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Florida schools will get evolution in theory form

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Florida officials voted adding evolution to required statewide curriculums coursework, but only after some wrangling with religious conservatives. And we know it’s always a good idea to have religious conservatives butt their heads into education (Sarcasm detector explodes).

Bending to pressure from religious conservatives, the State Board of Education on a 4-3 vote included the “theory” language as part of a retooling of the state’s science standards for public school education.

The compromise would require teaching that Darwin’s proposal — that natural selection has driven the evolution of many species from a few common ancestors over billions of years — has yet to be conclusively proven.

“To say there is no debate is ridiculous,” said board member Phoebe Raulerson. “Then why are we here today?”

The panel includes the word “evolution” in state science standards for the first time, but it is relegated to a place among a host of ideas, including Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. By contrast Isaac Newton’s law of gravity is taught as undisputed fact.

Link to the article (Courtesy of Slashdot)

Photo taken by kevindooley

Stellarium - Open Source Astronomy Software

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Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

Imagine everything that’s great about Google Earth but pointing at the sky. Available free for Linux, OSX and Windows.

Las Vegas Luxury in Small Scale

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Total Lunar Eclipse Tonight - Next One will be in 2010

What a cool way to start our blog with an inaugural post about the Total Lunar Eclipse going on right now (We are in the Eastern time zone). Space.com has all the details including an explanation of what an eclipse is, and the times it will effect area of the earth. I will try to find photos to post. My attempt with my Canon 20D did not go so well… clouds kept blurring the photo.