Teaching Our Children To Be Dumb

By a 4-3 vote,The State Board of Education approved new science standards last month that were controversial because they require teaching evolution. As a compromise of sorts -- it didn't really appease opponents and angered the standards' backers -- the board inserted the phrase "scientific theory of" before the word evolution.

After the vote, John Stemberger, the head of the Florida Family Policy Council ,said social conservatives would push for an "academic freedom" measure when the Legislature convenes this month. Such a proposal would protect teachers who teach alternatives to evolution. House Speaker Marco Rubio -- who wanted evolution taught as a theory -- told the Florida Baptist Witness such a plan might gain traction in the house.

And Friday, State Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, filed just such a bill that would create an "Academic Freedom Act" and protect the right of teachers to "objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution."

The bill is much like the sample one posted on the website of the Discovery Institute, which advocates for Intelligent Design. And it is controversial because many scientists (and their backers) say there are no other "scientific views" about evolution, only religion-in-disguise beliefs.

Interestingly, during the debate on the standards, Stemberger and other opponents of the new standards said they were not pushing for the teaching of "any other theory of the origin of life." They said they want evolution taught but not as "dogma," and in a way that allows "critical analysis" of it. Much of their agenda -- and even some of their catch phrases -- seems in lockstep with the the Discovery Institute.

The Discovery Institute advocates for Intelligent Design, which holds that life on earth is best explained by an intelligent cause rather than Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

The institute also has been pushing an Academic Freedom Petition, which pushes for an academic freedom act, which says that evolution should be taught with its "strengths and weaknesses" discussed and that teachers should have the "right and freedom to present scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution."

Storms' bill (SB 2692) on "teaching chemical and biological evolution" uses similar language. You can read it here. The bill on the institute's website can be read here [and dig the Orwellian perversion of language!].

On the day the state board voted, Stemberger called adding the phrase "scientific theory" a "meaningless and impotent change."

A post on the Discovery Institute's "evolution news and views" blog that same day used the same phrase to criticize the vote, saying it did nothing "to actually inform students about the scientific problems with evolution."

Link.