Florida Citizens for Science

No travel for evangelist, judge says

Pensacola evangelist and tax protester Kent Hovind won’t be lecturing on creationism in South Africa next month, prompting an irate letter from a sponsor of the trip to the prosecutor.

U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers this week denied Hovind’s motion to lift travel restrictions pending his Sept. 5 trial on 58 federal charges that include evading nearly $470,000 in employee taxes.

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In an e-mail to a reporter, Andre L. Immelman, CEO of PowerMinistries, the South African group sponsoring Hovind’s trip, said South Africans “do not react very nicely to disappointment” and ministry members “will be seeking asylum in the U.S.” if his trip is canceled.

In a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Heldmeyer, Immelman wrote that 21 people have been involved during the past nine months in planning for Hovind to travel to South Africa. He said Hovind was scheduled to speak on 26 separate occasions to more than 18,000 people.

“In what has been a very controversial decision here, our new democratic government is poised to introduce evolution into the public school system in the stead of creation after some 47 years of creationism practice,” Immelman wrote. “To say that this debate has sharply served to divide the country is really no understatement at all.”

In other words, this is good news all around.

More classes hike outside

DELTONA — Under the blistering heat of a July afternoon, several public-school teachers hiked onto a sandy trail at Lyonia Preserve for some learning time of their own.

They hunched over to watch ants and their predators, the ant lions. They compared the different colors and different layers of sand at the preserve and they examined a cochineal, an insect that had been used as a red dye.

Volusia naturalist Bonnie Cary had pulled the insect off a prickly-pear cactus. “Kids are like magnets to cactus,” Cary said. “A great activity is to compare a cactus to leafy plants, or to talk about the adaptations that make the cactus able to grow.”

Some 21 teachers had their students and the upcoming school year on their minds as they visited three Volusia parks as part of the Volusia County environmental-legacy project.

Through this program, more than 500 students are expected to visit the parks, not only to study the wildlife and the habitats, but to undertake projects and bring elements of nature into their other classes, said Louise Chapman, the school district’s coordinator for the environmental service learning program.

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DeLand High School teacher Amy Monahan said the park trips will complement her science classes.

“The hands-on experience will be more relevant to the students,” Monahan said. “They need to come and see what an estuary looks like and they need to see how a fish grows and lives in an estuary.”Several teachers also saw the potential for nature to teach other lessons for the students.

Kathleen Wood, a teacher at Community Learning Center West, a school for seventh- to 10th-grade at-risk students, saw firsthand how trips to Bicentennial Park last year helped boost some of her troubled students.

“One girl who was a street tough, she learned how to listen for birds and to recognize their calls,” Wood said. “I had students who could barely write at the start and by the end of the year, they wrote long essays about their trips.

“The kids took such pride in their butterfly garden,” she said. “It was amazing.”

Flagler teacher gets kids to dig archaeology in Belize

“It was a rush going through there,” said the Flagler Beach teen, recalling his trip deep inside a Belize cave, part of a summer archaeological program for local students. “Even if there wasn’t any Mayan history inside, just being in the cave was amazing … there were all kinds of formations.”

The journey was a far cry from Bentley’s earlier summer plans — landscaping homes around Flagler County to save up for college.

The journey into the cave — named Actun Tunichil Muknal — was just a small fraction of the experiences Bentley and four classmates had on a two-week archaeology trip to Belize earlier this month. They also helped excavate centuries of history hidden underground.

Next year, Bentley’s high school teacher, Mat Saunders, is hoping more students from local school districts will join the trip.

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Flagler Palm Coast junior Amber Tetley, 16, said she learned practical things, like how to distinguish a rock from an artifact, and how to catalog the objects. Then there was the experience of uncovering pottery made more than 1,000 years ago, or seeing the tiny living space that was a Mayan home.

“Even in documentaries, it was nothing like being there in person,” she said.

For Tetley and Bentley, it also solidified their interest in history and archaeology. Bentley plans to start at Stetson University this fall with a major in anthropology.

Bentley said one signal of his interest in the field came when he uncovered a religious tool called an obsidian bloodletter, made out of volcanic glass. He recognized it from a book he’d read because the tool was used for sacrificial ceremonies.

“I felt like I had a link with the past,” he said. “When you find something, it really brings you in touch with what happened there.”

Do you think there might be a connection at some point to public school science education?

Biotech was the topic of conversation Monday at Florida Atlantic University’s MacArthur Campus in Jupiter. The Florida Life Science Summit — which celebrated the state’s entrance into Ernst & Young’s list of “Top 10 of Biotechnology States” — drew about 200 business, economic and educational leaders from throughout the Treasure Coast and other parts of the state.

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Along the Treasure Coast — where low-wage positions prevail — biotech development has been considered key to helping diversify the economy. With California-based Scripps Research working out of a Jupiter campus and talk of a California-based Burnham Institute expansion into Port St. Lucie, economic leaders are marketing the tri-county region as “Florida’s Research Coast” to lure more high-tech jobs.

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In addition to research, Scripps Florida Vice President Harry Orf said they have spent the past year establishing scientific seminars, increasing partnerships and setting up new science programs and summer research internships for area students and teachers.

“We’re spending Florida dollars on Florida personnel,” he said.

Michael Ruse wrote a piece for the Tallahassee Democrat recently concerning evolution and the conflict with religion. Check it out when you have a moment.

The subject of this news story involves use of lockers in school, but this bit about online textbooks caught my eye.

