{"id":944,"date":"2009-03-12T15:42:42","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T19:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=944"},"modified":"2009-04-30T20:00:14","modified_gmt":"2009-05-01T00:00:14","slug":"leave-the-evolution-education-controversy-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=944","title":{"rendered":"Leave the evolution education controversy behind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida State University physics professor Paul Cottle has a guest post over at The Gradebook blog about Senator Wise’s antievolution bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Senator Wise’s proposal does not address the concerns that most of Florida’s parents have concerning evolution education: the possibility that a science teacher (or any teacher) could use their privileged place in a child’s world to change that child’s beliefs regarding religion.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the primary concern of parents on both sides of the evolution education debate.\u00c2\u00a0 Evolution is a flashpoint for this concern, but there are certainly other opportunities in the public school curriculum for a teacher determined to change students’ beliefs to try to do so.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hence, Senator Wise and the legislature should remove the language regarding evolution education from SB 2396 and leave the evolution standards alone.\u00c2\u00a0 If the legislature wishes to address the issue of religion in public school classrooms, it could send Governor Crist a bill that simply says that Florida’s public schools should be tolerant of students’ religious backgrounds and that no teacher may denigrate a student’s religious beliefs, regardless of the curriculum subject being addressed.\u00c2\u00a0 It need not mention the topic of evolution at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Fine science teachers already take care to respect students’ religious beliefs while providing instruction in evolution, and such legislation would acknowledge their efforts.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Go read the rest. Paul did a great job!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida State University physics professor Paul Cottle has a guest post over at The Gradebook blog about Senator Wise’s antievolution bill. Most importantly, Senator Wise’s proposal does not address the concerns that most of Florida’s parents have concerning evolution education: … 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-fe","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":920,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=920","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":0},"title":"Proposal Misses the Mark","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Our friend Paul Cottle had a piece published in the Florida Times-Union a while ago, but the paper had sliced and diced his work quite a bit. So, I'm posting here Paul's original submission for your reading pleasure. ---------------------------- Senator Wise\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Proposal on Intelligent Design Misses the Mark Paul Cottle,\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":906,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=906","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":1},"title":"Wise finally gets some love","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first letter to the editor I've seen so far in support of Senator Wise's possible intelligent design creationism bill. IN REPLY: INTELLIGENT DESIGN Give children facts This is in response to letters regarding Sen. Steve Wise's proposed bill to require teachers who teach evolution to also be\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":1272,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1272","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":2},"title":"Antievolution bill referred to senate committees","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Senator Stephen Wise's \"non-evolution\" \"theory of whatever\" bill (SB 1854, critical analysis of evolution in public schools) was referred to two senate committees today: Education Pre-K -12, and Budget. The chair of the education committee is none other than Sen. Wise himself. He also is a member of the Budget\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":1281,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1281","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":3},"title":"National news keeping eye on Florida","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of national news outlets are taking note of Senator Wise's antievolution bill. They're both just rewrites of Florida stories, but they are still worth logging in here on the blog. The Huffington Post has a story: \"Florida State Lawmaker Takes Heat For Bill That Would Require Teaching Of\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":484,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=484","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":4},"title":"“Academic Freedom Act” filed","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome back to another exciting episode of \"Days of our Florida Lives.\" In our last episode, the Florida Board of Education voted to approve a new set of state science standards, which include for the first time official inclusion of the word evolution. However, the standards were tweaked by inserting\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":1267,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1267","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":5},"title":"Press Release: 2011 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Critical Analysis\u00e2\u20ac\u009d bill","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science Press Release: \"Critical Analysis\" bill harmful to Florida science education. Florida Citizens for Science opposes Senator Stephen Wise's recently filed bill -- SB 1854, Required Instruction in the Public Schools -- as it is clearly unnecessary, harmful to science education, and sends a negative message to\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944"}],"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=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}