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Why The Unwillingness To Debate Global Warming?
As a counterpoint to the horrors of global warming as presented in our schools, I suggest you read this letter from Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and many other important offices. Among other things, Dr. Lewis writes: “Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud that I have seen in my long life.”
Dr. Lewis is resigning from the American Physical Society because the APS refuses to sanction an open discussion on the scientific underpinnings of global warming science, alleging that the APS is motivated to behave in this unscientific way by the money flood to scientists who support the global warming theories. If the verdict on global warming is so cut and dried, why is the APS going to such lengths to evade its constitutional obligation to set up a Topical Group on Climate Science?
This is an important letter. As of this posting, there are 2494 comments on this site alone, and it is being discussed all over the Internet.
” I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.”
Global warming, is more about a philosophy, than the actual science. Much like our education system, where the science of learning, takes second or third billing, from the philosophy of learning. The philosophy in the textbooks of science, math, and even in the social studies texts, are where facts are reconfigured to represent a point of view, that mimics the philosophy of today, or worst ignoring the science on learning, and turned the business of education, into a pseudoscience based on false assumptions.
As it is in global warming, education has become a profitable business. The profit will continue to climb, as long as there is never an open discussion and debate on the science underpinnings in the science of education.
As a parent, I rely on the science of learning, to direct me on what is the most efficient and effective ways for my LD child to learn. Along the way, I have run into a great amount of pseudoscience in the education field, and the public education system can claimed their fair share, in all aspects of education.
Below is a link, rather long, of a recent decision by the Ontario Special Education Tribunal. ” The issue before the Tribunal is to decide on the most appropriate special education identification and placement that are in the student’s best interests.”
The parents wanted the board to provide: “The student is to be accommodated and provided with an appropriate special education program of Ontario curriculum credit-earning English courses and where necessary, the appropriate modifications to address the assessed needs [arising from] the student’s identified severe specific Communication - Learning Disability (Dyslexia) exceptionality. The program should be intensive, systematic, and evidence-based direct instruction in reading fluency, vocabulary building and writing, and should incorporate the use of adaptive technology, as appropriate. The program would be for one semester in each of the 2010/11 and 2011/12 school years, delivered on a one-to-one basis by a SERT or English specialist for one 75 minute period each day.”
The board’s objection to the above, “The student’s special education placement should be Regular Class with Resource Support for addressing the student’s giftedness. Should the student be in difficulties in any academic language-based courses (such as English in Grade 11), the HCDSB can assist the student through a GLE (General Learning Essentials) course.
5”
And the board added, “The focus of the student’s programming should be to support the student with accommodations for the learning disability and to ensure appropriate programming for the student’s giftedness.”
http://www.oset-tedo.ca/eng/decisions.html
The above link, is the first one, dated - 2010-06-09
It is where the science of learning disabilities, meets the hard rock of the pseudoscience of learning disabilities. What the parents were asking for, is based on the knowledge and science. What the board was asking for is based on false assumptions that LD children who have strong compensatory skills, to work around the learning disability, do not need intensive instruction in reading fluency, vocabulary and writing. The false assumption, that is propagated by the educators working within the public education systems, is the used of highly intensive instruction in reading and writing, will only enhance the reading and writing abilities of LD children, just a little bit.
The real science, states differently - these children need a firm grounding on the foundations of reading and writing, to facilitate the higher order thinking processes with greater ease, and fluency.
Profitable within and outside of the public education system. The creation of new jobs, busy work that does little to address the language needs of LD children. If the education system did go by the science, it would be far less profitable.