Some interesting evolution and science related stuff in Florida news lately …
John Thrasher endures testy forum at FSU
College of Communication professor Andy Opel pressed Thrasher on climate change, asking him if he believed it is real. “Do you accept the science behind it,†Opel said.
Like Gov. Rick Scott, whose reelection campaign Thrasher co-chairs, Thrasher declined to give a specific response. At that point, two students in the front row appeared to Thrasher to be laughing at his answer.
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The next person to pose a question, law professor Mark Seidenfeld, asked Thrasher if he believed in evolution.
“I have a great faith in my life that has guided me in my life in a lot of things I believe in,†Thrasher said.
Hinson: ‘Because he’s flippin’ Bill Nye, that’s why’
After Nye’s talk was done, he received a rousing standing ovation. After a minute or so, he returned to the stage and fielded a few questions from students in the audience. That’s when things got real good, real fast.
First question: “What would you think of a university president at a major university who doesn’t believe in evolution?”
It was a direct reference to Florida Sen. John Thrasher (R-St. Augustine), a political bigwig who is aggressively trying to muscle his way into the president’s office at Florida State. Thrasher, who is not exactly a free-thinking intellectual with a lenghty list of academic credentials, has dodged questions about climate change and whether or not he believes Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory.
Nye answered with: “I’m heartbroken, I guess.”
A woman in the audience instantly shouted: “So are we.”
East Hillsborough School Board race has conservative focus
There is a truism about eastern Hillsborough County: When it comes to politics, you can’t tack too far to the right.
That adage is being tested this fall as Terry Kemple, possibly Hillsborough’s best-known Christian conservative activist, makes his third run for the School Board.
He ran districtwide the first two times and lost, although he notes that in 2012 he would have prevailed if the votes were confined to District 4.
This time he is running in the land of the Bell Shoals Baptist superchurch and former state Sen. Ronda Storms, a district where the pro-family, anti-Obamacare Stacy White defeated two better-funded candidates in the August primary for a likely spot on the County Commission.
But Kemple, 68, takes it up a notch. He’s spoken out against gay rights and Muslim advocacy. He called it a travesty that the schools teach evolution as fact. And he isn’t just against the Common Core standards; he accused the state of trying to defraud the public on the issue.
Thrasher has now become FSU’s president, despite deep opposition from faculty & students.
I predict an exodus of talent from Tallahassee (though maybe FAMU will snap up some noteworthy teachers).
UF continues to seek its next president, a process which will probably conclude after the elections. Should Rick Scott continue in his present job, I predict most of the more qualified candidates – those with academic integrity and realistic alternative options – will drop out of contention.
Get your pro-education friends out to VOTE, people!