With only days left before the Florida Board of Education meets Feb. 19 to consider new science standards that would require public schools to adopt an evolution-as-dogma approach, members of the Board have received good advice to correct this 10-year-document both from a drafter of the standards as well as persons on the outside. For the sake of our state, and especially for the sake of our children, let’s hope and pray the Board implements this advice.

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Having editorialized on this issue twice previously, I will not rehearse the details of the science standards that will require Florida’s teachers and students to accept as dogma Darwinian evolution without any acknowledgement of scientific criticisms and controversy. For further background on the debate, readers may consult my Dec. 6 and Feb. 7 editorials, as well as news coverage starting on page one this week and previous news coverage.

Correcting the proposed standards could be done easily by simply adopting language used by other states that acknowledge the scientific controversy about Darwinian evolution. I cited examples from Minnesota, New Mexico and South Carolina last week.

Although the education establishment has relied heavily upon numerous consultants, organizations and lobbyists outside of Florida in drafting the proposed standards, if the State Board of Education prefers to seek advice closer to home they need look no further than Fred Cutting, one of the members of the standards’ Framers’ Committee who has issued a “minority report” to the evolution-as-dogma approach.

Writing in The Tallahassee Democrat Feb. 4, Cutting expressed “deep concern” that the standards’ treatment of Darwinian evolution fails to meet its own requirement that rightly insists students must “recognize that the strength and usefulness of a scientific claim is established through scientific argumentation, which depends on the use of critical and logical thinking, and the active consideration of alternative scientific explanations to explain all the data presented.”

Affirming this approach, Cutting writes, “Somewhat inexplicably, however, there is no indicator in the proposed standards that applies this philosophy of science education to the teaching of evolution.

“We do not advance science by canonizing our predecessors but by challenging our successors. What challenge is there if we tell students ‘this is the only way to look at this issue’?” Cutting asks.

Rather than just complaining about the outcome, Cutting, a retired engineer, has offered quite reasonable alternative language to include in the standards that would blunt the evolution-as-dogma approach rife throughout the document: “Students should learn why some scientists give scientific critiques of standard models of neo-Darwinian evolution or models of the chemical origin of life.”

Cutting insists—as do virtually all of the critics of the treatment of evolution in the standards—that he opposes teaching religion in the classroom and is merely seeking the inclusion of scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution.

“There are serious scientific critiques of neo-Darwinism that deserve to be heard by students. This is a scientific debate, not a religious one,” he writes.

In fact, it is the advocates of the proposed standards who may properly be accused of religious-like dogmatism, tolerating no compromise and acknowledging no other views.

“It is a great improvement that the proposed standards teach students more about evolution,” writes Cutting. “But as currently written, four of the proposed standards take a dogmatic tone that does not reflect the true nature of science and dramatically overstates the degree of proof supporting neo-Darwinian evolution and theories of chemical evolution.”

Another critique from within the Sunshine State has been offered to the State Board of Education. Francis Grubbs, an educational consultant with the Gibbs Law Firm in Seminole, has written several memos to the Board, the most recent of which was released Feb. 5 (and can be read in full on the Witness Web site).

Grubbs finds that the final draft of the proposed standards has not improved the evolution-as-dogma approach and has offered a detailed critique of the standards’ treatment of evolution, including as early as the second grade. Grubbs also offers alternative language in every instance in the standards’ use of evolution-as-dogma approach.

Grubbs’ analysis is meticulous and it’s not possible to cite here each and every example of the standards’ reliance upon Darwinian evolution. Most egregious, however, is the “gigantic article of faith” in Big Idea 15 that asserts, “Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.”

He rightly asserts this statement “moves Florida’s science standards outside the realm of traditional science and enters instead into the discipline of philosophy as the construct for defining a worldview. Forcing the student to see all of life philosophically from one undefined and unexplained philosophical worldview—a worldview that affirms there is no god; that matter is either eternal or has spontaneously appeared from non-matter; that life has spontaneously generated from non-living matter with no purpose, no guidance, and no goal. All of these assumptions are philosophical and fall outside the parameters of science. This gigantic leap in the evolution of evolution moves the evolutionary hypothesis from the realm of science into a philosophical faith-based system.”

To correct this major flaw, Grubbs offers alternative language: “Microevolution is a scientific theory addressing any evolutionary change below the level of species, and is supported by substantial evidence from research findings and experimentations. Macroevolution is scientific hypothesis addressing all evolutionary change including the origin of life and the origin of species, and is seeking validation by scientific data, inferences and argumentation. Both of these evolutionary understandings provide basic concepts for study and understanding biology.”

One need not affirm macroevolution—as I certainly do not—to agree with Grubbs that his alternative is a responsible means of teaching this subject matter in our public schools, where is it neither constitutionally permissible nor wise to teach creationism or even, unfortunately, Intelligent Design.

It’s not too late for concerned Florida Baptists and other citizens to offer their views on this critical matter. The seven-member Florida Board of Education will vote on the new standards at its Feb. 19 meeting in Tallahassee. Citizens interested in expressing their views will find a listing of the members and contact information at the Florida Department of Education Web site: www.fldoe.org/board. Please speak now in behalf of amendments to the proposed science standards that acknowledge scientific controversy over the claims of Darwinian evolution.

As I did last week, I must note the irony that the proposed standards fail to meet even Darwin’s own instruction: “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.”

Whether the State Board of Education accepts the advice of Grubbs or Cutting, or uses language similar to other states’ science standards, let’s hope the Florida Board of Education agrees with Darwin in this instance.