Today, the Florida state Board of Education voted on new science standards for teaching evolution. By a 4-3 margin, the word evolution (gasp! horror!) is now included in the biology standards for the first time ever.
Hooray!
However, there are a bunch of caveats. First, it’s great that the word has been used instead of weaselly phrases like "change over time". Creationists hate the word evolution, and love to try to water it down. While "change over time" is technically correct, it avoids mentioning the principle scientific basis of that change.
So that’s a plus. However, the word evolution is preceded by "the scientific theory of" which again is technically correct, but we all know how creationists love to dissemble over the word theory. So in effect, this is a win for them; they get to continue to lie over what the word theory means.
I’ll also note that "evolution" was included only by a 4-3 vote, which means that 43% of the board are at least creationist sympathizers (while members of the majority may also be, but were satisfied with the compromise wording). That in turn is a guarantee that this issue won’t go away. Lawsuits have been threatened, by both sides. Strap yourselves in, folks, because this will never end.
And, of course, there’s the elephant in the room: the breathtaking inanity of people trying to vote on reality.
Sigh. Well, at least Florida performed a bit of microevolution today (and even the creationists agree that happens)… but it sure would be nice to welcome them to Club Reality with a lifetime membership.
Note: Florida Citizens for Science live-blogged the debate, and will no doubt have more info on this as time goes on.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I’ll post a comment here, since it didn’t seem appropriate in the post itself: I may not be the first to report this, the most thorough, or the best… but I bet my title is the best one.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I read that differently.
That says that 2 of the dissenters wanted stronger support for Evolution, i.e. they backed the proposed standards as written, not with the modifications about “scientific theory”. So that only leaves 1 board member who opposed the revised version to get stronger support for ID/Creationism.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
You know — they may have prefaced it with “Scientific Theory of” but it’s better that than just “Theory of” — At least when someone says “it’s just a Scientific Theory” they sound even more ignorant than just saying “it’s just a theory”.
I thought the humorous editorial in the Miami Herald was especially funny.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Both camps being done a disservice while the students are taught using ambiguous terms.
We cant go forward by ignoring the past and equally we cant live in it .
Future gravestones will read ‘Bill Bloggs b 1960 d 2050. Best known for for his contribution to our childrens education by persuading the education board to substitute the word “evolution’ with ‘change’……or whatever”
What a waste!
Wonder the right wing religous dont qualify ‘devil’ with ‘The bad guy’ if they feel such is required.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
The Florida Citizens for Science site is pretty choppy and hard to understand. They mentioned something about experts being locked out of the hearing at the last minute… anybody have any more info on this?
February 19th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Definitely have to hand the Best Title award to you on this one. The fact that teaching children reality has come down to voting on it does worry me, but the fact (not theory) that the ID people kept pushing the “Evolution is just a theory (not a fact)” drek lead to this humorous concession, at least in my opinion, that by having the supporters label it the Scientific Theory of Evolution (much better than just a theory) they were able to get it past the wall of Fundy policy makers.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
What they need to do is make everyone take an oath at the beginning of the debate to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Then, every time a Creationist opens his mouth, slap him with contempt of court and a perjury charge. Easy!
February 19th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
“principle scientific basis”
I think that you mean the “principal” principle.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
The fact that anyone sits on an “education” board and does not fully acknowledge evolution, boggles my mind. Any board of education should be lacking the anti-education crowd. PERIOD. I find the “sheep’s clothing” tactic sickening. Unfortunately it has given the anti-education crowd more power than they have ever been able to exercise in modern times. This strategy goes back a long way though. They would not have gotten positions on boards unless they had been pushing this for over a generation in churches. I know many church goers visit this blog. Please stand up in church and speak out when preachers and others deny evolution. Give a class at the church if you care about reality. Not doing so threatens our economy, our nation and our children. Surely you do not believe your religion(or god) wants you to be dishonest. Please use your knowledge to improve those around you.
Great title BA
February 19th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[…] You should read this post by Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy Blog… There’s more to the story than appeared in the first press stories that I read… […]
February 19th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Ah, Florida. Isn’t that the state that Jeb Bush sold his Bro? Any state that could vote for that num-nutz obviously has WAY to much alzheimers,,,
February 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
You don’t have to fancy reality to engineer a board seat for yourself in most districts, so anything’s possible. You can bet that certain members are there for political and agenda purposes, making it different than a court of law, where creationism loses in the face of overwhelming truth/fact. This is good news but it’s just whelming.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Irishman
Yes, I watched the majority of the proceedings (the video was choppy and stop-start) and Martinez and the fellow sitting next to him voted against the standards because of the modifications made.
