Interesting Florida County Statistics
I have been neglecting to post much on the Florida science standards issue lately. One interesting study looks at the FCAT scores for students in counties supporting and opposing the standards. You can find the article here. Be sure to keep up with the action via the Florida Citizens for Science Blog.
Speaking of Florida Citizens for Science, I received an e-mail today which I will answer in more detail later, but which quoted the FLCFS site (Word .doc file):
. . . The supernatural cannot be measured or tested and so is not included in any science course. Additionally, there are many people with sincere religious belief who accept the theory of evolution. It needs to be made clear here that no student is asked to believe evolution. Rather, evolution is to be understood in the same way that the heliocentric solar system is understood.
This e-mailer then says: “A person of no faith surely posed the remark that the supernatural cannot be measured.” That’s astonishing, and shows a complete lack of understanding of theology, not to mention simply the meaning of words. If my correspondent can measure the supernatural he’s a bigger man than I am!
No, he’s a god! Job 38:4-5, Isaiah 40:12.
The prefix “super” does have a specific meaning. Usually I find the inability to understand it among the atheists I think of as “dogmatic” in their atheism, but rarely among the faithful. Wind analogies aside, most of us understand that as soon as you can measure the “supernatural” it is no longer “super” but simply “natural”.