Yesterday, Florida's state board of education felt obliged to stick the word "theory" into their description of the teaching of evolution. See this Reuters article for all the moronic details. Of course, evolution is a theory (i.e. well corroborated by many years of scientific testing & explanatory of a wealth of biological phenomena), so I don't have a problem with this definition per se, beyond exasperation with the motivations for its inclusion. I expect we'll see another lawsuit (a la Dover, PA) regarding this move, but in the meantime, it's an opportunity for science teachers to elucidate the difference between "theory" as it's used in science versus "theory" as it's used in casual conversation. So, the battlefield for teaching proper science shifts from Kansas to Pennsylvania to Florida. What would the Flying Spaghetti Monster say?

Labels: evolution, news, politics