A CNN story laments that some teachers and students are skeptical of climate change (“Climate change in schools where it’s ‘fake news’”).
Eric Madrid teaches advanced sciences, including topics on climate change and evolution, to high school students in the deep-red Texas Hill Country.
As one might expect in this conservative bastion of the nation, some of the students say it’s all lies or fake news.
Leave the climate question aside — this statement blew me away. They cite our friends at the Darwin-lobbying National Center for Science Education:
This disconnect between scientists and educators was captured in a recent survey (PDF) by the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit that works to promote science over ideology.
“Our survey found that relatively few teachers had even a college course that devoted as much as a single class to climate change,” said Glenn Branch, the center’s deputy director, who notes that many teachers present misinformation about climate change or avoid teaching it entirely. [Emphasis added.]
They promote what!? “Science over ideology”?? Every time I see some reporter extensively quoting Glenn Branch on evolution and academic freedom legislation, I know that what I’m going to find is, precisely, misinformation about science and education.
Go take a look through our archives for mentions of Mr. Branch’s name or his organization. Science over ideology? The Oakland, CA, group is, as we’ve observed countless times, an impressive dispenser of ideologically driven baloney.
That CNN falls for it, like many others in journalism unfortunately, tells you more about CNN than it does about climate change or anything else.
Photo: Darwin, California, by Stammberger1973 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
