Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Controversial bill on evolution and "academic freedom" is to get another airing Tuesday
(Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel, April 7, 2008)

A bill that aims to protect teachers who are critical of evolution is slated to get its second hearing in the Senate tomorrow.

Normally, we wouldn't care about these incremental movements up in Tallahassee. But this bill, and its companion in the House, has generated a lot of interest. Plus, the topic is the same one dealt with in Ben Stein's new (and also controversial) movie, so that seems to make it hot, hot, hot.

The bills, CS/SB 2692 and HB 1483, were filed after Florida adopted new science standards that for the first time require the teaching of evolution. Backers say they are needed to protect teachers who don't take the same dogmatic approach as the state standards require when it comes to teaching evolution.

Opponents (including many of those who helped write the new standards) say the bills are a back door way of inserting religious beliefs into science classrooms. And, they argue, teachers have not been punished in the past for discussing other views about evolution and don't need this sort of protection.

These "academic freedom" bills are modeled on ones proposed by the Discovery Institute -- a group that thinks that Intelligent Design does a better job than Darwinian evolution of explaining life on earth.

The Senate bill has passed out of one committee already and is on the agenda of the judiciary committee's agenda for tomorrow. The House bill has not yet had a committee hearing.

Anti-evolution bill clears another hurdle
(Aaron Deslatte, Orlando Sentinel, April 8, 2008)

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave a partisan passing grade to the bill critics say is designed to challenge the teaching of evolution in Florida classrooms.

Sen. Ronda Storms, a Tampa-area Republican and former teacher, is carrying the bill at the behest of religious groups who lost a close vote to amend Florida's science-teaching standards earlier this year. The Academic Freedom bill, as it's known, says teachers can't be discriminated against for teaching ideas contrary to the theory of evolution.

Storms said it was needed because teachers are "muzzled" from bringing up problems with the theory by administrators who "give you bathroom duty, they give you bus duty, you don't get a planning period … so that their unhappiness is expressed."

The panel passed the bill 6-3, with Democrats expressing some reservations that it could prompt lawsuits for violating church-state separation, and was a stealth attempt to inject religion in classrooms.

All you need do is connect up AIDs-er's habituation to assertions and power and you are right there.

I was merely offering examples of where the AIDs-er's general mental state gets a person who adopts it. I had no expectation that an AIDs-er would approve of my doing so.

And I don't recall seeing the parsec in use on here.

I notice you have failed to address the main point which is another astonishing feature of the AIDs-er's mind set.

Are you scared of discussing the psychosomatic problem and the one about religion being a necessity in a society. We are all aware that individuals can do without religion in a religious society.

Why did an AIDs-er call me a troll and not Bernie?

It makes me think that you are either a liar or delusional, or maybe you're both. Because you are creating posts that have nothing to do with the topic, which is, I do believe, quite against forum etiquette and quite against the Terms of Use of the forums. The only reason you have failed to be disciplined is that you throw in relevant key words, so that the no-doubt busy moderators will take one glance and not realise what you're doing.