Capitol bill aims to control ‘leftist’ profs [suing profs who teach evolution!]

Florida Alligator ^ | March 23, 2005 | JAMES VANLANDINGHAM

[Quick1]

TALLAHASSEE — Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities.

The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.

The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House.

While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue.

“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

[PatrickHenry]

I've been looking around the website of the Florida Legislature to find this thing. This link leads to the current bill. You need to click on "Bill Text: Original Filed Version" and that takes you do it. The bill is in pdf format:
House bill, sponsored by Baxley, referred to the House Choice and Innovation Committee

[bigLusr]

So students have no rights in your opinion, particularly when they are the ones paying for an education?

As I understand it, students have the right to take their money and pay for an education elsewhere. Let capitalism do its thing.

[PatrickHenry]

I've read the bill. It's obviously subject to revision, but right now it's just a general statement about academic freedom. Nothing specificially about evolution or creationism. Anyone can spin anyting, of course, so I can easily imagine some wild-eyed UFO nut disrupting a class and then -- when he's tossed out -- howling about how his "rights" have been infringed.

For example, a young-earth creationist, or a follower of any other pseudo-science, might make something of this:

(6) Faculty and instructors have a right to academic freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects, but they should make their students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than their own and should encourage intellectual honesty, civil debate, and critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

[MacDorcha]

"If what you say is true, a great deal of geology and geophysics would be invalid, since we haven't observed one continent crash into another."

No, but we CAN observe the fault lines and use them to predict eathrquakes and volcanoes. We assume that there was a Panacea. The placement of fossiles suggests it. The fact that these fossiles are found where they can be predicted is pretty on the mark as well.



"Likewise, astrophysics would be on very shaky ground since the time over which we have observed the sky is the blink of an eye compared to the age of the universe.
It provides a prediction that is consistantly accurate."

Hate to break it to you, but astro-physics has a "Pardon our Dust" sign over its main lobby. You also don't cover a lot of it in a science class. You cover it in an astro-physics class.

"'Observable' doesn't mean 'observable in real time'."

That wasn't covered in my chem lab. Who told you that? Science requires one to confirm with one's senses. We can visually confirm that gravity affects all large bodies in the universe. We can visually confirm the abiogenesis does not happen. We can visually confirm species mutation... yet we cannot do the same for species changing to another species of its own accord. We can visually confirm our ideas about the stars.

Noone has every "felt" evolution on any medium, excepting their own minds.




Eugenie Scott’s letter of September 30, 2003 to members of the Texas State Board of Education purports to show that intelligent design research is not published in the peer-reviewed literature. But in fact, Scott has purposely failed to disclose certain key items of information which demonstrate that intelligent design research is in fact now part of the mainstream peer-reviewed scientific literature. (taken from "Intelligent Design and Peer Review
A Response to Eugenie Scott and the NCSE")

Here- (to the quote I gave you)
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1621&program=CRSC+Responses&callingPage=discoMainPage+

Here-
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_4.html

(care to explain the Existance of ISCID as a legit entity?)

Here-
http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/IDjournals.htm
And that was just a yahoo search and 3 sites on the first page. (of about 278,000 reults.)



You claim ID is not publishing peer-reviewed works? That's called being intellectually dishonest.

Is it more reasonable to think you simply need to sit out for a while on the whole debate and mull over the resources? I do it all the time. Try it.

[MacDorcha]

"The fundamentalists believe they are on a roll now that W has been reelected. Indeed, they think they were the sum total of the people who put him in office, completely ignoring all the other Republican factions out there."

I disagree. I just keep telling myself in regards to Florida "2000 election...." and it all fits in nicely.

[MacDorcha]

"What is needed is a test that distinguishes design from non-design with reference only to the observable characteristics of the item under test, and no reference to the history of the item or any external data. As my example shows, this is very problematic."

That was an arguement of mine a little while back. Thanks for the reminder!

Until we can tell the difference between the inherently random and the subtly designed, we have no room to approach either as scientific.

