Florida - 2008: Welcome to the Dark Ages

In some school districts in the great state of Florida, science teachers are afraid to teach the theory of evolution. The St.Petersburg Times tells of Allyn Sue Baylor, a science teacher at Palm Harbor Middle School in Pinellas County, who refuses to teach evolution even though it is required by the state. Ms. Baylor claims this is true of other science teachers, too. She claims they are afraid of upsetting the parents. "It's scary," said Ms. Baylor, "You can lose your job."

Lose your job for doing your job? Welcome to the Dark Ages in Florida!

What do the parents believe? They believe that the theory of evolution is false because their Bible tells them so. They believe that an imaginary person somewhere up in the sky created everything that exists 6,000 years ago in six days. And these beliefs they call creation "science" and they want that creation "science" taught to children in the public schools.

Many teachers don't want to discuss the problem. The St. Petersburg Times tried to get in touch with over 50 science teachers in the Tampa Bay area to obtain more information. Most did not respond. One teacher from Clay County says there is a "large subset of teachers out there who flat don't teach it [evolution] because they're afraid."

Because Florida has been gigged for its lack of effective standards for teaching science, the State Board of Education has been re-writing the state's science standards. The proposed standards will use the word, "evolution," instead of euphemisms such as "biological changes over time," and will establish specific benchmarks which students will be required to meet.

As might be expected, many believers in Jesus and the young-earth theory are up in arms. It doesn't appear, however, that they will be able to change these new standards. State educational leaders don't want to be faulted for failing to deliver the basic standards upon which all scientific knowledge and research rests.

One gentleman from the Panhandle (a very "conservative" part of the state) is pleading that the standards should not refer to evolution as a "fact" but as a theory. That's all they want, he says, just call evolution a theory.

This poor fellow's ignorance is showing. Like so many young-earth proponents, he seems to think that a scientific "theory" is not true. So by calling evolution a theory, it is less offensive in his mind. In science, however, a theory is true - and can be demonstrated over and over via the scientific method. By calling it a theory, one is only saying that its truth is subject to change if new evidence is discovered that would require a change.

Almost every scientific body of knowledge and every scientific endeavor is based upon and dependent upon the "theory" of evolution. It's "true" because it works!

To cap this off, a law firm (the same one that represented the parents of Terry Schiavo) is threatening to sue if these standards are adopted claiming they violate the Constitutional provision for separation of church and state. Welcome to 1984, where the meaning of words and concepts are turned on their heads!

It isn't the teaching of evolution in public schools that violates the church-state separation provision, it's the teaching of the nonsense called "creation" science, or "young earth" concepts, or the mis-labeled non-theory of Intelligent Design.

You might well wonder, as we head toward the second decade of the 21st century, just what kind of loonies we are growing in Florida? I can't answer that. But I do know that whatever these people are eating, it doesn't contain a hockey puck's worth of common sense.