Gov. Bush [Florida] oddly evasive on evolution

Jeb Bush, the self-styled straight-talking education governor, is having trouble speaking clearly about one of the hottest education topics these days: evolution.

Bush isn't sure if the religiously inspired ''intelligent design'' concept belongs in public school science classrooms.

''I don't . . . I don't know,'' he said Thursday. ``It's not part of our standards. Nor is creationism. Nor is Darwinism or evolution either.''

He's wrong about that: Evolution is required. The Sunshine State Standards want high school students to understand ``how genetic variation of offspring contributes to population control in an environment and that natural selection ensures that those who are best adapted to their surroundings survive.''

Bush blamed his education commissioner, John Winn, for telling him that evolution wasn't in the standards. Winn's department didn't return phone calls.

It's no shocker Bush blamed an error on an underling -- politicians often do -- or that he got one fact wrong; after all, the governor's wires are bound to short-circuit once in a while, considering the way he devours and discusses massive amounts of policy, news and legislation.

What's tough to figure is Bush's waffling -- or this circumlocution: ''I like what we have right now,'' he continued. ``And I don't think there needs to be any changes. I don't think we need to restrict discussion, but it doesn't need to be required, either.''

Of the candidates who want to succeed Bush in 2006, the two Democrats, Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa, said intelligent design belongs in religion -- not science -- class. But Republican state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher doesn't oppose it in science class, a spokesman said. Republican Attorney General Charlie Crist couldn't be reached.

Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican who chairs the state House Education Council, said he supports teaching intelligent design, which posits that life on the planet is so complex that something other-worldly must have guided it.

Baxley guessed Bush will come out in support of intelligent design, just like the governor's big brother, the president. ''I don't think he wants to be pushed into a box over it,'' Baxley said. ``He probably wants this, but it's not the right time.''

Next year, Baxley said, the issue is bound to surface when the state revisits its education standards. Commissioner Winn has, so far, refused to discuss the subject publicly. However, Florida's new K-12 chancellor, Cheri Yecke, has told newspapers she wouldn't make intelligent design an issue.

Yecke, a conservative think-tank contributor, caused a stir in 2003, when, as Minnesota's schools chief, she wanted a science-standards committee to consider mentioning alternatives to evolution, according to press reports. The language making it easier to teach intelligent design derived from Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's failed amendment to President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.

Whether it's Santorum or Baxley, proponents say intelligent design fills in evolution's gaps and should be taught to broaden kids' perspectives -- a type of postmodern all-things-are-equal viewpoint that conservatives once decried.

Now liberals and moderates are close to arguing against this inclusive approach. Intelligent design is an evolved form of creationism that doesn't posit an Earth-created-in-six-days model.

The debate is playing out in a courtroom in Santorum's state of Pennsylvania, where the Dover Area School Board required intelligent design in biology class.

Eight families sued, saying the policy unconstitutionally mixes church and state. Echoing the overwhelming majority of scientists, one teacher testified last week that the concept is not scientifically valid and doesn't belong in science class.

In Florida, your tax dollars are already paying for students to learn Bible-based creation concepts at a number of private religious schools that take former public school students who are poor, disabled or undereducated.

Using public money for private schooling is a cornerstone of Gov. Bush's A Plus education plan, which has been declared unconstitutional in every Florida court. It now awaits a Florida Supreme Court decision.

Some wonder whether there's a contradiction in Bush's push to spend hundreds of millions of tax money on the high-tech Scripps Research Institute for science while also funding religious schools that question one of biology's basic tenets.

''That is so loaded. That's like, you've already written the article, why do you want me in it? It's not fair,'' Bush told a reporter when asked.

''No, that's nothing,'' Bush said. ``That's no comment. The governor refused to comment. That's what it is in the article: The governor refused to comment.''

