Tags
(not satire – it’s the UKIP!)
Several UKIP MEPs have close links to extremist right-wing groups in the US, including one particularly disquieting lobbying group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is already known for its strong campaigning in favour of oil producers and against climate change:
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – Greenpeace.
But ALEC is also responsible for introducing legislation in the US which bans the teaching of evolution in schools and forces science teachers to teach creationism to children:
Tennessee Skewers Teaching of Evolution in Schools — Is Your State Next?
And shockingly, at least three UKIP MEPs – Janice Atkinson, Bill Etheridge and Roger Helmer – have VERY close links to ALEC.
Here you can see an official letter from ALEC which includes the three MEPs’ signatures at the bottom.
And UKIP MEP Roger Helmer once received an award from ALEC (from ALEC’s website):
On Helmer’s own website, he openly boasts about his links to ALEC too:
.
Make no mistake – UKIP might be doing a good job of covering it up at the moment – but there are some VERY extreme and worryingly un-British views lurking at the heart of the party.
And these kinds of extremist views should have no place in any mainstream political party in the UK.
.
For some more details about UKIP’s links to ALEC, see this excellent article from the Ecologist:
UKIP uncut – acoloytes of America’s far-right corporate gunslingers
Please feel free to comment. And share. Thanks:
Pride's Purge 
“law represents itself as an effort to teach students “critical thinking” by encouraging science teachers to discuss “scientific controversies.””
Anathema! Heresy! How dare Tennessee actually encourage teachers to teach students how to think for themselves!
The high priests of global warming are not amused.
LikeLike
I was writing about Helmer’s links to ALEC back in June. https://anewnatureblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/inside-the-murky-world-where-climate-denial-social-media-and-industry-propaganda-converge/
And also wrote about Helmer and UKIP’s links to pseudo socialists Spikeonline and the Living Marxism (LM) clique in April. LMer Ben Pile is Helmer’s climate change guru, and has no background in climate science, or any science for that matter. http://wp.me/p3vKib-i1
You can read a lot more about UKIP’s bizarre environmental policies and links to the far right on my blog.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Quite right. Let’s teach our children to discuss the theory that the moon could well be made of cheese too. After all, how do we know it’s not? Have you been there?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Reblogged this on pictishbeastie.
LikeLike
UKIP’s “un-British views”? – No. The sad truth is that views such as this already have dangerously wide support amongst the British people. If you think UKIP are generating the bigotry then you are sorely mistaken. They are just taking advantage of views which are already here.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Reblogged this on L8in.
LikeLike
amused by tallbloke’s blog of pseudoscientific claptrap, and he dares to comment
LikeLike
Yes, how dare he comment. All opposition to the pronouncements of the high church of global warming alarmism must be silenced now!
LikeLike
I’m all in favour of people like tallbloke commenting, so we can all see that they have nothing sensible to say.
LikeLike
Quite right. Let’s teach our children to discuss…
…rather than parrot ‘received wisdom’ on scientific controversies such as global warming as their teachers have been taught to do.
Now there’s a plan.
Dogmatists hate discussion and people questioning their pseudoscientific dogma, including of course, creationists as well as the high priests of global warming.
Hence the vilification of anyone (Especially Kippers) who might support a law which encourages critical thinking.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By the way Tom, in the interests of reporting accuracy, please quote and link the clause in the law which imposes a “ban on teaching of evolution in schools”.
If you can.
LikeLiked by 1 person
tallbloke – Are you claiming that there are no schools in Tennessee (or elsewhere) in which evolution is excluded from the curriculum in favour of creationism?
LikeLike
tallbloke
so i actually know/understand what you are saying/claiming/stating/asserting…do you believe a/the global warming crisis is a fact or not?….in your opinion does global warming exist, is global warming happening and will/is it now causing global climatic calamity? do you also believe in evolution?
LikeLike
Tallbloke, did your well developed critical thinking skills make any connection between the fact that 1) ALEC support oil companies and 2) ALEC deny climate change?
