Posted on 12/11/2002 6:28:08 AM PST by A2J
By WILL SENTELL
wsentell@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau
High school biology textbooks would include a disclaimer that evolution is only a theory under a change approved Tuesday by a committee of the state's top school board.
If the disclaimer wins final approval, it would apparently make Louisiana just the second state in the nation with such a provision. The other is Alabama, which is the model for the disclaimer backers want in Louisiana.
Alabama approved its policy six or seven years ago after extensive controversy that included questions over the religious overtones of the issue.
The change approved Tuesday requires Louisiana education officials to check on details for getting publishers to add the disclaimer to biology textbooks.
It won approval in the board's Student and School Standards/ Instruction Committee after a sometimes contentious session.
"I don't believe I evolved from some primate," said Jim Stafford, a board member from Monroe. Stafford said evolution should be offered as a theory, not fact.
Whether the proposal will win approval by the full state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on Thursday is unclear.
Paul Pastorek of New Orleans, president of the board, said he will oppose the addition.
"I am not prepared to go back to the Dark Ages," Pastorek said.
"I don't think state boards should dictate editorial content of school textbooks," he said. "We shouldn't be involved with that."
Donna Contois of Metairie, chairwoman of the committee that approved the change, said afterward she could not say whether it will win approval by the full board.
The disclaimer under consideration says the theory of evolution "still leaves many unanswered questions about the origin of life.
"Study hard and keep an open mind," it says. "Someday you may contribute to the theories of how living things appeared on earth."
Backers say the addition would be inserted in the front of biology textbooks used by students in grades 9-12, possibly next fall.
The issue surfaced when a committee of the board prepared to approve dozens of textbooks used by both public and nonpublic schools. The list was recommended by a separate panel that reviews textbooks every seven years.
A handful of citizens, one armed with a copy of Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species," complained that biology textbooks used now are one-sided in promoting evolution uncritically and are riddled with factual errors.
"If we give them all the facts to make up their mind, we have educated them," Darrell White of Baton Rouge said of students. "Otherwise we have indoctrinated them."
Darwin wrote that individuals with certain characteristics enjoy an edge over their peers and life forms developed gradually millions of years ago.
Backers bristled at suggestions that they favor the teaching of creationism, which says that life began about 6,000 years ago in a process described in the Bible's Book of Genesis.
White said he is the father of seven children, including a 10th-grader at a public high school in Baton Rouge.
He said he reviewed 21 science textbooks for use by middle and high school students. White called Darwin's book "racist and sexist" and said students are entitled to know more about controversy that swirls around the theory.
"If nothing else, put a disclaimer in the front of the textbooks," White said.
John Oller Jr., a professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, also criticized the accuracy of science textbooks under review. Oller said he was appearing on behalf of the Louisiana Family Forum, a Christian lobbying group.
Oller said the state should force publishers to offer alternatives, correct mistakes in textbooks and fill in gaps in science teachings. "We are talking about major falsehoods that should be addressed," he said.
Linda Johnson of Plaquemine, a member of the board, said she supports the change. Johnson said the new message of evolution "will encourage students to go after the facts."
Thought you looked familiar!
Ah, the old LBB definition of evolution -- that critters evolve into more complex critters -- which has absolutely no bearing on the real definition of evolution -- that critters change to fit their environments.
What you are proposing (as are the idiots from TalkOrigins that claim that the definition of evolution is 'a change in allele frequency') is that evolution only works in a lateral manner, rearranging the species without adding anything new to them. Now if you wish to claim that evolution has nothing to do with the creation of new higher forms of life then you must admit that man being a higher form of life than all others must have been created by God.
Of course you will not say such a thing. You are just dishonestly evading the question put to you by saying 'that is not evolution'. Of course it is. Without new genes, new additional DNA the descent of man from bacteria cannot be explained. Let's see you deny that evolution says that.
What we see here again is the usual dishonest form of argument of evolutionists. What we see here is the reason why they do not dare to state what the theory of evolution is - because they want to dance about and say when cornered that the refutation is not what evolution is all about.
Then I should be overwhelmed. But I'm not. It may help in understanding my attitude to know that I've been actively participating in these evolution/creationism threads for more than three years, and the ID arguments and authors have been rather exhaustively dealt with. I find their claims lacking, at least at this stage. But as I said, when they produce some truly persuasive evidence, I'll be there.
You sort of came off as hounding another FReeper about the question of the age of the earth (when no one really knows for sure and there are plenty of good arguments for both sides -- sheesh!), so I've got a question for you, posed by someone named Alan Sandage: "How is it that inanimate matter can organize itself to contemplate itself?"
