I’ve included below two of the questions that we didn’t get to the other day. Please find some time over the next two weeks to post some of your thoughts and responses to these two questions. I’ll try to keep up, but if I don’t respond right away, look for me to do so over break. I look forward to your thoughts...
1) Climate change “skeptics” (their word; my word choice is “deniers”) often claim that the science of climate change is not being carried out appropriately. To begin a discussion of the true “scientific method”, please take a look at http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_01. It’s a simple website, probably intended for an audience younger than you, but its content is right on target. Thoughts, comments? How does this differ from what you learned in primary school; how does it differ from what you believed before you read it? How do computer models of the global climate “fit” into the scientific process described in the website above?
2) In a nice synergy of accident, Elizabeth Kolbert contributed the segment at the end of Chapter 2 of Schmidt & Wolfe: Picturing the Science. Read that segment (pp. 70-71) and think about the way climate change is portrayed in the media, both locally (i.e. the Spectator) and nationally (USA Today, perhaps or even the Web); maybe even Google some articles to get a feel for it. Also read (or re-read) the segment at the end of Chapter 6 of Schmidt and Wolfe: Picturing the Science by Naomi Oreskes (pp.153-155). What are your thoughts on the reporting of climate change; is it generally “fair and balanced”? What does that phrase even mean in the context of reporting an inherently scientific story, but one with enormous socioeconomic implications? What sources do you trust; which do you exclude?
Sunday, March 14, 2010
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