OPINION — Editorial

Warming in the classroom

There is a bubbling controversy about how to teach “man-made global warming” in the classroom. Is it a scientific certainty about which there can be no dispute? Or is it a theory about which people with differing viewpoints can have a legitimate debate?

Let’s check in and see how The Associated Press reports on the issue: “The struggle over what American students learn about global warming is heating up as conservative lawmakers, climate change doubters and others attempt to push rejected or debunked theories into the classroom.”

Wow. Not much doubt about where the AP stands. You toe the line on “scientific consensus” or you’re one of those awful conservative doubters trying to push rejected bunk into the classroom.

Schools are on firm footing with the majority of their teachings because they deal either with events that have happened or are happening (history, current events) or facts that have stood the tests of time and rigorous inquiry (mathematical formulas, geographical contours, scientific forces). These things can be imparted with certainty.

At the other end of the spectrum are those things about which there are as many opinions as there are human beings, including the “social studies” of sociology, psychology and politics. These need to be passed along with an understanding of human frailties and uncertainties.

But extremism breeds extremism, so now we’re getting politics from both sides, which means science gets a seat in the back of the class.

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