\nSen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, has filed SB 2692, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Academic Freedom Act,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which provides public school teachers and students rights regarding scientific views about chemical and biological evolution. Storms is a member of First Baptist Church in Brandon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The purpose of education is to train our students how to think and to develop in our students higher level critical thinking skills,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Storms told the Witness<\/em>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This bill is necessary in order to protect scientific inquiry and academic freedom for everyone. Every scientific theory should be subject to the full rigors of intellectual inquiry and critical thinking skills, and teachers should be fully protected in their presentation of legitimate debate to the student.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\nStorms said Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, a member of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville<\/strong>, will co-sponsor the bill, and Rep. D. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, a member of First Baptist Church in Umatilla<\/strong>, will ponsor (sic) a companion bill in the Florida House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Please pardon the heavy sarcasm. Noooooooo … the “academic freedom act” bills filed recently in the state House and Senate are not about religion at all! They’re about education! Never mind the fact that these bills address evolution and only … 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":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-7T","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":865,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=865","url_meta":{"origin":489,"position":0},"title":"3 “education” bills in Senate","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Three bills simply entitled \"education\" were filed by Senator Nancy Detert yesterday. (Detert is this session's chair of the committee on education Pre-K - 12. She wasn't around last year, so we don't have a voting record\u00c2\u00a0for her on last session's deceptively-named \"academic freedom\" bills.) Take a look at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=865#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":559,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=559","url_meta":{"origin":489,"position":1},"title":"Amendments are flying","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow, the Florida House is expected to debate and consider amendments to House Bill 1483. There will not be a final vote that day, though. This bill in its current form is proposing a one line addition to the Florida Statutes concerning Required Instruction in the public schools. The bill\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":518,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=518","url_meta":{"origin":489,"position":2},"title":"Morning news dump","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Palm Beach Post: 'Evolution Act' passed by panel \"You cannot simply call a religious belief scientific information and thus open the door to teaching it in our scientific classrooms,\" said Courtenay Strickland, the daughter of a Baptist minister and a science teacher. Strickland spoke on behalf of the American Civil\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":794,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=794","url_meta":{"origin":489,"position":3},"title":"The new legislative session","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The shape of the next Florida legislative session is developing. As we watch and prepare for any bills that might affect science education, or education overall, here is a snapshot of the past and the future of the state Senate. I will try to do a similar analysis for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"ID Creationism\" bills '09"","block_context":{"text":"\"ID Creationism\" bills '09","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=27"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":496,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=496","url_meta":{"origin":489,"position":4},"title":"Tracking the bills","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a summary\/tracking post that was updated throughout the Florida legislative session concerning two anti-evolution bills that were introduced in the Senate and House. Fortunately, the bills never made it into law in 2008. STATE SENATE SB 2692 Teaching Chemical and Biological Evolution; Cites act as the \"Academic Freedom\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2530,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2530","url_meta":{"origin":489,"position":5},"title":"Baxley and the Religious Liberties Act","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I told you about the\u00c2\u00a0\"Florida Student and School Personnel Religious Liberties Act\" (House Bill 303) filed in the Florida house and my concerns with it. Today, a companion bill was filed in the senate: Senate Bill 436. It's a duplicate of the house bill. I've seen troublesome bills in past\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489"}],"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=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}