LikeLike
this is a scottish evolution conference attended by 12000 social justice/democracy activists in glasgow today (3x oversubscribed)…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqfVICUKtl8#t=2496
LikeLike
OBD – That clip has got nothing to do with evolution at all. Is there something wrong with you?
LikeLike
Reblogged this on sdbast.
LikeLike
Finkfurst: Are you claiming that there are no schools in Tennessee (or elsewhere) in which evolution is excluded from the curriculum in favour of creationism?
No. Are you claiming they are forced to adopt that position by the law the UKIP MEP’s supported?
LikeLike
OBD: …do you believe a/the global warming crisis is a fact or not?….
IMO The global warming (51% or more of which is) blamed by IPCC on human activity which occurred 1975-2005 is no more of a ‘crisis’ than the global warming of the same magnitude and duration which occurred between 1910-1940 when co2 rose all of 15ppm.
in your opinion does global warming exist, is global warming happening
Global warming is currently taking a break (no trend in near surface air temperatures over the last 18 years despite the emission of around 1/3 of all the industrial co2 ever produced), but happened from around 1700, following the ‘Little ice age’ which was a cooling period from around 1300 to 1700, preceded by the ‘medieval warm period’, preceded by the ‘dark ages’, preceded by the ‘Roman warm period’…
and will/is it now causing global climatic calamity?
IMO – No. Because as James Lovelock pointed out many years ago in his original book, and more reently in extensive interviews, strong negative feedbacks operate which keep the system from entering ‘runaway’ conditions. However, the Earth appears to operate at one of two surface temperatures – Around 12C and at around 22C. It spent most of the last 500 million years at the higher temperature, and the excursions into ice ages such as the one we are currently in (the present warming to around 14.5C is an interglacial) last for shorter periods. When mama nature will take us back to 22C is anyone’s guess. One thing i for sure though; it is easier to grow crops in 22C than it is on a 3 mile thick ice-sheet.
do you also believe in evolution?
Yes, though I also think it’s an incomplete theory. Epigenetics is makin some very interesting ‘neo-Lamarckian’ observations which need integrating. It’s an ongoing scientific project.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on markcatlin3695's Blog and commented:
This doesn’t surprise me after last winter saw a UKIPPER spouting- The floods are Gods punisment for allowing gay marriage crap. And they’ve got this crazy idea of relaxing gun laws in UK, the two seem to go hand-in-hand.
LikeLike
Lew: did your well developed critical thinking skills make any connection between the fact that 1) ALEC support oil companies and 2) ALEC deny climate change?
Please provide links to documents showing that ALEC ‘denies climate change’.
The climate has always changed. If it didn’t our oceans and ecologies (and evolution) would stagnate.
LikeLike
Mark Catlin: a UKIPPER spouting- The floods are Gods punisment for allowing gay marriage
The media took no notice of this person when he spouted the same sort of nonsense for many years while he was a TORY councillor.
The Somerset floods were actually caused by the Environment Agency’s over zealous application of EU directives on wildlife habitats, plus their penny pinching on river pump maintenance meaning they couldn’t cope with the cyclic return of weather conditions to the warm sou’ westerly winter gales of the 1970s.
LikeLike
tallbloke – If you didn’t use silly meaningless rhetoric like “high priests of global warming” then you might be understood better. I don’t agree with everything Tom says (far from it!) so don’t ask me to defend anything except what I say myself, but I think he did supply the link you asked for, and others are available.
So would you agree that ALL schools should teach both evolution and climate change as scientific principles with substantial evidence to support them (whilst also noting that a minority don’t agree) and creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which has no supporting evidence whatsoever?
LikeLike
tallbloke – Re Somerset. The simple fact is that it would cost FAR more to defend the vulnerable areas against all possible weather conditions than the value of the homes or agricultural output would warrant. Of course the politicians can’t say that publicly.
LikeLike
Darwin’s theory of evolution is precisely that…a theory. Not science. It is in the same position as “creationism”. Neither can be proven beyond any shadow of a doubt simply because no human was there “at the beginning”. Thus, both should be taught and let children make up their own minds.
LikeLike
silentvoice955 – Do you think there is equal evidence supporting both evolution and creationism? Do you think children should be taught that there is?
