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Ronda Storms Files Evolution Bill

Posted Mar 2, 2008 by Catherine Dolinski, Tribune Tallahassee Bureau

Updated Mar 3, 2008 at 07:58 AM

The evolution argument has officially reached the Florida Legislature, courtesy of Sen. Ronda Storms.

Storms, R-Valrico, filed a bill on Friday that would permit public schools teachers to present evidence in class that contradicts the theory of biological and chemical evolution. The “Academic Freedom Act” comes from activists who failed last month to convince the state Board of Education to write their proposal into the state’s new science teaching standard, which explictly requires the teaching of evolution.

Terry Kemple of Valrico, president of the Community Issues Council, was among the advocates who brought the “academic freedom” proposal before the board on Feb. 19 and said he “worked closely with the Senate sponsor to get the bill filed.” In a statement, Kemple said this weekend that “the evolution ‘sacred cow’ must be submitted to scrutiny in American education ...

“Finally teachers and students will have the opportunity to cover all the information regarding the theory of evolution,” he continued. “Until now a teacher who differentiated between micro evolution (observed changes over time within a species like a bacterium becoming resistant to antibiotics) and macro evolution (Darwin’s unproven theory that all varieties of animal life came from a one celled common ancestor) did so at the risk of his or her employment.”

Storms’ bill states that any information presented to students about the origins of life must be “scientific,” and not used to promote religious doctrine. Opponents, however, derided the proposal last month as religious indoctrination in the guise of scientific inquiry.

Asked after the ed board’s vote last month about the prospect of wading into the issue of evolution during the session, several GOP lawmakers expressed reluctance at best, if not outright opposition. As Rep. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, quipped at the time, “I thought we had evolved beyond that.”

But House Speaker Marco Rubio told the Florida Baptist Witness last month that the House “may have sufficient votes” for “academic freedom”-styled legislation.

“And for me, personally,” Rubio told the FBW, according to its Feb. 21 article, “I don’t want a school system that teaches kids that what they’re learning at home is wrong.”