Conservative bias in textbook, "American Government" concerning Greehouse effect.

[Democrats_win]

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20080408_ap_widelyusedgovernmenttextbookunderfire.html

Widely used government textbook under fire
NANCY ZUCKERBROD

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Talk about a civics lesson: A high-school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and legal scholars and top scientists say the teen's criticism is well-founded.

They say "American Government" by conservatives James Wilson and John Dilulio presents a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. The publisher now says it will review the book, as will the College Board, which oversees college-level Advanced Placement courses used in high schools.

Matthew LaClair of Kearny, N.J., recently brought his concerns to the attention of the Center for Inquiry, am Amherst, N.Y., think tank that promotes science and which has issued a scathing report about the textbook.

LaClair said he was particularly upset about the book's treatment of global warming. James Hansen, the director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently heard about LaClair's concerns and has lent him some support.

Hansen has sent Houghton Mifflin a letter stating that the book's discussion on global warming contained "a large number of clearly erroneous statements" that give students "the mistaken impression that the scientific evidence of global warming is doubtful and uncertain."

The edition of the textbook published in 2005, which is in high school classrooms now, states that "science doesn't know whether we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming or how bad the greenhouse effect is, if it exists at all."
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More at link.

Note: "The Earth's average surface temperature of 14 °C (57 °F) would otherwise be about -19 °C (-2.2 °F) in the absence of the greenhouse effect."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

(There is no question that the Greenhouse effect exists contrary to the statement made in the book! It is a fundamental part of earth science and scientists have a fundamental understanding of how it occurs.)

[varkam]

1. That's pretty blatant.

The science on global warming is essentially unanimous. There's not a question as to whether or not it is occurring. As far as I understand it, the only real debatable question is what is going to happen and when.