Florida Schools Might Soon Be Allowed To Teach Creationism And Climate Change Denial
This might sound crazy but some Florida politicians are pushing to pass a bill so schools and teachers can teach alternative theories to things such as climate change and evolution. The bill claims the current teachings are "controversial theories."
According to The Tampa Bay Times, the bill was filed at the state legislature and State Sen. Dennis Baxley (R) sponsored the bill because he said that schools need to have the ability to teach “different worldviews," and that current curriculum skews toward “uniformity” of thought.
Managing director Keith Flaugh of Florida Citizens Alliance, the organization who wrote the bill, stated that the proposed bill is a necessity for future curriculum because he believes Florida schools are teaching "political and religious indoctrination."
While the bill was actually filed last year, Flaugh is expecting a House version to be filed shortly. The current bill still has four committee assignments in the Senate before any further action can be taken to implement any sort of changes in the school systems.
This news comes as a shock to a lot of Floridians, who are now calling the curriculum change effort "dangerous" and "absurd," as many of the issues being protested are actually well-known and studied facts.
This is an absurd notion and a dangerous one! There are no alternatives to fact based science, and any time the nation ventures into fantasyland, we are endangering all life on the planet.
Climate change, for instance, has been studied time and time again and has always reached the same outcome: it's happening and has been happening since the beginning of time.
According to NASA, scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Their website states:
"The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years, there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization."
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The simple fact that the bill challenges well known and studied facts is what mostly seems to have people upset. Another Twitter user writes:
If a parent doesn't want their child to grow up learning facts and living in the world of reality, then home school them or put them in a fundamentalist religious based school. Don't try to force your ignorance on the rest of society.
Some are even comparing the concept to that of the Dark Ages:
"Florida bill would allow schools to teach alternatives to climate change and evolution"The Dark Ages are returning.
And to be completely fair, this Twitter user has a good point - there are private schools for this sort of teaching:
I’m pretty sure that’s what they make private schools for. How about some separation of church and state?
But not everyone is against it. Some are saying it's a good way to keep students open-minded:
This is awesome.. I hope it passes!
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While it is still widely unknown if the bill will pass, The Tampa Bay Times also reports that the Alliance’s priorities will have a better shot this year than they ever have because they managed to pass another bill in 2017 and have been gaining influence in the state over the last few years and meeting with Gov. DeSantis during his campaign. Flaugh also said the group has grown its mailing list from 20,000 people to 50,000 in the past 18 months.