Florida: Selling Crazy Since 1513

Florida has always seemed to attract an abundance of crazy. It all started in the 16th Century with Ponce de León roaming about in full armor in stifling Florida heat looking for the Fountain of Youth, a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. And 500 years later, crazy is still going strong.

Case in point. A bill that passed the Florida Senate this week would allow public school teachers to challenge evolution with "scientific information." Called the "Evolution Academic Freedom Act,'' the measure would prohibit school officials from punishing teachers who offer opposing views (such as intelligent design), but the bill loosely defines the permitted information to include "germane current facts'' and "data.'' All this despite the 2005 Dover Trial where a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled intelligent design is a religious theory.

So here's just a short list of woo that's now fair game in Florida science classes under this call for academic freedom:

Apollo moon landing hoax accusations
Astrology
Biblical scientific foreknowledge
Creation biology
Creationist cosmologies
Flood geology
Modern geocentrism
Intelligent design
Crop circles
Crystal healing
Dianetics
Dogon people and Sirius B
Erich Von Däniken
Face on Mars
Homeopathy
Immanuel Velikovsky
Lunar effect
Paranormal (Channeling, Dowsing, Electronic voice phenomenon, ESP, Levitation, Materialization, Psychic surgery, Séances, Psychokinesis, Spiritualism, Therapeutic touch)
Perpetual motion
UFOs
The Bermuda Triangle
Tutankhamun's curse
Graphology
Phrenology
Primal therapy
Subliminal perception
Quantum mysticism
Biorhythms
Faith healing
Hypnosis
Iridology
Magnetic therapy
Scientific racism
Feng shui
Reincarnation
Shroud of Turin
Zero-point energy
Kirlian photography

Bravo, Florida. Way to punish your children.