# Yes, let's teach the controversy. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 8, 2014, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261 "2014-01-08T08:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/81 "2014-01-11T20:19:37Z")
That was covered already. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/82 "2014-01-11T21:26:04Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > What about Phlogiston? I mean. The best Astronomy textbook I ever had opened with a chapter on ancientry and the religious/philosophical beliefs of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. Other historical chapters followed, covering Ptolemy, Tycho, Copernicus, etc. The “controversy” of Young-Earth Creationism was actually alluded to…in one or two sentences… That’s about right. And, indeed, my old Physics textbook mentions Phlogiston. A fascinating topic, and well worth knowing about. Phlogiston was only rejected by the advent of technologies to allow us to measure the mass of gases, something earlier ages simply had no access to. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/83 "2014-01-11T22:15:16Z")
Indeed - I remember learning about Phlogiston at school - in science class, no less - the key relevance being that it’s a very clear example of the scientific method at work. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/84 "2014-01-12T01:21:13Z")
Well, what with the unimpeachable evidence offered here, about the only question remaining is how so many smart and sciencey guys…guys with Ph.D.'s and shit…how so many of them were fooled by Algore and his conspiracy of deception! These guys aren’t mathtards like me, and they have a passing familiarity with the scientific method, evidence, falsification, all that good shit. Yet, to all appearances, there is a consensus about AGW amongst them, and they disagree with the crystalline reasoning and faultless logic of **FW**! Reckon all that book-learnin’ ain’t much against a down-home polymath like him, nossir! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/85 "2014-01-12T07:39:58Z")
FW? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/86 "2014-01-12T09:57:50Z")
**FX** ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/87 "2014-01-12T11:49:34Z")
Nothing ruins a blistering comeback like a typo. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/88 "2014-01-12T17:05:56Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Indeed - I remember learning about Phlogiston at school - in science class, no less - the key relevance being that it’s a very clear example of the scientific method at work. Looking at the guidelines from the NCSE it is clear that that controversy was a proper thing to teach as it was part of the history of the science of chemistry. It teaches us how old assumptions that sound intuitive can last for a while and then they are dismissed with evidence. Then the scientific consensus changes. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/89 "2014-01-12T19:00:37Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > That was covered already. Piffle. You would have evaded the point anyway, because you have no reasonable response. The aforementioned consensus exists, you know it and I know it. That data point about February you are so proud of? If that is so powerfully destructive, then wouldn’t that have provoked a massive change of mind? If that was as much of a theory breaking fact as you pretend, wouldn’t we be hearing about the scientific consensus breaking apart? Did it? Do we have a stampede of scientists recanting their previous adherence to AGW? (Hint: the answer is “no”.) And how did that consensus come to be? By the hard route, the honest route of convincing the skeptical by means of facts and data. All those Ph.D.'s on one side, you on the other, and they’re wrong? How did that happen, do you think? Are they lying, they really know that AGW is the bunkum, but cringe in fear of the wrath of Algore? Are they misinformed, don’t have the complete set of information that you have? Like I said, I’m a mathtard, I love science but have not the talents to offer her. So I am obliged to longingly admire the work of others. If a consensus emerges among the scientific community that phlogiston does not recapitulate phylogeny, I’m going to buy it. But not you. Because you know better. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/90 "2014-01-12T21:01:24Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Indeed - I remember learning about Phlogiston at school - in science class, no less - the key relevance being that it’s a very clear example of the scientific method at work. [Phlogiston theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston#Theory) is actually very educational, starting with the fact that it is still called a theory, even when it was so very wrong. After Robert Boyle falsified the theory with his experiment, it’s humorous that certain phlogiston proponents explained this by concluding that phlogiston had negative mass. The lengths scientist will go to when their theory is challenged, or flat out shown to be false, is educational. Tectonic plates and the H Pylori bacterium would be even better examples that are educational. As well as the classic fight over magnetic/electrical fields in space, and charged particles flowing from the sun. Or hell, the iron sun would be really fun. I think they reason they are not taught, in any form, is that it would make new scientists skeptical and a bit careful about believing just anything that come down the pike at them. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/91 "2014-01-12T21:30:48Z")
Make a great TED talk, wouldn’t it? Stage full of humbled and contrite scientists, bemoaning their foolish compliance with that whole AGW nonsense! "Hi, my name is Ogden Wernstrom. I curse the day I fell for AGW, but I was swept away, like a callow schoolboy, by the dynamic charisma of Al Gore and fell headlong into the insipid theories of so-called “global warming”. I couldn’t stop myself! Now, my tenure at Mars University is revoked, my research papers are withdrawn, and I couldn’t find any other work but as a teaching assistant intern at Eugene V. Debs Community College Preparatory School…" “Ha, ha, fuck you, Wernstrom, you loser!” “Eat a bag of velociraptor dicks, Farnsworth!” ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/92 "2014-01-12T22:08:06Z")
