11 Lies being taught to American children

Orion

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/13/11_heinous_lies_conservatives_are_teaching_americas_school_children_partner/

I don't know why I'm surprised at any of this but I still find it amazing that an enlightened society can be so backwards especially when it comes to education their youth. Revisionism and social blindness is alive and well.

There's a very interesting link at the start of the article as well about how Texas exerts a fair degree of control over school textbooks across the States.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/?pagination=false

Spanish Harlem

First of all, I have to say that is a very poor OP. You could have at least given a summary of the "11 lies being taught to American children" so we have something to discuss. Instead you give us a link to a notoriously biased liberal website based in San Francisco. You don't give an opinion either so I'm not sure what your point is

I'm pretty sure most of the anti-gay and anti-science accusations contained within the article could be equally applied to Saudi Arabia, or even little Catholic Ireland. I'm not sure where America comes into it, to be honest. Article smacks of America bashing with a strong stench of "won't somebody think of the children!" hand wringing.

Manach

From conservative blogs I've heard the same charge in reverse, with instead the liberal types in blue states in the role of evil corrupters of school goers with their spin on history/science. So this would seem to show that finding an objective truth that either side signs up to in modern society is unlikely.

clairefontaine

Orion wrote: »

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/13/11_heinous_lies_conservatives_are_teaching_americas_school_children_partner/

I don't know why I'm surprised at any of this but I still find it amazing that an enlightened society can be so backwards especially when it comes to education their youth. Revisionism and social blindness is alive and well.

There's a very interesting link at the start of the article as well about how Texas exerts a fair degree of control over school textbooks across the States.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/?pagination=false

Oh this is too funny. It reminds of another certain country that has compulsary prayer, nationalistic compulsary language, and a biased history curriculum.

The states in that OP are all the southeast. You go to the Pacific Northwest and you get a whole lot of other kind of brainwashing.

What's wrong with ayn rand? And how is that a lie? "Read this book and pass a test on it" "YOU LIAR!!"
Pretty rubbish article tbh

Permabear

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Orion

Permabear wrote: »

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I fully agree with what you're saying here and I've been semi-active in that area. Even on the other parts of the syllabus catholic teaching permeates. When my kids were in 1st class part of their history book was about the birth of christ to a virgin etc - presented as history! The difference here is that we don't have rich fundamentalists attempting to control the syllabus - we just have the church and that is changing ... slowly.

Permabear

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clairefontaine

Permabear,

I contacted the Minister for Education about the relationship between Church and state regarding the curriculum and the crucifixes over the doorways.

I was told that it is a constitutional obligation to teach religion, that is why you have Catholic schools and multi denominationals [where they teach a number of religions, more like a world theology syllabus] but you can never have schools that have no religion like in American or French public schools.

Speaking of fundamentalism, Ireland is a country that still has blasphemy laws. Don't know how you get anymore fundamentalist than that.

Permabear

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clairefontaine

Yes I found it strange too. In my correspondence I had asked to explain the difference between a right and an obligation. He said the children have a right to learn religion so they teach it, but they can be exempt and sit out the classes.

Orion

clairefontaine wrote: »

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Well that's absolute rubbish from someone who obviously doesn't know the difference between statute and constitution. There's a legal obligation (2.5 hours per week in primary) not a constitutional one. Laws can be changed easily.

In ET they give religious education as you say in all world religions. In the vast majority of schools however they do religion instruction in one. However have a look at a lot of the curriculum books apart from religion ones - christian preaching is all over the place.

Permabear wrote:

and we have powerful teachers' unions that are highly resistant to reform

This is the biggest problem imo. Particularly the INTO. My dealings with that organisation have not been pleasant to say the least. They are more concerned with maintaining the status quo and protecting their members from any form of quality control in teaching than providing the best education possible.

Morag

clairefontaine wrote: »

Yes I found it strange too. In my correspondence I had asked to explain the difference between a right and an obligation. He said the children have a right to learn religion so they teach it, but they can be exempt and sit out the classes.

The exemption rarely works in practice.

clairefontaine

Morag wrote: »

The exemption rarely works in practice.

Oh yeah, it's a complete joke. Especially in rural schools.

clairefontaine

Orion wrote: »

This is the biggest problem imo. Particularly the INTO. My dealings with that organisation have not been pleasant to say the least. They are more concerned with maintaining the status quo and protecting their members from any form of quality control in teaching than providing the best education possible.

Interesting you say this. I was talking to a parent who has a very orthodox Catholic family, and homeschools his kids because he didn't like the trade union brainwashing slant of the Irish education. The religion part wasnt a problem for him.

Zombrex

While I think it would be terrible if school children are taught an of those things, this seems to be a lot of scaremongering and little facts. The key word in the article is "may", this is what school children may be taught in schools. I take it from that that they aren't currently, so I think the hysteria should probably wait until someone tries to teach this stuff.

RDM_83 again

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Just a question but is the Kinsey Institute the best source of this sort of data, since we're speaking about controversial opinions/agenda's in education.

In relation to the Irish education system, I will agree that people in ROI probably have an overrated opinion of its ranking but does it matter to a great degree what happens in Primary school, while I've little teaching experience I've shared classes of many americans and europeans and I've never noticed that they performed any better in comparison (with the exception of languages in relation to Europeans), and please note none of my education up to 3rd level was in the ROI and my friends that are teachers are now mostly working abroad so I'm not a mindless defender (there is plenty of things I've heard about 2nd level i would criticise)

clairefontaine wrote: »

Speaking of fundamentalism, Ireland is a country that still has blasphemy laws. Don't know how you get anymore fundamentalist than that.

Has anyone ever been arrested or even tried under Irish blasphemy law either new or old?, and is it even possible for a conviction to be gained under the new legislation. The existence of law is irrelvant unless you also look at its application.

Greenmachine

Plenty of lies in the primary school curriculum here in Ireland. No original though on the parts of the teachers. Something was a fact because it said so in the book.

Permabear

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RDM_83 again

I'm not arguing about your broader point in relation to attitudes towards sex in the USA, I was wondering why the Kinsey institute was used rather than a more state/official source considering this discussion is around biases perceived and real in education, and the Kinsey institute even by simply being named after him automatically attracts a controversy, I'm sure by writing that though it will be assumed I think sex is dirty etc, I don't, I do think that Kinsey was a poor scientist (simple population selection and sampling sampling biases weren't mysterious at the time for other researchers) and particular aspects of his work (which remember were carried out before ethics committees existed), anyway thats a totally different argument so I'l drop it.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.e issues , if Irish and RE were removed these extra hours wouldn't even be used to teach English, they would be used to teach a foreign language at a younger age or classes like civics, in relation to Maths a similar argument applies, also consider that the majority of the Irish population take leaving cert maths at some level all these years of teaching must pass them by.
Its not time of education thats important, its the quality of it, looking at steiner educated kids or children from the Scandinavian countries, they start formal schooling way later but have no problems with literacy or numeracy.

There's plenty of reasons to criticize the Irish education system but placing RE and Irish as reasons why English and Maths skills are mediocre for the developed world is reaching

Permabear

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Duiske

Lie No 3 in that link is actually itself, a lie. No-one is advocating teaching "climate change denial". What is being suggested is that children should be told the truth, that the Science is not in fact settled, and there are discrepancies between what scientists believe should be happening in the climate due to increased anthropogenic CO2 and what is actually happening.
This is borne out well this week by an excellent article in the Economist. Well worth a read by everyone, and hopefully it will lead to a reduction in the "Denier" tag being applied to anyone who quite correctly states that Global Warming has stalled, and actually slightly reversed, over the past decade. UK Met Office.
The claim in the link that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting the skeptical arguments against AGW is also untrue. Here's a link which lists over 1,000 such papers.

Mark Hamill

Duiske wrote: »

Lie No 3 in that link is actually itself, a lie. No-one is advocating teaching "climate change denial". What is being suggested is that children should be told the truth, that the Science is not in fact settled, and there are discrepancies between what scientists believe should be happening in the climate due to increased anthropogenic CO2 and what is actually happening.

