Debate Over Teaching Evolution Moves To Florida
(By BILL KACZOR, Associated Press, 08 Dec 2007)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida's public school students for years have been studying "biological changes over time," but proposed revisions in state science standards for first time would use another term for that concept: evolution.
The new standards also would require more in-depth teaching of evolution and other topics while setting specific benchmarks for students to meet.
The pending changes have drawn a flood of public comment -- pro and con -- and are part of the national debate over how evolution should be taught. A Gallup poll released in June said the country is about evenly split over whether the theory of evolution is true.
Some people say they oppose the teaching of evolution or want schools to also teach religious ideas of creationism or intelligent design to explain the origins of life.
Other objectors, such as St. Augustine parent and education activist Kim Kendall, deny a religious motive but say they just want teachers to offer evidence that contradicts as well as supports evolution.
Kendall is organizing opposition to the standards developed by two committees of scientists, educators and other citizens. One panel framed the standards and the other wrote them.
"They're being very dogmatic," Kendall said. "They do need to continue to teach evolution, but they need to allow the teachers to teach both the faults and the supports of evolution."
Supporters say evidence for evolution is overwhelming and that it does not conflict with religious beliefs.
"We're looking at a scientific theory as opposed to a belief system," said Rick Ellenburg, Florida's 2008 teacher of the year. "I'm a religious person and I don't see a conflict in my life. Within the realm of what I teach it's pretty much a non-issue."
Ellenburg, who is Presbyterian, teaches science at Camelot Elementary School in Orlando and served on the committee that wrote the standards.
Arguments for inserting skepticism, rather than religious concepts, into evolution lessons emerged after a federal court ruling nearly two years ago struck down the teaching of intelligent design in Dover, Pa., biology classes, said Michael Ruse, director of Florida State University's program on the history and philosophy of science.
"This is strategy No. 4," Ruse said. He said it's a wedge issue seen as a step toward introducing religious ideas.
The first strategy for evolution opponents was to prohibit teaching it. In the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a teacher was convicted of violating Tennessee's evolution ban although the verdict was overturned on a technicality. Courts, though, later ruled evolution could be taught.
The next strategy was to get the biblical account of creation taught as well, but courts rejected that, too, in the 1980s, Ruse said. Then the focus shifted to intelligent design, which holds the universe's order and complexity is so great science alone cannot explain it.
That strategy also hit a legal roadblock when the Dover judge ruled intelligent design was religion masquerading as science and teaching it in the public schools violated the separation of church and state.
Since then, evolution opponents have had other setbacks, including a decision by Ohio's school board to eliminate a passage in its science standards that critics said opened the door to teaching intelligent design.
The Kansas state board in February repealed guidelines questioning evolution, the fifth time in eight years its standards have changed as religious conservatives and a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans have traded power.
A suburban Atlanta school board also abandoned its effort to put stickers in high school science books saying evolution is "a theory, not a fact," and South Carolina's Board of Education rejected a proposal to require students to "critically analyze" evolution.
The Georgia and South Carolina cases are examples of the fourth strategy. Ruse described it as presenting evolution as an "iffy hypothesis" instead of what it really is -- a scientific theory "that's accepted like the Earth goes around the sun."
In Florida, old and new arguments alike are being made on a Department of Education Web site, at public hearings and in letters, phone calls and e-mails to members of the State Board of Education.
The board was expected to vote on the standards in January, but the decision likely will be put off until February to get in two more public hearings Jan. 3 in Jacksonville and Jan. 8 in Fort Lauderdale.
Board chairman T. Willard Fair, who heads the Urban League of Greater Miami, said he's never received more correspondence on a single issue, but he declined to discuss his views.
"I'm keeping a fairly open mind," said board member Donna Callaway, a retired Tallahassee middle school principal. She has a Southern Baptist background and her correspondence has been overwhelming against the evolution standards, but Callaway said she believes it should be taught in some manner.
Some Southern Baptist ministers have expressed opposition, but spokeswoman Lauren Urtel said the Florida Baptist Convention has taken no position and had no comment.
Board member Phoebe Raulerson, a former Okeechobee County school superintendent, said she couldn't comment because she hadn't yet examined the proposal and public comment.
Education Commissioner Eric Smith, who also serves on the board, said it would be inappropriate for him to comment until the standards are finalized.
At least one board member, though, strongly supports the standards.
"Evolution is well accepted in the scientific community as a fact," said Roberto "Bobby" Martinez, a Coral Gables lawyer. "This is not a discussion on religion."
The other three board members did not return telephone messages left at their homes or offices or were unable to schedule interviews.
Many supporters say the standards are compatible with their religious beliefs including Joe Wolf, a Presbyterian deacon from Winter Haven who also serves as president of Florida Citizens for Science.
"What we really support is the teaching of strong science," Wolf said. "Part of that has to be the teaching of evolution. Evolution is the foundation of biology."
The standards are being updated on a 10-year cycle that in the future will go to six years, but advocates say changes also are desperately needed to improve Florida's poor performance in science and prepare students to compete on a global level.
The Fordham Institute in 2005 gave the current standards an F, saying they are "sorely lacking in content." Florida students also score below the national average on college entrance tests and the gap has widened in recent years.
The present standards have been criticized for being "a mile wide and an inch deep," covering too many topics for students to fully understand them, education officials say. The new ones would be narrower but deeper.
The writing committee may make changes after reviewing public comment. Friday is the deadline for submissions to the Web site.
There was little dissent on evolution in the committees except for framer Fred Cutting, an aerospace engineer from Clearwater.
"Students should learn why some scientists give scientific critiques of standard models of neo-Darwinian evolution," he wrote in a letter to both committees.
Cutting has attended intelligent design meetings but said he's "not coming at this from a religious point of view."
The new standards are based on those in other states and nations considered leaders in teaching science.
"We're not talking about crazy, wacky stuff," said Sherry Southerland, associate professor of science education at Florida State University. "This is the fundamental science the rest of the world learns."
The science standards review Web site keeps the identity of people making comments secret so they will not feel intimidated, said Mary Jane Tappen, the Department of Education's math and science director.
Few seem to have held anything back. A couple opponents characterized the standards as "communistic" or the work of "liberal wackos." One supporter, though, urged that the state not "bow to the demands of these religious fanatics." Some suggested evolution be taught but continue to be called something else to avoid controversy.
As of Tuesday, 8,152 people -- nearly three-quarters of them educators -- had submitted comments to the site, where the split was heavily in support of the evolution standards.
Southerland, who served on the framing and writing committees, was dismayed evolution has overshadowed other parts of the standards she says are more important, but Tappen said the debate has been positive.
"It's a good thing that so many people are concerned about science," Tappen said. "At least we have their interest and they know we have new standards."
