Florida Standards: The real issue revealed

David Gibbs III has released a second document which was sent to the Florida State Board of Eduction ‘suggesting’ that teaching evolutionary theory would have a negative impact on religious faith and thus would violate the establishment clause.

More on the document later since it presents some claims from Kenneth Miller’s book which I feel are taken out of context.

Ponder carefully that these three evolutionary scientists have summarized the dangerous educational outcomes if Evolution, as a fact, is allowed to become the “fundamental concept” by which all of life is interpreted and understood. It will demand that the concept of “God” be banished from the mind and replaced by atheism; It will displace any idea that there is purpose for man except to discover what it means to be human; It will demonstrate that other species of animal life have as much value and right as man; and it will require a mind devoid of biblical theism—devoid of any concept of God.

As reported by Florida Citizens for science, Becky Steele from the ACLU had responded to a similar argument proposed by Gibbs and Francis Grubbs in an earlier memo sent to the SBOE.

”A representative from the ACLU puts Gibbs in his place:“He claims that teaching science, based on well-accepted theories backed by factual evidence, is somehow promoting a particular religion in public school,” [Becky Steele] told The Gradebook in an email. “To see how cockamamie that is, imagine them arguing that the Establishment Clause would be violated by teaching a calculus class that only expresses the ‘worldview’ of mathematics without any sense of the divine.”

Source: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Darwinism? Gradebook Jan 14, 2008

Well said.

As reported by the Gradebook the cc list shows an interesting focus on known doubters on the State Board of Education as well as Republican law makers.

The letter is cc’d to state Sen. Daniel Webster, R-Orlando; state Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico; BOE member Donna Callaway; and Terry Kemple, a Christian community activist in Brandon.