Except that is not really the truth. It is true that exactly how the earth will heat and what effect that will have is not settled, it is scientific consensus that anthropomorphic climate change is happening.

Duiske wrote: »

This is borne out well this week by an excellent article in the Economist. Well worth a read by everyone, and hopefully it will lead to a reduction in the "Denier" tag being applied to anyone who quite correctly states that Global Warming has stalled, and actually slightly reversed, over the past decade. UK Met Office.

Your are not doing your argument any favours by interpreting a 160 year trend graph by just looking at the last dozen or so years. There was one exceptional hot year around 1996 or so, according to that graph, with the next two years showing cooler temperatures. However, the remaining 12 or so years, are all hotter than any other year on the graph.

Duiske wrote: »

The claim in the link that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting the skeptical arguments against AGW is also untrue. Here's a link which lists over 1,000 such papers.

I'm not going through all of the 1000 papers, but looking at the 11 in the highlights section (and their abstracts), only one of them denies global warming itself (well it denies that a particular IPCC report supports it, article here), they either deny global warmings cause (cosmic rays, end of little ice age) or its extent (standard research methods over-exaggerats data).

EDIT: After reading this article entitled "Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution" on the same website reporting the 1000 papers against AGW, I'm beginning to think they are either morons or some oil company astroturfing with a fake blog.

Poptech

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I'm not going through all of the 1000 papers, but looking at the 11 in the highlights section (and their abstracts), only one of them denies global warming itself (well it denies that a particular IPCC report supports it, article here), they either deny global warmings cause (cosmic rays, end of little ice age) or its extent (standard research methods over-exaggerats data).

This is a strawman argument as none of the papers on the list are claimed to "deny" anything let alone "global warming" as all skeptics believe there has been a global temperature increase of a fraction of a degree since the end of the little ice age.

What the papers are claimed to support is quite clear in the preface,

Preface: The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)].

ACC/AGW Alarm: (defined), "concern relating to a perceived negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."

Mark Hamill wrote: »

EDIT: After reading this article entitled "Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution" on the same website reporting the 1000 papers against AGW, I'm beginning to think they are either morons or some oil company astroturfing with a fake blog.

This is a dishonest ad hominem, there is nothing moronic about explaining the scientific fact that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a not a "pollutant" as in something that causes dirty air like smog and no company runs my site.

Mark Hamill

Poptech wrote: »

This is a strawman argument as none of the papers on the list are claimed to "deny" anything let alone "global warming" as all skeptics believe there has been a global temperature increase of a fraction of a degree since the end of the little ice age.

What the papers are claimed to support is quite clear in the preface,

Preface: The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)].

ACC/AGW Alarm: (defined), "concern relating to a perceived negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."

Its a bit dishonest, though, to bunch them altogether. Going by the highlights section, the articles that propose a different cause, don't deny there is a global warming problem, the articles that propose faults in certain research methods don't deny that ACC is happening and the articles that do deny ACC are in the minority.

Poptech wrote: »

This is a dishonest ad hominem, there is nothing moronic about explaining the scientific fact that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a not a "pollutant" as in something that causes dirty air like smog and no company runs my site.

Anything is a pollutant if it is emitted into an environment causing a negative effect, so no, it is not a "scientific fact" that CO2 is not a pollutant and, yes, the article was either written by a moron or a shill for some oil company.

Poptech

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Its a bit dishonest, though, to bunch them altogether. Going by the highlights section, the articles that propose a different cause, don't deny there is a global warming problem, the articles that propose faults in certain research methods don't deny that ACC is happening and the articles that do deny ACC are in the minority.

What? The only thing dishonest is your strawman arguments as the list has nothing to do with any of them. None of the papers in the highlights section support alarmist positions on anything as most were explicitly written by skeptics.

There is not a single paper that "denies" there is a scientific hypothesis called anthropogenic climate change (ACC). So there is no minority of anything you are talking about.