LikeLike
That’s the trouble today; people’s lives and homes are valued by worldly standards; I daresay if the same thing was said about floodplains near London, the politicks would be screaming from the rooftops about “saving valuable homes”. A Somerset farmer’s home is perceived as less important than some jumped-up London millionaire’s pad, yet the farmer’s house is just as much a home as that of the other guy. Presumably it’s easier to clear us peasants out than those with bottomless pockets.
LikeLike
tallbloke
thanks for your clarification..i agree with the neutrality that natural homeostatic buffers can provide/try to provide climatic stability and the roughly 12000 yr ice expansion cycles, minor fluctuations between high temps and low temp in between those cycles…but once the affects of global dimming are factored in, a different view becomes very apparent… for example jet stream shifts and desalination of the atlantic conveyor with it’s obvious consequences….ice core studies have in fact clearly shown rapid local and global changes in greenhouse emissions whether natural or man made changes, and accurately mark when and why these changes occurred….ie the inuit are very concerned about climate change and have an accurate history to fall back on when making these concerns known… ime for many yrs prior to 1986 in the UK, i would expect a frost late sept, not any more…winters have totally changed in the UK…often now very wet, mild and windy….
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/30/dredging-rivers-floods-somerset-levels-david-cameron-farmers
LikeLike
“Global warming is currently taking a break (no trend in near surface air temperatures over the last 18 years despite the emission of around 1/3 of all the industrial co2 ever produced)”
Bovine faecal matter.
Denialists keep quoting this crock. If you start the count from 1998, two subsequent years were warmer. What are they not telling you? This; –
If you were to start counting from 1999 instead, *every* subsequent year has been warmer.
What Denialists don’t mention is that 1998 was near the peak of the 11-year solar irradiance cycle, and was also the year of the largest ‘El Nino’ event ever recorded in the South Pacific. (Who wants to bet that this guy doesn’t even know what the El Nino/La Nina phenomena are? Listen out for the panicked typing on his keyboard as he hurriedly gets the details off Wikipedia….)
“but happened from around 1700, following the ‘Little ice age’ which was a cooling period from around 1300 to 1700, preceded by the ‘medieval warm period’, preceded by the ‘dark ages’, preceded by the ‘Roman warm period’…”
But what caused these phenomena, SmallPoker? It’s all very well saying, “The Climate has changed before.” WE ALREADY KNOW THAT. But what we know, and you Denialists are scared to study, is WHY the Climate changed in the past. There was an increase in solar activity at the end of the Little Ice Age, and that caused the temperatures to get warmer. But there *hasn’t* been an increase in solar irradiance over the last forty years, during which we’ve had the most rapid increase in temps on record.
Oh, and almost all of the info we have on the Medieval Warm Period is taken from geological data from the English Midlands. We still don’t have conclusive information about the planet’s climate as a whole at that time.
LikeLike
Finkfurst: So would you agree that ALL schools should teach both evolution and climate change as scientific principles with substantial evidence to support them (whilst also noting that a minority don’t agree) and creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which has no supporting evidence whatsoever?
Religious belief doesn’t need supporting evidence, it’s a belief. The problem arises with creationists who want to ‘take science on on its own ground’.
Evolution and (man made) climate change are theories, not scientific principles. They should have falsifiable content in order to qualify as theories. The problem with climate change theory is the level of uncertainty in the data and their interpretation. So in order to bolster the ‘strength’ of the theory, the practitioners try to claim that the running of climate models is equivalent to running an experiment, and that the output constitutes evidence of what will happen in the real world.
This is entirely bogus.
The truth is that due to the technological limitation of instrumentation, the error in Top-of-atmosphere energy balance is five times bigger than the claimed signal from co2, the error in satellites trying to measure sea level rise of a couple of mm/yr is +/-75mm at best, and the error in near surface air temperature measurements is around +/-0.5C which is bigger than the whole of global warming since 1900.
Models start with input parameters we can’t verify, using a theory we can’t empirically test, and extrapolate ‘scenarios’ which have been failing to match reality for 30 years.
LikeLike
Silentvoice995: “Darwin’s theory of evolution is precisely that…a theory.”
Darwin didn’t write “The Theory Of Evolution”. He wrote “The Principle Of Natural Selection”, and on its own, that is NOT the same as the Theory Of Evolution. It is only the first block in what is, over 150 years later, a skyscraper of a building.
By the way, you don’t know what the word ‘Theory’ means. It does not mean ‘guess’, not ‘hypothesis’. It means a ‘body of explanation that has been tested and is consistent with all evidence’.
“Not science.”
No it WAS science, it’s just it was primitive and crude compared with modern science, which is unsurprising given that he was basically ‘starting up’ the whole field. Even if you could invalidate Darwin’s work, it would not invalidate Evolution as a whole, because almost all of what we have learned about it was discovered after Darwin died. Natural Selection is just one tiny corner of the field.
“It is in the same position as “creationism”.”
No it isn’t, because Natural Selection was based on observation, not on trying to adjust observations to fit in with Bronze Age theology.
Every discovery since Darwin’s time, including the enlargement of the fossil record well over a-thousand-fold, has been consistent with Evolution. Some of it has been less consistent with Natural Selection, but then Natural Selection is just one of the possible ‘driving forces’ of Evolution. Punctuated Equilibrium is another.
“Neither can be proven beyond any shadow of a doubt simply because no human was there “at the beginning”.”
No, but then science doesn’t deal in ‘proof’. Proof is a mathematical concept. Evidence is something slightly different, and in that regard, Evolution has been proven beyond any *sensible* doubt.
“Thus, both should be taught and let children make up their own minds”
Rubbish. Creationist ‘science’ has been comprehensively discredited and will remain so as long as it adheres to the fairy tales of the Bible or the Qur’an – there is simply no way that most of the stories in them could be true. You might as well argue that Jack And The Beanstalk should be taught in science classes
LikeLike
tallbloke – I’m not sure if you’re deliberately trying to obfuscate. All theories are of course based on principles, but have it your way and I’ll try the question again:
So would you agree that ALL schools should teach both evolution and climate change as scientific theories with substantial evidence to support them (whilst also noting that a minority don’t agree) and creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which (obviously) has no supporting evidence whatsoever?
LikeLike
hstorm: Who wants to bet that this guy doesn’t even know what the El Nino/La Nina phenomena are
Allow me to refer you to posts on my website going back over the last 5 years.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/?s=el+nino
1998 was near the peak of the 11-year solar irradiance cycle
Have a look at how little effect the solar cycle has on near surface air temperature according to the IPCC
There was an increase in solar activity at the end of the Little Ice Age, and that caused the temperatures to get warmer. But there *hasn’t* been an increase in solar irradiance over the last forty years, during which we’ve had the most rapid increase in temps on record.
In order to understand the effect of periods of higher and lower solar activity on climate you need to understand the large heat capacity of the oceans and how that integrates the solar output. You wouldn’t expect the temperature of a large pan of water on a gas stove to change instantaneously as you flicked the gas control up and down would you? When you perform that integration on solar data, you find that it raised ocean heat content all the way from around 1930 to 2003, when solar activity level finally fell below the long term average.
Now that the Sun has gone into one of the slowdown that happen every couple of hundred years, we’ll see over the next three decades how wrong the IPCC was to dismiss it as an important climate variable.
almost all of the info we have on the Medieval Warm Period is taken from geological data from the English Midlands.
You jest? Start here
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
LikeLike
tallbloke
the simple fact is that our bio-sphere couldn’t support life as we now know it without evolution and gradually occurring global environmental stabilization that now can support the bio-diversification we see around us…it has taken billions of years for this planet to become hospitable to the life we can now can all around us….in short order, 100odd yrs, we are threatening that naturally occurring global habitat stability..
for me darwin implied, survival of the FITTING…
LikeLike
Finkfurst: So would you agree that ALL schools should teach both evolution and climate change as scientific theories with substantial evidence to support them (whilst also noting that a minority don’t agree).
I agree with the Tennessee legislators that children are best served by being taught how to employ critical thinking. To aid in that process the syllabus might include a comparison of the scientific theory of evolution and the faith based belief in creation. It might also include a study of the claims of climate scientists, and the evidence they marshal to support their hypotheses for and against a predominance of human influence on climate change over the last 50-5000 years.
What they shouldn’t do is what you are trying to do, which is to create a false equivalence between faith based arguments and scientific arguments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
tallbloke
if only the builders of stonehenge, the alignments in france, skara brea, cave painters and aboriginal peoples knew how to think critically what a world this would be now! oh wait they did know how or how else could they have done the things they did… which leads me to that E word… we are born knowing how to think critically or we would have never survived our 1m+ yrs on this planet …
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stonehenges-most-intricate-archaeological-finds-were-probably-made-by-children-9738993.html
LikeLike
OBD: we are born knowing how to think critically
But we learn how to employ that capability in respect of the appraisal of ideas and evidence.
LikeLike
gradually occurring global environmental stabilization
Sorry to break this to you, but the history of Earth’s environment and species evolution is punctuated by sudden cataclysm and gradual recovery. Henrik Svensmark’s excellent paper on evolution and cyclic climate change.is well worth a careful read.
LikeLike
tallbloke – “To aid in that process the syllabus might include a comparison of the scientific theory of evolution and the faith based belief in creation.”
You just said “Religious belief doesn’t need supporting evidence, it’s a belief”, so of course rational comparison of a belief with a scientific principle supported by evidence would take about 30 seconds!
You could also try actually answering my previous question!
Here’s another one – Do you think children should ever be taught that the minority scientific opinion about a certain theory (or principle) is the correct one?
LikeLike
P.S. tallbloke – I notice that you deleted the second part of my question. Why? Do you have any disagreement with the statement “Creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which (obviously) has no supporting evidence whatsoever”
LikeLike
tallbloke
in original SEED of critical thinking not, what you describe are logical steps from that point, due to demand…often we are forced to go against our own critical thinking ie what is good for ourselves….we trial and error (which of course is appraisal of ideas and evidence) to make abstract concepts work ie smelting metals to produce bronze, for specific purposes…which involves discoveries and of course evolution…our evolutionary advantage is rapid thinking….work used to be 2hrs/day getting our vitality giving vitals of life up together…the rest of the time we spent with hobbies and pastimes…critical thinking has become a demand….critical thinking must also be applied to why we do things 1st…unless it makes our lives easier it is useless…we don’t need to know what is bad for us, we already know it..
LikeLike
OBD – “unless it makes our lives easier it is useless…we don’t need to know what is bad for us, we already know it”.
I think both of your statements are so fundamentally wrong that I barely know where to start!
LikeLike
tallbloke
“gradually occurring global environmental stabilization
Sorry to break this to you, but the history of Earth’s environment and species evolution is punctuated by sudden cataclysm and gradual recovery. Henrik Svensmark’s excellent paper on evolution and cyclic climate change.is well worth a careful read”. yes i know this it goes without saying….but nevertheless our bio-habitat has gradually stabilized in general terms over billions of yrs…
LikeLike
OBD – “our bio-habitat has gradually stabilized in general terms over billions of yrs”
Yes, it’s become more habitable for the organisms living on it at the time, but I think you’re getting rather confused between cause and effect!
LikeLike
FF: I notice that you deleted the second part of my question. Why
Because you didn’t challenge my first reply to it:
You said: creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which has no supporting evidence whatsoever?
To which I replied:
“Religious belief doesn’t need supporting evidence, it’s a belief. The problem arises with creationists who want to ‘take science on on its own ground’.”
To which I’ll add:
The big difficulty schools face when teachers explain to kids how they might critically appraise the ‘sciency’ arguments for creation is they risk bringing a righteous sh*tstorm down on themselves from the religious dogmatists. It’s a toxic combo, also seen in the climate debate when scientists whose findings disagree with the ‘consensus’ incur the wrath of the true believers.
