Taylor County, Florida School Board Creationist Mark Southerland Speaks!
As mentioned on January 10, the school board of Taylor County, Florida passed a resolution opposing new science education standards that include the explicit teaching of evolutionary biology. One of the members of that school board is Mark Southerland; his email address is listed on the school district's contacts page and Casey Schmidt, a graduate student at the University of Florida, used that information to send Southerland a challenging email regarding his position on evolution. Schmidt was kind enough to forward a copy of Southerland's response to me with permission to reproduce it here. Schmidt's original email to Southerland can be read here.
Southerland's response is worth noting for several reasons, however, and it's that response I wanted to dissect to get a glimpse inside the mind of someone who wants "alternative theories" of the origins of biological diversity taught in public school science classrooms.
From: Mark Southerland [mailto: soho@gtcom.net]That the email was typed in all-caps is the first telling bit of information. Literate emails are not sent this way; most people have the common sense and experience with language to know that this is improper.
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 12:30 PM
To: Schmidt, Casey
Subject: Re: Evolutionary theory
LETS SEE NOW, YOU ARE A TEACHING ASSISTANT AND I CAN RESPECT YOUR OPINION, WHICH I DO NOT AGREE WITH- YOU MAY WANT TO CHECK OUT THIS WEB SITE - http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/ AND SEE HOW MANY SCIENTISTS DISAGREE WITH YOU-CHECK IT OUT YOU MAY START HAVING SOME OTHER VIEWS ON THIS SUBJECT-HOWEVER I WILL NOT CALL YOU AN IDIOT OR IGNORANT EVEN THOUGH I BELIEVE YOU MAY WELL BE. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME, MARK SOUTHERLAND-SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DISTRICT ONE- TAYLOR COUNTY FLORIDA.
More importantly, however, is the link that Southerland provides to support his position. Answers In Genesis doesn't just support teaching alternatives to biological evolution; they're an explicitly evangelical Christian organization that asserts literal six-day, young earth Creationism. From their mission statement:
Answers in Genesis is an apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry, dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively...And in a linked explanation of their mission:
...Believing in a relatively ‘young Earth’ (i.e., only a few thousands of years old, which we accept) is a consequence of accepting the authority of the Word of God as an infallible revelation from our omniscient Creator...It doesn't get much more explicit than that. If Mark Southerland is signaling his agreement with AiG, he's letting it be known that he is himself a young earth Creationist and wants Biblical literalism taught as a scientific theory. Southerland's "alternative" is to use public schools as forums for he teaching of his religious beliefs as if they were empirical realities supported by sceintific evidence. We see this time and again with those who want alternatives taught; they may use what they think are clever phrases like "intelligent design" or "the weaknesses of the theory of evolution," but what they nearly always mean by it is that they want the King James Bible used as a science textbook.
Southerland also conveniently glosses over the fact that the person who sent him the email states that he is "...a teaching assistant and research assistant at the University of Florida working on my PhD..." Southerland seizes upon the words "teaching assistant" without seeming to understand what the words mean. In fact, a teaching assistant working on his/her PhD could well be someone days away from obtaining it (although this isn't the case here). The "research assistant" should be a clue that the person who sent this email is engaged in hands-on investigation of his subject matter, and the "working on my PhD" bit means that this person has attained at least an undergraduate degree. Southerland doesn't particularly care about any of that and has no interest at all in discussing what research this person might be doing any further. After all, Southerland has made up his mind based on his religion and clearly nothing will change that. There is no evidence for any contrary viewpoint; it simply isn't possible.
That Southerland calls a PhD student at a Florida University "ignorant" and an "idiot" is also rather telling. Is this someone who should have anything to do with education in the state of Florida (or anywhere, for that matter)? Does Southerland tell students in Taylor County to avoid going to university in Florida because the state's institutions of higher learning are filled with idiots? In fact, the University of Florida probably has the best graduate program in biology in the state and is the most rigorous of all of the public universities. In Southerland's opinion, however, UF fosters ignorance and gives doctorates to unqualified people. Southerland, we might surmise, isn't much of a supporter of higher education in Florida. I wonder if he's even among the 9% of Taylor County residents who have an undergraduate degree.
A quick search of the Taylor County Chamber of Commerce website turns up a hit on Mark Southerland under the category of Carpet Sales/Installation:
South House FurnishingIt's a local business with a single location and nine employees, according to a company profile I searched. They also appear to sell some used furniture. All in all, there's nothing that evidences Southerland as having any post-secondary education in his background and, given that so few residents of Taylor County do and that Southerland runs a small business that sells and installs carpets, it's likely that he doesn't. The business has no website and so gives no particular information about its owner. All we can say is that Southerland has been running the business for 25 years, so he's not a kid and ought to know better than to send emails in all-caps. Does his business correspondence go out this way as well?
Mr. Mark Southerland
803 W. Main St.
Perry, FL 32347
850-584-6021
Southerland serves as a cautionary tale of how wrong things can go in school board elections. Here's support for the idea that the people who sit on school boards ought to be educated people who have a primary concern with education. Students who go to school must take exams; so should those who want to propose themselves as school board members. Such people should be held to some standard of competence that precludes ignorance from intruding on a public institution charged with disseminating knowledge. Carpet installers who don't support higher education, who send illiterate emails and who have an agenda of squeezing evidentiary science out of classrooms in favor of advancing their religious ideology shouldn't be involved with education in even the smallest of towns or counties — not even Taylor.
In a nutshell, Mark Southerland's presence on the school board as the representative for Taylor County School District 1 is part of what's wrong with education in Florida. The educational interests of the students of that county would be better served by representation by one of the carpets that Southerland sells than they are by the illiterate who installs them.
