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  2. The Discovery Institute Has Been Mucking Around in Florida

The Discovery Institute Has Been Mucking Around in Florida

By gregladen on February 6, 2008.

The nefarious Discovery Institute, the Creation Science think tank, is often secretive about its activities. It has not been entirely clear that they have been involved in the recent fight in Florida over the use of the word "evolution" and the teaching of mainstream, scientifically informed evolutionary biology, in public schools. Going with the interpretation of The Gradebook, the Discover Institute ...

acknowledged on its Evolution News & Views blog today that it provided information to Fred Cutting, the member of the standards-writing committee who recently submitted a minority report on the issue.

"Mr. Cutting inquired with us for information about solid evolution education, and we were happy to supply it, along with input on his draft Minority Report," the post says. "By the way," it continues, "we constantly receive inquiries from students, teachers, school board members and other educators from all around the United States who want information about how they can teach evolution in a more objective fashion, and we help out whenever we can."

[source]

The Grade Book also provides this discussion of the Cutting Report.

Mechanical engineer Fred Cutting, who sat on the committee that rewrote Florida's science standards, isn't satisfied with the section on evolution. He considers the section so "dogmatic," in fact, that the Pinellas County retiree has submitted a minority report to the State Board of Education for its consideration.

Cutting has been clearly linked to the Intelligent Design mob in the past, though he denies any connection with the idea at present.

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Creation Science
creationism
evolution
Intelligent Design
Science Education

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Florida Citicens for Science had this on Cutting from a story in 2006:

Cutting is 62 years old and has a strong background in science. He retired as a mechanical engineer from Honeywell in Pinellas County and has a master?s degree in engineering from the University of Wisconsin.

Once a year for the past four years, Cutting has found himself at Countryside High School in Clearwater during the Great American Teach-In, talking about ID to honors students.

"I've got the really good students, and they ask really good questions," he said. "I'm not teaching religion; I'm teaching, 'Let's think.'"

Cutting passes along not just an encouragment of intellectual curiosity but his reading of the evidence about how life came to be on Earth.

"It may not have been just the way the Bible story tells it, but I?m looking at it as a scientist, and it is pretty evident to me that there was an intelligent designer," he said. "It doesn?t say he was a Christian God, or anybody?s god, but just that he did exist. Anything else is just faith."

And, Cutting adds, why should evolutionists be allowed to dominate public schools with their "humanistic" faith?

www.flascience.org/wp/?p=292