"Academic freedom" bill clears first House hurdle

The bill that has drawn criticism and praise for its effort to permit Florida teachers to challenge the theory of evolution in the classroom this morning won approval in the first of two House council stops before heading to the House floor.

The proposal - a stripped down version of the similar measure that remains pending in the Senate - passed the Schools and Learning Council along strictly partisan lines. So far, no Republican lawmakers have voted against it.

During the hearing, sponsor Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, offered more generic language than initially proposed, hoping to blunt some of the criticism that the legislation aimed to create a wedge that paves the way for creationism to be taught in science classes. His new bill calls for teachers to have room to critically analyze the theory of evolution without fear of reprisal.

Rep. Marty Kiar, D-Davie, still questioned whether the amended version wouldn't open the door to religion being taught, suggesting an opposing view to evolution clearly is creationism. "I am a staunch, diehard Catholic. But I believe I should get my religion at church," Kiar said. This bill "practically mandates" the teaching of creationism.

"Don't try to read something in there that isn't already there," Hays said. "It's direct and to the point. Any good science theory that is a valid theory should be able to withstand a critical analysis."

Will it prohibit teaching creationism, Kiar countered.

"The Supreme Court has said you can't teach religion in the public schools," Hays responded.

During further discussion, Rep. Shelly Vana, D-Lantana, suggested the bill is unnecessary. A science teacher herself, Vana said good science educators already use the inquiry method to get students to think critically. "Why has evolution then been singled out?" she asked Hays. "Because right now there is no prohibition from doing this."

Hays responded that the goal is to protect teachers who "feel they are threatened if they provide a critical analysis of this theory." Those teachers have been tough to find though, as the Gradebook has noted previously.

Speakers argued for both sides of the equation. Some said the bill would lead to lawsuits and protracted curriculum battles if approved. Others contended it would simply allow teachers to supplement the state standards with other facts they know.

Council members did not debate the measure at length, noting they would have that opportunity if the bill makes it to the floor. They voted 7-4 to move it along, with Republicans chairman Joe Pickens, John Legg, Seth McKeel, Marti Coley, Anitere Flores, Charles McBurney and Thad Altman in favor, and Democrats Kiar, Vana, Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall and Janet Long opposed.

It next heads to the Policy and Budget Council.

Comments

"Others contended it would simply allow teachers to supplement the state standards with other facts they know."

What other facts does this mean? There seems to be a misunderstanding among many what a fact is versus opinion. Many do not even understand what a theory is in science. Keep it simple: teach the curriculum, discuss the curriculum in depth, do not foist the TEACHER'S point of view on the kids. If they do not have questions, leave it be.

"It's direct and to the point. Any good science theory that is a valid theory should be able to withstand a critical analysis."

There is one valid theory. It has withstood critical analyisis by a far more knowledgable community. Trying to undermine something by simply saying so does not change fact. We would not stand for staff to "critically analyze" many other things, including religion, so why are we allowing them to do so in cases of science? Because THEY disagree? Based upon?

The problem with this is that it opens the door to allow people do disagree simply because and not force them to present a valid argument in doing so. This would conceivably allow people to disagree with math, health, history all because they just do. Imagine a teacher who smokes disagreeing with the idea that cigarettes can cause cancer. Or a teacher who denies the Holocaust happened. The thing is, we would not allow that, so why this? (Rhetorical question, of course.)

[Keith]

Speakers argued for both sides of the equation. Some said the bill would lead to lawsuits and protracted curriculum battles if approved. Others contended it would simply allow teachers to supplement the state standards with other facts they know.

That's not entirely accurate. Did you hear Mr. Pitts (sp?) and Mr. Pound (sp?)?. Both didn't just say the bill would supplemental information in the classroom. Ohhhhh nooooo ... they both quite clearly said that religion in some form would be in the classroom. Mr. Pitts went so far as to demand the Bible be in the science classroom.

This is not about religion my a**!

[Chris W]

It'll just be more embarrassing to the legislature when it gets overturned in federal court. But maybe it'll let these goons get their martyrdom jollies and they'll shut up and go home and quit bothering the rest of us.

[jack]

FloriDUH!

[jackpc]

Florida is the laughing stock of the country; and now our country is the laughing stock to the rest of the world. How are we going to educate the next generation of scientists, biophysicists, or astronoemers by this kind of backward thinking. I am ashamed and embarrassed to be a parent having my chidl educated in this state.

