I’m quite sure I wouldn’t want any of these delicate flowers representing me in court.
Category Archives: Education
ClimateGate, Five Years Later
Thoughts from Judith Curry on the legacy:
By the time 2011 rolled around, my ostracization by the climate establishment was pretty complete, so I redefined (broadened) my academic peer group to include physicists, social scientists and philosophers (not to mention the extended peer community developed on my blog). I found this much more stimulating and interesting than circled wagons of the climate community.
To assess the personal impact of Climategate, I’m trying to figure out exactly where my head was at prior to Climategate in 2009. Wherever; I’m not sure it matters anymore. In 2014, I no longer feel the major ostracism by my peers in the climate establishment; after all, many of the issues I’ve been raising that seemed so controversial have no[w] become mainstream. And the hiatus has helped open some minds.
The net effect of all this is that my ‘academic career advancement’ in terms of professional recognition, climbing the administrative ladder, etc. has been pretty much halted. I’ve exchanged academic advancement that now seems to be of dubious advantage to me for a much more interesting and influential existence that that feels right in terms of my personal and scientific integrity.
Bottom line: Climategate was career changing for me; I’ll let history decide if this was for better or worse (if history even cares).
I think history will judge her well.
How The Pilgrims Were Saved
…by ending their attempt at Marxism.
It’s an old story, but many remain unaware of it. I doubt that it’s taught that way in school. It certainly wasn’t when I was a kid. We got the old false story about how the Indians taught them how to farm and fish, and all was well.
Professor Happer
An interview with a climate skeptic.
We Are All Overconfident Idiots
Some useful thoughts on epistemology and psychology, in the context of climate science.
[Update a while later]
Related: Climate change in the land of Gruber/Obama, and Gaia as the opiate of the masses.
If You Strike Down Bill Maher
…he will become more powerful than you imagine.
I’m not a Bill Maher fan, but at least, unlike much of the left, he’s willing to be an equal-opportunity religion basher.
Social Psychology
Is it biased against Republicans?
Of course it is.
The Important Subject You’re Not Being Taught In College
That’s OK, people only pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend Harvard.
How We Won In Vietnam
…but are losing at home.
The “Time Served” Model Of Education
…is breaking down. This, I think, is the key point:
The conventions of the credit hour, the semester and the academic year were formalized in the early 1900s. Time forms the template for designing college programs, accrediting them and — crucially — funding them using federal student aid.
But in 2013, for the first time, the Department of Education took steps to loosen the rules.
The new idea: Allow institutions to get student-aid funding by creating programs that directly measure learning, not time. Students can move at their own pace. The school certifies — measures — what they know and are able to do.
The public-school paradigm is also based on a century-old model: industrial learning. Time to abandon it, but it’s hard, because it so benefits the status quo, even if it’s a disaster for the kids.