This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

If you're still recovering from an awkward Thanksgiving with all your crazy relatives, you may think you've just heard every outrageous idea ever hatched. You haven't.

What is taught in pubic schools should be crafted and vetted by educators and scholars in the relevant subjects. But in Utah, we're considering a "special" approach — at least when it comes to climate science and evolution. Rather than have actual climate scientists and biologists create the curriculum in those fields, some would prefer ideologues with no expertise calling the shots. And not just for their own children, but for yours as well.

An organized and determined team of extreme right-wing, climate-denier parents, decrying "Education Without Representation" (EWR), have bullied their way into the decision-making process, intimidating the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) into watering down education on climate change. Their website displays pictures of attractive, smiling, friendly looking people, suggesting warm and fuzzy good intentions. They might very well make good neighbors, but they don't make good scientists. And they want to dumb down an already weak public education system in Utah that is failing to compete nationally.

Truth in advertising would require that the good people at "Education Without Representation" rename their crusade, "Education Without Knowledge, Critical Thinking, Facts or Science, But With Plenty of Propaganda, Fantasy and Theology." Which of course yields the catchy acronym, "EWKCTFOSBWPOPFA," or "BS" for short.

Since its inception, the competitive strength of our nation, our economy and all the benefits of modern life have been derived from our advancement of science, and that our public policy generally follows in the same direction. But the political power of anti-science radicals, and the concomitant devaluing of scientific expertise by much of the public, already threatens American pre-eminence.

Lay people generally don't bestow upon themselves the mantle of armchair heart surgeon, rocket scientist or structural engineer. But with climate science its different. Thanks to the Internet and 24-hour, agenda-driven news outlets like Fox, everyone's a climate expert. Lay people can wrap themselves up in a cocoon of punditry, render their convictions impervious to evidence and, absurdly, feel empowered to challenge actual scientists on their own turf. People once used information to distill an ideology, now they use their ideology to screen their information.

Among actual climate scientists the debate is long since over. Human-caused global warming creating a climate that threatens our future is the most thoroughly studied, most widely accepted and most important scientific conclusion in the history of mankind.

The often-quoted statistic that more than 97 percent of climate scientists agree is actually an understatement. From a recent review of more than 24,000 peer-reviewed, published papers on global warming, only five rejected rising temperatures or the fact that human emissions are the cause. Of the 70,000 working climate scientists worldwide, only four authors dispute human-caused global warming. Those four are considered scientific quacks. So the real figure should be 99.999 percent. ExxonMobil's own scientists were among the first to know global warming was for real and caused by burning fossil fuels.

It's easy to imagine a society where ideologues smother science, empiricism, objectivity and pluralism. We're fighting them right now, and have been ever since Sept. 11, 2001. Historically, the advances of civilization have been largely the result of the masses coalescing around science. Wars and the regression of civilization are usually the tragic result of the masses coalescing around ideology.

After pressure from EWR folks, USOE proposed removing the language about humans causing climate change from 6th grade education. And the EWRs continue sending angry emails to board members and doing everything they can to derail adoption of the standards.

The Board of Education will vote on the scientific standards at its meeting on Dec. 4. (State Office of Education Building, 250 East 500 South, Salt Lake City). Public comment begins at 8 a.m. Email addresses of board members can be found on our website, UPHE.org. Tell them to teach our kids actual 21st century science.

As that great pontificator Donald Rumsfeld might have said, our children must face the future with the facts that we have, not the facts that some people wish we had.

Dr. Brian Moench is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.