The hounding you mention is another thing that has a long tail. That poster has been active in these threads for a considerable time. He repeatedly claims that "all of science" disproves evolution, that "all Nobel prize" winners (in the relevant categories) disprove evolution, that he has successfully refuted all claims against creationism, etc. So it's not unreasonable to press him for his opinion on the age of the earth.
As for the question put by Sandage, I can't answer it any better than he could. We still have a lot to learn.
Evolution is about biology. The age of the earth is about geology. The age of the earth is irrelevant to a biological discussion and hence a discussion of evolution. As usual with the evolutionists, they go off topic whenever they are losing. It is a form of spamming the thread.
And of course you started that stupid smear campaign due to my daring to ask questions about evolution which neither you nor your friends can answer. As I have stated DIRECTLY TO YOU numerous times, I will not answer your irrelevant question. Your dishonesty in not even addressing your post to me is self evident. You are a lamer gratuitously attacking me because I have thoroughly disproven your atheistic/materialistic, pseudo-scientific evolutionary nonsense. The proof is all over this thread from the inability of any of the evolutionists here in showing that abiogenesis is even remotely possible within what science knows to be absolutely true, to the inability of any of the evolutionists here to refute the following posts made some 400 posts ago:
Neither you nor any evolutionists has ever given proof that a single species has transformed itself into another more complex species. If I am wrong, let's see the proof. Come up with a real arguement that slams evolution can you do it?
There are many. The bacterial flagellum is one. The program by which a single cell at conception turns into a 100 trillion cells at the time of birth - with every single cell of the exactly proper kind in the exactly proper place is another. There are many more which have been scientifically proven, but these two should keep you busy for a while.
988 posted on 12/23/2002 7:07 AM PST by gore3000
'Gradual loss of egg laying' is more easily said than done. You must remember that the you need to provide nutrition to the developing organism throughout its development - as well as after the birth until it can feed itself. To say that all these changes can occur simultaneously is totally ludicrous and you have disproven nothing. Let's see an article describing how this change occurred in detail. Can you find any? I doubt it because this is one of the things evolutionists never speak of.
989 posted on 12/23/2002 7:14 AM PST by gore3000
And where did you debunk the flagellum besides in your own mind?
As to the eye spot, your article only says that because it happened more than once then therefore the eye spot could have occurred. It is not a refutation of the complex mechanism required for an eye spot.
BTW - a blog from Don Lindsay is proof of absolutely nothing. The guy cannot even give references for his nonsense.
991 posted on 12/23/2002 7:28 AM PST by gore3000
That none of you evolutionists can refute these scientific questions central to the theory of evolution, shows quite well that your adherence to this theory has nothing to do with science but to your arrogant atheistic proclivities.
Certainly a more pertinent question to the issue at hand than "How old is the earth?" Press the above with evolutionists (whose adherents do not dare allow such questions to be posed in school textbooks) and they're stuck with more faith than a simple Christian.
If, for example, the universe is infinitely old, then chance could have produced anything.
I suspect you don't believe the universe is infinitely old, so tell us what evidence you would rely on to determine the age of the earth.
What kind of evidence would you use to determine the age of the earth.?
Oh, you can measure gravity, sure. I'm willing to bet that you have not performed torsion-balance tests for the moon, however, or for the galaxy.
Very funny. Still trying to deny the validity of gravity. Still trying to foster confusion. If gravity were different on Earth and in space we would not have been able to find Pluto by using its effect on the orbits of other planets to find it. For someone who claims to be a scientist, you are very dishonest. If scientific laws, and gravity is a law throughout the Universe, were different in different places science would be impossible. But you are more a materialist than a scientist so you need to deny that there is any order in the Universe.
Regardless of your attempt at confusion, gravity has been scientifically observed and has been scientifically verified and is an obvious fact of life. Your theory of evolution, for which you deny the basis of your alleged profession, has no such proof, in fact has no scientific proof at all because it has never been observed and something which has never been observed is not science.
Quite an admission for someone who when the scientific evidence is totally against them keeps on claiming that an atheistic solution not showing intelligent intervention is still possible after all of scientific theories, experiments and observations for over a hundred years have verified that the Universe is not random and that abiogenesis is impossible.
pronounced brane-wosh
To subject someone to the techniques of forcible indoctrination. such as only allowing one viewpoint to be viewed, taught or read, at the exclusion of all others.
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