{"id":941,"date":"2009-03-10T11:15:20","date_gmt":"2009-03-10T16:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=941"},"modified":"2009-04-30T20:03:14","modified_gmt":"2009-05-01T00:03:14","slug":"letter-in-the-ledger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=941","title":{"rendered":"Letter in the Ledger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science vice president Jonathan Smith had a letter published in the Lakeland Ledger today: Sen. Wise’s “Critical Analysis” Bill Is Nothing More Than a Shell Game<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Are our politicians so naive to think that this bill, should it pass, will not be vigorously challenged and fail, just as so many others have, with great expense to the states involved. Does Gov. Crist really expect biotech companies (whose processes are based upon evolutionary concepts) to support a state whose science education is in jeopardy of being seriously compromised?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Full text of the letter after the jump.
\n<\/p>\n

With the sun scarcely set on Gov. Charlie Crist’s joining state and local officials for the grand opening of Scripps Florida state-of-the-art \u00e2\u2030\u00a0biomedical research facility. Along comes Sen. Steven Wise (R-\u00e2\u2030\u00a0Jacksonville) to create a dichotomy of epic proportions.<\/p>\n

With Crist trying to “develop Florida into a biotech hub and a global leader in medical research and development,” Sen. Wise seems just as determined to portray Florida as a haven for the scientifically challenged. Wise’s anti evolution bill (SB2396) filed on Feb. 27 which requires ‘critical analysis’ of evolution, amounts to nothing more than a rhetorical shell game appropriated from anti-evolution mantras in other states.
\nAfter Sen. Rhonda Storms ‘academic freedom’ bill died last year, Sen. Wise is merely picking up the fundamental religionist banner to rally support amongst those who desire is to force their personal theocratic ideologies into the school science system.<\/p>\n

Their underhanded ploy is not to mention religion, just teach enough of their favored arguments against evolution as science (which they are not), then students will make the correct choice in rejecting evolution and accept Wise’s particularly narrow religious viewpoint. In fact, Sen. Wise has made clear in public statements, his desire to disingenuously slip intelligent design\/creationism into our schools.<\/p>\n

Are our politicians so naive to think that this bill, should it pass, will not be vigorously challenged and fail, just as so many others have, with great expense to the states involved. Does Gov. Crist really expect biotech companies (whose processes are based upon evolutionary concepts) to support a state whose science education is in jeopardy of being seriously compromised?<\/p>\n

We at the Florida Citizens for Science, encourage lawmakers to discard this irresponsible and costly bill.
\nJONATHAN P. SMITH
\nVice President
\nFlorida Citizens for Science
\nLithia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science vice president Jonathan Smith had a letter published in the Lakeland Ledger today: Sen. Wise’s “Critical Analysis” Bill Is Nothing More Than a Shell Game. Are our politicians so naive to think that this bill, should … 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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-fb","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1957,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1957","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":0},"title":"O Science, O Science! Wherefore art thou science?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science vice president Jonathan Smith has a letter to the editor in the Lakeland Ledger. The statewide meetings on Common Core Standards that Gov. Rick Scott attended recently has proven to be the fancy icing on the rotten cake that has become the Florida state education system.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1957#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2421,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2421","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":1},"title":"They’re not dead yet & Getting the word out there","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In my previous post I said that the \"instructional materials\" bills in the state legislature don't look like they're going anywhere. But I also said that they can't be considered dead yet. I was right:\u00c2\u00a0'No bill is dead' in Florida Senate Education, chairman says. Chairman John Legg told the Gradebook\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '16"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '16","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=31"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":936,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=936","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":2},"title":"Hear no science …","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a\u00c2\u00a0nice political cartoon published in the Gainesville Sun along with a letter from Florida Citizens for Science board member Mary Bahr's letter. Full text of the letter after the jump. Imagine our society without computer networks, electronics, chemistry and modern medicine. Both our lives and economy would be\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/hearseespeak.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3506,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3506","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":3},"title":"Florida Evolution vs. Creationism Timeline","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The need to defend science education in Florida is truly never ending. I chronicled the many skirmishes, battles and wars fought over the teaching of evolution in my book Going Ape: Florida's Battles over Evolution in the Classroom. The Florida anti-evolution efforts I wrote about started in the 1920s and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2670,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2670","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":4},"title":"We’re not alone","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It's wonderful to see that we're not alone in our fight against the bad Instructional Materials bill working its way through the Florida legislature. Several anti-censorship organizations worked together to send a letter to our state legislators, warning them about the bill. The signers include: -- Joan Bertin, Executive Director,\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":3395,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3395","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":5},"title":"“Controversial Theories” bill returns to Florida senate","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A bill was pre-filed for the 2019 legislative session in the Florida senate that would impact the standards for all academic subjects, especially science. The bill proposes allowing school districts to adopt their own sets of educational standards if they are equal to or more rigorous than the state's educational\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Controversial Theories bill 2019"","block_context":{"text":"Controversial Theories bill 2019","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=36"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941"}],"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=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}