{"id":552,"date":"2008-04-17T20:08:36","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T00:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=552"},"modified":"2008-08-31T16:22:27","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T20:22:27","slug":"early-news-reports-on-todays-tap-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=552","title":{"rendered":"Early news reports on today’s tap dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senator Storms’ tap dancing has made the news here and there. (edited to add the Palm Beach Post editorial.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Palm Beach Post editorial: Fraudulent evolution bill<\/a><\/p>\n

Translated, the bill wants creationism – disguised as “intelligent design” – to have equal billing in classrooms. The bill is a fraud. The staff analysis notes that “there has never been a case in Florida where a public school teacher or … student has claimed that they have been discriminated against based on their science teaching or science course work.” The bill claims not to “promote any religious doctrine,” but of course it does. It attempts to promote the fundamentalist Protestant view of how life developed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WWSB: Senate debates evolution bill<\/a><\/p>\n

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – The sponsor of a bill that would prohibit school officials from punishing teachers for presenting “scientific information” that challenges evolution dodged opponents’ questions today in Senate debate over her measure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sun-Sentinel: Lawmakers: Free speech protection should extend to sex ed classes, too<\/a><\/p>\n

Opponents have voiced concerns that Storms’ bill will open the door to teaching religious-based theories, like intelligent design, in public school classrooms. But Storms, one of the Senate’s most conservative members, repeatedly refused to answer questions on whether that could happen.<\/p>\n

Her only reply: teachers could discuss a “full range of scientific views.”<\/p>\n

Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller of Cooper City, frustrated at her answers, later said: “We could have stuck bamboo shoots under her fingernails and she wouldn’t have answered.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Miami Herald: ‘Academic freedom’ for evolution, not sex-ed<\/a><\/p>\n

Storms said her bill was designed to counteract the ”dogmatic” new state science standards requiring for the first time evolution to be and that “people are afraid. Teachers are afraid. And students, by the way, are afraid.”<\/p>\n

Geller objected, noting her bill says the ”Legislature finds that in many instances” teachers and students have feared or been disciplined for teaching the full range of scientific information about evolution.<\/p>\n

When Geller asked her for names, Storms didn’t have any but said six educators who planned to talk on the topic recently weren’t given the time to address a recent Senate committee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I definitely would love to know who these six unnamed teachers are. Even better, I want to know what they want to teach. This revealing question has yet to be asked or answered: What are some examples of critical analysis of evolution that have no religious connotations and are based on legitimate, up-to-date scientific ideas?<\/strong> A fuller explanation of this question is here<\/a>. I want to hear Senator Storms or Rep. Hays or these six phantom teachers answer this question. Gaps in the fossil record is not an answer<\/a> as it doesn’t fit the “legitimate, up-to-date scientific idea” requirement. Trying to use the Cambrian Explosion against evolution is also idiotic<\/a> and doesn’t fit the requirement either. As a matter of fact, these and many others are actually old creationist distortions of real science<\/a>, so it’s not a good idea to use these examples as part of the “critical analysis” in the classroom. Using them would just reveal the religious motivation behind these Trojan horse bills.<\/p>\n

And the answer is?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator Storms’ tap dancing has made the news here and there. (edited to add the Palm Beach Post editorial.) Palm Beach Post editorial: Fraudulent evolution bill Translated, the bill wants creationism – disguised as “intelligent design” – to have equal … 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":[23],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-8U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1262,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1262","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":0},"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":2768,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2768","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":1},"title":"Give the Devil his Due","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"All has been very quiet concerning the odious instructional materials bill lately. The bill would allow any resident, not just parents, to protest against what's found in textbooks, including coverage of evolution, climate change, vaccines, etc. On top of that, school districts must appoint a hearing officer to consider such\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2955,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2955","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":2},"title":"The controversy “will never be over”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel's School Zone blog posted a short story about the new \"controversial theories\" bill recently filed by Sen. Dennis Baxley:\u00c2\u00a0Sen. Baxley files school bill to require 'controversial' science topics be taught in 'balanced' way. State Sen. Dennis Baxley, who once said controversy about evolution being taught in public\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Controversial Theories bill 2017\/18"","block_context":{"text":"Controversial Theories bill 2017\/18","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=34"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3453,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3453","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":3},"title":"News & Updates 3\/17\/19","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 17, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"We're monitoring several bills in our state legislature that could negatively impact science education. The good news is that so far there has been very little movement. One has been scheduled for a committee hearing and others have gotten some press. But the session is still quite young and we\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":534,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=534","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":4},"title":"An early account of what happened","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science board member and middle school science teacher Mary Bahr attended today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Senate Judiciary committee meeting to testify against Senate Bill 2692, the deceptively-named \u00e2\u20ac\u0153academic freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d bill. The following information is based on my e-mail and phone correspondence with her following the meeting. Bahr said that the\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":567,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=567","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":5},"title":"Early news reports","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Accounts of the House vote are already hitting the news: Palm Beach Post: Florida House approves evolution bill Gov. Charlie Crist dropped in on the House press gallery during the two-hour debate this morning and showed little enthusiasm for the bill, which opponents argue would open a backdoor for creationism\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552"}],"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=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}