NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2016/03/25
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2016-03-25 15:17.
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, The Idaho legislature puts the kibosh on a new set of state science standards. And the latest climate poll from Gallup.
SCIENCE STANDARDS DEFINITIVELY REJECTED IN IDAHO With the passage of Senate Concurrent Resolution 140 by both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the Idaho legislature, the Idaho state science standards adopted in 2015 have been definitively rejected. (Previous coverage, including from NCSE, prematurely described the rejection as occurring when the House and Senate Education Committees both voted to reject the standards in early February 2016.) Although the House and Senate Education Committees were quiet about the content of the standards, instead objecting to the lack of opportunity for public comments, there was reason to think that hostility toward the inclusion of evolution and climate change in the standards played a role in the committees' decisions to reject the new standards, as NCSE previously reported. The old, pre-2015, standards will remain in effect. For information about Idaho's Senate Concurrent Resolution 140, visit: https://www.legislature.idaho.gov/legislation/2016/SCR140.htm And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Idaho, visit: http://ncse.com/news/idaho THE LATEST CLIMATE POLL FROM GALLUP A record was broken in a new poll from Gallup, which found that 65% of Americans believe that increases in the earth's temperature over the last century are due more to "the effects of pollution from human activities" than to "natural causes in the environment that are not due to human activities." According to Gallup, "This represents a striking 10-percentage-point increase in the past year and is four points above the previous high of 61% in 2007." Speculating on the cause of the increase, Gallup suggested, "Several years of unseasonably warm weather -- including the 2011-2012, 2012-2013 and 2015-2016 winters -- has potentially contributed to this shift in attitudes. If that's true, continuation of such weather patterns would likely do more than anything politicians and even climate-change scientists can to further raise public concern." The poll also asked respondents whether they believed that most scientists believe that global warming is occurring, most scientists believe that global warming is not occurring, or most scientists are unsure. Sixty-five percent of respondents selected the first option -- which is correct -- while 7% selected the second option, 25% selected the third option, and 3% expressed no opinion. The poll was "based on telephone interviews conducted March 2-6, 2016, with a random sample of 1,019 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is +/-4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level." Both cellphone and landlines were used; numbers were selected using random-digit-dial methods. For Gallup's press release about the poll, visit: http://www.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-warming-eight-year-high.aspx For the topline results (PDF), visit: http://www.gallup.com/file/poll/190055/Global_Warming_Trends_160316%20.pdf And for NCSE's collection of polls and surveys on climate, visit: http://ncse.com/polls/polls-climate-change WHAT'S NEW FROM THE SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Have you been visiting NCSE's blog, The Science League of America, recently? If not, then you've missed: * Josh Rosenau explaining the many ways in which teachers can access the scientific literature: http://ncse.com/blog/2016/03/teachers-access-to-scientific-literature-is-priceless-0016972 * Stephanie Keep welcoming glyptodonts to the armadillo family: http://ncse.com/blog/2016/03/glyptodonts-weren-t-just-armadillo-cousins-they-were-0016976 * Glenn Branch examining a strange claim from a biographer of Darwin: http://ncse.com/blog/2016/03/did-darwin-fear-priestley-s-fate-0016824 And much more besides! For The Science League of America, visit: http://ncse.com/blog Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them. -- Sincerely, Glenn Branch Deputy Director National Center for Science Education, Inc. 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600 Oakland CA 94612-2922 510-601-7203 fax 510-788-7971 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Check out NCSE's blog, Science League of America: http://ncse.com/blog Read Reports of the NCSE on-line: http://reports.ncse.com Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter: http://groups.google.com/group/ncse-news NCSE is on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd http://twitter.com/ncse NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today! http://ncse.com/join
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