SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Fluffeh writes:
"For a few years the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have been working to put together a set of standards for teaching science in public education schools. So far, nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards. Wyoming doesn't appear to have issues with evolution. Instead, climate science appears to be the problem. That's not because any of the legislators have actually studied the science involved and found it lacking. The issue appears to be solely with the implications of the science.
State Representative Matt Teeters had this to say '[The standards] handle global warming as settled science. There's all kind of social implications involved in that that I don't think would be good for Wyoming.' Specifically, Teeters seems to think that having citizens of the state accept climate science would 'wreck Wyoming's economy,' which relies heavily on fossil fuel production."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:41PM
Awesome, thanks for making my point via example of "Nothing good is likely to come of discussing that".
Its an inherently toxic discussion in modern culture, just like climate change. I had to mentally stretch a bit to find that topic as an example. There are probably other example of inherently toxic discussion topics. Cultural imperialism vs western Renaissance era liberalism. How about, in a word, religion, or more specifically who exactly is going to hell and why according to whom. But I think I selected the "best" inherently toxic discussion I could think of, at least WRT being the most toxic of all possible topics. Have a nice day!
(Score: 1) by mvdwege on Wednesday March 19 2014, @10:23AM
Sometimes a bigoted prick is just a bigoted prick. It is good that discussions are toxic to them.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 19 2014, @12:59PM
(shakes head slowly)
I was trying to avoid the meta Godwins law of mentioning Godwins law, but I'm basically paraphrasing that law, that there exist some discussion topics so toxic that they eliminate all further discussion. Godwin says Hitler will do it. I say discussing climate change will do it. I also mention other topics that work just as well and people freak out at the mere public mention of the topics, which was exactly the point I was trying to make, which is kind of hilarious.
Are you familiar with Godwins law? That might be the place to start if we're to have a meeting of the minds on this topic. The next little step is I say there exist many other discussion topics just as toxic as hitler. Then a tiny little baby step from there, to I claim climate change is a member of the set of toxic discussion topics.
I am making the (huge?) assumption that pointless kneejerk flamewars and riot inducement and distraction from the original issue is inherently uneducational, which was where the whole discussion began, with the assumption that riot inducement is a great educational technique or some such assumption.