Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution

Helical writes "In an attempt to defy the newly approved state science standards, Florida Senator Rhonda Storms has proposed a bill that would allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution. Her bill states that 'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' The bill's main focus is on protecting teachers who want to adopt alternative teaching plans from sanction, and to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."

Re:Weep for our republic, fear for our children...

[madseal]

It's curious how people can be so angry at this (which allows teachers to teach what every they want) because they can't be trusted. At the same time be angry with No Child Left Behind (which gave minimum standards for what teachers HAD to teach) because it doesn't give teachers flexibility. Sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

Re:Sounds fine to me

[mrchaotica]

OK, now, prove to some fundamentalist teacher (1} or other that it's not scientific (2)...

1. I don't have to prove anything to the teacher; it's the school board or court that things would have to be proven to.
2. On the contrary, everything is non-scientific by default. I don't have to prove that the thing isn't scientific; the teacher has to prove that it is!

Re:Sounds fine to me

[sm62704]

I didn't actually RTFA or anything, but

'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins

doesn't sound to me like they can say any damned thing they please. Although I believe that evolution is God's tool (in a sense, ID) it isn't science and doesn't belong in a science class. ID and creationism may be hypotheses, but they are not falsifiable so cannot be called theories.

I just can't see why, from the info in the summary, anyone thinks that this legalizes teaching ID or creationism.

Religion (and philosophy) and science ask different questions. The people pushing ID and creationism as "science" are not doing themselves any favors.

by Contradiction

[Kryptic Knight]

to the ID mob I give you .. "the platypus".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus [wikipedia.org]

Go explain that one with ID.

Re:This happens everywhere

[fishbowl]

Free speech doctrine actually allows all of this to begin with, no need for any affirmative right. The question is whether the employer (school district) is constrained in its choice of whether to retain the employee.
This law eliminates causes for termination, more than anything, because it does not actually grant any rights the teacher (or anyone else) already has.

Re:Only good point about teaching 'creationism'

[B5_geek]

I hate to burst you bubble, but the "bible-belt" reaches much farther north then you think.

I am a Semi-Truck driver, and I live in Ontario, Canada. I routinely drive through Michigan and goto Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indiana. While driving through these 'Northern' States I often experience first-hand the gross ignorance that has a strangle-hold on these 'unwashed-masses'.
          -try scanning your radio and listen to all the church stations that exist. They easily outnumber normal 'music' stations by 4:1.
          -fear mongering and hate speak that they allow on these 'Praise The Lord' bible stations is outrageous some times, and brings to mind Nazi propaganda.
          -speaking to 'The Average Joe' is scary too. From factory workers, office staff, to truck stop patrons (admittedly the lower rungs of the evolution ladder), I hear such ignorance to make my heart weep for humanity.

Sample conversations:
On politics; "Barack Obama, I can't vote for him, hes got a funny name."
On science; "I can't wait for Global Warming, it's too cold here in the winter."

Re:Under Who's Watch?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. By that same definition evolution should not be taught either because it is not scientific. Being scientific means also that it can be reproduced.
Evolution has never been reproduced. Natural selection yes, Evolution, no.
Intelligent design gets proven every time we succeed in cross-breeding (Africanized bees), every time we genetically engineer (crops), and every time we do selective breeding (prize-winning horses, etc). Just look at how many fewer species we have now than 100 years ago due to extinction.

Re:This happens everywhere

[molarmass192]

I know you said "most" but Kansas [washingtonpost.com] isn't considered "The South" and they're a key part of the gang of forward thinkers that preach "Intelligent Design" in public schools. Seriously though, they need to save the religious brainwashings for Sunday school. Religious education has it's place, but public school is not it. If people want their kids taught false science, send them to a private evangelical Christian school. Otherwise, why not also teach native Indian ideas of creationism in public school, such as how the spider Sussistinnako created the earth. Can't prove it, can't disprove it, so it's "scientifically" just as valid as "Intelligent Design".

Re:Science != Teleology

[dasbush]

Classic misunderstanding of the Catholic Church. We don't disagree with evolution. We say it is a theory, good science, and (most importantly) not contradictory to the faith.

Basically, the Catholic Church says: Evolution is how God created, Bible is why.

That said I think evolution is a much more beautiful thing than God just snapping His fingers and saying "BAM!"

Re:This happens everywhere

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

No offense or anything, but you're not explaining this well at all.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a physicist. I'm only any good with kinematics, because I like intuition. I could easily get something wrong here, but here's my understanding.

The reason velocity is relative is because any inertial frame of reference "works". That is, no matter what you define the "actual" resting state is, the universe works the same way: all the forces are the same, all movement is the same, and nobody could tell the difference. That's why there's no center of the universe, because as far as we know, it makes no difference where it is.

Acceleration is not relative because you can't do the same with an accelerating frame of reference. Let's say Person A is in the "actual" resting state, and Person B is accelerating away. Thus, there must be some constant force acting on Person B causing the acceleration. Additionally, person B can feel this force. Now try to establish Person B as the resting frame. Now Person A is accelerating away, but there is no force acting on him. There is a force acting on Person B, but he's not accelerating. This makes no sense. In order for an accelerating frame of reference to work, all of the literal forces of the universe must change.

Try that scenario with just velocity and convince yourself that the swap would work in that case. Hence, velocity is relative, but acceleration is not.

Re:This happens everywhere

[eonlabs]

Laymans terms:

Someone puts you in a perfectly silent elevator and shuts the doors, you will feet the elevator speed up and slow down, but you won't feel anything special when its moving at a constant velocity besides normal gravity.

Don't believe me, do what all physicists in NY do in their spare time :P

Rid the Empire State Building's elevator while standing on a bathroom scale.

I have a number of friends who've done it.

Re:This happens everywhere

[hypnagogue]

Teachers do NOT have the right to teach their opinions to other people's children. They have the duty to teach the curriculum approved by the local and state school boards. Essentially, they are actors, presenting a pre-written script, and they can only ad-lib so long as they stick to the general plot.

And that's the reason why public schools fail. The only reason for education is to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to function in society as an adult. Teaching kids to conform to the party line without critical thought is useful only when training them to flip burgers.

If that's what public school teaches, fine. I'll pay for private school, and 10 years from now your kids will be serving mine -- lunch.

Re:Under Who's Watch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Dawkins writes: "If a single, well-verified mammal skull were to turn up in 500-million year-old rocks, our whole modern theory of evolution would be utterly destroyed" [The Blind Watchmaker, 3rd ed., p. 320]. J. B. S. Haldane also said that "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian" would constitute evidence that might contradict evolution.

Indeed, there are many such examples. For example the existence of a half crocodile and half duck (or "crocoduck") would actually *DISPROVE* evolution. The reason is that evolutionary theory specifies that the major species form links like a tree; i.e., cycles are impossible. So a crocoduck would have two different paths to a common ancestor which would contradict the theory of evolution.

That's kind of the point of falsifiability. There are millions of ways of possibly showing evolution to be false. But not a one of them stands up to any real scrutiny. In fact every time a new fossil is found, or new radiometric dating is performed -- if the data comes out in a certain way, it could easily lead to a total contradiction of the theory of evolution. But this never turns out to be the case. The theory, thus, stands up to constant test, credibility, accountability and self consistency by the means of falsifiability.