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Climate science denial being taught at Carleton University

Pipirr

Graduate Poster
Pipirr
Joined
Mar 3, 2006
Messages
1,433
This seemed like a good place for the topic.

The Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism, part of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, has just released a report exposing a course being taught at Carleton University that's little more than a cover for pushing every long-debunked global warming canard on to students.

The course, "Climate change: an Earth Sciences perspective", has been taught by Tom Harris for a few years now. CASS took a look at the content and produced a report containing 142 full quotes and accompanied debunking. It's quite a piece of work.

The Heartland Institute has been in the news recently for wanting to put together a K12 curriculum all about global warming skepticism. It's been about as well received as curricula for creationism would be, and deservedly so. However, the course at Carleton has been running under the radar for a few years and it looks to be just as bad.

The CASS release and link to the report can be found here.

I'll add how delighted I am to see climate science denial being taken on by a skeptical organization. It's about time.
 
I want to underscore that this is Carleton University in Canada, which is not to be confused with Carleton College in Minnesota.
 
Ottawa has been invaded by right-wing hooligans lately. Nothing surprises me anymore.
 
Pipirr said:
This seemed like a good place for the topic.

The Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism, part of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, has just released a report exposing a course being taught at Carleton University that's little more than a cover for pushing every long-debunked global warming canard on to students. ...
Click to expand...

Looking good! What's the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skeptcism a cover for (......) now?

Sounds sort of like JREF. Is the Committee a bunch of clowns of sciency truthiness?

Added. Look, I'm not trying to start something here, but we all know there are wacko looney globby warmers lurking around. Are they in the "Committee"?

:)

HERE'S a juicy little tidbit from their prestigiously named REPORT:

students were actively encouraged to ridicule those individuals who espoused views considered "alarmist" by the instructor

YES! Here 'ya go! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54

BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Where can I sign up for the course in rdiculing wackos? Is there a long line?

I think the "Committee's Report" should be required reading for these students. YES!!! The REPORT which stunningly and penetratingly highlights the wrongness of Harris's attitude using SCIENCY sources...

  • desmogblog (warning warmers...felons lurk here)
  • skeptical seeance (whoops)... skeptical science
  • realclimax (oops, YES it's climate porn but the name is...) realclimate

and many other fonts of wizzidom, valiantly fighting the forces of evil and all that divert from the TRUE TRUTHINESS.


Question: WHO is debunking WHO, here, exactly?

AND...before this post is dumped from the public record by the moderators, a copy goes to Tom HARRIS.

Cheers!
 
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mhaze said:
Looking good! What's the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skeptcism a cover for (......) now?

[garbled mess...]

AND...before this post is dumped from the public record by the moderators, a copy goes to Tom HARRIS.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

yt;dw
 
mhaze said:
Yes!

A penetrating, and stunningly accurate analysis of a urgent situation.
Click to expand...

Seriously, your post is a garbled mess and you linked to some random YouTube video.

What exactly are you trying to say?
 
a_unique_person said:
I didn't understand your post either.
Click to expand...
Let's take it part by part. First three questions:
  1. Looking good! What's the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skeptcism a cover for (......) now?
  2. Sounds sort of like JREF. Is the Committee a bunch of clowns of sciency truthiness?
  3. Added. Look, I'm not trying to start something here, but we all know there are wacko looney globby warmers lurking around. Are they in the "Committee"?
 
@mhaze

1.
Looking good! What's the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skeptcism a cover for (......) now?
Click to expand...

A. It's spelled Skepticism.
B. "CASS is a working group of the Center for Inquiry Canada", which is a branch of the Center for Inquiry
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a non-profit educational organization with headquarters in the United States whose primary mission is to encourage evidence-based inquiry into paranormal and fringe science claims, alternative medicine and mental health practices, religion, secular ethics, and society. CFI is dedicated to promoting and defending science, reason, and free inquiry in all aspects of human interest.
Click to expand...


2.
Sounds sort of like JREF. Is the Committee a bunch of clowns of sciency truthiness?
Click to expand...

Other than a badly phrased ad hominem, your statement lacks any definable point.

3.
Added. Look, I'm not trying to start something here, but we all know there are wacko looney globby warmers lurking around. Are they in the "Committee"?
Click to expand...

You mean like ... scientists?




Anyhoo... I looked into the matter somewhat.

Tom Harris responded to the report in a very cursory manner, intimating he thought it was a joke. However, from the report we have comments like...
"...we keep seeing things like this: ‘Few still debate the primary cause of climate change.’ Except 90% of the scientists in the field.‛ (TH)
Click to expand...

Which seems rather more like a bias than a fact.

Interestingly...

