Florida Citizens for Science

Prof. Joe Meert has an op-ed in the Independent Florida Alligator, ‘Intelligent design’ equal to giving up.

Should “intelligent design” be taught in schools? I say absolutely. It is an excellent topic for discussion in philosophy class or in a comparative mythology class.

Why does it not belong in a science class? “Intelligent design” is not science. It does not behave like science, and it does not produce like science. “Intelligent design” is a movement aimed at social and political reform hiding under the guise of science. The motivations of the “intelligent design” movement are clearly religious, and these religious implications were laid bare at the recent Scopes II trial in Dover, Pa., and in documents distributed by the “intelligent design” movement. “Intelligent design” found a loophole in the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court decision that struck down the teaching of creationism. They now want to use that loophole to insert a theocratically based social-reform agenda through a back door.

AL.com reports that Bay District School Board Chairman Ron Danzey has said that evolution is wrong and schools should teach “intelligent design”.

The superintendent there apparently says that they will continue to teach to the science standards.

David Park Musella of LiveScience.com reports that the State of Florida spent taxpayer dollars to test holy water as a cure for citrus canker.

Katherine Harris, then Florida’s Secretary of State—and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives—ordered a study in which, according to an article by Jim Stratton in the Orlando Sentinel, “Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test ‘Celestial Drops,’ promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its ‘improved fractal design,’ ‘infinite levels of order,’ and ‘high energy and low entropy.’”

[...]

The only accepted means of fighting the blight is the downing of affected trees and proper disposal of their remains.

But the Florida state government is frequently bombarded with new supposed cures and preventatives; most of them are not tested by the state with government funds. But in this one case, at least, it appears that an exception was made: six months were spent establishing testing protocols and, finally, testing Celestial Drops. In a letter to the state government, Wayne Dixon, the head of Florida’s Bureau of Entomology, Nematology, and Plant Pathology, reported that the “product is a hoax and not based on any credible known science.”

Theistic science appears to be a waste of taxpayer dollars.

An editorial in the Lakeland Ledger concerned Cheri Yecke, Florida’s new Chancellor of K-12 Education:

Published Saturday, November 5, 2005
Friends and Family

It turns out that the hiring of Cheri Yecke as chancellor of Florida’s public school system may have been a package deal.

In addition to Yecke, who makes $152,000 a year, the state also has hired her husband, Dennis, for a $102,000 job in the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. He’s making $5,000 more than his predecessor.

That’s convenient, since the Yeckes came to Florida from Minnesota, where each held upper-level state jobs. As Joe Follick of the New York Times Regional Newspapers Tallahassee bureau reported this week, Dennis Yecke’s hiring in Minnesota came with some controversy.

As in Florida, both were hired to serve under Republican governors. In Minnesota, Cheri Yecke was the top state education official and Dennis Yecke was hired for an $84,000 job as a deputy commissioner in the state’s economic-development agency — during a hiring freeze. Democrats charged Gov. Tim Pawlenty with nepotism, saying the governor was running “a friends and family program.”

But that’s Minnesota. Surely nobody in Florida would say anything so harsh, would they?

A news report in the Lakeland Ledger gives more details.

Update: “DarkSyde” at DailyKos gives even more information and commentary on the Dennis Yecke situation. A comment on that thread indicates that this pattern of behavior goes further back than Minnesota to a previous gig in Virginia.