change ‘scientific controversy’
[“Teach the controversy”: Taking a page from the Creationists’ playbook. –Des] 18 February 2013
By Celia Llopis-Jepsen (The Topeka Capital-Journal) – With the Kansas State Board of Education preparing to vote on new science standards this year, the House Education Committee has introduced a bill asking schools to include evidence against climate change in science classes. House Bill 2306, introduced last week, says science classes must “provide information to students of scientific evidence which both supports and counters a scientific theory or hypothesis.” The bill says instruction about “scientific controversies” should be objective and include “both the strengths and weaknesses of such scientific theory or hypothesis.” The only controversy identified in the bill is “climate science.” No hearings have been scheduled yet for the bill. At least one other bill currently in the Education Committee would mandate changes in Kansas’ curriculum standards — something that is normally handled by the Kansas State Board of Education. That bill would force the State Board of Education to abandon math and English standards that it adopted in 2010. [more]
This is an outrage, we can't have teachers questioning scientific theories, they must teach only what we command them to teach. We can't have children asking questions, they might learn critical thinking skills, they must accept our teachings without question. Its the American way, its the way of modern science.
klem
Hi Klem,
Thank you for dropping in. It seems paradoxical, but "teaching the controversy" is not the same as teaching critical thinking skills. In the case of climate science (and evolutionary biology, and geology), the "controversy" is manufactured — very few climate scientists disagree with the Greenhouse Effect, just as very few geologists believe that Earth is 7,000 years old. I'm sure you'll agree that we do our children no favors by teaching them, against all of the evidence, that "some people" think Earth is only 7 millennia old. So it is with climate science and evolutionary biology.