{"id":511,"date":"2008-03-21T22:06:57","date_gmt":"2008-03-22T03:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=511"},"modified":"2008-03-24T17:12:05","modified_gmt":"2008-03-24T22:12:05","slug":"how-scientific-theory-got-into-the-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=511","title":{"rendered":"How “scientific theory” got into the standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Petersburg Times posted a story this evening<\/a> outlining what was found in e-mails the newspaper obtained via public records requests from the Florida Department of Education. The purpose of the public records request? To find out where the last minute new state science standards option that featured the inclusion of the words “scientific theory” came from and why it was done.<\/p>\n

The e-mails shed light on several developments in the still-simmering evolution debate that were never fully reported.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to the Feb. 19 vote, Smith and other DOE officials were scrambling to find a compromise, the e-mails show. And while they did not want to undermine the integrity of the standards, they were willing to push a politically driven alternative \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or were themselves driven into pushing one \u00e2\u20ac\u201d over the passionate objections of those who crafted them.<\/p>\n

The urgent tone of many of the e-mails also sheds more light on just how close the Board of Education came to rejecting scientifically acclaimed science standards, and how key the compromise may have been to saving them.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The committee, dominated by scientists and science teachers, had spent months crafting the standards, using national and international models as guides. Many of its members were not happy with the turn of the events \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and said so in a barrage of e-mails to DOE officials over the weekend.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“By caving in now, we are basically allowing majority vote to override facts, observation and evidence,” wrote University of South Florida chemistry professor Gerry Meisels. “We will never win a fight if we don’t fight. We may not win, but we owe it to our children and Florida’s future at least to try.”<\/p>\n

Meisels signed off, “Gerry, a.k.a. Don Quixote.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The St. Petersburg Times posted a story this evening outlining what was found in e-mails the newspaper obtained via public records requests from the Florida Department of Education. The purpose of the public records request? To find out where 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-8f","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=317","url_meta":{"origin":511,"position":0},"title":"Last night’s science standards meeting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel reports that several people attended last night's meeting in Orlando about the new draft science standards with the objective of promoting intelligent design and complaining about evolution. But several people who spoke Thursday urged state Department of Education officials to allow schools to teach intelligent design and\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":483,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=483","url_meta":{"origin":511,"position":1},"title":"Do state science standards matter?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"With the fight over including evolution in the state science standards here in Florida now over the hump, we now need to ask ourselves: what did we win? As several news articles have pointed out, in many school districts across the state evolution was already being taught anyway. So, does\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":186,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=186","url_meta":{"origin":511,"position":2},"title":"What Minnesota went through","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I posted about Cheri Yecke's desire to be Florida education commissioner. A commenter at Pharyngula reminded me of a post done a few years back at our old blog site about Minnesota's fight over the state science standards when Yecke was there. I'm reposting it here for easy reference.\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":344,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=344","url_meta":{"origin":511,"position":3},"title":"Teach one, teach ’em all","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A column in the Tallahassee Democrat addresses the issue of whether a person can accept evolution and have religious faith. I know that conversation has taken place on this blog's comments, with folks taking all sides. Some feel that science trumps religion. Others think religion trumps science. And still others\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":511,"position":4},"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":1104,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1104","url_meta":{"origin":511,"position":5},"title":"You earned an A!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A new study examining the mention of evolution in states' science standards spotlighted us here in Florida for the huge turnaround from a grade of F to a grade of A! Florida\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Over the past decade, Florida has improved its standards more dramatically than perhaps any other state. The 1999\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1104#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511"}],"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=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}