{"id":341,"date":"2007-12-09T10:38:02","date_gmt":"2007-12-09T14:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=341"},"modified":"2008-08-05T20:35:10","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T00:35:10","slug":"florida-evolution-opinion-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"Florida evolution opinion roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler <\/a>does a decent job putting the so-called debate over evolution and intelligent design into perspective. The only thing I see that he leaves out is when people have a strict, very literal view of the Bible or other religious text. This comment<\/a> left here at FCS illustrates one such view. Otherwise, Troxler hits the need to separate science and intelligent design on the head.<\/p>\n

“Look, evolution does not have anything to do with what people believe about God. All this theory does is try to explain the changes that we have observed.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The St. Petersburg Times is all over this issue. Another columnist, Robyn Blumner, talks about how insane it is to slip religion into science classes<\/a>. The column focuses on politics, but still makes some valid points on the current issue. A trend that I’m seeing here is that it’s painfully obvious that complaints about evolution and attempts to insert intelligent design into the classroom are all religiously motivated, no matter how much the person doing the complaining claims it’s not. Every one of these columnists can see it.<\/p>\n

Florida is also now in a dust-up due to the inclusion of evolution in its proposed science standards. Donna Callaway, who was appointed to the state Board of Education by former Gov. Jeb Bush, said she’ll oppose the new standards because of it.<\/p>\n

Really folks, in this information age when scientific innovation is the key to our nation’s future, we don’t have the time to be mucking around in this tired debate. You don’t produce doctors and scientists by teaching science from the Bible. Period.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Miami Herald writer Fred Grimm<\/a> reviews the history of what’s happened in this state science standards battle and warns that political meddling and creationist activism could set Florida back.<\/p>\n

And the specter of political interference was resurrected last week. Republican House leader Rep. Will Weatherford of Wesley Chapel told the St. Pete Times, ”I’m not a scientist, but I will tell you in general, evolution is one of the theories,” said Weatherford, who added that portraying evolution as “more important or more accurate than the rest, I’m not so sure I’m in favor of that.”<\/p>\n

”I just can’t see how Florida could reject these standards,” said Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, the citizens activists pushing the new science curriculum. “It would really look bad.”<\/p>\n

But Wolf admitted that a major fight was coming. “Many, many Christians have no trouble with evolution. Science and God can co-exist. But the creationists can generate thousands and thousands of letters.”<\/p>\n

All those thousands of letters could send Florida scrambling back to the know-nothing curriculum that politicians forced on science teachers back in 1996. Call it devolution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s good to see all of this press in favor of sound science education. Please send these writers a note of thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler does a decent job putting the so-called debate over evolution and intelligent design into perspective. The only thing I see that he leaves out is when people have a strict, very literal view of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":[4,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-5v","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":493,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=493","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":0},"title":"Florida columnist and NY Times see through the BS","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill Maxwell, columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, draws a clear line between personal faith and public education, and admonishes state Sen. Storms for crossing it. With state Sen. Ronda Storms officially joining the debate over the teaching of evolution in Florida's public schools, reasonable residents should be wary and\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":336,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=336","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":1},"title":"It’s hitting the fan now","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The issue of evolution in the state science standards, and the fate of those standards because of evolution, made the headlines today. Florida Citizens for Science members and the National Center for Science Education were very busy yesterday with interviews for these stories. The main strategy being used here by\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":1262,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1262","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":2},"title":"Newspapers not kind to antievolution bill so far","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The early news reports and blog posts about Senator Stephen Wise's antievolution bill (SB 1854) (and see my previous post) are not too kind to his repeated attempts to undermine science education. Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas has a blog post \"Groan ... evolution back on trial in the Legislature.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Critical Analysis\" bills '11"","block_context":{"text":"\"Critical Analysis\" bills '11","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=29"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":784,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=784","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":3},"title":"Voices for reason","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A new member of the Pinellas County School Board, Nina Hayden, was quized by the St. Petersburg Times. One particular answer made me smile: Question: It appears the state Board of Education may have to adopt new academic standards by the end of 2011, including a new set of science\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":1214,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1214","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":4},"title":"Details on Pasco school board races","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In a \"know your candidates\" feature at the St. Petersburg Times website, school board candidates were asked several questions, one of them being: \"Should schools teach creationism in science?\" District 3 candidates said: Cynthia Armstrong \"I do not believe that creationism has a place in the science curriculum.\" Mike Ryan\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1214#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":356,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=356","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":5},"title":"Why can’t he just stand up for science?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The St. Petersburg Times education blog tries to nail Jello to the wall. In other words, they interviewed new Florida education commissioner Eric J. Smith and tried to get him to commit to a stance on evolution and intelligent design. He simply wouldn't do it. The blog says that he\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341"}],"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=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}