This is the 21st century. Students should have the option of accessing their textbooks electronically, online or by CD-ROM. That would give them the option of leaving their books at home or in school, ending the daily shuttle of heavy loads. It could also make more textbooks available to more students, if some opt to use only the electronic version, freeing up hard copies for others.

It’s not a new idea. Every time textbook committees meet with publishers in Flagler County, for example, electronic books are part of the discussion. Publishers have traditionally resisted going that route, fearing that it would cut into the profits of their $4 billion-a-year industry. But things are changing. This year, Flagler County adopted a new “cycle” of science textbooks for the next six years. Every textbook will be sold to the county with a license, or password, allowing students to access the whole book online. CD-ROMs will also be provided for students who don’t have Internet access. And, for students who don’t have computers at all, the district is pushing a program it developed a few years ago in which students build their own computers and take them home, at no expense.

Tax-Evasion Charges Baseless, Says Ministry Leader

Hovind, who is known as “Dr. Dino,” says even though the 30 people who work for him are paid in cash, he is not a tax protestor and is not violating any laws.

“Nobody’s an employee, and they all know that when they come. They come, they work,” Hovind offers as an explanation. “The laborer is worthy of his hire — we try to take the purely scriptural approach. We do the best we can with helping people with their family needs. There are no employees here.”

Hovind claims his ministry does not have to “render unto Caesar” because it is not working for the government. “The bottom line is, our ministry has been in operation for 17 years,” he says. “We don’t have any employees, none.”

The ministry leader continues his explanation, saying he does not “own anything in the world” but has “dedicated everything to the Lord’s work.”

“I’ve taken a vow of poverty, which any minister can do,” Hovind says. “And everything I have here, everything I’ve ever earned in my life, has gone straight into God’s work. So we’re not breaking any laws. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Two years ago IRS agents raided Hovind’s home and Dinosaur Adventure Land to confiscate records. In the current situation, Hovind accuses federal agents of “grand jury shopping,” noting three previous grand juries filed to indict him. The case goes to trial September 5.

“Profound eternal questions”

He opened the session by improvising on hymns at the piano and concluded it by accompanying a sing-along on the guitar. In between, he delivered a compelling account of his unlikely conversion from atheism to evangelical Christianity.

The lanky, amiable platform personality wasn’t some traveling revivalist but one of the world’s leading biologists.

Francis S. Collins led the international Human Genome Project that mapped the 3.1 billion chemical base pairs in humanity’s DNA. He now directs the U.S. government program on applying that information to medical treatments.

He’s also emerged as a surprise advocate for faith and for its compatibility with science.

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He tells fellow evangelicals that opposition to evolution - whether the biblical literalism of creationists or “intelligent design” arguments - undermines the credibility of faith. He finds the first “fundamentally flawed” and warns that the second builds upon gaps in evidence that scientists are very likely to fill in the future, among other objections.

The audience of 200 at Williams gave Collins’ views a respectful reception, quite in contrast to a previous frosty reaction he got when he told a national meeting of Christian physicians the evidence for evolution is “overwhelming.”

Mounts brings sci-fi connection to ‘Creepy’ event

Mounts Botanical Garden staff horticulturist David Baker, whose nickname is “the mad botanist” because of his infatuation with the strange and unusual when it comes to plants, has been putting his obsessions on display this month in Creepy Connection, an evening of strolling, star gazing and science fiction horror films.For the next two Fridays, Mounts reopens its gardens at 5:30 p.m. for people to explore during cooler summer hours. At 7:30 p.m., Baker leads an indoor discussion about connections between plants and humans, culminating with the viewing of a related sci-fi horror movie from the 1950s and ’60s. For instance, last week’s discussion focused on fungi, followed by the 1963 film Attack of the Mushroom People.

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Scientists decry stem cell veto

President Bush’s veto of legislation that would ease federal limits on embryonic stem cell research is a setback for science in the United States, according to many researchers.

Robert Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon on behalf of the 60 U.S. research universities - including the University of Florida - the organization represents.

“By hobbling American stem cell scientists, this veto will leave the U.S. trailing research being performed elsewhere in the world,” Berdahl said.

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Dennis Steindler, a neuroscientist who heads the McKnight Brain Institute at UF, said the continuing, sometimes contentious debate over the appropriateness of embryonic stem cell research has been a huge distraction from the science.

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Steindler added, “It’s not just Florida that should be concerned about the potential of being able to recruit further stem cell researchers. It’s the United States of America.”

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Jeb Bush in call for Scots partnership

US PRESIDENT George Bush’s younger brother today called for more co-operation between Scotland and the US in a vital science industry.

Florida governor Jeb Bush is attending a conference in Edinburgh on life sciences.

The sector includes biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and biomedical technologies.

Governor Bush said: “The world is moving at warp speed and communicating is so easy there really is no excuse not to collaborate.”

The conference is taking place just after President Bush used his veto to block a controversial Bill which would have lifted a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Fund to advance math, science learning proposed

WEST PALM BEACH — A public-private endowment fund could boost teacher and student education in math and science and be used to increase salaries in an effort to keep teachers from leaving, Schools Superintendent Art Johnson told county commissioners Tuesday.

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Johnson, accompanied by Jody Gleason of the Palm Beach County Education Commission, said the coming of The Scripps Research Institute spurred the idea, as did listening to economists say the county is losing skilled workers.

South Florida museum may secure challenging show

The provocative museum show that has outraged Fort Lauderdale civic leaders and mesmerized Tampa viewers might yet make its way to South Florida.

“Bodies … The Exhibition” — which proffers 20 human cadavers and 260 internal organs and specimens — could arrive at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale.