oh yeah, that was an intelligent statement
Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.
Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.
"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.
Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.
The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.
"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.
Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.
"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."
The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.
It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.
The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."
The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."
The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.
The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.
Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.
The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.
"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.
The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."
The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.
Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.
Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.
Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.
New books will be distributed next summer.
State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.
"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"
State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.
"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.
State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.
"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."
Watch those senate confirmation hearings and if you publicly state your beliefs and sincerity you are vetted - crucified ... there is supposed to be no religious - ideological special interest test or religious PLEDGE for office and now the supreme court has established them ... abortion - pornography - evolution - gun control - racial - sexual preferences especially !
oh yeah, that was an intelligent statement
You are writing the above tongue-in-cheek right?
Please explain the origins of sex according to evolution.
in their world, God must act directly from time-to-time to "fix" His creation, insert a species here, or take one out there.
No, He is just concerned with His creation as He says in the Bible.
So what is the atheist interpretation of how RNA learned to read the abstract DNA code? Was it sent to a public school?
Like you, I've drifted around within the agnostic spectrum, but continued to believe that nobody who claims to know for sure that there is or is not a God has a clue. For sure, God shouldn't be telling people to sabotage science teaching, or to get out there and lie their keisters off for him.
Actually I don't either. I do think that God is omnipresent in that the world is entirely a gift of His being, but I'm doubtful about omnipotence and omniscience. It seems to me that these attributes are incompatible with a personal God and even with God's perfection. God would be the ultimate knower, but I suspect He is also the ultimate learner, and is experiencing His own being in new ways through the evolution of the universe. God's knowledge must be profound and supreme, but not so that He is incapable of experiencing novelty and discovery.
If you read Snelling carefully, you will see that the material being measured can be totally changed based on the history of the rock (even have measured material ADDED) Post #1313 clearly shows why dating methods are so TOTALLY unreliable that they should not be used at all. Clearly dating results should not be used if one truely cares for dating accuracy. Not only are the starting condidions of rock under test unknown , (we cannot know the history of the rock, since we weren't there when the rock formed), it is also true that what the rocks go through can ADD or subtract relevant measurable material. Snelling clearly points this out
It is clear that these methods are used by evolutionists because they love the results...It doesn't matter to these "objective scientists" that the dates shouldn't be trusted "It's just gotta be old", says the hopefull evolutionist.
Hi Alamo-Girl, thanks for your thoughts on the subject. You are certainly not alone in this opinion. However, I do not believe God would have had the creation account written from a perspective of time He only understands. Clearly the context of Gen makes it clear to me the the writer was talking 24 hour days. Additionally, why would God have something written that had a totally different meaning then what is read in the text? If God wanted to say a billion years, I strongly believe He would have had the writer clearly state a billion years.. Not only that, Jesus makes it clear how the time frames should be understood by his own statement on the subject.
oh yeah, that was an intelligent statement
I'm puzzled by your response to Piltdown_Woman. You don't think species have been inserted or deleted? These figures are off the top of my head, but there are over a quarter million species indentified from fossil remains, and only about one percent of those are also known as living species. There must be millions of more species not preserved, discovered or identified as fossils. Where do you think they are all hiding out if they were not deleted?
I don't believe you answered my question. If they are so inaccurate, why do dating methods on a group of index fossils from a paleontological age so closely match? These fossils are from vastly different environments spread around the globe, and they each have been subject to varying amounts of these outgassings, presumably. How can fossil datings match so closely if this is such a large effect?
Even if that statement were not b.s., it still wouldn't matter. There is plenty of evidence that the world is ancient without radiometric dating. This was universally recognized by creationist geologists well before Darwin published The Origin. The young earth nonsense is a modern innovation of biblical literalists that doesn't even pass the muster of early 19th Century science, let alone that of the 21st.
Why am I not surprised?
You keep referring to this great "Christian community" as somehow proving creationism.
Don't recall that I used the fabulous "Christian Community" argument in proving creationism....care to point me to this post?
Just because individuals, brainwashed in churches with creationist religious doctrine, obtain a college degree in Theology, does not prove that what they were taught is "true".
Well, I certainly don't have a Theology degree, but I DO have an Electrical Engineering degree. To get that piece of paper, I had to take numerous college level courses in biology, chemestry, physics, and mathematics. As far as being "brainwashed", I'd like to refer to it as having my brain "cleansed in Truth".
There ya go, that is how it looks from our side, but ya see, we have an advantage, we can look at the evidence for ourselves, we can pick the fossils up, we can go into a genetics lab and talk to ACTUAL scientists doing experiments. We can SEE it.
Goodie...you can talk to other biased "scientists", hoping beyond hope, to find something, ANYTHING, that will prove their illogical theory. Sadly, they have failed.
You on the other hand have taken someones word, 4th 5th, 100th hand that A: the bible is the literal word of god and B: it is PERFECT.
No, I have read the testomony of many fine men and women on subjects like the creation, the resurrection, etc. Now I look around all around me and say, "Gee, it's so obvious that we have a Creator". I'm thankfull for that.
Well, it ain't perfect, it contradicts itself just in the first chapter, if ANYONE other then a religious theologian took a look at your bible from a neutral viewpoint as in they have never heard of it, nor have ever seen it, you would get one shocking surprise.
Point out this alleged, specific, "contridiction" so we can all discuss it.
There is NO evidence that creation happened the way it says in Genesis, the ONLY evidence you have is the bible.
The evidence is a clear as the eyes you have between your nose.
It is called CIRCULAR reasoning, you can get away with that in religion, but NOT science.
No, I start with God and simply observe what's around me. You evolutionist, however, start with some wild assumption and then try to somehow fit the evidence into said wild theory. That is truely Circular reasoning. The fact is your bias gets in the way of your objectivity.
Evolution is science, whether YOU like it or not, and TENs of thousands of scientists agree with me, and 10's of thousands of fundamentalists agree with you.
Since evolution cannot stand up to the scientific method, it is NOT science. I know you wish it to be. No matter how many biologists belong to the Church of Evolution, evolution is just another religion.
Hmm, so on science, who is the authority? Scientists, or a bunch of Religious fundamentalists? Tough call there big guy.
Insults aside, I know you like to chant, "evolution is science", but no matter how many times you, or other "scientists" chant it doesn't change the facts that apply to the evolution religion. . Sorry about that, "Big guy".
Aye, there's the rub!
Gives you a real flavor for the education we'll be getting if this freak show ever takes over.
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