As we reported in our last message to you, the CO2 Coalition was removed from our purchased booth at the NSTA's National Conference on Science Education. If you did not see our last newsletter and you are just learning of this, we were thrown out for publicizing their anti-science position on the teaching of climate change.
CO2 Coalition Director, and Education Committee Chair, Gordon Fulks, Ph.D., succinctly penned this letter to the National Science Teaching Association Leadership: Dr. Erika Shugart, Executive Director; Dr. Eric Pyle, Retiring President; Dr. Elizabeth Mulkerrin, President; and Dr. Julie Luft, President-elect National Science Teaching Association, Arlington, VA, USA
Dear Drs. Shugart, Pyle, Mulkerrin and Luft:
I am the author of most of the CO2 Coalition's publications that your Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ryan Foley, demanded we cease distributing at your conference in Atlanta last month. My question is simple: WHY? We paid for the exhibitor space that we utilized and were welcomed by many of your members.
What was so egregious about "Once Upon a Time," "Simon: The Solar-Powered Cat," and "The Magic Mirror" to justify such an intolerant response?
These stories were written by a Ph.D. astrophysicist, namely someone with the credentials to tackle such tasks. They are beautifully illustrated by a world-class Brazilian artist who lives near the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, Sao Paulo.
The stories were produced by a remarkable team of real scientists, most with Ph.D.s. Mr. Foley met some of our team, including Dr. Rafaella Nascimento, a Brazilian with a Ph.D. in Chemistry who runs her own business in Houston. And Mr. Foley talked with Dr. Sharon Camp, a Ph.D. Chemist who taught advanced chemistry in Atlanta high schools for many years. Both are volunteers.
Mr. Foley ordered the Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition, Gregory Wrightstone, a man with a Master of Science in geology, to leave the building. When Mr. Wrightstone tried to explain that we were merely supporting the Scientific Method by emphasizing evidence over doctrine, Mr. Foley was adamant that our people had to leave.
Perhaps Mr. Foley was unhappy that we were also distributing a detailed scientific explanation of why we disagree with the National Science Teaching Association's policy supporting climate hysteria. Science is never about policy statements from organizations. It is about dialogue between properly credentialed scientists who can critique the available evidence. Amateurs can play a role, but only if they are sufficiently knowledgeable.
I was surprised to learn that Mr. Ryan Foley has no academic background in the sciences or in education, meaning that he should not be involved in passing judgments on real scientists with strong credentials.
Does he have ANY understanding that the Scientific Method dates from the 1660s, when the newly formed British Royal Society took as its motto “Nullius in verba,” meaning “Take nobody's word for it?” That expressed the determination of the Fellows to avoid the domination of authority and to make decisions based on facts derived from experiments.
This is the very foundation of science that all school children should understand and appreciate.
I am the Chairman of our Education Committee that edits and approves all the materials that we publish for children. All of our committee members have backgrounds in science, except for one who is an emeritus professor of economics. Most have Ph.D.s, two are members of the US National Academy of Sciences, several are Fellows of multiple scientific societies. One has been nominated for a Nobel Prize. Most are volunteers, and some are even donors.
This is not to say that we are necessarily correct about everything. But it does say that we have far better qualifications to address scientific topics than someone without a scientific background.
If Mr. Foley had any legitimate reason to question the publications we were distributing, he should have called in real scientists with real expertise to engage us in a constructive dialogue that would have set a good example for the teachers at your conference. They were overwhelmingly supportive of our efforts to return the discussion of climate to something scientific.
Science thrives on constructive debate but dies when non-scientists try to impose their political beliefs.
At the very least, you owe us a public apology for the bad behavior of one of your executives. You should redirect your efforts toward teaching children how to think like a scientist, NOT what to think.
Children (and their teachers) need to learn how science really works. It is evidence-based, NOT politically or religiously based. It has everything to do with consensus, in the sense that every scientific advance has come from a real scientist challenging “the consensus.” Galileo challenged the religious notion that there were only seven wanderers in the sky from which we get the seven days of the week. He observed some of the moons of Jupiter through his telescope.
We need to teach children to challenge paradigms that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.
Thank you for giving this matter your attention.
Sincerely yours,
Gordon J. Fulks, (Ph.D. Physics, University of Chicago)
Chairman, Education Committee
Member, Board of Directors
CO2 Coalition
Arlington, VA USA
P.S. The CO2 Coalition is a nonprofit organization consisting of about 125 accomplished scientists and experts who donate their time to support competent science. The Chairman of our Board is the famous Princeton University Professor of Physics Will Happer.