[Right Wing Professor]

My company, whose R&D center is in Florida, already complains about the appauling lack of science education in the state.

U. Florida was trying to recruit me once (I turned them down). One of the obvious questions I asked (since I have 3 kids and at the time they were all school-age) was about the quality of the public schools in the Gainesville area. The invariable reply was 'There are some really excellent private schools in the area".

Florida's in trouble.

[MacDorcha]

Not to mention the fact that they also accept ID as being a probable candidate for the initiallization of evolution.

BTW, this means evolution is NOT a self-improvement project. It would suggest guidance of some sort.

[MacDorcha]

Panacea=Pangea

Lack of sleep.

[doc30]

Hate to break it to you, but astro-physics has a "Pardon our Dust" sign over its main lobby. You also don't cover a lot of it in a science class. You cover it in an astro-physics class.

This bill pertains to the university environment where astophysics is taught. Based on this, a young earth creationist could sue the school for not teaching creationism in a PhD astrophysics course. Then agein, I doubt if there are that many young earth creationists that would get accepted into an astrophysics graduate program. 'Observable' doesn't mean 'observable in real time'." That wasn't covered in my chem lab. Who told you that? Science requires one to confirm with one's senses.

It is true that observable does not mean observable in real time. Your chem lab must've been a freshman one where they didn't want to confuse you with cutting edge research becasue you lacked the background. Basically, most of modern chemistry is not observable with one's senses. You can't visually see the free induction decay induced in a nuclear magnetic resonance experiment. You can't visually see the infrared absorption used to detect the chemical fingerprint of any substance. You can't directly observe the picosecond laser pulses used in ultrafast kinetics experiments, nor can you see with your senses the results of those experiments. That's not real time. You can't use your senses to measure the diffraction pattern from an x-ray crystallography experiment. Even in astrophysics, it takes hours to collect enough light from a distant astronomical source to form an image. That's not real time. Based on your statement that science dictates you must confirm with your own senses, all of modern science is then rubbish becasue we measure things outside of the range of our senses.

[steve-b]

Ah, yes... where did caucasians come in? How on earth did those Chinese get way over there before they invented/discovered the wheel? Saying we're all from africa is laughable.

ROFL!!! OK, I get it; you're parodying the ignorance of creationists.

[MacDorcha]

It's scary, but you and I agree alot more than I think we'd like to admit.

I'm here for the discussion aspect (totally forgot about the bill, lol) But having mulled over the thread and the Bill itself, I agree with you.

This is nothing to be terribly alarmed about. Just old rivals sticking it to each other at the whims of the press.

This article is that kid who stands near a fight saying "Oh, you gonna take that?"

[Right Wing Professor]

I'm surprised at the amount of anti-Christ support in this country.

I have to continually remind myself there are a good number of rational, intelligent, thoughtful people on this forum who are also Christians. If I were to make a judgement based on those on FR who parade their Christianity most conspicuously, and set it up in opposition to scientific enquiry, I'd be anti-Christian too.

[section9]

What is the Republican Party doing? I'm starting to believe that Andrew Sullivan is on to something.

Why in God's name are we acting like a bunch of PC Campus types all of a sudden? We hated it when the Lefties did it, but when we do it, it's okay? What business does a State freaking legislature have getting involved in the course work and lecture material of a professor at a University, private or state. This has to do with academic freedom, not the State's authority over a state university. Either a University is a place for free inquiry or it is not.

As I said, what the hell is my Party up to? We're supposed to be about liberty above all things. GW needs to start cleaning house before we get pegged as a gaggle of bluenoses. The Dhimmis hammered us in the Nineties with that moniker and it took an extraordinary man in GW to get us out of that ditch. The Stalinoids in the Dhimmitude party have no business appropriating the doctrines of states rights and small government from us.