Stating perpetual strawman arguments has nothing to do with the fact that all the papers in the list support skeptic arguments.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Anything is a pollutant if it is emitted into an environment causing a negative effect, so no, it is not a "scientific fact" that CO2 is not a pollutant and, yes, the article was either written by a moron or a shill for some oil company.

So you continue your dishonest ad hominems as I am not a shill for anyone. Using your logic water can be "pollution", so yes it is a scientific fact that CO2 is not "pollution" in the sense joe public defines it and there is nothing moronic about explaining this.

Mark Hamill

Poptech wrote: »

What? The only thing dishonest is your strawman arguments as the list has nothing to do with any of them. None of the papers in the highlights section support alarmist positions on anything as most were explicitly written by skeptics.

There is not a single paper that "denies" there is a scientific hypothesis called anthropogenic climate change (ACC). So there is no minority of anything you are talking about.

Stating perpetual strawman arguments has nothing to do with the fact that all the papers in the list support skeptic arguments.

I'll try this again, because you haven't addressed what I said:
"Its a bit dishonest, though, to bunch them altogether. Going by the highlights section, the articles that propose a different cause, don't deny there is a global warming problem, the articles that propose faults in certain research methods don't deny that ACC is happening and the articles that do deny ACC are in the minority."
The papers do not support skeptic arguments in the way being implied. Being skeptical of the cause or extent of AGW is not the same as being skeptical of AGW in general.

Poptech wrote: »

So you continue your dishonest ad hominems as I am not a shill for anyone. Using your logic water can be "pollution", so yes it is a scientific fact that CO2 is not "pollution" in the sense joe public defines it and there is nothing moronic about explaining this.

I hadn't realised that you were the articles author. How did you find this forum so fast? Did you write both articles?

Anyway, water can be a pollutant, because a pollutant is simply something which causes a negative effect on an environment that is not prepared for it, that is the only accurate definition of pollutant. "Pollutant", is like "pest", it's context sensitive. In general people might not think of rabbits as pests, and yet they are serious pests in Australia.
Saying CO2 is safe because its plant food is an argument as stupid as a creationist saying we couldn't have evolved from monkeys because monkeys still exist. Nitrates are important chemicals for plant growth, yet dump a load in a river and you get eutriphication.

Poptech

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I'll try this again, because you haven't addressed what I said:
"Its a bit dishonest, though, to bunch them altogether. Going by the highlights section, the articles that propose a different cause, don't deny there is a global warming problem, the articles that propose faults in certain research methods don't deny that ACC is happening and the articles that do deny ACC are in the minority."
The papers do not support skeptic arguments in the way being implied. Being skeptical of the cause or extent of AGW is not the same as being skeptical of AGW in general.

I did address your dishonest strawman argument. Do you not know what a strawman argument is? Repeating it does not make it any more valid. The papers directly support skeptic arguments as being implied. Are you incapable of reading?

Do you not comprehend what supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm means? This is explicitly stated and defined on the list.

1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

Preface: The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)].

ACC/AGW Alarm: (defined), "concern relating to a perceived negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."

Papers supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm is effectively arguing against the extent of ACC/AGW.

And papers being skeptical of the cause of ACC/AGW is the same thing as papers that support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW.

I have never seen someone double down on something so irrefutable before.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I hadn't realised that you were the articles author. How did you find this forum so fast? Did you write both articles?

As soon as anyone states misinformation or strawman arguments against the list as you have I become aware.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Anyway, water can be a pollutant, because a pollutant is simply something which causes a negative effect on an environment that is not prepared for it, that is the only accurate definition of pollutant. "Pollutant", is like "pest", it's context sensitive. In general people might not think of rabbits as pests, and yet they are serious pests in Australia.

Saying CO2 is safe because its plant food is an argument as stupid as a creationist saying we couldn't have evolved from monkeys because monkeys still exist. Nitrates are important chemicals for plant growth, yet dump a load in a river and you get eutriphication.

If you cannot comprehend why people do not think water is "pollution" I cannot help you. People in Australia do not think rabbits are "pollution". And please spare me the old and tire anti-religious analogies. It is so predictable, it is as if every proponent of AGW Alarm regurgitates the same tired talking points and cannot come up with an original thought.