[jackpc]

Florida is the laughing stock of the country; and now our country is the laughing stock to the rest of the world. How are we going to educate the next generation of scientists, biophysicists, or astronoemers by this kind of backward thinking. I am ashamed and embarrassed to be a parent having my child educated in this state.

2+2=7

jay-sus tole me so!

its in the bible!!

wanna fight over it?

**************************

seriously, back in the day, we used to say, "when someone moved to georgia from florida, the collective i.q.'s of both states went up!"

im not so sure about that today

i think georgia -- and likely a lot of other states -- are refusing admittance to "floridians" for fear they will contaminate their residents with terminalstoopidityandignorance!!

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION available in science!

got that, dimbulbs?

NO ALTERNATIVE IN SCIENCE!!

believe what you want about either or both of the TWO CREATION MYTHS in genesis....they are NOT SCIENCE but FAITH STATEMENTS!!

NO ONE was there to witness the "events"

NO ONE recorded them!

NO ONE!!

NO BODY!!

they are FAITH STATEMENTS not SCIENCE!!

how can you be so STOOPID??!!

please leave you incorrect and ignorant reading and understanding of the TWO CREATION MYTHS in genesis to your "churches" and out of the public schools!

[Allan]

April 11, 2008, Friday: This bill is not one bit about "academic freedom." That is a malignant and malicious lie.

This bill is about crossing the line that separates church from state, and trashing the principle Thomas Jefferson voiced in 1802 when he said the intention of the Constitution was to establish, in his own words, a "wall of separation" between church and state.

Evolution is not "just" a theory, but is also a fact. So is the cell "theory" in biology also a fact. So are the special and general "theories" of relativity discovered by Albert Einstein in physics also facts. So are the "theories" of plate tectonics, sea floor spreading, and continental drift in geology also facts. So is Sir Isaac Newton's "theory" of gravity also a fact. So is the "theory" of Copernicus and Galileo that the earth goes around a sun also a fact.

The malignant and malicious Florida sectarian right-wing extremist Christian Taliban are at it again. They are the hardcore controllers of the Florida Republican Party, as at one time before the civil rights movement saw voting rights victories for black people in the South they were the hardcore controllers of the Florida Democratic Party. It's the same old sectarian, right-wing extremist, fascist, Christian fundamentalist Taliban at work who have been at work forever in the Southern states of this country, retarding the intellectual, cultural, educational work and systems of both America generally and the Southern states and Florida in particular.

These people are no different in essence from Osama bin Laden's right-wing extremist Islamic Talibanic type of movement. The two have different prophets and different modes of dress, but otherwise are exactly alike in their essentials, and here in Florida, they control the Republican Party who control the Florida legislature.

Evolution -- like the cell theory in biology, like the special and general theories of relativity in physics, like the theories of plate tectonics, continental drift, and sea floor spreading in geology, like the theory that the earth goes around the sun, like the theory of gravity -- as been tested, and re-tested, and re-re-re-tested repeatedly, over and over and over again, and passed all tests with flying colors.

On the other hand, so-called "Intelligent Design" and so-called "Creation Science" and so-called "Creationism" have passed literally NO tests -- zilch, zero, nada, zip, none.

That's because in fundamentals and essentials, so-called "Intelligent Design," so-called "Creation Science," so-called "Creationism," are all in PRINCIPLE NON-TESTABLE. THAT IS, they are all about FAITH, NOT SCIENCE, NOT SOMETHING THAT IS TESTABLE.

Evolution is about science and what is testable. So-called "intelligent design," so-called "creationism," so-called "creation science" are about FAITH, and what is TAKEN on FAITH. And FAITH is about RELIGION.

Religion is for keeping in churches, as is faith.

What is testable is for being in science classrooms, and evolution is what is testable.

The Christian Taliban Republicans could not care one whit about science, testability, knowledge, or advancing the knowledge of kids in the 21st Century.

Rather, the Christian Taliban Republicans are about using right-wing sectarian relgious extremism to keep political power over the citizens of the Southern states and over Florida, and about using their particular sectarian extremist right-wing variety of religion to keep the Southern poor and Southern working classes and Southern people, and the people and working folk of the U.S. more generally, DIVIDED and CONQUERED in the CLASS INTERESTS OF RICH, WELL-TO-DO, BIG SHOT, WASP (WHITE, ANGLO-SAXON, PROTESTANT) CAPITALIST EMPLOYERS WHO HAVE CAUSED THE HORRENDOUS ECONOMIC CRISIS INTO WHICH WE ARE NOW ENTERING, AND WHO, IN THE VIEW OF THE RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST RELIGIOUS CHRISTIAN TALIBAN RULING FLORIDA AND RULING THE SOUTHERN STATES REQUIRE BEING DEFENDED AS THE "MASTER CLASS," EXACTLY AS THIS SAME CHRISTIAN AMERICAN SOUTHERN TALIBAN ONCE DEFENDED THE SLAVEHOLDING RULING CLASS OF THE SOUTHERN STATES AGAINST CHALLENGES TO ITS POWER.

