state of florida and evolution/theory

Florida takes two steps forward, one step back

Posted: 23 Feb 2008 07:15 AM CST

(blogs.sun) The good news is, Florida, for the first time in its history, will feature the word evolution in its state science standards. The bad news is, the reality-based community in the state had to make a compromise in order to get the word in there.

Floridas State Board of Education has voted to use the term scientific theory of evolution in new science standards, the first time the word evolution has been included.

Floridas current standards require the teaching of evolution using code words like change over time.

Adding the term scientific theory before the term evolution was a modified proposal at least one board member called a compromise, not standards proposed originally to the committee. The option to include scientific theory was made late last week.

The board narrowly passed the proposed change, voting 4-3, after more than an hour of public comment and additional discussion by the board.

Religious fundamentalists, not surprisingly, wanted to keep the e word out altogether, but were willing to accept the compromise, because it emphasized the word theory.

It reminds me of one of my biggest creationist pet peeves: they have no idea what a scientific theory is.

Given how much they use the word, one would like to think they could have looked it up by now.

This is going back a ways, but James Q. Wilson had a good piece on the subject a few years ago.

People use theory when they mean a guess, a faith or an idea. A theory in this sense does not state a testable relationship between two or more things. It is a belief that may be true, but its truth cannot be tested by scientific inquiry. One such theory is that God exists and intervenes in human life in ways that affect the outcome of human life. God may well exist, and He may well help people overcome problems or even (if we believe certain athletes) determine the outcome of a game. But that theory cannot be tested. There is no way anyone has found that we can prove empirically that God exists or that His action has affected some human life. If such a test could be found, the scientist who executed it would overnight become a hero.

Evolution is a theory in the scientific sense. It has been tested repeatedly by examining the remains of now-extinct creatures to see how one species has emerged to replace another. Even today we can see some kinds of evolution at work, as when scholars watch how birds on the Galapagos Islands adapt their beak size from generation to generation to the food supplies they encounter.

Watch any conflict over evolution and, within minutes, youll hear a creationist insist that students should be exposed to competing theories and that the theory of evolution is no better than any other theory. The idea is to suggest that if the science were absolutely true, itd be called the fact of evolution.

Its maddening, and yet, the reality-based crowd has to keep dealing with it. The National Academy of Sciences, one of the worlds most respected institutions of scientific and engineering research, took this on a few years ago.

Scientists most often use the word fact to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.

Gravity is a theory; just like electromagnetism, plate tectonics, and general relativity. For Florida to go out of its way to label the bedrock of modern biology as the scientific theory of evolution is actually quite accurate. But for creationists to consider the phrase a compromise that helps their side is nothing short of amusing