Evolution-ary Politics

So you're one of Gov. Charlie Crist's appointees to the Board of Education. All the scientists tell you evolution is the way to go on science standards. But the public, well, they have another idea.

A St. Petersburg Times poll found 50 percent of registered voters want only faith-based ideas in the curriculum.

Read more here.

Comments

The 'educators and scientists' need to back off on their insistence that evolution is the ONLY theory, not one of several. The way it was presented to me as a child (am now 50), was evolution [period]. Cut-and-dry. After doing some reading, including "The Case for Creation" by Lee Strobel, it's not that clear-cut. Either theory takes faith, and why name-call us Christians because our faith points to God/intelligent design/etc.?

[Jason Straight]

I dont believe the rendition of Adam riding a T Rex is a credible subject for anything other than an animatronic right at Disney.Having said that its my belief you have a right to believe anything you wish HOWEVER you have no right to enforce your religious beliefs in public education.Home school them or send them to
Baptist Evangelical training worshop Tela the Monkey God..The framers of the constitution were for the most part agnostics who objected to a national religion .Its called the First amendment..Please stay away from my kids heads..

you're missing the point, creation and ID are not theories, they are not testable and are not science. To equate the the theory of evolution with creationism and say both are equally valid in the realm of science is beyond ignorant. I guess we should teach that the earth is 10,000 years old because that's what it says in the old testament...right?

[Chris W]

8:00, it's because you believe claptrap like Strobel's book. Evolution doesn't take 'faith' in the sense you mean; scientific theories are always somewhat incomplete because they can always be challenged and changed in the face of new evidence.

I don't know if you know that much about actual science (as opposed to the cartoon presented in creationist "literature"). Actual science is, in its way, as cut-throat and ruthless as Wall Street and as hard-headed. Established theories are always under challenge, and for a theory to survive as long as evolution has and do as well as it has means something different than the fairy tales you've been told. It means that evolution is by leaps and bounds the best explanation for all of the data from dozens of different areas dealing with how we're built and how we got here. And in the scientific world, that's the gold standard.

Are there other alternative 'theories'? Sure. Any fool in a basement can conjure one up, and given how many fools we have in the world that's a bunch of 'theories' to wade through. So, scientific theories have to pass a few tests before they're worth considering.

First, they have to explain existing evidence. And they have to do it without cherry-picking things to make themselves look good.

Second, they have to predict new findings. You can build a bunch of different theories to fit a static set of observations; just ask anyone who's lost money in the stock market using a strategy that worked from 1994 to 1998. One key test of any theory is how well it predicts observations made since it was formulated.

Third, they have to generate useful questions for further research. If they don't do this, they're relegated (and rightfully so) to the trash heap along with phrenology and reading goat bones and sheep intestines.

Fourth, they can't depend on forces or entities that can't be described and measured. (This is the big enchilada, and it's the reason so many people have the misguided idea that evolution is atheistic.) Scientific theories have to play by a very strict set of rules designed to stop any one faction from cheating and trying to force acceptance of a theory by religious or political means, and those rules are simple. If you can't describe something you want in your theory, you can't test it and it doesn't belong there.

We live in a country of morons. Whose faith is the curriculum going to be based on? Even within Christianity, there is no consensus on how the world was created and "evolved."

Start using your brains.

Christian Preachers are like Snake Oil Salesmen! Become a FREE THINKER, Live the only life that is known to exist. Christians are just Sheep being led to Slaughter!

The ignorance that abounds in Christianity (and all religions) is amazing and will destroy the world!

NO FAIRY TALES IN SCIENCE!!!!!

I cannot speak for the other brainless bloggers who's ancestors may well have swung down from the trees - some more recently than others. To me the question is whether my family descended from monkeys or angels. We chose the angels. Others may have good reason to decide otherwise.

[terminator]

these guys (state board) are the epitome of "devolution".

can anyone tell me what this ignominous group has accomplished throughout the past eight years?

the state board should be abolished as this group has collectively failed in their Constitutional duties to provide a quality education to all Florida students.

Instead they are a shill for Jeb Bush and his radical privitization/charter and voucher school choice movement.