The language was inserted as an “optional” set of standards, behind closed doors late on Friday of the holiday weekend, and slipped up on the website sometime thereafter to pretend like it was all above board. Mr. Martinez demanded to know why it wasn’t vetted like the rest of the standards, but got only mealy-mouthed lies for his efforts. As Phil noted, the “Scientific Theory” language was inserted for no other reason than to allow the lying creationists to continue to deliberately conflate the lay definition of “Wild ass guess” with the scientific definition of Theory in an overt attempt to pretend their religious fantasy has equal scientific merit.
Mr. Martinez and his neighbor wanted the standards as written by the framers, without the extra language. Mr. Martinez told it like it was, put the deceit and its root cause right out on the table, did not play their game. The man deserves a medal.
The other “nay” vote was from Ms. Callaway, who kept saying “it’s not about religion” and then in the next breath would opine about “other theories”. It was rather obvious that “Creationism” or “Intelligent Design” was right on the tip of her tongue, though she barely managed to contain it.
She’s nothing but a shameless liar, and wanted to water the standards down further.
Ms. Shannahan, a “yea” vote, was equally disingenuous about her motivations, though she was obviously briefed by the D.I. and knew better than to even go anywhere near the “other theories” malarky.
Two of the other “yea” votes were less overt about their motivations from the bits I could gather (this was some of the worst of the video feed for me), though I’d not hesitate to use the the phrase “willing accomplices” at least.
The head honcho came off more as just ignorant and innocently deceived, though I wouldn’t bet the house on that either way.
Just my impressions, worth what you just paid for them.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Gonna steal a joke I heard the other day.
“The problem with Creationists is, they believe every word Geneses says. And, frankly Phil Collins isn’t even that good on drums.”
I’d credit it, but I don’t know who said this or where it came from other than the Internet.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I used to work for a school district in Texas. School board members are elected positions here and the qualifications to run are: live in your district, be 21 or older, be alive, find the money to run a campaign, win the position. NO requiement for level of education, no requiement for ability to understand the issues - must have a degree of inflated ego and ability to understand the politics and make deals unless pressured by parents to make decisions that have little basis in reality but wiil keep you on the board at the next election.
All that said, many board members are good people who have the interests of the students and district’s continued functioning at heart. Still, you get one or two who have an agenda and all bets are off. The district I worked for has not yet had to make decisions on evloution vs. creation. The parents and board members are predpminately Catholic and follow the word of the “Church” closely. Surprisingly, the Catholic Church has not pushed creation here yet. If the Church said teach it exclusively, evolution would only be found in dictionaries.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:06 am
This whole “Academic Freedom” tack is pure malarky. Imagine if they got what they wanted: guess that frees me, as a mathematician (I’m not, but as a for instance) to include Pythagorean doctrine on the holy aspects of certain ratios and shapes. Or better still, if I introduced students to Esperanto as a superior alternative to english.
Academic freedom, after all.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:31 am
So in an effort to delegitimize evolution, they decide to call it a “scientific theory”, which effectively implies (correctly, of course) that its principles are logically inferred from massive amounts of overwhelming observable evidence… I find that hilarious! What I find a lot more serious and sad is that at least some of the people responsible for determining the *science* curriculum in Florida, don’t know jack sh!t about the scientific method…
February 20th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I recently got into an argument with my boss over this. As far as I can tell, he simply distrusts scientists. He doesn’t believe in evolution (he doesn’t believe in creationism, either), global warming, or (I just learned today) that scientists really have any idea the ALH84001 is actually from Mars.
He mentioned to me, in an earlier conversation, that when he was in high school, he was taught that earth’s gravity was caused by its rotation. He’s only 10 years older than me, so I didn’t believe him, at first. I asked my parents, who said they were taught the same. I finally asked my sister, who is 7 years younger than I am. She said the same!
Personally, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that *any* scientist in the 20th century thought earth’s gravity was caused by its rotation. My boss likes to point out how obviously wrong that is (he’s right, about that, at least), yet that’s what scientists believed, as far as he knew. Given such an upbringing, I can understand why he doesn’t trust scientists.
I can’t help but wonder how many students out there are still being taught that, and other equally stupid stuff, and if that’s why we’re having a huge resurgence in people believing myth over science.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:49 am
I see the addition of “Scientific Theory Of…” as being actually a stealth win for the good guys. My (not yet very informed) understanding is that in order to avoid singling Evolution out that “Scientific Theory of” was added to many of the theories and laws in the standards. Thus the Scientific theory of Evolution is on the same footing as The Scientific theory of Gravity. That strengthens the meaning of theory and puts Evolution correctly on the same level as gravity.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:43 am
It’s Florida…. this is not the center of the intellectual universe (nor will it ever be). A more important issue for them to discuss would be whether the rise in sea level will innundate all or only a portion of the state. The only loss if that happens will be Carl Hiasson.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:42 am
POP said-
“The problem with Creationists is, they believe every word Geneses says. And, frankly Phil Collins isn’t even that good on drums.”
