Andy Kroll of Mother Jones reports that New Mexico has scrubbed its science standards of anything that might offend the far right.
He writes:
“New Mexico’s public education agency wants to scrub discussions of climate change, rising global temperatures, evolution, and even the age of planet Earth from the standards that shape its schools’ curriculum.
“The state’s Public Education Department this week released a new proposed replacement to its statewide science standards. The draft is based on the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of ideas and guidelines released in 2013 that cover kindergarten through 12th grade. The NGSS, which have been adopted by at least 18 states and the District of Columbia, include ample discussion of human-caused climate change and evolution.
“These changes are evidently intended to placate creationists and climate change deniers.”
But the draft released by New Mexico’s education officials changes the language of a number of NGSS guidelines, downplaying the rise in global temperatures, striking references to human activity as the primary cause of climate change, and cutting one mention of evolution while weakening others. The standards would even remove a reference to the scientifically agreed-upon age of the Earth—nearly 4.6 billion years. (Young Earth creationists use various passages in the Bible to argue that the planet is only a few thousand years old.)”
New Mexico seems determined to dumb down its students.
How can anyone speak about the U.S. standing in global “competition” when many of our students will be ignorant of the basic facts of science?
The example is set in Washington, where the Trump administration has declared war on science, removed references to “climate change” from its communiques and records, and has a person in charge of “environmental protection” who does not believe in protecting the enrvironment?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, because closing your eyes, covering your ears, and yelling to block out everything else always works so well. It’s times like this that I miss the voice of Christopher Hitchens.
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Not, I hope, the Christopher Hitchens who was aggressively gung-ho about the so-called Global War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq.
That Christopher Hitchens was a real bummer.
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Not that one! The other one.
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I’ve missed that voice many times since November 2016.
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OMG, CRAZY New Mexico. Maybe the folks who made this decision think that New Mexico will have beachfront property.
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This is ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE and ALTERNATIVE FACTS…DUH!
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As our Dear Leader might say, sad.
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Pretty soon New Mexico and several other western states will have to get out their divining rods to find some water for their people. This is the “ostrich” policy with the head firmly planted in the sand. People need to stop voting for fools.
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Denial gets one nowhere!
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Diane, I liked how you characterized our new federal EPA leader in a previous post. You said, quite accurately, that he protects pollution.
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And the new Secretary of Education has proposed downsizing national monuments/parks, and opening some to coal mining and drilling.
The Basket of Deplorables is the Cabinet.
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The unhealthy, mentally ill minds in the U.S. are most of the registered Republicans.
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GOP/Republican governance at its finest!
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I fear they will start teaching alternate history, which was not so long ago in Mississippi. It’s not just science that offends people when they don’t want to believe what really happened.
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yes
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Listen I was an anthropology major . I am fine not teaching evolution and climate science .
It will not change the events to come . Tillerson said we will grow gills (adapt ) . So he believes in evolution. That’s progress .
Even those who believe in the science never question the economic system requiring growth. Growth in consumption and population that will accelerate the production of CO2.
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Well, Joel, your comments compel me to polish off my stump and press the wrinkles out of my tattered speech once again. For those of you who know where I’m going, you can go back to your thumb twiddling or whatever amuses you.
This goes far beyond “what will happen will happen regardless.” It’s about a comprehension, respect for, and acceptance of the validity of the scientific method. Any children who do not understand this contribute to putting their future in peril. It puts us at risk of, as Carl Sagan titled his last book, of succumbing to “The Demon-Haunted World” of superstitious conjecture and ignorance.
And I implore you and everyone to quit writing and saying that we “believe” in scientific theories like evolution and climate change. Everyone should quit using that word. These are not matters of faith; they are conclusions we reach based on an acceptance of verifiable evidence based on the systematic application of the scientific method. The rest of the civilized world understands this. Too many children in New Mexico and the rest of the nation are at risk of not understanding this.
I’m pretty sure you’re being sarcastic. But just in case, please indulge my stump speech yet again.
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GregB
I think I was being a little more cynical than you think. . Of course it is a problem and as an Anthropology major the religious rt is repugnant. . But even those who recognize the climate problem are not willing to address the economic causes and consequences in a serious manner.
Like Tillerson they are planning on business as usual and hoping for technology to come to the rescue .
Of course I was being sarcastic .
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Duane and I share an inability to recognize sarcasm in others, which is odd given how sarcastic we tend to be!
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Diane never gets my sarcasm either .
She spent three posts going back and forth with me once, on my statement that “LBJ freed the slaves” . Telling me that Lincoln freed the slaves . Obviously I was implying that Jim Crow was not freedom . Or perhaps not so obvious . I think Duane might have questioned it to
.
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Maybe once?
Sarcasm doesn’t translate well. One reader thought I was attacking religious leaders in a comment today when in fact I was supporting them
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Denial is the largest major river in the world to flow predominantly north. The climate of denial is mostly desert in its lower reaches. Intellectual desert. Fitting it seems to me. Fits with the arid mind of those who deny that they hurt when they strike their heads upon a rock. To some, rejection of anything that can be perceived as threatening to their privileged place of existence is the most important aspect of their humanity.
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Very well said.
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My daughter has a PhD. She interprets satellite images for a start up in Santa Fe that sprang from veterans of Los Alamos National Labs. Although she has no children, she’s an activist. I expressed my surprise and dismay that this could be going on in a state with such a strong scientific history and that wishes to attract more tech companies. She then posted this on Slack, her office communications app. About half the staff hails from LANL and many have spouses who work there. (By the way, achievement in Los Alamos public schools is stellar.) Her boss, a scientist, has written a letter and posted itvtovthebpublic comments. She and many of her co-workers are going to do so as well. Additionally, she is active in an organization that supports young women’s achievement and she hopes to get a letter from that group. A set of her friends and co-workers plan to attend the hearing at the Capital.
I have a cousin who teaches epidemiology at New Mexico State. She’s next on my call sheet.
Thank you so much for the information.
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Thank you, Patricia! What you are doing is very important.
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So much for New Mexico schools producing competent STEM graduates.
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Let’s cut right to the chase here. Creationists, especially the delusionally climate deniers and young earth types are blasphemers, there is no way around this truth. If God created the earth (and the universe), then it follows that God also created ALL of the rules and laws that govern the behavior of everything in the universe. From a religious standpoint, this inescapably means that science examines God’s universe to discover and understand those rules. Science explains what God has done. The entirety of the universe, mysteries and all, IS NOT contained in nor described by the bible. No one in the bible flew in a jet, used a cell phone, or had an MRI to diagnose a medical issue. Every single modern convenience you take for granted depends on science understanding and applying the laws God put in place. So sorry (not) all you phony, blasphemous Christians and others, evolution and climate change are real, as are all of the other scientifically proven things you idiotically object to. The laws governing the universe that God created and that science has correctly discovered and understood prove this beyond any doubt. To deny this is to deny God. That hypocrisy makes you all blasphemers. The bogus leaders that have caused their flocks to believe in anti-science refuse to hear what God has said and continues to say because the authority of God is a threat to their own authority and power, their own megalomania. God is not in the business of micromanaging every atom in the universe in real time, God created the laws governing the universe so it would run itself. Will the faithful choose God’s truths or those pitiful humans who presume to own and be able to interpret the mind of God?
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