Don't expect these chuckleheads to make the right call on this one!

Maybe we should beef up on history lessons first, and THEN tackle biology class.

A good reading of the 1925 Scopes Trial might cool the heels of the rabid folks who are proud of their ignorance and think there is anything new, intellectually valid, or even particularly theologically valid about creationism.

You lost the debate years ago!

Hey!, there's my uncle; the frog!

Creationism Taught as Science... In Public Schools?

Not Just NO, But HELL NO!!!!

I am Chauncey Gardner. I learn by watching. I watched the Planet of the Apes movie. It is now clear that apes decended from humans. To think otherwise is to debunk Moses and Charlton Heston and write history backwards.

Any one who even believes in Creationism, should not be allowed to teach in Public Schools.

Send your DUMBED DOWN Kids to a christian school. That way all the Morons will be isolated.

St. Pete is home to a cutting edge frontier of the marine sciences- we have drawn public and private institutions who are leading the way with increased research on our oceans, estuaries, natural environment to provide useful information for industry and conservation. We can thank sensible politicians like Bill Young who helped bring these resources here.

Please do not let the religious fringe hijack the image of our county.

9:04: Are you serious? You don't even know your religion. Where does it say in the Bible that humans are descended from angels? The two groups are entirely seperate.

Teach evolution in science class. Teach creationism in Sunday school.

Funny how all you evolution nuts are scared of another point of view being taught. If you "theory" ,and it is a THEORY, is so ironclad, then when people are introduced to them both, yours will take the day. But there are so many holes in your argument it is ridiculous. I believe in creationism and I am fine with evolution being taught next to it, so grow up and let kids learn both.

Hey!, there's my mom; the catfish!

The tax code is really complicated and intricate also. No human system could have ever designed such a complicated and labrynth system over decades and decades.

I don't even understand it, despite what a CPA keeps telling me.

God must have definitely stepped in and helped fill in the blanks to make such an intricate system work.

9:31 Theory in Science means "Testable and Provable". Look it up, moron.

Obviously, you are not too bright, you were probably educated in a christian school.

If we want to follow Dennis Baxley's belief about how leaches were once good and now bad, by the way they do serve some medical purpose, then let us look at religion.

For being such a religion of compassion the southern preachers have such a great record, the use of trees outside of churches, Greater Ministries International of Tampa, Ted Haggard, the conservative christian divorce rate, do I need to go on.

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=170

Why don't we send all the extremist Christians to fight a war against all the extremist Muslims? They can all kill each other and Problem solved!

No more idiots left in the world.

wow 9:04...I wish we could all choose who our ancestors were like you did.

Take a look at the statement from the Geological Society of America on evolution:

http://www.geosociety.org/positions/pos1_evolution.pdf

Is this 2008 or 1008? Why the hell is this even a point of discussion anymore?

50% huh? Kind of sums up Florida for you...same voters that signed the Gay Martraige amendment petition, voted for Amendment 1, and Charlie Crist himself...

I am so glad I left Florida. But not before I used Bright Futures. Thanks for the free education suckers!!!!

The Catholic Church (catholic means universal and is thus not a denomination) is the true Church founded by Jesus Christ and a true Church founded on the bible. They believe in evolution which reveals the beauty of creation. Jesus Christ is my lord and savior, and with that said, I have trouble with a member of a christian sect such as Baptist or any other sect based on a flawed reading of the bible pushing what theories should be taught in a science class.

Touche' 9:53, It is also the same 50% that elected the WORST PRESIDENT in History and turned our once great nation into a Facist Nation.
And he did it by fooling the idiot christians.
They believe anything... Now that is Testable and Provable, that Christian as well as all reglious nuts are FOOLS!

yeah 9:53 -- how's that job at McDonalds in Thomasville working out for you?

Who did they poll? I would like some details of how and where this poll was taken. I am willing to bet it was taken in fundamentalist Churches. A more accuate percentage would probably 2/3 for evolution only and 1/3 for side by side.

I refuse to believe that any county or state could have as many ignorant people living in it as this poll tries to present.

10:06 actually I am living in New York, making 4x the salary I left behind in Tampa...peace out bit_ch!

