{"id":417,"date":"2008-02-01T06:40:02","date_gmt":"2008-02-01T11:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=417"},"modified":"2008-08-06T10:41:18","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T14:41:18","slug":"article-on-nassau-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=417","title":{"rendered":"Article on Nassau County"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Board members voted unanimously Thursday to adopt the resolution recommended by Schools Superintendent John Ruis. The resolution opposes the draft Sunshine State Standards for science. It urges the standards be changed “such that evolution is not presented at the exclusion of other theories of origin of life.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evolution is not a theory of origin of life.<\/p>\n

Ruis read the resolution aloud and made no further comment during the meeting. No discussion of the resolution followed. Board members Gail Cook and Janet Adkins asked the superintendent to forward the resolution to the Florida Legislature, in addition to the state board of education.<\/p>\n

“I was hoping they had heard enough” from the public “that we wouldn’t have to do this,” Cook said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why do you have <\/em>to do this, Cook? What is your motivation?<\/p>\n

“We need to bring about letting the students think,” Jacksonville resident David Ramseur said.<\/p>\n

Ramseur told the school board he has served on the state’s science textbook adoption committee and attended the meeting “to support the board,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What we want our students to do is to be problem solvers, not to be taught a dogmatic position,” Ramseur said. “We want them to be able to think and be great scientists.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evolution is not a dogmatic position. It’s simply the best explanation for changes in life over time we have. Got another scientific <\/em>theory to propose? Then propose it.<\/p>\n

“We come as neighbors to speak from Duval County,” said Marjorie Ramseur. “We’re glad that you all are interested enough to take a stand and to act on a resolution in this regard.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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She said evolution is an unproven theory “that must be taught with its shortcomings . . . to allow the student to analyze and criticize.” And she added, “We are not asking that creation or intelligent design be taught in the classroom. If you’re going to teach evolution, teach it all.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And those shortcomings are?<\/p>\n

In the past, that discussion, of “how we all got here,” has been presented as theory, Ruis said Monday, noting the absence of “any reference to any other theories or beliefs” in the draft science standards. “The resolution expresses the sentiment for all of us,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet again we see the ol’ demonstration of scientific ignorance. Ruis, please tell the class what the definition of a scientific theory is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … 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":[3,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-6J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":352,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=352","url_meta":{"origin":417,"position":0},"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":395,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=395","url_meta":{"origin":417,"position":1},"title":"Yet more counties with anti-evolution resolutions","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Florida Times-Union reports that yet more counties are doing the anti-evolution resolutions. The boards in St. Johns and Baker counties have unanimously passed resolutions urging the Florida Department of Education to back down from those new standards on evolution. The matter comes up tonight in Clay County, and Nassau\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":396,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=396","url_meta":{"origin":417,"position":2},"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":379,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=379","url_meta":{"origin":417,"position":3},"title":"Breathtaking inanity","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm embarrassed. Sure, the Taylor County school board was apparently the first to pass a resolution complaining about evolution (previous post here), but they're not the only one. Two more counties passed resolutions, too: Baker County and Holmes County. The Baker County board meeting minutes from Dec. 17 say on\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":381,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=381","url_meta":{"origin":417,"position":4},"title":"Two more resolutions","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[this post updated with a third county for a total of six so far] I've been doing a methodical search of school district websites for any information that might reveal more school boards issuing anti-evolution resolutions like Taylor, Baker and Holmes did. (Previous post about: possibility of 12 total counties\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":407,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=407","url_meta":{"origin":417,"position":5},"title":"Washington County: school board #9 on the anti-evolution train","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Washington County school board -- yes, another county in North Florida -- is apparently the latest school board to adopt an anti-evolution resolution. Unfortunately, the school system website doesn't list board meeting agendas anywhere that I could find. I found out about the resolution through one of my regular\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\/417"}],"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=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}