{"id":481,"date":"2008-02-25T20:46:28","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T01:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=481"},"modified":"2008-08-06T09:10:15","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T13:10:15","slug":"still-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=481","title":{"rendered":"Still here"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just wanted to write a quick post saying I’m still around. Florida Citizens for Science activities swamped me the past month or so, taking away from other work, family and college responsibilities. So, I am now taking a short time out from FCS to catch up on everything else in life. For instance, I just finished up a paper for literature class comparing and contrasting moral themes in the plays Hamlet <\/em>and Dr. Faustus<\/em>. Yuck.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, for your reading pleasure:<\/p>\n

Liam Julian of the Fordham Foundation wrote a guest column<\/a> for the St. Petersburg Times.<\/p>\n

Let’s first dispense with the thought that adolescents should debate the merits of evolution in their science classes. This is silliness, akin to asking them to hash out the germ theory or the atomic theory. Until Florida’s students are taught the basics of science, it’s folly to demand they critically evaluate its finer points.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Tallahassee Democrat columnist also talks about the state science standards approval fallout<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The standards refer persistently to the scientific theory of evolution, so should they not at least touch upon the implied nonscientific theories of evolution? Surely we should ask, “Are there any such theories?” No. Not for any serious scientific or any other educational purpose.<\/p>\n

What then, pray, is the point of belaboring, with the pompous prefix “scientific theory of,” the following: evolution, cells, geology, atoms? “The scientific theory of cells!” Is there any other kind of cell theory worthy of consideration? I know of none.<\/p>\n

The compromise is a political sop to a large and concerned population of Florida voters who believe that, on the core issues of science, some other way of knowing (religion, perhaps; surely not art or philosophy) is equal or superior to science itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just wanted to write a quick post saying I’m still around. Florida Citizens for Science activities swamped me the past month or so, taking away from other work, family and college responsibilities. So, I am now taking a short … 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],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-7L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1614,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1614","url_meta":{"origin":481,"position":0},"title":"Kendall doesn’t disappoint","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Kim Kendall was a significant voice against the teaching of sound science in 2008. She polished her growing activism skills on a determined fight against the teaching of evolution when the state science standards were being revised and approved. Failing in her efforts there, she moved on to the state\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 9 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 9 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1614#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":329,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=329","url_meta":{"origin":481,"position":1},"title":"Anti-science or anti-evolution?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A blog reader sent me an e-mail a couple of weeks ago taking me to task for calling any groups who oppose evolution \"anti-science.\" The writer wants to know why I say \"anti-science\" instead of simply \"anti-evolution.\" Here is my response: Thank you very much for your thought-provoking e-mail. I\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":445,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=445","url_meta":{"origin":481,"position":2},"title":"Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about theories","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, had heard that the Department of Education was shopping around the idea of inserting the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153theory\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the new draft of the state science standards wherever evolution is mentioned. I believe that they also said that they would apply \u00e2\u20ac\u0153theory\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to\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":1968,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1968","url_meta":{"origin":481,"position":3},"title":"Disconnnect between citizens and science","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lakeland Ledger published a lengthy article about the disconnect between many citizens and science: Science and Skepticism: Amid a Push for More STEM Training, Many Reject Key Elements of Science Even as politicians and educational leaders pledge allegiance to science, many Americans are skeptical about key tenets of scientific\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 8 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 8 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1968#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=400","url_meta":{"origin":481,"position":4},"title":"A letter to the editor worth noting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been staying away from posting letters to the editor on this blog, because there are so many of them. But this one I thought was worth taking note of due in part to what it says and in part to who wrote it. This was in the Palm Beach\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":306,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=306","url_meta":{"origin":481,"position":5},"title":"Dueling letters on evolution","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Two letters to the Orlando Sentinel cover opposing viewpoints concerning evolution education. The first letter\u00c2\u00a0takes some previous letter writers to task for their misconceptions and convoluted reasoning: Please remember that gravity is \"just a theory,\" too, but I have not heard of any Christians protesting its place in science classes,\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481"}],"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=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}