'How to get expelled': Climate sceptic recruits kids
By Clare Peddie
The Advertiser
December 13, 2011 9:06AM

FORMER Prime Minister John Howard has launched a controversial book teaching students to be climate change sceptics.

Climate change sceptic Ian Plimer's book "How to Get Expelled from School: A Guide to Climate Change for Pupils, Parents and Punters" arms children with 101 questions to challenge their teachers.

It has been billed as an "anti-warmist manual for the younger reader".

Mr Howard attacked the one-sided teaching of climate change in schools.

"People ought to be worried about what their children are being taught at school," he said.

"It's a matter of real concern".

Prof Plimer said said he had a lot of parents write to him about this topic.

"They were saying that their kids are being fed environmental activism at school, rather than the basics of science, which gives them the ability to analyse activist arguments," he said.

Continues: http://www.news.com.au/technology/clima ... z1gMmsCZPJ

As far as Prof Plimer goes, he's not a climate scientist, he's a geologist. And how's this for a conflict of interest:

[Plimer] is a director of three Australian mining companies: Ivanhoe,[7] CBH Resources[7] and Kefi Minerals.[8] In 2010, he was appointed chairperson of the board for TNT Mines Limited.[9][10] He is also listed as a director of Australia-based coal gas company Ormil Energy.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Plimer

He's also not "Australia's preeminent geologist" as he seems to promote himself. None of my colleagues (including collaborators and students of his) don't think he's exceptional, and his research publication record is very narrow and anemic. Heck, I have it on authority that his primary reason for publishing Heaven and Earth was to make money from it, as he knew there was a market for controversial and inflammatory books like this. My guess is this one is much the same.

Sadly he's employing the creationist tactic of throwing deceptively phrased questions at poorly trained science teachers purely to embarrass them and by proxy make the topic look bad in the students' eyes. It's already been shown to be largely wrong.

An "anti-warmist" book? Sounds scientific...Not.

Ihavenofingerprints wrote:An "anti-warmist" book? Sounds scientific...Not.

Let's hop a good science writer publishes a book that counters this bullshit.

Huh, yet another reason to despise that pantywaist Howard.

Nicko wrote:It's a pity the direction Plimer has gone. His Telling Lies for God was a good book.

It's what happens when your driving force becomes only financial enrichment.

On the one hand, we have a crank trying to "sell" his anti-global-warming position.

On the other, we have a teachable moment here. Kids should be taught to think critically, and here's an excellent subject. Using AGW, we can teach them how science works, and how peer review works. Rather than having them uncritically accept one position or the other, their teachers can have them gather the evidence, do their own analysis, and decide for themselves whether the scientists have made the case for global warming, and then whether it's AGW or not. I rather suspect that once they've had a chance to replicate the experiments for themselves, the majority will arrive at the same conclusions as the scientists.

And then, they can apply this newly learned capacity for critical thinking to such topics as alternative medicine.

lordshipmayhem wrote:On the one hand, we have a crank trying to "sell" his anti-global-warming position.

On the other, we have a teachable moment here. Kids should be taught to think critically, and here's an excellent subject. Using AGW, we can teach them how science works, and how peer review works. Rather than having them uncritically accept one position or the other, their teachers can have them gather the evidence, do their own analysis, and decide for themselves whether the scientists have made the case for global warming, and then whether it's AGW or not. I rather suspect that once they've had a chance to replicate the experiments for themselves, the majority will arrive at the same conclusions as the scientists.

And then, they can apply this newly learned capacity for critical thinking to such topics as alternative medicine.

It is a commendable position, and the general concept is absolutely right; however the instance of global warming should be treated slightly differently in terms of education. It is frankly impossible for any but a well equipped university tooled specifically for meteorological research to "replicate the experiments" and even purposeful and rigorous use of statistical data freely available is fantastically complicated. Therefore we as non-experts, are forced to rely on conclusions drawn by those who have the expertise and resources to form conclusions. Our understanding is formed by observing scientific consensus, and so this is the area that lobby /crank groups attack - if they can convince people to question the existence of scientific consensus, half the battle is won. Having said all that, I agree wholeheartedly with the premise that critical thinking skills should be taught in schools on this subject (should be taught as a stand alone subject!) and exercises involving the vast quantities of peer reviewed papers vetted by the IPCC would go a long way to settling the argument in schools.