The Republican Party, founded in the 1850s as a party opposed to the expansion of slavery, and in some parts of that party, opposed outright to the institution of slavery, had as its first successful president in 1860 Abraham Lincoln, who once wrote, according to Gore Vidal in an essay on Lincoln Vidal wrote, a booklet on Lincoln's views on religion entitled, "Infidelity." Lincoln in that book defended the proposition that the bible made no sense and was all fiction, and that the bible was inherently internally contradictory. Lincoln used the "god" phrase from time to time more or less in the way 18th Century Deists, not Christians, used it, to signify a kind of utterly impersonal creative force that created the universe, than abandoned it. Lincoln was not a Christian, or a Jew. He was closest to the 18th Century Deist view in religious matters, but even there, Vidal, a meticulous historical researcher, suggests Lincoln when he used the "god" or "creator" phrase, used it tongue-in-cheek.

Other major Republican founders like, for instance, Charles Sumner, were Unitarians, not Christians. This was not only true of Sumner, but of the important New England anti-slavery figure and Transcendentalist, Theodore Parker, who was not a Christian, but a Unitarian minister.

Still other Republicans, like the great black American abolitionist and civil rights leader of the 19th Century, Frederick Douglass, who in his own third autobiography, "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," did identify himself as a Christian, stated that despite his identifying himself as such, after he, Douglass, met the great 19th Century Freethinker, agnostic, rationalist, and atheist, Robert Green Ingersoll, Douglass out of the enormous respect and admiration and personal affection in which he came to hold Ingersoll, stated that Ingersoll was one of the few white men he, Douglass, had met who treated him, the black man Douglass, decently. Douglass specifically stated in his biography that Ingersoll and Ingersoll's family treated him, Douglass, much better than many white Christians. And, Douglass stated, due to his experiences in meeting and knowing Ingersoll, he, Douglass, was forced to liberalize his views in religion.

This is in Douglass's third and last autobiography, "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass."

Susan Jacoby has authored a fine short book entitled, "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism." In this fine book, Jacoby has documented the fine and hard and prodigious work of all kinds of secularists -- atheists, agnostics, humanists, rationalists, materialists, freethinkers of all varieties -- in forwarding the causes of freedom, liberty, equality, human rights, here in America throughout American history. She mentions many names in her book which are not typically thought by Americans to have been secularists or freethinkers, but who were. Those who read her book will have their eyes opened.

Richard Dawkins, the eminent British biologist, has written a fine book entitled, "The God Delusion," in which he systemically and systematically goes through all the arguments for so-called "Intelligent Design" and so-called "Creationism" and so-called "Creation Science" and finds them entirely based on faith, not evidence. They are not testable. But even the allegations by some that they are are demolished by Richard Dawkins.

Sam Harris in his fine little book, "Letter to a Christian Nation," notes that the most devout supporters of slavery in the Southern states and the most devout supporters of slavery in the country as a whole before the Civil War were pretty often the churches.

In historian David S. Reynolds' biography of the great revolutionary abolitionist, John Brown, "John Brown: Abolitionist," Reynolds notes that Brown, himself a devout Calvinist, nevertheless welcomed inclusively into his anti-slavery movement anyone who would oppose slavery and would make war against it, including atheists, agnostics, humanists, rationalists, and Brown had a number of such nonbelievers and nonreligious people in his anti-slavery movement. Interestingly, though Brown remained devoutly Calvinist to the end of his life, some of his own children became skeptics in religion, doubters, either outright atheists or agnostics. Brown, unlike the Florida Republican Party, and unlike Democrats who pander to and cater to the religious sectarian extremist right-wing here in this country, was an open-minded man to anyone who really wanted to fight racism and fight slavery and, yes, he was both anti-racist and anti-slavery, one of the few 19th Century white people who was. His band of anti-slavery fighters were militant, but also racially mixed and racially integrated.

