[LINK] The meaning of climate change denial

[Jan Whitaker]

At 09:18 AM 27/06/2012, David Lochrin wrote:
>...snip...
>... then ABC TV every morning broadcast serious physics lectures and 
>the like for schools.  Non scientists rejoiced in science.
>
>Ahh Stephen, you take me back...  remember Julius Sumner Miller?

You had ABC, we had an airplane flying over Indiana beaming TV 
lessons to schools around the state (early 60s), pre-satellite, 
pre-videotape in schools, just possibly in broadcast stations. 
MPATI: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwest_Program_on_Airborne_Television_Instruction 
(I even remembered the name of it!)
"The television equipment and transmitters were powered by a 
gas-turbine electrical power plant in the aft end of the DC-6 
fuselage; equipment similar in design to auxiliary power units later 
jet transport aircraft use for engine starting. " The US version of 
'school of the air'???? (literally) Much more detail of how it worked 
at the article.

Lots of money was being pumped into educational programs to support 
new curricula in math and science in the US, which by your reports, 
also happened in Australia. It was the sputnik effect.


>I think the conditioning which has created this problem is largely 
>attributable to the continual marketing of attitudes like GW denial 
>simply as opinion changers with no regard to fact.

I think it's deeper and more pervasive than that. There is some 
seismic shift happening in western society that involves magical 
thinking, counter-rationality, and conservatism. Maybe it's a result 
of the speed of change. We are starting to live in a sci-fi world of 
drone aircraft and cyberwarfare without the 'fi'. I think it scares 
people subconsciously, if not consciously, especially those who 
missed out on that science stuff. It's a bit schizophrenic when the 
rational world is challenged by magical thinking via a reliance on 
mystical religious belief systems. I'm not sure the two are 
reconcilable, either.

Time to re-read Snow's book, The Two Cultures. Perhaps the conflicts 
in the arts/humanities versus science debate would transfer to magic 
versus science debate today, or denialism versus 
tolerance-for-uncertainty-ism. I am NOT saying Tom is basing his 
arguments on magic. But in the general debates, I think there is 
something deeper operating that makes everyone uncomfortable. The 
magical side tends toward absolutism and the research/modeling/theory 
side tends toward the acceptance of uncertainty as part if its 
paradigm of knowledge building.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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