Controversy in the context of "Carl Schleicher"

In the sciences and in historiography, denialism is the rejection of basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus or historical record on a subject, in favor of ideas that are radical, controversial, or fabricated. Examples include Holocaust denial, AIDS denialism, and climate change denial. The forms of denialism present the common feature of the person rejecting overwhelming evidence and trying to generate political controversy in attempts to deny the existence of consensus.

In psychology, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid believing in an uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational human behavior that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.

In journalism and mass media, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotionally loaded impressions of events rather than neutrality, and may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story. Sensationalism may rely on reports about generally insignificant matters and portray them as a major influence on society, or biased presentations of newsworthy topics, in a trivial, or tabloid manner, contrary to general assumptions of professional journalistic standards.

Some tactics include being deliberately obtuse, appealing to emotions, being controversial, intentionally omitting facts, being loud and self-centered, and acting to obtain attention. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant, and often include stories about the actions of individuals and small groups of people, the content of which is often insignificant and irrelevant to the macro-level day-to-day events occurring globally.

Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia grants the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King of Malaysia) responsibility for "safeguard[ing] the special position of the 'Malays' and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other communities" and goes on to specify ways to do this, such as establishing quotas for entry into the civil service, public scholarships and public education.

Article 153 is one of the most controversial articles in the Malaysian constitution. Critics consider Article 153 as creating an unnecessary distinction between Malaysians of different ethnic backgrounds, because it has led to the ethnocentric implementation of affirmative action policies which benefit only the Bumiputra, who comprise a majority of the population. Critics also consider the preferential treatment to be against both meritocracy and egalitarianism. Technically, discussing the repeal of Article 153 is illegal—even in Parliament, although it was originally drafted as a temporary provision to the Constitution. Despite this prohibition on discussion (in order to ostensibly manage race relations, thus appearing to defuse and avoid ethnic hatred, ethnic conflict and ethnic violence), the article is hotly debated, both privately and publicly among Malaysians, against the continued perpetual retention and implementation of the article although ostensibly maintaining support for the special race-based privileges. Nevertheless, the article is viewed as a sensitive matter by many, with politicians who are in favour or opposed to it often being labelled as racist and engaging in social exclusion.

A cause célèbre (/ˌkɔːz səˈlɛb(rə)/ KAWZ sə-LEB(-rə), French: [koz selɛbʁ]; pl. causes célèbres, pronounced like the singular) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning, and heated public debate. The term is sometimes used positively for celebrated legal cases for their precedent value (each locus classicus or "case-in-point") and more often negatively for infamous ones, whether for scale, outrage, scandal, or conspiracy theories. The term is a French phrase in common usage in English. Since it has been fully adopted into English and is included unitalicized in English dictionaries, it is not normally italicized despite its French origin.

It has been noted that the public attention given to a particular case or event can obscure the facts rather than clarify them. As John Humffreys Parry states, "The true story of many a cause célèbre is never made manifest in the evidence given or in the advocates' orations, but might be recovered from these old papers when the dust of ages has rendered them immune from scandal".