Florida education – There's a fine line between fact and theory
- Should Florida schools be required to teach alternatives to evolution, climate change? - Miami Herald
Excerpt: A bill that would allow school districts to teach Florida students alternatives to concepts deemed “controversial theories” — such as human-caused climate change and evolution — has been filed in the state Legislature.
The language of the bill sounds fairly unremarkable, requiring only that schools “shall” teach these “theories” in a “factual, objective, and balanced manner.” But the group that wrote the bill, the Florida Citizens Alliance, says the bill is needed because curriculum currently taught in Florida schools equates to “political and religious indoctrination,” according to the group’s managing director, Keith Flaugh.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, said that schools need to teach “different worldviews” on issues like evolution and climate change. He asserts that textbooks now skew toward “uniformity” of thought.
Both evolution and climate change are well-established fact in the scientific community.
Bottom Line: Here’s the issue. It’s all in the approach. While the story states that evolution and climate change are well-established fact, that doesn’t address the context with which it’s presented. That’s the potential issue here and I know this first-hand from what I experienced nearly 30 years ago – let alone what may happen in certain classrooms in today’s politically charged environment.
What I encountered in Physical Science class nearly three decades ago was an approach that only allowed for the “Big Bang” itself a theory, and evolution as the origins of life on this planet. Evidence of evolution once on this planet may be evidenced by it certainly doesn’t explain the origins of life. The Big Bang remains as much a theory as it was 30 years ago and even if the Big Bang or like event were determined to have actually occurred, it still doesn’t address how planets were created with living organisms to bang into each other in the first place. I was put in a position in which the only “correct” answer to the origin of life on this planet was evolution. There was no allowance for intelligent design. Sadly, most in the science-based education establishment have plenty of interest in telling you want’s established fact in the scientific community but no tolerance for educating you on what they can’t explain - life itself. The origin of science. Any scientific approach to teaching evolution and origin that doesn’t allow for intelligent design isn’t balanced or comprehensive. Its agenda driven rather than analytically driven. That should be addressed state-wide.