Actually, Phil Collins is a great drummer. He has a great command of odd meter and is technically very astute (especially since he was self taught). His performances with Bill Bruford (1976-77 time frame) were awesome.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:08 am
This debate is starting to look like the ProLife/ProChoice debate.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:17 am
So far, yes.
Oh, going from specious models to speciation models?
So I heard as well; and Panda’s Thumb has more detail.
Of course, it won’t stop the scammers or the scammed from claiming “just a theory” in churches. (Nothing will.) But it will make it harder to parade the switch in public, and easier to teach the scientific method. “Here is a theory, there is a theory, … everywhere in science is a theory”.
Another problem is that the standards seems to lump abiogenesis in with evolution without an explicit distinction. That will both hurt and help the diverse creationists scams - they won’t like it, but again they will milk it for all they can.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:04 am
This might interest some of you.
Warning, article is written in french.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20080220/CPSCIENCES/80220049/1020/CPSCIENCES
February 20th, 2008 at 11:20 am
ChannelOne conducted a survey of high school age students (the students logged in to vote so sampling is off) to determine what they thought should be taught based on the Florida story. 9% thought evolution only, 53% thought ID only, 25% thought both, and 13% thought neither. Very scary!!!
February 20th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Philippe,
Une petite traduction, s’il vous plait? Je ne sais pas tout le vocabulaire.
Merci beaucoup et baisers,
JanieBelle
February 20th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Phil, I don’t blame you for crowing about that title. That is the best darned blog title I’ve seen for ANYTHING in ages. Wordplay rocks!
~David D.G.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Janie, researchers at Oxford U have gotten a ~4 millions $ grant to study why humans believe in gods (God/Javeh/Allah/FSM/Thor/Zeus/etc).
Given the widespread belief in Something, they are wondering if that belief isn’t the “default” setting in humans, and does atheism require extra effort.
And it’s all financed by the John Templeton Foundation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation
Since they support DI, the Disco ‘Tute and Gonzalez, should be interesting…
February 20th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Thanks Philippe,
I was having trouble with some of the bigger, less common words.
Kisses
February 20th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Philippe writes:
[[Given the widespread belief in Something, they are wondering if that belief isn’t the “default” setting in humans, and does atheism require extra effort.]]
Not extra effort, just a genetic deficiency. Turns out atheists have a defective copy of the theism gene on chromosome #3. It’s a recessive Mendelian trait, which explains why most people are theists.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Dadoo,
My 8th grade Earth science teacher was actually a psychotic drill-team coach who was put in the position of teaching a science class by a tight-fisted school district trying to save money rather than hire more qualified personnel. Like the teachers of the hapless subjects in your anecdote, she likewise announced, to my stupefaction, that gravity was the result of a planet spinning on its axis.
(There was no such claim in our textbook, of course, but I doubt she ever even opened it; she also reversed the positions of Venus and Mars in the order of planets from the sun, as well as hopelessly confusing the nature of Uranus and making other blunders as well, all with perfect conviction. The woman belonged in charge of a science class about as much as Stephen Hawking belongs in an Olympic gymnastics competition.)
I was a major astronomy buff at the time, and I would have corrected her if I hadn’t been terrified of the woman — she really was violently nuts and fearlessly irrational. Until now, I thought she was the only person who espoused this lunatic notion!
Since it is obviously much more widespread than I first thought, I wonder now what the source of this nonsense could possibly be. Does anyone have a clue how one would go about researching the origin of such a weird false belief successfully masquerading, obviously for years, as scientific fact?
~David D.G.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
“the breathtaking inanity of people trying to vote on reality.”
Such as pointing to an “overwhelming scientific consensus” about anthropoegenic global warming?
February 21st, 2008 at 9:56 am
Ed Michau writes:
[[“the breathtaking inanity of people trying to vote on reality.”
Such as pointing to an “overwhelming scientific consensus” about anthropoegenic global warming?]]
The scientific consensus isn’t a “vote.” It’s a general agreement, a consensus, among people qualified to understand the subject. The scientific consensus is part of how modern science works; it enables scientists to spend their time doing science and not waste it in blind alleys.
The greenhouse effect was discovered by Jean Joseph Fourier in 1824. In 1859, lab work by John Tyndall showed that it was due mostly to the trace gases water vapor and carbon dioxide. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius made the first quantitative estimate of global warming under doubled carbon dioxide. The saturation argument derailed the consensus for about forty years, but high-altitude observations made during World War II shot holes in that argument, and when Gilbert Plass made the next estimate of global warming under doubled carbon dioxide, in 1956, there were no remaining valid arguments against it. Since then, the evidence that the world is warming, that it’s due to artificially produced greenhouse gases, and that it’s a serious problem, has become overwhelming, and denying any of the three is on a par with denying relativity or evolution. The scientific consensus has been wrong on occasion in the past, but that’s not the smart way to bet.