North Florida weighing in against evolution

The St Petersburg Times has another great article on what the school boards really mean when they want to teach alternative theories.

Evolution is “going to be taught as fact, and everyone knows it’s not fact,” said Dennis Bennett, the superintendent in Dixie County, west of Gainesville. “There’s holes in it you can drive a truck through.

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“We just wanted to get it on the record that we’re a Judeo-Christian community, and we believe in academic freedom,” Bennett said.

Most of the resolutions have nearly identical wording. Some object to the characterization of evolution as something other than a “theory.” Others ask that alternative theories be included.

“I’m a Christian. And I believe I was created by God, and that I didn’t come from an amoeba or a monkey,” said Ken Hall, a School Board member in Madison County, east of Tallahassee.

The St. John’s resolution says the standards should “allow for balanced, objective and intellectually open instruction” that doesn’t treat evolution as “dogmatic fact.”

“Anybody with half a brain can see that natural selection takes place,” said Beverly Slough, a St. John’s board member who is president-elect of the Florida School Boards Association. “But to make great leaps from a fish to a man … the fossil record doesn’t support all that.”

Keep those references coming, as they provide a clear understanding of what is meant by these resolutions, a topic which may come up in a possible lawsuit.