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."
The bigger problems is that even if it were true it would be irrelevant. What if Einstein renounced relativity on his deathbed? So what? What if Edison renounced the lightbulb? Again, so what? The creationoids imagine that a scientific theory is of no more substance than the mumbling of some swami, and if the swami later renounces, then it all vanishes -- a dumb joke on his foolish followers. But a scientific theory stands on its own, as an interpretation of the evidence it explains. The deathbed mental condition of the originator of the theory is not important to the quality of the theory.
I made no such equivallent claim as gore3000, and I'm not sure what your intended point it, but I can tell you're feeling awfully clever and proud of yourself so I'll indulge you.
Excuse me? What I have said is in complete agreement with chester - EVOLUTION HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED.
The definition of evolution is a change in alelle frequency in a population over time.
Totally false and I showed it to be false many posts back. To get from a bacteria - which has some 600 genes and some 1 million DNA base pairs to a man - which has some 30,000 genes and some 3 billion DNA base pairs you need to CREATE new genetic information. Shuffling what you have around will not do. You know that, the liars at TalkOrigins know that. Any person with common sense knows that. What your definition is is a cowardly attempt at not stating what the theory of evolution is because just about all of it has been thoroughly discredited already.
The theory of evolution attempts to describe the mechanisms behind the change. Genetic variation of individuals within a population confers unequal survival probabilities upon those individuals. The least successful genetic combinations for a particular environment will be much less prevelant in the 2nd generation of a population. As has often been said, "The race goes not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."
More garbage. Selection destroys genetic information. For evolution to be true you need to create genetic information. Natural selection is a totally false premise for evolution and it shows quite well how unthinking and unscientific the followers of evolution are. No matter how you slice it, no matter how much rhetoric you spew, 4-2 does not equal 6.
Humans have witnessed changes in populations. Note the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Speciation has been observed most dramatically in the form of several varieties of ring species. And humans themselves have altered a population of Russian silver foxes by the application of simple selection pressure for desirable traits.
Again this is not evolution. No new genetic information has been created. All that has happened is that old genetic information has been altered - and the new strain of the bacteria is less viable under normal conditions than the mutated bacteria.
BTW - ring 'species' are not separate species and the foxes are not a different species either. As I keep reminding you, for evolution to be true you need additional genetic information and these examples do not give proof of it. In fact the so called 'scientists' who wrote about the ring species did not even bother to see if the 'ends' of the ring could mate and produce viable progeny. Their so-called 'research' is absolute bunk.
Phizzy.
According to this standard, evolution would rank as a "superb" theory.
Okay, in that case the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum most have been refuted, the evolution of life birth gradually from an egg must have been proven, the gradual development of the eye must have been proven, all the Cambrian phyla must have been shown to have ancestors, favorable mutations must be happening all the time, species must be transforming themselves slowly before our eyes, etc., etc., etc.
Care to give the scientific proof for ANY of the above happening according to evolutionary theory?
If you post it without attribution (for which a link suffices), then yes, you did. Your screen name came right after the words.
to assume that I so intended
I assumed nothing of the sort, as your intentions were irrelevant.
Excuse me?
It's called "Reading for Comprehension." Look into it.
Don't be ridiculous. We cannot even tell where the center of the Universe is, let alone 'see' when the first atoms were formed.
Wouldn't someone have tried it?
Whoever made the Piltdown fraud cooked spcimens in iron (or magnesium?) compounds to make them appear older.
Some how those words ring hollow from a guy whose seen fit to spout off about universal gravitation, the perihelion of mercury experiment, the dark matter experiment, the forces of quantum gravity, fossil finds, the four-color theorem, "Principia Mathematica," an aligator fry, Behe's predictions, stellar evolution, continental drift, rotational inertia under gravity, helping professions, Lysenkoism, Ken Miller, speciation in action as a gradual attenuation of interbreeding capacity between populations, stellar evolutionary theory, the Big Bang theory, Bode's law of planetary formation, teacup poodles, mastiffs, paleo-meteorology, galactic astro-physics, the scummy water in your yard, and horse manure, all before this thread was half way to the place it is now.
Please do not "lecture" me about staying on point. Only tell me how evolution, with all its guesses as to how so many species have come about, holds more water than the simple explanations contained in the Bible.
Nope he did not refute my statement that gravity is a fact with tons of observation behind it and that evolution has never been observed:
For a supposed astronomer you do not even know your terms. It is called the LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION it is far more than a theory. As I told physicist, by denying something which you know to be true you are being dishonest. If you are a radio astronomer you know that gravity has been observed. If you do not know it, then you are not a radio astronomer, so either way you are being dishonest.
What he did do was go into a long history of the theory of gravity which is totally irrelevant to what the discussion was about. This is the typical tactic of evolutionists - go into a long description of something that is true but not to the point and call it a refutation.
You denied it trying to create confusion over my point that gravity is an undeniable fact and that evolution has never been observed. Read them again.
Are you saying you know of no evidence to support the assumption that gravity has any design or purpose? I'm not trying to trap you here. I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying. Thanks.
The argument between Christian and evolutionists is not about religion. Essentially there can be no arguments about faith. The argument is whether the 'world model' of Christianity or the 'world model' of evolutionists is scientifically correct. There are many reasons why the model of evolution is scientifically false. Any theory which proposes random or stochastic methods as the source of anything is ipso facto unscientific. Science is about order in the Universe. With each scientific discovery we peel away the unknown and with it the randomness on which evolution relies on. Note that I said discover. The order in nature is discovered, it is already there. It is not manufactured, it already exists. Further, science is not about words. It is about facts. The language does not matter, it is the facts that matter. To call science mere words really shows contempt for your alleged profession.
Hello? Is there something illogical about this claim? If so, what? Hello? "Civilization to swamp, come in please."
This is not my definition. Even Creationists use it. From here:
Dishonestly turning around the whole meaning of the quote by deleting the words I have underlined. What this shows Condorman, is that you are a liar and very dishonest.
The Evolution Definition Shell Game
The term evolution often takes on several meanings in today's scientific circles, often in very misleading ways. A 1999 undergraduate college textbook on Biology states: "Evolution is a generation-to-generation change in a population's frequencies of alleles or genotypes. Because such a change in a gene pool is evolution on the smallest scale, it is referred to more specifically as microevolution"
The only thing that your quote proves is that S.J. Gould was a liar. Since evolution has never been observed (least of all by him) it is neither a fact nor a scientific theory. Verbiage and rhetoric are not facts, are not evidence, are not observations. You need facts, evidence and observations for a theory to be legitimately called 'scientific'.
Yes. As we (by which I mean "I") currently understand it, gravity is a manifestation of space-time curvature.
(You space geeks please feel free to correct me.)
Hello? Is there something illogical about this claim? If so, what?
I HAVE NO IDEA!!! So far you have refused every request to support it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.