Florida Citizens for Science

My previous post asked y’all to see what you can dig up about Citizens for Objective Public Education, Inc. The group apparently has roots in Florida as well as Kansas and I wanted to make sure we found out all we could to better prepare ourselves for whatever may hit here in the Sunshine State.

I now have the information and I’m not impressed at all. So far, only two of the organization’s members have been revealed by the group itself. There is Anne Lassey in Kansas and Jorge Fernandez in Melbourne, Florida. Fernandez doesn’t have much of a history. NCSE says he is “a self-proclaimed young-earth creationist, with publications to his credit in Journal of Creation and on the True.Origin Archive website.” Despite all the drama we’ve had over the teaching of evolution here in Florida over the past several years, Fernandez had remained quiet. That’s surprising in light of this new activity.

But even this recent letter of his is nothing to get excited about. All these folks did was win a little political lottery. They managed to get their letter into the hands of a vocal politician, which then led to a brief turn in the media spotlight. I’ve seen the letter, and it’s nothing more than a long rant about atheists and humanists worshiping the religion of evolution. For instance, from page 7 is: “… the Standards are designed to influence the worldviews of ‘all children’ and ‘all citizens.’ They explicitly have as their goal to cause children to relate their lives to the world around them. Thus, the Framework and Standards studiously ignore the religious rights of parents, children and taxpayers. Instead, the document explicitly and implicitly promotes an atheistic worldview.”

Move along. Nothing more to see here.

I have an assignment for you folks. The national science standards that many states, including Florida, are considering adopting are predictably under fire due to the prominence of evolution in the draft document. Kansas has hit the news first, firing the initial shot: Kan. official wants evolution concerns considered.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — People who question evolution shouldn’t be treated as “crackpots,” and their concerns should be addressed seriously as states consider new science standards for public schools, an elected Kansas official said Tuesday during a preliminary discussion about the work on new guidelines.

Will the issue crop up here in Florida? I bet you it will:

Willard, a Hutchinson Republican, distributed a nine-page letter criticizing the draft multistate standards from the group Citizens for Objective Public Education Inc., which lists officers in Florida and Kansas. The letter suggested that the draft standards ignore evidence against evolution, don’t respect religious diversity and promote secular humanism, which precludes God or another supreme being in considering how the universe works.

I did a quick Internet search for Citizens for Objective Public Education Inc. and didn’t come up with anything. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to find out what Florida connections this group has. Who are these Florida officers? We need to get to work on this right now so that we will be prepared for when it all hits the fan here. You can leave your findings in the comments here or contact me directly.