LikeLike
FF: You just said “Religious belief doesn’t need supporting evidence, it’s a belief”, so of course rational comparison of a belief with a scientific principle supported by evidence would take about 30 seconds!
You could also try actually answering my previous question!
Here’s another one – Do you think children should ever be taught that the minority scientific opinion about a certain theory (or principle) is the correct one?
Once again you are conflating theories with principles, they are fundamentally different. Scientific principles are things like the empirical scientific method, openness of data and methods to enable replication by others, and so on.
Theories are ideas about how the world works, their proponents utilise scientific principles in order to test them.
In comparing scientific ideas with religious beliefs, there is the issue of when and where rationality is to be given primacy, and how belief in religious allegory might enrich or beneficially (or adversely) regulate social life.
Theories are only ‘correct’ until they are supplanted by better theories. They are never really more than ‘the current best guess’.
Religious allegories are only beneficial as regulators of society for as long as they are relevant to that society.
LikeLike
TB – (sigh!) You apparently didn’t notice that I added “(obviously)” to my question in response to your obvious point. So I’ll try my questions YET again:
1) Would you agree that ALL schools should teach both evolution and climate change as scientific theories with substantial evidence to support them (whilst also noting that a minority don’t agree) and creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which (obviously) has no supporting evidence whatsoever?
2) Do you think children should ever be taught that the minority scientific opinion about a certain theory (or principle) is the correct one?
“The big difficulty schools face when teachers explain to kids how they might critically appraise the ‘sciency’ arguments for creation is they risk bringing a righteous sh*tstorm down on themselves from the religious dogmatists.”
Why is that difficult? There are NO even vaguely science-based arguments for creation, so the problem doesn’t arise when formulating a curriculum for our children. A teacher could tell the pupils that some religious people think there is some evidence, but in fact there isn’t. That only takes 2 minutes – max.
LikeLike
TB – “Once again you are conflating theories with principles”
Try looking at the OED definition of “theory”.
LikeLike
FF: I don’t have the OED to hand, but I do have my joint honours degree in the history and philosophy of science to fall back on. Which probably puts me a step ahead of the OED compilers.
PS: Try to appreciate my answers, since their the only ones you’re going to get (from me).
LikeLike
Yikes, typing too fast. their/they’re
LikeLike
“I don’t have the OED to hand”
Yes you do, you’re using the Internet you effing idiot!
“…but I do have my joint honours degree in the history and philosophy of science to fall back on. Which probably puts me a step ahead of the OED compilers.”
You think you’re AHEAD of the most widely acclaimed English dictionary in the world??? All hail the super-intelligent tallbloke! We’re in the presence of greatness!
LikeLike
OK, I’ll address this again.
Would you agree that ALL schools should teach both evolution and climate change as scientific theories with substantial evidence to support them (whilst also noting that a minority don’t agree)
I think they should do more than merely note that a minority don’t agree. They should explain WHY they don’t agree, listing the substantial evidence they have supporting that disagreement.
and creationism should be taught purely as a religious belief which (obviously) has no supporting evidence whatsoever?
The creation story should be taught as a religious belief. Creationism is a set of purportedly scientific arguments, the evidence for and against which can be presented and evaluated (Probably in a single science class).
2) Do you think children should ever be taught that the minority scientific opinion about a certain theory (or principle) is the correct one?
As I already said, there are no correct theories, only ideas held by institutional science to be the ‘current best guesses’.
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog.
LikeLike
TB – “The creation story should be taught as a religious belief. Creationism is a set of purportedly scientific arguments, the evidence for and against which can be presented and evaluated (Probably in a single science class).”
You said it should be taught as a religious belief, then you said that it should be presented and evaluated in a science class. Why??? You seem to be very confused about what’s science and what’s irrational belief!
You mention “evidence for” creationism. If you can come up with ANY such evidence then I might take your argument seriously. I bet you can’t!
Your pronouncements on here have been so far been irrational, unsubstantiated and massively egotistical. Would you agree that coming to that conclusion is entirely consistent with what you’ve said?
LikeLike
‘The creation story’ is one thing, ‘Creationism’ is another. Try reading a little.
LikeLike