Teaching our Children - What's wrong with greed?

goaliedad
Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:57:55 +0000

Yes, there is plenty of bad science on both sides of the global warming debate. Plenty of the naysayers’ opinions are payed for by those greedy executives whose stock options are tied to a certain “less than environmentally optimal” way of developing resources.

Common sense supported by statistically solid data tells me that the earth cycles up and down in temperature on a complex cycle impacted by things geological, astronomical, and organic. I can understand how changing the C02 (sorry can’t get the text to format correctly) percentage in the atmosphere can accelerate an increase or decrease (depending upon the direction of change) in atmospheric temperature until a certain tipping point where organic activity can counterbalance it. And digging up long carbon chains to oxidize into C02 can’t be helping. The thing I haven’t seen is an adequate model of how the geologic (upheaval of gases from within the earth and subverting of carbon molecules into the earth away from the atmosphere) are accurately measured to be scaled against this human activity.

At times I think scientists are too egocentric about the impact of man on the environment. We as a species have been here a very short length of time (geologically speaking) to adequately measure the changes that occur during a full phase of the heating and cooling cycle on this planet. We’d like to think that we’d slow down this warming trend everyone is talking about, but even if we stopped burning hydrocarbons tomorrow (highly unlikely) can we really be sure that we’d significantly delay the warming cycle much less stop it? I think we think too much of our knowledge.

Scientists and Science Teachers are people just like the rest of us, mere mortals with issues that cloud the rational thought. It is not an evil plot on either side of the debate, just a different set of motivators that drive the science out of science.

And all of this nonsense debate on both sides about global warming (megaphones on both sides shouting at each other) just harms science and scientific progress by distracting from the effort to teach science in a true sense - the pursuit of knowledge about our universe without regard our pre-formed beliefs.

Of course, where do most people get most of their misinformation about science? From our wonderful media sources, now reduced to a couple of new services with journalists whose scientific training is minimal not allowing them to critically assess the information that is presented as knowledge. Of course, the undereducated public (indoctrinated to be critical but not to think critically) eats this stuff up and drives the politics of funding of scientific research.

Did I mention that I was a cynic?