Fla. Senate Passes Evolution Academic Freedom Act

DarwinsFinch »

Mon Jun 09, 2008 2:49 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

This legislation purportedly advances "academic freedom," but this is a disingenuous goal. Its real goal is to permit students and teachers to advance preferential religious beliefs in a reputable scientific venue. High school science teachers and students are not qualified to debate the veracity of basic scientific theory. In the article a teacher is quoted: "To say I have problems with evolution theory would be career suicide for me." Well, yes, it should be if your job is to teach science. Much like a history teacher would rightly say "To say I have problems with the French Revolution would be career suicide for me." Or a music teacher saying "To say I have problems with Bach would be career suicide for me." Science teachers whose personal superstitions prevent them from fulfilling their professional duties should perhaps consider a career change.

Science class should be about science teachers teaching sound science, and science students learning sound science. Evolution is sound science. Creationism/intelligent design is not sound science. It is not even science; it is theology. There should be no debate about evolution in a high school class since there IS NO CONTROVERSY in the mainstream scientific community about whether evolution is sound scientific theory. Any active debate is about the details of the process of evolution, not about whether it actually is the cause of biological diversity and change. Just pick up any peer-reviewed biology journal and see what I'm talking about. And before raising any objections to this statement, please check the list of rebuttals at

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

If you've got something new, I'd like to hear about it.

Ironically, this new approach by creationists to get the bible into science class employs the same relativism that they so distain: "academic freedom" means that all ideas equal theories and have equal validity regardless of the evidence. So, when listening in on a typical Florida science class you soon might hear: "Say, Jimmy, do you like evolution? No? What better idea do you have? That the earth was created in six days and that woman came from Adam's rib? Well that's a grand theory! You get an A. How about you, Jane? Brahma sprouted from the navel of Vishnu and created the heavens, the earth and the oceans from a lotus flower? What great science! You only get a B though, because your theory didn't include Jesus." Ok, that last bit was fatuous, but I couldn't help it.

A practical question about this legislation: will a student taking a a science test who answers that the earth is 100 years old receive a passing mark? Why not, if that's what he believes? Will this be the new format of science test questions?

1. How far away is the Sun from the Earth?

a) 93 million miles
b) 1000 miles
c) Whatever you think. Don't worry, this is always the correct answer.