Back science in Florida
Category: Creationism
Posted on: February 3, 2008 4:00 PM, by PZ Myers
Do the intelligent citizens of Florida a favor and sign the petition urging better standards for education. More pressure!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Search
Profile
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.
Random Quote
(Complete listing)Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan, the Fascisti. and Mr. Winston Churchill? Really I am not much impressed with the people who say: "Look at me: I am such a splendid product that there must have been design in the universe."
I am not very impressed by the splendor of those people. Therefore I think that this argument of design is really a very poor argument indeed. Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is merely a flash in the pan; it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending — something dead, cold, and lifeless.
Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927) in Bertrand Russell on God and Religion (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1986), p. 62.
Recent Posts
- Nice lecture
- A little light of reason shines in Indiana
- Excuses, excuses
- Orac on Gupta
- First out of the starting gates: Oklahoma!
- The ways of the Bush administration are inscrutable and stupid
- Unclear on the concept
- The scientist in the white coat
- I'm not so sure about this pick
- Today the buses, tomorrow…the world!
A Taste of Pharyngula
(Complete listing)Recent Comments
- Twin-Skies on Unclear on the concept
- Janine, Bitter Friend on Unclear on the concept
- llewelly on Today the buses, tomorrow…the world!
- SC, OM on Unclear on the concept
- Wowbagger on I'm in good company
- Brownian, OM on Unclear on the concept
- windy on Mark your calendars, Minnesotans!
- Brownian, OM on Unclear on the concept
- John Morales on Unclear on the concept
- Kemist on Excuses, excuses
Archives
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
Blogroll
(Complete listing)Other Information
Subscribe via Email
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
« Buffeted by the winds of chance: why a cell is like a casino | Main | I disavow any association with this photo! »
TrackBacks
(TrackBack URL for this entry: )
Comments
PZ,
I'm spreading the word - I signed and some of my friends did too. We're pushing 600!
Would you believe I'm fighting with a closet creationist on the bulletin board where I made my appeal? Same tired arguments, but he's fiesty. I'm doing my best to advocate for our side, I hope I can live up to your standards.
Posted by: James | February 3, 2008 4:30 PM
I'm doing my best to advocate for our side, I hope I can live up to your standards.
Stating the obvious is a "standard"? Heh.
Send us a link! I'm sure some of us would like to listen / chime in.
Posted by: inkadu | February 3, 2008 4:43 PM
What if you don't live in Florida?
Posted by: Ric | February 3, 2008 4:45 PM
You don't have to live in Florida. You have to specify which state you come from, but can sign even if it's not Florida.
Posted by: Ozymandias | February 3, 2008 5:11 PM
Okay, I signed.
Posted by: Ric | February 3, 2008 5:43 PM
Thanks for the linkage, PZ!
Posted by: Karen | February 3, 2008 5:57 PM
I signed as well. Can't we come up with one of these for Texas? They need as much help, perhaps more.
Posted by: Cephus | February 3, 2008 6:32 PM
No, I don't think so, you see I really like the idea of a train wreck in Florida. On the ole' Supreme Court Express no less. If you take a longer view you will see what I mean.
Posted by: charlie | February 3, 2008 6:57 PM
I live in Florida, I grew up with Florida public education, and I signed.
Overall, public ed in FL has been dismal for decades. I learned a great deal more by reading on my own than I ever did in school, and I shudder to think where I'd be now had I not ever been bitten by the reading bug.
We can't know now whether battling forces opposed to comprehensive science education will be a long uphill climb or if we'll reach a tipping point sooner than expected.
Either way, we have to keep pushing, keep persuading, keep speaking out when the topic comes up in casual conversation.
Posted by: DeafScribe | February 3, 2008 7:01 PM
inkadu wrote:
Thanks! I put the ball back in his court, we'll see if he's rational or real IDiot. One my friends, a physician (an orthopedic surgeon, I think) has very eloquently and powerfully joined my side. Once the smoke clears I'll link it. I need the sparring practice.
Posted by: James | February 3, 2008 7:26 PM
Thank you for all those that have signed,we plan to present the petition to the Florida Board of Education before they
meet on the 19th of February.
We are over 700 now,lets keep it going.
Jonathan Smith:Florida Citizens for Science.
Posted by: Jonathan Smith | February 3, 2008 8:23 PM
Jonathan,
Keep fighting the good fight - the petition messages have been inspiring, too! I am going to hit one more web community, which has lots of Floridians!
Posted by: James | February 3, 2008 9:18 PM
What if you don't live in the US?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward | February 3, 2008 10:18 PM
I live in Florida and I signed the petition yesterday.
Look at what a Highlands County School Board member said recently. How do these hicks get on school boards?
"I wasn't at the meeting when all this occurred so I'm not privy to all the discussion," Wally Randall said Friday. "The controversy as I understand it was teaching evolution as a fact rather than as a theory."
Have they found the missing link? he asked. Is that why they are jumping from a theory to a fact?
"Once they find that missing link it will be OK with me if they teach it as a fact," Randall said. "But, as long as they still have missing links then it's still a theory.
http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2008/feb/03/school-board-consider-evolution-resolution/#comments
Posted by: BobC | February 3, 2008 11:32 PM
"Evolution is a theory, not a fact!"
I swear, this creationist canard will never get old. Way to feed off the public's ignorance, IDiots. *sigh*
Posted by: James | February 4, 2008 3:11 AM