callaway–this is not religion. standards stifle freedom.
martinez–earth revolves around sun. do we question that?
things are getting hairy. martinez is getting beat up. martinez says evolution is fact.
martinez gets loud applause and fair tells everyone to quiet down.
raulerson still on that cell theory thing.
fair asks for any new info.
4 yes 3 no with theory but no academic freedom thing.
So are they going to put THEORY in front of everything – or just evolution?
Raulerson: “It is a theory, it isn’t a law YET”
We have to get away from this Hypothesis->theory->law gradient. Why don’t they know it doesn’t work that way.
No, it gets in front of most things
Phew. I am worn out and bursting for a bathroom but: I am flabberghasted at the ignorance on display by some of the people on the Board of Education! This whole issue of “theory” and “law” spouted by supposed science teachers? Which members did Crist place up there and which were Bush’s?
Thanks for all the work you all do!
Paul, Oviedo
And these guys are on a State Board of Education. Florida is the new Arkansas. Could we stick in a “no pseudoscience BS” clause, at least?
Oh, but heliocentrism from Martinez FTW! So who was opposed in the end – Martinez, Desai, and…?
Kim, was that a response to me? Are the standards going to say – scientific theory of gravity?
Wasn’t Calloway the third ‘nay’?
“This is not about religion.” Yeah, and I’m the Pope.
James, I’m not sure, but oddly I think it was Callaway. I think it was because she apparently wanted “a scientific theory” instead of “the scientific theory” or something. She mentioned something like that earlier, when she was rambling on and on.
It was hard to tell though because the video feed was very jumpy and stop-start for me during the vote.
I went over this on the FLCFS board e-mail list many times. The ‘graduation’ idea of science needs to be pointed out to the board members. Evolution happens no matter how we explain it. Gravity happens no matter how we explain it. What we saw here is that Martinez has it right. Board members are saying that they know more about science than the experts who wrote the standards. That’s a damn shame.
Cheers
Joe Meert
Here are the added differences to the original proposal: http://www.fldoestem.org/Uploads/1/docs/FLDOE/Change%20Summary%20for%20Proposal2.pdf
O, and here are those in full: http://www.fcrstem.org/Uploads/1/docs/FLDOE/K-12_Proposal2ScienceStandards.pdf
A note to Brandon, Joe, Debra, Jonathan, and everyone else at Florida Citizens for Science: Thank you for the two and a half years of hard work and preparation. While the antievolution forces scored a point with the last-minute word fiddling on the adopted standards, the new standards will support teachers who will approach evolutionary science responsibly. I am pleased and proud to have been able to assist all of you in this effort. This is, overall, an excellent development.
There will be work in the future for Florida Citizens for Science. The wording change will certainly be followed by antievolution exploitation. You will have to be on the lookout for places where non-science is snuck into the classroom as if it were the product of the scientific process. That’s just going to be the usual hard slogging.
But for the moment, I think that you can celebrate that at least Florida’s students will be learning something about evolutionary science. It’s a big step in the right direction for Florida.
Thanks Kim 🙂
Calloway was the third nay, because she opposes the teaching of evolution, and wanted critical analysis boosted and evolution watered down much more.
Personally, I think this is not a bad outcome, because the wording is clear on making a difference between theory and Scientific Theory, which evolution is.
Thank You Florida Citizens for Science for all your hard work
I heartily second what Wesley said. I was also proud to see two signers of the Clergy Letter Project on the team (I am one of the CLP scientific consultants). I think we all ought to write Bob Martinez and thank him for being such a staunch supporter, too.
Wow, who knew the Florida public had such a big problem with gravity, conservation of mass, conservation of energy, atoms, and electromagnetism. Of course plate tectonics didn’t surprise me, ’cause you KNOW how much the Religious Right hates plate tectonics.
Wow! I am amazed that these people don’t know science! That ought to tell you just how bad education is Florida is, and just how long it has been bad!
My husband – a biology teacher – was actually optimistic about the outcome.
He said it elevated evolution to the theory of electromagnetics, etc… I thought that was a nice way of looking at the decision. 🙂
‘electromagnetism’ – sorry 🙁
I am all for it, I certainly hope that in the coming years, we’ll get more and more educated as a whole and science and math will make up much more of the learning process.
This looks like a good thing to me. “Scientific Theory,” as we are all aware, has a meaning very different from the more commonly used word “theory.” Just imagine if the creationists started saying “Evolution is just a scientific theory!” With this wording, it becomes more difficult for creationists to confuse the public, as they so often attempt to do.
This looks like a win to me. “Scientific Theory” is strong. “Just a theory or One theory” would not be good. Why did the original proposed new standards not even come up for a vote? As a procedural matter, I would have expected that first, and then after failing, the emended one come up.
I don’t see the Creationists accepting the new standards, though. Aren’t they going to get the State Legislature all huffed up to butt in and pollute the deal?
What’s the next step? How do the Board of Education members get their jobs, and how do they lose them?
WOW! I watched the SBE webcast today. Why can’t all the appointed members be like Marteniz? We NEED him in New York when the ID people come calling again with their “new” code words – academic freedom! Let’s bundle him up and send him north to help us when this happens.
Kudos to all of you who are helping the students of your state EVOLVE!!! May you reap economic benefits from this decision or else, we’ll be launching space vehicles from Crabb Island in Lake Champlain!
The next step would be to make sure the creationists/ID’ers don’t try to twist the word “theory.” They engineered this little word game to gain some degree of opportunity for future attempts at subverting science, so it’s better to close all remaining openings while we are ahead of the game. Off the top of my head, I believe a good strategy is that all science teachers adopting this standard should take some time to focus on the process of formulating scientific theories and laws. It will help students see the difference between an actual scientific theory and the definition of “theory” that religious lobbyists like the Discovery Institute et al will no doubt be twisting in the coming months.
I agree that “scientific theory” is not all together a bad thing. Especially if it also included in front of “gravity” and such. It is distinguishable from “theory” and the difference is easily explained by using “the scientific theory of gravity” as an example of what a scientific theory is. Yes, I know that evolution has moved way beyond being a scientific theory, but I don’t see it as a concession at all.