{"id":2208,"date":"2014-08-07T18:49:23","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T22:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2014-08-08T18:19:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T22:19:50","slug":"creationism-in-pinellas-county-school-board-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2208","title":{"rendered":"Creationism in Pinellas County school board race"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: See update at the end of this post.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Gradebook blog reports<\/a> that when candidates for the Pinellas County school board were asked during a public forum if they thought creationism should be taught in the science classroom, one said:<\/p>\n

\"pinellas\"<\/a>“I think creationism and evolution should be taught side by side and I don’t care what classroom.” Ken Peluso went on to say that students should “know the facts” and decide for themselves.<\/p>\n

Peluso has the biggest campaign war chest in his district race, the Gradebook reported. He was also endorsed by the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association and other groups. Creative Loafing Tampa Bay<\/a> has a story mentioning the creationism remark, too.<\/p>\n

This is shaping up to be an interesting election season. Keep in mind that creationism came up in the Holmes County school board race<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n

(Picture is a screenshot of his website and links to him.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Updated 8\/8: The Tampa Bay Times reports: Pinellas School Board candidate Peluso reverses his comments about creationism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“In hindsight, that was probably a poor choice of words in response to a question that caught me off guard,” he said Friday. “My personal beliefs have nothing to do with it.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Peluso said Friday that creationism versus evolution is “probably the most controversial education issue of all time.” Despite his comments, he said that he wouldn’t teach creationism alongside evolution in a science class. He could see a place for it in a world religion class with other views, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: See update at the end of this post. The Gradebook blog reports that when candidates for the Pinellas County school board were asked during a public forum if they thought creationism should be taught in the science classroom, one … 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-zC","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2217,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2217","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":0},"title":"“I stand by that decision”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Pinellas County school board candidate Ken Peluso was briefly on the hot seat when he said he believed that creationism and evolution should be taught together so that students could \"draw their own conclusions.\" He later told the Tampa Bay Times that he reversed that comment, claiming that the question\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 6 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 6 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2217#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2215,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2215","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":1},"title":"A scolding","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Tampa Bay Times scolded Ken Peluso in an editorial today: Pinellas candidate's blunder is unsettling. On Friday, Peluso said he made a mistake. He said he would envision public schools teaching creationism only in the context of a world religion class, where \"other alternative religious perspectives were also taught.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2235,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2235","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":2},"title":"Interesting endorsement","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Tampa Bay Times made an interesting endorsement recently. Times recommends: Peluso for Pinellas School Board Peluso, 58, made an unfortunate misstep in August when twice in one day at public forums he professed support for teaching creationism alongside evolution, which would be a violation of the state's science standards.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2235#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":353,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=353","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":3},"title":"More about Pinellas mess","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, the St. Petersburg Times teased in their education blog today's story about the Pinellas County school board's creationist majority. The board members are confused. They worry that students will have a tough time meshing the scientific theory of evolution with their personal and family religious beliefs. And it would\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":985,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=985","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":4},"title":"Florida’s Greatest Menace VI: Misconceptions, misinterpretations and misinformation","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(This is the sixth part in the Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Greatest Menace series. For an introduction to the series, go here.) Status report Rev. C.E. Winslow was a busy man as 1979 rushed to a close. He hopped from school board meetings in Hillsborough County to meetings in Pinellas County while also\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 7 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 7 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=985#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1627,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1627","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":5},"title":"Second out of the gate: Alachua County","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"First there was Pinellas County. And then there was Alachua County. Seriously. I can't make this stuff up. Truck driver Jodi Wood is running for the second time after a campaign in 2010 to get elected to the School Board. Wood has identified himself as a Christian who believes in\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 20 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 20 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1627#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208"}],"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=2208"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2214,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions\/2214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}