Harris has previously worked as a public relations consultant on a project funded by the oil and gas industry that used "research" accounts at the University of Calgary to produce a video that attacked the Kyoto Protocol and peer-reviewed scientific literature linking human activity to climate change. Alberta-based Talisman Energy kick-started the project with a $175,000 donation in 2004.
Click to expand...

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Climate+change+skeptic+fires+back+over+criticism+course+Carleton/6238309/story.html
 
RobDegraves said:
@mhaze

1.

A. It's spelled Skepticism.
...
Click to expand...
Yes. That's what I've got. You see, when a supposedly scientific or at least, critical, analysis of a school course uses something like "Desmogblog" as a reference for their truths, what you have is truthiness, not truth.

Scientists don't do this.

Thanks for at least trying to address my post. I'm just not seeing the "Report" as being anything serious. I guess, show me a scientific article that footnotes or cites Desmogblog and I might change my mind.

:) no, not really. But you see my point.
 
mhaze said:
Let's take it part by part. First three questions:
  1. Looking good! What's the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skeptcism a cover for (......) now?
  2. Sounds sort of like JREF. Is the Committee a bunch of clowns of sciency truthiness?
  3. Added. Look, I'm not trying to start something here, but we all know there are wacko looney globby warmers lurking around. Are they in the "Committee"?
Click to expand...

1. evidence?

2. evidence?

3. It seems like you've been trying to "start something" since your first post. What is a wacko looney globby warmer?
 
Mhaze doesn't believe in Global Warming.

Or phrased differently, Mhaze is a scientific illiterate who is so blinded by his own partisan politics you couldn't ever actually persuade him with evidence that he's wrong while at the same time he describes AGW as a religion. Yes, the hypocrisy is stunning. He also has something of a record for taking obvious rebukes or even attacks phrased in a reasonable manner like the one above and going absolutely ballistic, delving into reams of absolute nonsense both in a linguistic sense and a scientific sense. There's zero point in responding to him because he refuses to actually listen to anything anyone says, totally ignoring people who show him to be wrong or conversely attacking them quite viciously, attempting to paint them as some sort of moron whackjob who is part of the environmentalism "cult".

Just a heads up.
 
lopeyschools said:
What is a wacko looney globby warmer?
Click to expand...
Someone who accepts the validity of the elementary physics which tells us that adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere increases average global temperatures. That appears to be what mhaze means by the phrase, anyway.
 
lopeyschools said:
...What is a wacko looney globby warmer?
Click to expand...
Huh?

I linked to one in my first post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54

Do you disagree?

MarkCorrigan said:
Mhaze doesn't believe in Global Warming.

Or phrased differently, Mhaze is a scientific illiterate who is so blinded by his own partisan politics you couldn't ever actually persuade him with evidence that he's wrong while at the same time he describes AGW as a religion. Yes, the hypocrisy is stunning. He also has something of a record for taking obvious rebukes or even attacks phrased in a reasonable manner like the one above and going absolutely ballistic, delving into reams of absolute nonsense both in a linguistic sense and a scientific sense. There's zero point in responding to him because he refuses to actually listen to anything anyone says, totally ignoring people who show him to be wrong or conversely attacking them quite viciously, attempting to paint them as some sort of moron whackjob who is part of the environmentalism "cult".

Just a heads up.
Click to expand...

I've highlighted the part of your post that isn't totally moronic for a reason. And yes, you are an example of the problem.

This thread is about college courses.

COLLEGE COURSE ARE NOT ABOUT WHAT TO BELIEVE IN.
 
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mhaze said:
Yes. That's what I've got. You see, when a supposedly scientific or at least, critical, analysis of a school course uses something like "Desmogblog" as a reference for their truths, what you have is truthiness, not truth.

Scientists don't do this.

Thanks for at least trying to address my post. I'm just not seeing the "Report" as being anything serious. I guess, show me a scientific article that footnotes or cites Desmogblog and I might change my mind.

:) no, not really. But you see my point.
Click to expand...

So your point, is that non-scientific, advocacy organizations should not be cited or credited as scientific evidence and that doing so largely invalidates their arguments? I generally agree with this, which is what I find especially troubling about this professor's strong, and in at least one case a founding, connection to several pseudoscience political advocacy organizations.

Do you have a copy of, or more specific pointer to this "... uses something like 'Desmogblog' as a reference..."? I saw 150+ respected published science journal cites, I may have missed it but I would like to see the specific cite to clarify whether it was cited as a scientific reference or something more mundane.
 
mhaze said:
Huh?

I linked to one in my first post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54

Do you disagree?



I've highlighted the part of your post that isn't totally moronic for a reason. And yes, you are an example of the problem.

This thread is about college courses.

COLLEGE COURSE ARE NOT ABOUT WHAT TO BELIEVE IN.
Click to expand...

They are supposed to be about education. Teaching fantasy, ignorance and bad science is not education.
 
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