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Community => Religion and Philosophy => Topic started by: dpareja on January 30, 2019, 05:26:08 pm

Title: Florida might start teaching "alternatives" to "controversial theories"
Post by: dpareja on January 30, 2019, 05:26:08 pm
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/01/29/florida-bill-would-have-students-learn-alternatives-to-climate-change-evolution/

A Republican legislator in the Florida State Senate is sponsoring legislation that would require that schools teach the theories of climate change and evolution in a "factual, objective, and balanced manner".

Sounds good on its face, of course, since climate change and evolution are firmly established scientific theories (remember, in science, a theory is something that is well-established and grounded in facts, not like the colloquial usage, which at best is analogous to a scientific hypothesis) and any factual, objective, and balanced coverage of them would address the known facts and how they point exclusively to those theories.

However, the Florida Citizens Alliance wrote the bill, and they claim that the current science curriculum being taught is "political and religious indoctrination".

I'm sorry that facts don't care about your feelings.

To be clear, there are disputes within the scientific community in both areas, but the basic facts--which is what is taught in grade school--are universally agreed upon.

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“Nothing is ever settled if it’s science, because people are always questioning science,” Baxley said. “If you look at the history of human learning, for a long time the official worldview was that the world was flat. Anything you now accept as fact comes from a perspective and you learn from examining different schools of thought.”

Correct! But if you don't know what the prevailing view is, you won't be able to find the errors in it.

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Baxley’s bill also touches on history lessons, requiring that “government and civics content shall strictly adhere to the founding values and principles of the United States.”

Great! Teach the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom (one of Jefferson's three crowning accomplishments) and how the Second Amendment was specifically meant to preclude a federal standing army and hunt down escaped slaves.

Oh wait. Somehow I don't think that's what Sen. Baxley and the Florida Citizens Alliance meant.

Baxley was one of the authors of Florida's 2005 "stand your ground" bill.

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“They’re actually undermining our principles and values,” he said. “One of the biggest things they do is they’re teaching our kids that the Electoral College is out-of-date. That’s the only vestige of our Constitutional republic that’s left.”

Well, one, it is, and for another, I've been reading Stephen Breyer's "Active Liberty" and he points out how court decisions meant to protect states against federal interference have paradoxically grown the federal government and thus sideline the role of the states.

The Alliance is optimistic about the bill's passage, since they're now advising Gov. Ron "let's not monkey this up" DeSantis. They're also optimistic about its holding up in court, since Gov. Ron "racists think he's racist" DeSantis has already made three picks for the state Supreme Court.

(This is in religion because, let's face it, we know what their "alternatives" are, at least to evolution.)
Title: Re: Florida might start teaching "alternatives" to "controversial theories"
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on February 01, 2019, 04:41:20 am
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"..factual, objective, and balanced manner".

Read fanciful, subjective and balanced towards wingnuttery. Antonyms are fun.
Title: Re: Florida might start teaching "alternatives" to "controversial theories"
Post by: Askold on February 01, 2019, 10:28:29 am
"Balanced" is always a weasel word in these things.

"Sure, one side of the debate has millions of scientists who agree and metric tons of scientific research that all supports it but the other side has my brother Bob, that one guy in the pub who talks about alien infiltrators ...and this one blog post I found on the 6th page of DuckDuckGo results. ...But I still think that it would be fair and balanced to give both sides 50% of time to explain why they think cyanide enemas are healthy or unhealthy. You know, so that the kids can get the full picture."
Title: Re: Florida might start teaching "alternatives" to "controversial theories"
Post by: Chaos Undivided on February 01, 2019, 12:24:30 pm
Maybe we could troll these people by advocating teaching shit like alchemy or astrology in school.
Title: Re: Florida might start teaching "alternatives" to "controversial theories"
Post by: dpareja on February 01, 2019, 04:17:33 pm
Maybe we could troll these people by advocating teaching shit like alchemy or astrology in school.

Or have them make clay sculptures of Baphomet in art class.
Title: Re: Florida might start teaching "alternatives" to "controversial theories"
Post by: Kanzenkankaku on February 03, 2019, 05:00:53 pm
The truth is Satan is good and Karl Marx was right. #teachtherealcontroversy