A Florida science teacher wrote this article about Florida's anti-science morons. It was published in a Florida newspaper. Americans are fucking idiots. The stupidity is completely out of control.

He has a blog at http://www.brandonhaught.com/blog-2/.

He wrote a book. I was able to read part of it at Amazon for free.
Going Ape: Florida's Battles over Evolution in the Classroom

Here is the newspaper article:

Banish "evolution is just theory" with sound science education.

Posted Jan 31, 2018

Science education is facing an unprecedented attack.

“Evolution is just a theory.” When someone utters that phrase, there is no clearer signal that the speaker has completely failed to grasp one of the most basic of science concepts. A theory is not a guess in science. It’s instead used by scientists to indicate a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world. You’re unlikely to hear “gravity is just a theory” or “germs causing disease is just a theory.”

And yet “evolution is just a theory” is suddenly popping up in conversations across Florida.

School officials in Nassau and Clay counties expressed that erroneous declaration during school board meetings within the past month.

Citizens recently protested evolution’s prominence in textbooks in multiple counties, emboldened by a law passed last year that burdens school districts in some circumstances with a new official hearing process when someone doesn’t like a book used in the classroom.

And lawmakers currently gathered in Tallahassee have targeted science’s so-called “controversial theories” in yet another education bill that could very well enshrine science ignorance into law.

Science education is facing an unprecedented attack not seen since 2008 when state board of education members and state lawmakers tried to override science education experts’ revision of the state science standards. Prominent scientists, science associations and educators rallied behind the accurate standards that included evolution as a prominent, required topic. They barely squeaked out a win on behalf of our state’s students against the “just a theory” mob.

And here we are a decade later fighting the same old battles. It’s embarrassing.

Sen. Dennis Baxley is behind the effort to undermine science education through an ill-advised proposal to shred the state science standards. SB 966 would allow each school district to scrap the state standards, replacing them with a more rigorous version of their own choosing. The bill neglects to clearly outline what more rigorous means, which could result in districts across the state using wildly different standards of varying quality depending on the local interpretation of rigorous.

And the bill poisons all such standards with a decidedly non-rigorous requirement for science standards: “Controversial theories and concepts must be taught in a factual, objective, and balanced manner.” What are these controversial theories? The bill doesn’t say. But we know the target is evolution because this exact line has been featured in many other bills in several states year after year and the target is always evolution, according to the National Center for Science Education.

Evolution is not controversial in the scientific community. It’s the foundation on which all the life sciences are built. But this bill would have schools ignore that fact, encouraging the teaching of some form of creationism to balance evolution.

That’s not rigorous; that’s ridiculous.

There are many more important science education-related issues that need attention. There are teacher shortages in critical needs areas, including science, that are getting worse. Student performance on state-mandated science assessments have been dismal and stagnant for a long time, which the Florida Department of Education tries to sweep under the rug every year. Those are problems that need attention.

Don’t drag Florida back onto the national stage to be laughed at just like we were in 2008. Let our teachers break this ridiculous cycle by properly teaching the next generation what a scientific theory really means. Through truly rigorous education maybe we can finally put behind us the “evolution is just a theory” dunces.

Haught is a Volusia County high school science teacher and author of the book “Going Ape: Florida’s Battles over Evolution in the Classroom,” published by the University Press of Florida. He is also a founding board member of Florida Citizens for Science.

•••••••••••••••••••

Definition of scientific theory:

"Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. The contention that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact" confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have."
-- National Academy of Sciences

"Today there is no scientific doubt about the close evolutionary relationships between humans and all other primates. Using the same scientific methods and tools that have been employed to study the evolution of other species, researchers have compiled a large and increasing number of fossil discoveries and compelling new molecular evidence that clearly indicate that the same forces responsible for the evolution of all other life forms on Earth account for the biological evolution of human characteristics."
-- The National Academy of Sciences

"Scientific theory is the pinnacle of explaining the world."

"It's completely absurd to suggest that a scientific fact must be wrong just because it conflicts with something by an uneducated tribal barbarian from the Eighth Century BCE."

This blog has 304 posts with my favorite quotes at My favorite quotes.