Weekend Reads 9/14/19

Union chief says National Weather workers 'irate' after NOAA backs Trump's Alabama hurricane forecast

Dan Sobien, who heads the National Weather Service Employees Organization representing thousands of employees working under NOAA, told The Daily Beast in an interview on Friday that "never ever before has their management thrown them under the bus like this."

“These are the people risking their lives flying into hurricanes and putting out forecasts that save lives. Never before has their management undercut their scientifically sound reasoning and forecasts," Sobien continued.

To Promote Inclusivity, Stay Away from Personality Assessments

My departure from the organization was an all-too-common scenario that seems to occur with underrepresented individuals who do not “fit” in company culture. As diversity in the workplace becomes an increasingly urgent priority for employers, personality assessments may be one of many practices that unintentionally isolate or penalize those who prefer to work in isolation or silence, for example, outside of popular office cultures that encourage open floor plans and lots of collaboration.

4 Surprises about Teaching Evolution in Public School

Most people think of evolution education in public contexts as an approach requiring teachers and professors to basically say, “Check your religion at the door. In this class, we will not talk about religion. It’s just science here.” But a whole different approach is emerging in American education, and it focuses on students understanding, but not necessarily accepting or believing, evolution. This gentler approach recognizes that student concerns, fears, and objections must be addressed if they are going to work out for themselves an understanding of evolution and its interface with their individual worldviews.

Trump demanded retraction after NWS disputed his false hurricane claim

To back Trump's position, the NOAA statement pointed to a wind-speed probability graphic, saying that it "demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama." But the graphic showed that by the morning of September 1, forecasters predicted less than a 10% chance of tropical storm-force winds reaching a small part of southeast Alabama. The rest of Alabama faced no risk of tropical storm-force winds.