{"id":3027,"date":"2017-12-21T17:08:55","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T22:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=3027"},"modified":"2017-12-21T17:11:48","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T22:11:48","slug":"following-up-on-nassau-county-shenanigans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3027","title":{"rendered":"Following up on Nassau County shenanigans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I told you about the interesting conversation about evolution at a recent Nassau County School Board meeting a few days ago (Meanwhile, in Nassau County: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought evolution was a bunch of baloney\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a>). Now, the local weekly newspaper published a story about it: Science Education Discussed at NCSB<\/a>. Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall, but you can fork over 99 cents to get a digital copy of the paper if you want to.<\/p>\n

The story is mostly just a recap of what happened at the meeting, similar to what I did in my previous post. Unfortunately, the story didn’t venture beyond what happened at the meeting. There were no interviews with school board members to get their opinions or with the superintendent for a deeper look at her thoughts on allowing students to opt out of evolution lessons.<\/p>\n

On the positive side, the reporter did ask for a quote from me since there was no one at the meeting to speak up for science education. I happily obliged:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153(The Nassau County School Board) implied that evolution is merely a theory, which is a red flag that indicates the speaker doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the most basic science facts,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Haught told the News-Leader. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The word theory is used differently by scientists than by the general public. In science, a theory is not a guess. A theory in science is something that is well supported, having withstood constant testing and experimentation. Germ theory of disease, cell theory and gravitational theory are examples, and I doubt that school district officials brush them off as mere guesses. Evolution is on that same high level of scientific consensus and confidence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Haught called the discussion by School Board members \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shenanigans\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which Florida Citizens for Science will become involved if he believes it to be necessary.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The clear ignorance of science displayed at the recent meeting is \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 very concerning,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Haught said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dr. Burns stated that the science textbooks currently being used in the district will be replaced soon and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be addressing this again in the future.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Florida Citizens for Science will definitely keep an eye on Nassau County and do everything we can to support and defend quality science education there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, the locals now know that we’re keeping an eye on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I told you about the interesting conversation about evolution at a recent Nassau County School Board meeting a few days ago (Meanwhile, in Nassau County: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought evolution was a bunch of baloney\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Now, the local weekly newspaper published a … 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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-MP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":396,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=396","url_meta":{"origin":3027,"position":0},"title":"Nassau and Jackson counties","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was in a hurry when I posted about the news article this morning about some more counties passing or considering anti-evolution resolutions, so I couldn't do any research concerning the counties mentioned in the story. Now that I have a little bit of time, let's see what we can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":406,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=406","url_meta":{"origin":3027,"position":1},"title":"Nassau County meeting Thursday","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a reminder that the Nassau County school board will be meeting tomorrow (Thursday), and one item on the agenda is an anti-evolution resolution. If you are in the area, please attend. The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at the School Board District Office, 1201 Atlantic Avenue, Fernandina Beach,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=406#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=411","url_meta":{"origin":3027,"position":2},"title":"Nassau County passed their anti-evolution resolution","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I called the Nassau County school district today during my lunch break. The superintendent's secretary informed me that the anti-evolution resolution passed unanimously during last week's school board meeting. [Previous post on this here.]\u00c2\u00a0That makes 10 county school boards that have passed such nonsense. Should we start placing bets on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2997,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2997","url_meta":{"origin":3027,"position":3},"title":"Nassau County textbook challenge: “Bacteria to man evolution is not supported by science”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Nassau County is the first school district I'm aware of that has been faced with a citizen's challenge to topics in the schools' science instructional materials. I told you about this back in early November (Nassau County complaint: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stop promoting this scientifically inadequate theory of evolution as fact to our\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":417,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=417","url_meta":{"origin":3027,"position":4},"title":"Article on Nassau County","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I had already called a couple of days ago to confirm the Nassau County had in fact passed their anti-evolution resolution. But now their act is further confirmed in this news story. Board members voted unanimously Thursday to adopt the resolution recommended by Schools Superintendent John Ruis. The resolution opposes\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":[]},{"id":2969,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2969","url_meta":{"origin":3027,"position":5},"title":"Teaching that global warming is caused by human activity is “blatant indoctrination”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Associated Press issued a story today about the new Instructional Materials bill approved by our Florida legislature and signed by our governor earlier this year:\u00c2\u00a0New Florida law expected to increase conflict over textbooks. Reporter Terry Spencer took on the massive task of asking every Florida school district for records\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027"}],"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=3027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3029,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions\/3029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}