Matchett-PI has already had his false statements corrected many times before, so he *knows* they're false when he makes them, but just in case people new to the topic might read his post and mistake his comments for some sort of gospel (*cough*), I think it's important to point out yet again where he is posting outright falsehoods. I've already debunked this sort of thing, oh, several hundred times before, so I'll just list the errors to save time, but if anyone wants any particular item documented or explained, let me know and I'll be glad to do so.

Scientists and teachers ought to make it clear... that evolution and cosmology are working assumptions, not established facts.

False. While they aren't "established facts" (*nothing* in science ever is -- science does not deal in "proofs"), they're far, far more than mere "working assumptions". Modern cosmology has a very large amount of evidence supporting it, and evolution has *enormous* mountains of evidence and 150+ years of research supporting it, so much that it's about as close to an "established fact" as one is likely to find.

Unlike physics, evolution and cosmology are sciences in the sense of forensic science.

Wrong again.

The evidence for evolutionary transition of humans from apelike ancestors is not abundant enough to conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it has occurred.

Utter bollocks. The amount of independently cross-confirming evidence for the evolutionary transitiono f humans from apelike ancestors is overwhelming, and has passed the "beyond a reasonable doubt" point decades ago. It has only become even more solidly confirmed since then, with massive amounts of evidence pouring out of the human (and chimpanzee) genome project. Any claim to the contrary is, quite frankly, either the result of gross ignorance or gross dishonesty.

That is why the overwhelming majority of Americans still believe in a Creator.

False dichtomy (and false conclusion) -- the *majority* of Americans who accept evolution are *also* Christians.

The foundation of modern science was laid down by devout Christians (Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Planck, etc.) who studied nature to know more about its Creator.

Irrelevant to any claim Matchett-PI attempts to make here. But it is amusing that he seems to miss the fact that the evidence for evolution and other sciences which extremist creationists now try to reject was so strong that it convinced even the "devout Christians" who developed those sciences.

It was the extension of the evolutionary ideas of Darwin to an atheistic world view that accentuated the false antagonism between science and religion.

Yawn. Not hardly. Fundamentalist sects of religions (including Islam) have been opposing various aspects of science itself for hundreds of years, long before Darwin was even born. Quick, now, what "extension of the evolutionary ideas of Darwin" drove the "antagonism between science and religion" which caused the Church to persecute Galileo for advocating the "false and heretical doctrine" that the Earth went around the Sun instead of vice versa?

Such mixing of science, philosophy, and theology must be openly discussed.

No objection here. Just please don't misrepresent it.

What people object to is the teaching of an atheistic world view in the guise of science.

If you ever find anyone actually doing that, feel free to let me know and I'll object to it too. But don't try to pretend that that's what the anti-evolution crusaders are actually objecting to. They're objecting to the teaching of the *science* itself.

Students of faith ought not to come out of biology classes with the notion that there is no God.

They ought not to be *taught* that. But if they arrive at that conclusion on their own (*or* its opposite), who are you to decree otherwise, or go on some sort of jihad about it?

Otherwise, theology and not merely biology is being taught in such classes.

Wrong again. It's not "teaching theology" to teach non-religious that might possibly affect someone's religious views. If your faith is so weak that learning more about how the world works causes your faith to suffer, well...

Clearly everything evolves. However, it is not self-evident to me that the fundamental question of origins is a truly scientific question.

Oddly enough, reality is not dependent upon what you yourself happen to find "self-evident".

If not, then the answer must be sought in the very same places where we seek answers to questions regarding meaning, values, and purpose.

Feel free to seek it there as well, but don't try to decide for everyone else where it "must" be sought, or limit such searches to the *ONE* place *you* think might be fruitful.

One must never forget that an explanation of the totality of the human experience may lie outside the realm of science.

Very true. Or it may not.

The honest pursuit of an answer to the question of origins may lead ultimately to an Intelligent Designer.

Or may lead to the opposite conclusion. But according to you, that would magically become "teaching theology". Hmm..

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