Charles Darwin, the great evolutionary biologist, was a militant anti-racist and militantly opposed to slavery. He was an atheist, but had clergy friends. He wrote to his American friend, Asa Gray, right after the Civil War broke out, and, Darwin said, even if it took the deaths of 2 million men to wipe slavery off the North American continent, "it will be worth it."

Evolution is often stated in a maliciously lying fashion by the lying, immoral, unethical, extremist, Christian, religious right-wing Florida Taliban who control the Republican Party in Florida to "justify" racism and such Nazi-like racist programs as eugenics.

But Darwin himself in his great book, "Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex," first conjectured that all humankind originated from the same African -- that is, black -- ancestry. This view of Darwin's was always HATED by white racists, who could not stomach the view that they might be in the same human family as black people, brown people, yellow people, red people. White racists -- white supremacists -- always held and still hold to this day to the view that race is some kind of either "god-ordained" or "nature-ordained" "qualitative difference" among people. But race is, in genetics, today known and confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt to be, a MYTH, a SUPERSTITION, a LIE.

And it has been EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY that has CONFIRMED BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that race is a LIE. The eminent population geneticist and evolutionary biologist, Spencer Wells, came out with a brilliant 2003 documentary entitled "The Journey of Man," wherein Wells, 130 or so years after Darwin's conjecture, showed by the most up-to-date state of the art science and technology, genetic marking technology, that all humankind are, indeed, African and black in our origins, having a common ancestor, and all being of the same species, and, therefore, Wells noted at the end of his documentary, race is not only socially divisive, but literally scientifically wrong. Thus, Darwin's original speculation based on his brilliant inferences about human origins starting in Africa have now come to have been fully confirmed. Race is, indeed, political superstition and myth -- but, of course, it is a powerful political superstition and a powerful myth and is used to this day by particularly white racists to keep in subjugation and racial segregation black people, in deference to the material legacy of 250 years of slavery first, then over 100 years of legal subordination and "Jim Crow" codes.

But the Southern Christian religion has historically been the RELIGION OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS. Reading David Reynolds' book on John Brown, it is EMINENTLY CLEAR that the 20-year rabid defender of Southern slavery and supporter of secession, Virginia politician and right-wing extremist racist Christian and slavery defender, Edmund Ruffin, who himself lit in Charleston, South Carolin, the fuse of the first cannon to fire on the Northern Union Fort, Fort Sumter, on April 12, 1861, starting the bloodiest war in U.S. history (the Civil War), held to a kind of Christianity held to by subsequent generations of Southern white Christians who justified racial segregation of black and white with this view. To this day, substantial chunks of white Christian opinion in the Southern states are STILL PANDERED TO and STILL CATERED TO by white Democratic and white Republican, and even some BLACK politicians, and this same white Christian Southern opinion is also anti-evolution, anti-women's reproductive rights, anti-immigrant, anti-gay people, anti-birth control, but very much for keeping labor unions out of the Southern states, very much for withholding money and funds from public education, very much for withholding money and funds from Southern health care.

By comparison, some founders of the Republican Party in the 1850s like, for instance, Charles Sumner, supported women's voting rights and women's suffrage, supported the 8-hour working day for labor, supported the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery, supported strong pro-racial integration and pro-racial equality federal civil rights legislation for freed black people, opposed racism against Chinese immigrant laborers in the 1850s.

Evolution is both fact and theory, and that is because a theory in science is not what a theory is in popular discusison. A theory in popular discussion is a hunch. But evolution is no hunch. It is both a theory and a fact. That is the way many scientific theories are -- both theories and facts. The word, theory, in science, does not mean what it means in popular parlance when people talk of a theory the way they would speak of a hunch or hypothesis. The cell theory in biology, plate tectonics in geology, the earth going around the sun -- these were once not even known or suspected. It was once thought the sun went around the earth. That view was demolished by hard data, when Galileo looked through telescopes and saw evidence that the sun was stationary (stayed in one place) in relation to the earth. But the church in that day arrested Galileo simply because he observed this through a telescope and threatened him with torture if he did not recant what he had written and said. He "recanted," but fortunately, there were hidden writings he had written which he did not tell the church police about, and after his death, they came out. Once the genie of scientific knowledge was out of the bottle, all the church political police could not put it back in again.

The Florida Republican Party are trying to get rid of evolution by religious political police measures. This is the same gang who are trying to roll back women's reproductive rights with their latest measure using governmental political police measures supported by the hardcore Florida Christian Taliban to compel and force women to have photos taken of their wombs in the first trimester of pregnancy.

