{"id":1942,"date":"2013-08-12T15:01:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T19:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2013-08-12T15:01:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T19:01:47","slug":"evolution-lawsuit-in-palm-beach-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1942","title":{"rendered":"Evolution lawsuit in Palm Beach County"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is an article today in the Sun Sentinel<\/a> that starts out with this paragraph:<\/p>\n

The Palm Beach County School Board is battling claims it fails to teach evolution and so-called truths about religions, charges hurled in a lawsuit from two students and their rabbi\/attorney\/father.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, the article is considered “premium content” at the newspaper’s site, which means access to it is limited. So, I’ll summarize it as best as I can. A lawsuit was filed against the Palm Beach County School Board two years ago. It was initially a complaint about relaxed rules for adopting textbooks, which the plaintiffs felt would be an open invitation to “increasing the danger of extremist and religious ideologies spreading into classrooms.” The lawsuit was dismissed multiple times.<\/p>\n

Since then, the original plaintiffs are no longer involved in the case but their lawyer is. Barry Silver has replaced those plaintiff with his own student sons. And the lawsuit has morphed into a more general complaint that evolution is not being properly taught and that anytime religion is brought up in the classroom, in the context of terrorist attacks, it’s portrayed as always being peaceful and never bad.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit is on hold right now by order of the judge as Silver and the School Board work out a possible compromise settlement.<\/p>\n

Silver’s main complaint about evolution is:<\/p>\n

The Silvers also challenged a fifth-grade science textbook, which cites adaptation and the effect of environmental changes on organisms, “yet never mentions Charles Darwin, evolution or natural selection.”<\/p>\n

“Such a grave oversight,” the suit states, “would be akin to discussing the founding of the United States without mentioning the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, or discussing the most popular sports in America, without using the words “baseball,” “football” or “basketball.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is an article today in the Sun Sentinel that starts out with this paragraph: The Palm Beach County School Board is battling claims it fails to teach evolution and so-called truths about religions, charges hurled in a lawsuit from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-vk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2376,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2376","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":0},"title":"Boca Raton son and father sue over school’s alleged failure to teach evolution","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Two stories have popped up about a possible lawsuit against a Florida school district for not teaching evolution properly. Boca Raton Student Sues District For Failing To Teach Evolution \"Evolution is a very important topic and its greatest scientific breakthrough ever so I believe it should be taught,\" stated fifth\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 18 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 18 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2376#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":518,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=518","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":1},"title":"Morning news dump","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Palm Beach Post: 'Evolution Act' passed by panel \"You cannot simply call a religious belief scientific information and thus open the door to teaching it in our scientific classrooms,\" said Courtenay Strickland, the daughter of a Baptist minister and a science teacher. Strickland spoke on behalf of the American Civil\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2980,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2980","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":2},"title":"Evolution complaint in Palm Beach County … and other news","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"All of you really need to keep an eye on what's going on in within your home turf. Sometimes it's very difficult to learn what's happening from afar, so it's incredibly important for you to monitor your local news. As I reported earlier, an Associated Press article revealed that there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":352,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=352","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":3},"title":"Those not in favor of good science education, raise your hand.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[I will bump this post up about once a week so as to always be on the front page. Latest bump: Feb. 15.] For your convenience, here is a list of the 12 counties that passed anti-evolution resolutions: Clay, Jackson, Baker, Hamilton, Holmes, St. Johns, Taylor, Madison, Lafayette, Nassau, Washington,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":369,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=369","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":4},"title":"8-0","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So far, eight Florida daily newspapers have written editorials in support of evolution. None have supported \"alternatives.\" Either the reality of the situation is that obvious, or it's just a liberal media conspiracy. I'll take reality. Here's the eighth editorial, which appeared today in the Palm Beach Post. Evolution is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":249,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=249","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":5},"title":"No book ban here","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Bravo to the Palm Beach County School Board for denying a woman's request to ban about 80 books from the school system libraries. Wise and, in my opinion, easy decision. Ms. Lopez, who had not read any of the books all the way through, wanted the school district to chuck\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1943,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions\/1943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}