Michael Maniates
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:00:27 -0700
Michelle and others,I've used portions of the book, along with showing the short "documentary" titled The Great Global Warming Swindle. I then invite my students to burrow into the natural science record and critically evaluate the claims and uncover the "cherry picking" of the natural-science record present in both sources.
I've found this to be a useful exercise. In my experience (and I've come to learn this the hard way), if we don't teach students about the pseudo-science (i.e. all warming is due to variations in sun-spot activity, etc.), they're utterly flummoxed the first time they hear these arguments and critiques. I do this in my global environmental politics course as an example of how public perception can be easily swayed by pseudo-science, but how it can also be significantly swayed in the other direction by coherent rebuttal. I like the outcomes: students are empowered to "check up" on all sort of claims, mainstream and skeptic, around climate change and other topics.
I'd be far less satisfied with this exercise if it didn't ask the students to assess the veracity of the skeptic arguments (and write a tight, referenced paper), drawing on an array of sources (print and Internet) to which I point them, and which they discover on their own.
Mike Maniates At 06:58 PM 7/18/2008, you wrote:
Has anyone used Michael Crichton's STATE OF FEAR book in a course? I was thinking of having students read it the same week we watch AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH in my climate politics class.Thoughts? Michele ____________________________ Michele M. Betsill, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Political Science Clark B350 Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA 970-491-5270 970-491-2490 (fax) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]