Baxley, a guy who barely finished college, says that the man running the preeminent naitonal organization og biologists is "wrong" on a quesiton concerning biology.

RIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHHHHTTTT

Thank god that clown is no longer in the Legislature.

Where can we find the details of who was polled!

[Dee]

Sad to see the intolerance that exists in this area. Why all the anti-Christian bigotry?

Why not teach evolutionary theory in Science class and allow creationism to be taught as part of a comparative religion course?

Is the goal to educate our children or indoctrinate them? I am sensing that their is a strong effort underway by evolutionist to indoctrinate.

Dee,

That would be fine, but adding a religion class means adding faculty, which means adding costs, which means diverting time away from Math, Reading, and other core FCAT subjcts.

You can't have it both ways, and if it comes down to a choice between teaching science in a science class versus ID in a science class, there is no choice.

10:40
Creationism will NEVER be taught in any Public School, anywhere in the US, period.

" The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that teaching creationism violates the constitutional separation of church and state."

Get over it! If you want to teach little Johnny a Fairy Tale, do it at home or in church.

The United States of America is a Seculist Nation!

We have the RIGHT to be Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddist, Christian or any other religion we choose to be. Or we can be Agnostic or Athiest, if we choose.

Why do Christians try and push their choice of religion on the rest of the citizens of the Country?

I will sue my County School Board as well as the State Dept. of Education if they even try to bring religion into my kid Public School.

Can't we all just argue over whether god is male or female?

Only God could have designed anything as complicated as the human eyeball- it did not evolve over time. And I see lots of sinners with my eyeballs, mmm hmmm.

We have enough problems getting high-tech and other desirable businesses here, because of Florida's poorly performing schools and lack of educated workforce (yes I know it's better, it's still not great)without having these religious matters replace, or be on equal footing, with science..
On the other hand, it could push aside our laughingstock image on elections, and make the schools the new laughingstock of the nation.

[Flagophile]

Listen,

Carbon-dating has conclusively disproved the notion that the earth was created in six days 10,000 years ago. It is beyond dispute.

Hey!, there's my dad; the monkey!

I tried "Carbon-dating" once... we went to dinner than watched a movie in triplicate! My date smelled really cool too.

public schools are no place for potifs... psychotics of the invisible friend.

Did God also design the bionic eye, Cloning, or did he build the rocket that took us to the Moon, how about the cures for all of the diseases that Science has discovered, or nuclear energy & atomic energy how about Transplant Surgeries, etc?

Did God write the Bible... The answer to all of these answers and many many more is NO!

Dee asked...
"Why all the Anti-Christian Bigotry?"

The answer is: You live your life and I will live mine!

I am not a Christian (personally I think you are all nut cases.) But you are constantly trying to PUSH your beliefs on others. We are sick and tired of you people and are PUSHING BACK!

"DON'T PREACH IN OUR SCHOOLS... AND
WE WON'T THINK IN YOUR CHURCHES"

A female god would have settled this BS a long time ago.

I think the Old Testament is a little weak in its creation account, but that's no reason to disbelieve it.

BTW, Can anyone find the chapter and verse describing the scene where Moses finds the Statue of Liberty half buried on the beach and says "You Maniacs! You blew it up!" I've looked several times but I can't find it.

damn dirty apes

[Dee]

Perhaps we are seeing on this blog one of the reasons why so many parents of one religious faith or another are placing their children in private schools or are home schooling.

Interesting that the intolerant Anti-Christian people keep suggesting that somehow they are intellectually superior etc. and are concerned with the education of the children. The facts are children in the private schools and those that are home schooled do far better in FCAT and college admission testing. Often times people say God has been taken out of the schools and they have gone downhill ever since. Wasn't the elimination of prayer and the pledge suppose to somehow intellectually empower children?

I wonder if the same Anti-Christian evolutionists on board here that are so passionate in the name of science are the same ones who do not want abstenance education taught because it is 100% effective?

Isn't one of the main thrusts of communism and fascism to replace allegiance to God and the Family with allegiance to the State? Evidently there is a shoe store around here that is selling a lot of them that fit.