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University Offering Free Online Course to Demolish Climate Denial

posted by CoolHand on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the denial-is-a-river-in-egypt dept.

aristarchus writes:

So, it has come to this! Universities are now offering courses on how to argue against climate change denialists! (Note, even mentioning such courses could be illegal in Florida, but fortunately this is in Australia.)

Starting 28 April, 2015, the University of Queensland is offering a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) aimed at “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial”.

You know you've made it when they start teaching about you in college! Well done, climate change deniers!!!
And a MOOC? Hmmm, is there a "certificate" one might earn?

 
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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @03:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @03:41AM (#175572)

    Most people know very little about any paticular topic and have only an appeal to authority to fall back on if challenged.

    An appeal to authority is not inherently wrong, it's only fallacious when the authority itself is not relevant to the argument. Citing one's scientific credentials is a perfectly valid reason to claim that one is more knowledgeable in their domain than the general public.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 27 2015, @03:40PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 27 2015, @03:40PM (#175747) Journal
    It's more fraught with peril than that. For example, the authority (term used in the loose sense of the "argument from authority") may be heavily biased or even insincere (which I think is a serious problem in many places in the AGW debate). And the one making the rhetorical appeal often misrepresents the authority or ignores authorities with contrary opinions.