The Florida Republicans are not republican at all. They are Taliban-like right-wing religious totalitarians no different in essence than ayatollah Khomeini or Osama bin Laden. They are a malignant cancer subverting republicanism and democracy from within in Florida. And the malignant cancer that has subverted them is: the Florida Christian Taliban, the holders of the legacy of slavery, lovers of the death penalty, people who inherit to this day the legacy of garbage like Edmund Ruffin.

FIGHT the anti-evolution, anti-science crowd! FIGHT the anti-women's reproductive rights crowd! FIGHT them! DEFEAT them! DESTROY them! They have thrown down the gauntlet. Their kind once started a Civil War in this country! Fortunately, U. S. Grant, Abe Lincoln, William Tecumseh Sherman, GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTED. LET'S DO IT TO THEM AGAIN!

SMASH them!

I don't know. The more I hear about our legislature, the closer I come to doubting evolution. They didn't make it past Caveman.

[Marc]

Good, now educators can teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster in science class. Its about time backwards Floridans got their act together on this.

[Paul T.]

The FLGOP really are a group of mindless twits. Brainless whores for the religious right.

[Paul T.]

The FLGOP really are a group of mindless twits. Brainless whores for the religious right.

[S]

So the clowns are running the circus...I heard the Republicans are working on two additional proposals:

1) Abolishment of all printed phone books in the state because the reading level is too high

2) A new state motto: WE'RE STOOPID AND PROUD OF IT!

[Herbie]

"It's direct and to the point. Any good science theory that is a valid theory should be able to withstand a critical analysis."

It seems to me that this would specifically exclude id / creationism since it can't withstand critical analysis.

[Herbie]

"It's direct and to the point. Any good science theory that is a valid theory should be able to withstand a critical analysis."

It seems to me that this would specifically exclude id / creationism since it can't withstand critical analysis.

[Larry Fafarman]

Maybe that picture with the ape should be titled, "The Descent of Man." LOL Or maybe "Monkey See, Monkey Do."

[Pete Dunkelberg]

More on the evolution bill.
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/04/florida-evoluti.html

[Allan]

April 12, 2008, Saturday: Please, friends of science, friends of knowledge, friends of freedom, friends of civilization, friends of culture, friends of books, friends of learning, friends of a reality-based view of the world, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE:

The Florida legislature is a BIPARTISAN GANG OF CHRISTIAN TALIBAN SEEKING TO IMPOSE AN IGNORANT TOTALITARIANISM ON FLORIDA. PLEASE, friends of science, of knowledge, of culture, of liberty: REALIZE this.

This is a TREND in this country.

It is BIPARTISAN.

PLEASE, friends of knowledge, these people are INDIVISIBLY CONCERNED TO DESTROY FREEDOM.

They are not limiting themselves to destroying the teaching of the fact of evolution.

They are out to destroy WOMEN'S EQUALITY.

They are out to destroy EQUALITY OF SAME SEX PEOPLE.

They are out to destroy the JEFFERSONIAN PRECEPT OF CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION.

PLEASE, friends of knowledge, of education, of science, of learning, REALIZE THIS IS NOT A SINGLE-ISSUE CONCERN.

This is an ALL-SIDED concern.

They NEVER STOP.

They NEVER WILL.

They are WELL-FINANCED.

REALIZE it.

PLEASE, REALIZE it.

--Allan

[Chris W]

Larry:

No, it's Ronda Storms showing a diagram of the expected results of her bill in the Senate - a giant pool of cheap labor too uneducated to realize just how exploited they are and too timid to do anything real about it. *That* is the conservative dream.

[willteachscientifictheoryofevolution.andnothingelse]

And who said there is no way we are beginning a NEW WORLD ORDER..IT IS HAPPENING WITH THE LEGISLATURE'S BLESSING.

LIKE any religion...if we keep the masses uneducated then we can manipulate them into giving up their money to support our philosophy...

WOW..I BET MANY OF YOU DIDN'T THINK IT WAS GOING TO BE GOVERNMENTALLY SANCTIONED.

[Allan]

April 13, 2008, Sunday: Friends of KNOWLEDGE, friend of CIVILIZATION, friends of SCIENCE, friends of FACTS-BASED CONSCIOUSNESS: the FLORIDA LEGISLATURE IS YOUR ENEMY.