It’s a mistake to dismiss and criticize **all climate science** just because of Algore and the other alarmists shitheads running around making a mockery of science. There is a lot of research, and some of it is pretty fucking awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/93 "2014-01-12T23:10:59Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > . . . I think they reason they are not taught, in any form, is that it would make new scientists skeptical and a bit careful about believing just anything that come down the pike at them. They are taught. They’re mentioned briefly in Physics classes (okay, not H Pylori) and they get more attention in History of Science classes. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/94 "2014-01-12T23:19:19Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s a mistake to dismiss and criticize **all climate science** just because of Algore and the other alarmists shitheads running around making a mockery of science. > > There is a lot of research, and some of it is pretty fucking awesome. I will let a real scientist answer how wrong you continue to be. > [@](#): > > 1. Scientists expect journalists and popularizers to get a few things wrong when explaining scientific work. > > Most scientific work is pretty specialized, technical stuff. It isn’t easy to take something like that and boil it down for popular consumption without glossing over a few important points. The problem becomes worse when we try to explain our work in simplified terms to a journalist or popularizer, who will then try to boil it down even more for the masses. Boiling down technical information is a tricky balancing act, and it often takes an expert to tell when simplification crosses the line into blatant error. > [@](#): > > 1. Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, is not that bad, frankly. > > Yes, there are a couple errors. Yes, in a few cases he focuses on “worst-case scenarios,” rather than communicating the full range of risk. But the fact is that he got the most important points right, and the problems aren’t that serious from the perspective of most scientists who have examined the movie. Tim Lambert collected reactions from a number of scientists about a list of nine alleged errors in the movie, for example. While they didn’t always agree about the status of individual “errors,” there was general agreement that the list was too long. In most cases, it was questionable whether they were really errors at all. > [@](#): > > The reaction of most scientists has been exactly what it should be. ”Well, maybe he overstated his case somewhat, but he got the gist right.” > > Now, contrast this with someone like Christopher Monckton, who goes about proclaiming that climate change is a “non-problem,” and to support his case he completely misrepresents the scientific literature he cites. Whom do you think scientists are going to want to spend their time criticizing? > > And no, I didn’t vote for Gore. Not surprising that you are continue to lie even when confronted to what what the scientists report, The experts at GISS still report that the earth is warming, FX cherry picking to get a different conclusion just tell us that he is dishonest on this. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/95 "2014-01-12T23:31:54Z")
And here is the link to what Barry Bickmore, Professor at BYU, conservative and Republican said: > **[“Why Don’t You Bash Al Gore?”](https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/why-dont-you-bash-al-gore/)** > > Since I took the plunge and started publicly criticizing certain climate change contrarians, notably certain Utah politicians and Christopher Monckton, people on the other side of the fence have of… As he also started as an skeptic, his journey to accepting the theory should be seen: Long video, but important as he explains how people avoid the evidence: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/vDNXuX6D60U/maxresdefault.jpg "Dr. Barry Bickmore - How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDNXuX6D60U) > [@](#): > > Barry Bickmore is Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at Brigham Young University. His research specialties are low-temperature geochemistry and geoscience education. In this presentation, he discusses how he moved from being a climate change “skeptic” to being an outspoken advocate of mainstream climate science. He then discusses how it is that people like him can so effectively avoid the truth about climate change. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/96 "2014-01-16T21:35:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The experts at GISS still report that the earth is warming, Not for at least the last decade, you dumb fuckhead. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/97 "2014-01-16T21:55:44Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Not for at least the last decade, you dumb fuckhead. Oh gee, the dishonest liar is still trying to tell the experts what to say, not holding my breath that FX (you are not even a mastermind uh?) will publish his dishonest points in a science journal. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-see-the-dramatic-new-data-for-yourself](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-see-the-dramatic-new-data-for-yourself) > [@](#): > > For those who doubt that the global climate is changing, seven new graphs should put that notion to rest. This morning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first public summary of a six-year study called Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. It contains the report’s graphs and explains the data behind them. As a set, the graphs show strong trends over many decades: Average surface temperatures have risen up to 2.5 degrees Celsius in numerous places around the world, global sea level is has risen 20 centimeters, Arctic summer sea ice has shrunk by four million square kilometers, and so on. See what Bickmore reported about what guys like you do to avoid reality or just be content to be certified as the insulting Jerk and cite molester that you are. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/98 "2014-01-16T21:56:46Z")
Doesn’t change the fact that nobody at GISS is saying it’s warming. You dumbass. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/99 "2014-01-16T22:01:18Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Doesn’t change the fact that nobody at GISS is saying it’s warming. You dumbass. Already cited the researchers that continue to show that you are deluded, but for more: > **[Long-Term Global Warming Trend Continues](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/80167/long-term-global-warming-trend-continues)** > > 2012 ranks among the ten hottest years on record; all ten years have occurred since 1998. > [@](#): > > Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) say 2012 was the ninth warmest year since 1880, \*\*continuing \*\*a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. The ten warmest years in the 132-year record have all occurred since 1998. The last year that was cooler than average was 1976. You are welcome to continue showing all your bottomless willful ignorance of what even the experts that you rely on are telling us… ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261/100 "2014-01-16T22:06:14Z")
It’s not hard to check the [GISS data](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=3&type=trends&mean_gen=1112&year1=2002&year2=2012&base1=1940&base2=2010&radius=250&pol=reg), and realize why you are a fuckhead, and GISS shows no warming for over a decade. It won’t matter what you say, it won’t change the GISS data. You fuckhead idiot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-lets-teach-the-controversy/678261.md?page=6)