"In my lifetime, I've never seen an ape turned into a human." Florida hearing on science standards.

[madfloridian]

How do they do it? They just turn things around and put their own spin on them.

From the hearing yesterday on the new Florida science standards which plan to include the teaching of evolution in science classes.

Foes of new science education standards try a new strategy.

"In my lifetime, I've never seen an ape turned into a human. I've never seen us come from slime," said Ruth Klingman, who identified herself as a former educator. Darwin should not be "dogmatically taught like it was a fact."

What a strange statement coming from a former educator who should know better.

The director of Florida State University's program on the history and philosophy of science says this is the 4th strategy to keep evolution from being taught.

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.

Both sides have threatened lawsuits.

In Florida, both sides have mentioned possible legal action. In a letter to the BOE last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida warned that injecting faith into science classes would be risky and costly. "This is not a really squishy area of the law," said ACLU attorney Becky Steele. "These battles have been fought a long time ago."

But Pinellas County attorney David Gibbs III, who represented Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings, argued otherwise in a recent letter to the BOE. He suggested the board might violate the constitution's establishment clause if it did not include alternative theories.

The majority of School Board members in two Florida counties, and a school superintendent in one of those counties, have doubts about teaching evolution unless it is "balanced" by teaching creationism beside it.

"I think that students should be given the opportunity to view all theories on how man evolved and let their science background and their religious background take over as to which one they believe in," said Gallucci, also the immediate past president of the National School Boards Association.

"To teach one as if nothing else existed, I think we're doing our students a disservice," Cook said.

A local paper called out people who are running away from science. They called it Fuzzy Science

But the fact that a majority of local School Board members have opted to support the "fuzzy science" articulated by intelligent design is certainly no laughing matter.

And while it comes as no surprise that the two board members who publicly support the new Florida science curriculum and its explicit evolutionary language are also (coincidentally?) up for re-election in 2008, the remaining five members - four against and one still on the fence - might ponder the following intellectual realities in the lives of all Polk County high school students now that high-stakes standardized testing has become a permanent fixture in Florida's educational landscape:

1. How many questions on Intelligent Design will our students encounter on the FCAT?

2. How many questions on I.D. will our students encounter on the Advanced Placement Biology exam?

3. How many questions on I.D. are on the ACT college entrance exam?

4. How many questions on I.D. are on the SAT science achievement test?

5. How many questions on I.D. are on the CLEP test for cost-effective, pre-enrollment college credit in science?

I don't know if the hearings on this issue are completed or still ongoing. I do know many eyes have been opened at the power of the religious right in Florida and their influence on public schools. That is probably a good thing to have happen.

I hear Chuck Norris stood with Mike Huckabee last night, nodding behind him. Norris is a leader in the battle for teaching the Bible in public schools. And I hear Texas is about to have some battles on this topic of evolution as well.