NEITHER REPUBLICANS, A CHRISTIAN TALIBAN-LIKE FORMATION, nor DEMOCRATS, A CAPITULATORY, COWARDLY, YELLOW-BACKED FORMATION, will PERMIT GENUINE AND REAL FACTS, GENUINE AND REAL KNOWLEDGE, AUTHENTIC REALITY, to be TAUGHT TO YOUR CHILDREN.

THEY WANT YOUR KIDS IGNORANT, LACKING IN KNOWLEDGE, DUMB AS PIKES.

Is THAT WHAT YOU WANT?

Do YOU WANT YOUR KIDS DUMB AS PIKES?

Do NOT OPPOSE EVOLUTION.

EVOLUTION'S 'BOUT REAL BIOLOGY, REAL SCIENCE, REAL KNOWLEDGE.

Do NOT OPPOSE IT UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR KIDS DUMB AS PIKES!

FIGHT THE IDIOTS IN POWER!

FIGHT THE PEOPLE SEEKING TO USE YOU AS VOTING FODDER!

FIGHT THE GARBAGE SEEKING TO EXPLOIT YOUR OWN IGNORANCE!

FIGHT THE RIGHT-WING FILTH SEEKING TO EXPLOIT YOU SO THEY CAN KEEP YOUR KIDS DUMB AS PIKES!

IF YOU WANT YOUR KIDS TO ADVANCE, FIGHT THE ANTI-EVOLUTION SCUM!

FIGHT THEM! FIGHT THEM! FIGHT THEM!

NO COMPROMISE!

FOR ARMED SELF-DEFENSE OF EVOLUTION!

FOR ARMED SELF-DEFENSE AGAINST THE ANTI-EVOLUTION GARBAGE WHO WANT TO KEEP YOUR KIDS IGNORANT AS PIKES!

FIGHT FOR KNOWLEDGE!

FIGHT FOR EDUCATION!

FIGHT FOR ENLIGHTENMENT!

FIGHT FOR YOUR KIDS' FUTURES!

[TimeDilation]

Our students need the best science education available. However, scientific errors can be found in our current textbooks. Therefore, solid, scientific criticisms of the material on evolution, now being taught in our schools, can only be pointed out by teachers! Otherwise, students will be unable to think critically about life science/biology.

Poor Fossil Evidence

Even Darwin admitted that the fossil evidence for his "theory" of evolution was poor!

"Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all the species of the same group together, must assuredly have existed..." (Origin of Species, Chapter Six; see
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-06.html )

However, it is not the case that these intermediates exist in the fossil record.

"...why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections which may be urged against my theory. Why, again, do whole groups of allied species appear, though certainly they often falsely appear, to have come in suddenly on the several geological stages?" (Ibid., Chapter 14; see
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-14.html)

The several difficulties here discussed, namely our not finding in the successive formations infinitely numerous transitional links between the many species which now exist or have existed; the sudden manner in which whole groups of species appear in our European formations... Those who think the natural geological record in any degree perfect, and who do not attach much weight to the facts and arguments of other kinds even in this volume, will undoubtedly at once reject my theory. (See Chapter Nine:
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-09.html

Unfortunately, time has not been kind to Darwin. Transitional forms remain rare, even after 100+ years of research.

The National Academy of Sciences offers a pro-evolution book, Science, Evolution, and Creationism (2008). In this book's recommended readings for school children (and others who read this book) is the book, The Panda's Thumb, by the late, renowned Harvard paleontologist, Dr. Stephen Jay Gould.
(http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11876&page=56 )

One of the chapters in Gould's book is called "The Erratic Pace of Evolution," which offers an honest appraisal of the lack of evidence for evolutionary change in the fossil record.

Gould says,"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their braches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils." (The Panda's Thumb, pg. 181)...

"Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study." (Ibid., pg. 182)

The Florida Standards read,in every grade level, e.g., "SC.4.N.1.7 Recognize and explain that scientists base their explanations on evidence." If, as Gould insists, and Darwin agrees, the fossil evidence for evolution is so bad, why is evolution touted as a proven scientific theory in our standards and our textbooks?

Are opponents of this bill afraid that students will find out the truth, think critically and have a more realistic and skeptical view of naturalistic evolution?

The Glencoe textbook on Life Science, used by most Florida schools for seventh graders says, "Most of the evidence for evolution comes from fossils." (pg. 164) If most of the evidence for evolution comes from fossils, and the fossil evidence is "rare" and "bad," as Darwin and Gould insist, then the evidence for evolution is poor indeed, and is in need of criticism!