Florida school superintendent on evolution: "There's holes in it you can drive a truck through."

madfloridian

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Fri Jan-25-08 10:58 PM
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Florida school superintendent on evolution: "There's holes in it you can drive a truck through."

It appears that many areas of North Florida are organizing against evolution being included in state science education standards. School board members and superintendents are among them, just like they are in some Central Florida counties. In some counties the majority on the board oppose the teaching of evolution in science class.

School officials are fighting proposed changes to state's science standards.

A growing number of North Florida superintendents and school boards are objecting to the state's proposed new science standards, saying the standards give too much credence to evolution and leave no room for alternative theories.

Evolution is "going to be taught as fact, and everyone knows it's not fact," said Dennis Bennett, the superintendent in Dixie County, west of Gainesville. "There's holes in it you can drive a truck through."

At least seven of Florida's 67 school boards, all north of Ocala, have passed opposition resolutions, according to the Florida Citizens for Science, a group that supports the standards and has been methodically searching board minutes.

That number could double by the time the state Board of Education votes on the standards Feb. 19, said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association.

"It just shows the nature of Florida," Blanton said.

Indeed, Mr. Blanton, it does show something about our nature here. Unfortunately.

Churches have done a lot to oppose the teaching of science standards that include evolution.

Dominated by Baptist churches and dotted with military bases, most of North Florida makes no bones about its political and cultural conservatism. Throw an election year into the mix, Blanton said, and it's no surprise that school officials in places like Bonifay and Macclenny are "going to try to do some things their constituents want."

"We just wanted to get it on the record that we're a Judeo-Christian community, and we believe in academic freedom," Bennett said.

"I'm a Christian. And I believe I was created by God, and that I didn't come from an amoeba or a monkey," said Ken Hall, a school board member in Madison County, east of Tallahassee.

The religious right worked hard to get people elected from city commissions and school boards on up to higher offices. We are seeing the fruits of that in our education systems.

Many in those areas have said if evolution is taught in their schools, they will take their children out of public schools. And they will do that. The Southern Baptists have urged such tactics for a very long time.

A professor in the science department at Florida State University has figured out the methods the right wing is using regarding evolution.

Some experts say an attempt to insert skepticism into evolution lessons, rather than blatantly religious concepts, may be the latest wedge strategy for ultimately introducing religious ideas into science classrooms.

"This is strategy No. 4," said Michael Ruse, director of Florida State University's program on the history and philosophy of science. The first three - banning the teaching of evolution, then promoting creationism, then touting intelligent design - have all hit legal roadblocks.

Here is a good example of inserting doubt.

The St. John's resolution says the standards should "allow for balanced, objective and intellectually open instruction" that doesn't treat evolution as "dogmatic fact."

I believe it is a pattern. They tried banning, substituting creationism, then intelligent design...now they will try to instill doubt. They are doing a good job of it.