# Devolution in Florida

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devolution-in-florida/448124>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 5, 2008, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devolution-in-florida/448124 "2008-05-05T13:54:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devolution-in-florida/448124/21 "2008-05-05T19:58:02Z")

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[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]  
The strong tourism lobby also opposes it, since the widespread appearance of a race of creepy fish-men might result in a drop in both visitors and total tourism spending.  
[/QUOTE]

Yet it doesn’t seem to have hurt Massachusetts.

😉

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**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devolution-in-florida/448124/22 "2008-05-05T20:37:16Z")

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[QUOTE=Hypno-Toad]  
If he can provide any _valid_ evidence or data other than, “It’s in the bible” then I will consider it. Science is all about providing proof.  
[/QUOTE]

But this would violate the proposed law. If a student was a creationist, then by giving him poor marks for an answer from the Bible would be violating that portion of the law that I highlighted.

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**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devolution-in-florida/448124/23 "2008-05-06T00:39:05Z")

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Well, I, too am not too sure the intent of the proposed bills. On one hand, it sounds innocuous enough. On the other hand, it sounds completely like it may be completely useless, unless the intent is to backdoor a way in to teach ID. But, if it is, it seems all too buried for me to fathom.

> [@CS/HB1483 Original language](#):
>
> 48 (5) A public school student in the state’s K-12 school  
> 49 system may be evaluated based upon his or her understanding of  
> 50 course materials, but may not be penalized in any way because he  
> 51 or she subscribes to a particular position or view regarding  
> 52 biological or chemical evolution.

If the curricula is not to change (which the bill claims), then the student being evaluated on the course material will still be evaluated on his or her understanding of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, simply not penalized for believing something else. (IOW, their grade is based on showing understanding of ToEbNS, even if they don’t believe it.) If you’re an empathetic science teacher, you should be grading along those lines.

What the language of the bill suggests to me is that it is attempting to fix a discrimination against teachers teaching evolution but being denied tenure, etc. If that’s the case, I actually think that this bill might have been of use. However, given that the US Supreme Court has basically said that t ToEbNS is the only legal game in town, I can’t see how the proposed language is useful other than to somehow allow a backdoor for ID teaching through the “full range of scientific views” wording. However, given that the courts have repeatedly upheld that the full range of scientific views on the subject eliminates ID and Creationism, the whole language seems just useless.

So, I’m only happy that this failed because it seems to be doing nothing more than muddying the waters and providing no benefit to anyone.

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