Does CO2 make the air people breath "dirtier"?

Mark Hamill

Poptech wrote: »

I did address your dishonest strawman argument. Do you not know what a strawman argument is? Repeating it does not make it any more valid. The papers directly support skeptic arguments as being implied. Are you incapable of reading?

Do you not comprehend what supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm means? This is explicitly stated and defined on the list.

1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

Preface: The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)].

ACC/AGW Alarm: (defined), "concern relating to a perceived negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."

Papers supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm is effectively arguing against the extent of ACC/AGW.

And papers being skeptical of the cause of ACC/AGW is the same thing as papers that support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW.

I have never seen someone double down on something so irrefutable before.


As soon as anyone states misinformation or strawman arguments against the list as you have I become aware.


If you cannot comprehend why people do not think water is "pollution" I cannot help you. People in Australia do not think rabbits are "pollution". And please spare me the old and tire anti-religious analogies. It is so predictable, it is as if every proponent of AGW Alarm regurgitates the same tired talking points and cannot come up with an original thought.

Does CO2 make the air people breath "dirtier"?

This entire post refutes neither my point that the skepticisms shown in those 1000 papers are not equivalent to each other, or the overall skepticism implied, nor my point that pollution is contextual and refers to anything that has a negative effect on an environment.
When you are ready to present valid arguments, I'll be here. Given that you come out with notions like "rabbits are pollution" and pollution means dirt (is noise pollution dirty?), I wont be holding my breath.

Poptech wrote: »

As soon as anyone states misinformation or strawman arguments against the list as you have I become aware.

How do you "become aware"?

Poptech

Mark Hamill wrote: »

This entire post refutes neither my point that the skepticisms shown in those 1000 papers are not equivalent to each other, or the overall skepticism implied,

Where does the list claim all the papers are equivalent to each other?

Your "point" is a strawman argument as no claim is made that the "skepticism" in all the papers is equivalent. All that is claimed is all the papers support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm .

Mark Hamill wrote: »

nor my point that pollution is contextual and refers to anything that has a negative effect on an environment.

Strawman argument as that is your definition of "pollution" not the definition I am using.

Does CO2 make the air people breath "dirtier"?

Mark Hamill wrote: »

When you are ready to present valid arguments, I'll be here. Given that you come out with notions like "rabbits are pollution" and pollution means dirt (is noise pollution dirty?), I wont be holding my breath.

Strawman arguments are not valid arguments. Are you claiming to know more about the list than the author?

You chose to use rabbits as an analogy not me and I am well aware of the various definitions of the word "pollution". In the future do not believe your subjective choice of a definition for a word with multiple definitions is the same as everyone else.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

How do you "become aware"?

Magic

Mark Hamill

Poptech wrote: »

Where does the list claim all the papers are equivalent to each other?

It is implied. Someone who is skeptical of the extent or the actual cause of AGW is not the same as someone who skeptical of it outright.

Poptech wrote: »

Strawman argument as that is your definition of "pollution" not the definition I am using.

Does CO2 make the air people breath "dirtier"?

Your definition is obnoxiously wrong. Does noise pollution make the air dirtier?

Poptech wrote: »

Strawman arguments are not valid arguments. Are you claiming to know more about the list than the author?

You chose to use rabbits as an analogy not me and I am well aware of the various definitions of the word "pollution". In the future do not believe your subjective choice of a definition for a word with multiple definitions is the same as everyone else.

Aren't you the author? I only used your highlights section as a quick review to avoid looking at all 1000 papers. It doesn't bode well for your argument if the highlights section you selected isn't actually representative of the 1000 papers.

Pollution is contextual, not subjective. What a pollutant is, is objective (an emission which causes a negative impact on an environment), but when a specific thing becomes a pollutant depends on context (how much of it is being emitted into what environment).

Poptech wrote: »

Magic

Seriously, how did you know that someone on an Irish forum referenced your 4 1/2 year old document?