When she insisted that teachers “are supposed to be open to opinions,” however, Mr. Sutter held his ground.A public school teacher chose a video for the purpose of presenting an argument based on Christianity?! It's supposed to be a science class. It's not a class about the history of religion or comparative religion. As the NYT presents it, the teacher was introducing religious material for the purpose of bolstering a scientific conclusion.
“It’s not about opinions,” he told her. “It’s about the evidence.”
“It’s like you can’t disagree with a scientist or you’re ‘denying science,”’ she sniffed to her friends.
Gwen, 17, could not put her finger on why she found Mr. Sutter, whose biology class she had enjoyed, suddenly so insufferable. Mr. Sutter, sensing that his facts and figures were not helping, was at a loss. And the day she grew so agitated by a documentary he was showing that she bolted out of the school left them both shaken.
“I have a runner,” Mr. Sutter called down to the office, switching off the video.
He had chosen the video, an episode from an Emmy-winning series that featured a Christian climate activist and high production values, as a counterpoint to another of Gwen’s objections, that a belief in climate change does not jibe with Christianity.
“It was just so biased toward saying climate change is real,” she said later, trying to explain her flight. “And that all these people that I pretty much am like are wrong and stupid.”
Here's the video. It's almost an hour long, and I haven't watched it yet.
I don't know how much religion is in the video, and I'm not giving a legal opinion on whether the teacher violated the Establishment Clause. We can discuss that. I just want to call out the New York Times for its inattention to the Establishment Clause, which it usually expects its readers to take very seriously, especially in the context of educating children.
It makes me suspect that those who are demanding that we believe in climate change really are operating in a religion mode and that does not inspire confidence in science.
And, really, why is it so important for Miss Beatty to believe in climate change? She has an active and inquisitive mind. Why not feed it and support it and empower her to go where she sees fit? Bullying her with demands for belief — even without the religion larded in — isn't likely to inspire her to take on a STEM career.
I'd like to read the comments on this NYT article, but — despite the paper's new reliance on comments in lieu of a Public Editor — comments are not enabled for this one.
ADDED: "I have a runner" — that's weird. They have a word for kids like her? "Runner" made me think of "Logan's Run":
In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes... The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to maintain the city, everyone must undergo the ritual of Carousel when they reach the age of 30... [E]ach person is implanted at birth with a "life-clock" crystal in the palm of their hand that changes color as they get older and begins blinking as they approach their "Last Day." Most residents accept this promise of rebirth, but those who do not and attempt to flee the city are known as "Runners." An elite team of policemen known as "Sandmen"... are assigned to pursue and terminate Runners as they try to escape....RUNNER!
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210 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 210 of 210Sounds like the professor was mansplaining.
If you take Gore's scary number, and do the 4th grade arithmetic, you find that Greenland's ice cap will be gone in about 10,000 years.
We invented agriculture about 6,000 years ago.
Yes, I'm worried now.
Innumeracy masquerading as science. AlGore famously barely passed his two required bonehead science courses at Harvard.
"The Pope and I are of the same mind on this. He says that not all who call themselves Catholics are indeed Catholic and I say that not all who call themselves scientists are indeed scientists."
Sure. Bill Nye is not a scientist, for instance.
But Lamaître was. He was also a believing Catholic and you saying "but he couldn't have been because he was a scientist" is utterly nonsensical.
"Your calling me names won't change the science and won't serve at all in showing that religion and science aren't mutually exclusive."
I didn't just call you names, although it's easy to do so. I provided evidence that there are Catholic and Protestant scientists who have no problem reconciling their faith with science.
You can't accept that because it goes against your own fanatical religion.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gore-was-lazy-dope-as-student-at-harvard-282723.html
In his defense, even though he flunked out of divinity school, it can't be said of him that he is any piker at creating religions and self deification.
I think they probably first made the headline "lazy doper."
"All arguments about process are dishonest..." Michael Barone. Make that "all arguments about principle..." as well. Keeping religion out of the classroom is important if religion contradicts what we want you to believe. But if it supports what we like, well, Bombs away!!
But I agree that the real issue is why is it so important that everybody including a 17 yr old HS junior, has to agree about climate change? To the point of devoting a whole class session to a faux Christian argument in favor of anthropogenic climate change, just so no one will have an opinion of their own.
In a high school biology class?
It's not like the science is all that settled (I am NOT being facetious, the science is a mess), and doubly so when the discussion moves into expensive and disruptive policy decisions, which the science is millions of light years from supporting. But even more, it's a f-ing bio class.
Very Stalinist, imho.
My atheism extends to global warming.
It could be worse. I had a high school biology teacher who was also a football coach. Most of our class time was spent discussing the NFL draft.
The "runner" thing is almost certainly a joke from the TV show "COPS" and/or the wonderful parody "RENO 911". We used to jokingly say it when the cat got loose.
I have watched the documentary posted, and the subject of it is how some evangelical Christians in the United States South are attempting to bring their churches over to the view that climate change is occurring and that it is caused by humans. In particular, a young woman tries to demonstrate to her father, a Christian pastor, the evidence that has convinced her that acknowledging human-caused climate change is not incompatible with Christian faith. It is something that she believes is necessary to mitigate the effects on the planet and bring people of faith into what she sees as as important cause.
The documentary does not promulgate nor denigrate religion, working hard to view the pastor's unwillingness to embrace what his daughter has come to believe without condemnation. But since the focus is on people who accept climate change and global warming as fact, the point of view is more the daughter's than her father's. The episode, as with others in this series, has the premise that human-caused climate change is a fact.
It was one of the episodes in "The Years of Living Dangerously," a documentary series from two or three years ago, produced by Showtime and made with the participation of people such as Arnold Schwartzenegger and James Cameron. The actor who helms this episode is Ian Somerhalder, who is well-known in circles that know these things for his activism in mitigating the effects of climate change and protecting animals from extinction and harm.
All in all, the choice of this episode for something to show in a classroom is a good one, especially if the teacher wanted to present something that his Christian student could relate to. On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate its controversy content at about five.
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