But of course, free pills for Granny will do that to you. Being the majority party makes you the Party of the State. For now, the war is holding us together. I can see where victory will drive the coalition apart, however.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[doc30]

That's the same reason my wife and I don't want kids in Florida. It is not the best place to raise them. I remember when Tallahassee was pushing for better college education in the state. The big campaign contributors, like Publix and Winn Dixie who would have higher taxes for this, told the legislature that cashiers and stock people don't need an education. Then you add the retiress who move down here and they are the wordst of the NIMBY types. They are retired and school issues are insignificant to them. My ex-wife's son had some miserably ignorant teachers in Florida. On most math assignements, about 30% of what was right was wrong and what was wrong was right. This new bill, if passed, will make the education system in Afghanistan look enviable.

[MacDorcha]

Not really.

I was "playing a roll" so to speak (yessum massah) yes.

But my point remains. The fossile records do not show us all coming from Africa. That region in pangea (or more: subsequent stages fo pangea), mayhaps. Where are the fossil records of migrations? It's my understanding that human fossils have not been found pre-dating the first Chinese settlements.

[Right Wing Professor]

Great post, as always.

The GOP's rise in the 80's was as a coalition. Unfortunately, while the religious right whines loudest about not getting their fair share of the spoils of power, it's the libertarian/small goverment wing of the party which has actually gotten the least - to the extent that you have to wonder that if the Dems took over Congress and the Whiite House, would it be any worse?

[Right Wing Professor]

The fossile records do not show us all coming from Africa. That region in pangea (or more: subsequent stages fo pangea), mayhaps.

Your time scales are discordant. Pangaea broke up long before there were primates, let alone humanoids

[section9]

I hate to say this to you, RWP, but as a resident of this state, there is no tradition of strong support for rigorous public education as there is in, say, much of the American midwest.

Florida was a cracker state at one time with a relatively small native population. We had a seasonal population of tourists, sharecroppers, circus people, studio people, and later, space people. But we never developed an ethic of strong tax support for public schools here. This applies to both parties. During the Administrations of Reuben Askew, Bob Graham, and Lawton Chiles, public education was a warehousing system by which children were shuffled on from one grade to the next. The population explosion that began after 1957 did not bring with it an accompanying consensus to raise taxes to keep pace with all the kiddies that were coming in from Indiana, Michigan, and New York.

Florida was a retirement state after all. All those FDR Democrats figured that the kids were someone else's problem, not theirs.

This was at a time when California boasted the best educational system in the country (while Reagan was governor and CA was a two party state, and before CA spent itself into penury). Meantime, Florida's educational system was the living embodiment of Plessey vs. Ferguson up to the mid-1980's.

Believe me, I don't blame you for avoiding Florida like the plague. This state has pretensions to greatness, but they are only that. Of course, CA was great. Once.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[PatrickHenry]

It's scary, but you and I agree alot more than I think we'd like to admit.

Don't let it worry you. It's always helpful to zero in on the facts.

I've also been looking at the "Staff Analysis" which is accessable from the link I gave earlie (post 81). They point out something which is interesting (underlining is mine):

These principles conform to long-standing principles of academic freedom and responsibility expressed in current policies. By codifying them in law, however, the bill may shift the responsibility to determine whether or not a student’s or faculty member’s freedom has been infringed from professional faculty self-governance to institutional or judicial governance. The principles of academic freedom enumerated in the bill are:

• The right of students to expect:

o A learning environment in which they will have access to a broad range of scholarly opinion;
o That they will be graded solely on merit;
o That their academic freedom and the quality of their education will not be infringed upon by instructors who persistently introduce unrelated controversial matter into the classroom;
o That their freedoms of speech, expression, assembly, and conscience will not be infringed;
o That their student fee funds are distributed on a viewpoint-neutral basis; and
o To be fully informed of their rights and their institution’s grievance procedures.

• The right of faculty to expect:

o Academic freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects, with the responsibility that they make their students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints;
o That they will not be discriminated against on the basis of their political or religious beliefs; and
o To be fully informed of their rights and their institution’s grievance procedures.

Nothing in the analysis discusses evolution or any other scientific subject. But if this (or something like it) becomes law in Florida, we may expect all kinds of litigation about the alleged freedom of students to demand that various fringe concepts be treated with "respect" by their professors.