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."
Hitler was no exception; he hated racial intermixing with the fervour of racism buttressed by religious conviction, because he felt that non-Aryans were not human, and in his words, marriage should produce children who are "images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape."37 In his mind, his "Final Solution" was no different from the kind of extermination program one might carry out against pest animals, and in a very real sense, his creationism led directly to his racism.Adolf Hitler's Religion. Note that footnote 31 gives a quote from Mein Kampf. All of this was discussed exhaustively a year or so ago in these threads.Creationists have long tried to portray Nazism as the end result of Darwin's evolution theory. But his writings make it very clear that while he accepts natural evolution as the origin of other races, he does not accept that he himself was the product of natural evolution. Since Darwin's theory of evolution makes no allowance for such ridiculous exceptions to the rule, it is quite clear that despite creationist claims to the contrary, Hitler did not understand or accept evolution theory. It is clear that he was, in fact, a creationist (albeit what we would ironically refer to as a "moderate" creationist today), who believed that while evolution does take place in the natural world, the Aryan race stood apart from nature, was created by God in his own image, and had been given dominion over the Earth.
It can't be very difficult for someone who has surveyed all Nobel Prize winning work and has declared that it all disproves evolution. An intellect of such sweeping power should be able to give us his answer. HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?.
Once again, the issue is not one of validity, but one of relationship. Even if creationism were pure fantasy, no one I know of has marched under its banner to exteriminate people. Communism, which has a strong relationship to evolutionism, does not have such a clean record.
Please document for me an instance where creationism itself is responsible for spawning, hosting, or cultivating a relationship with a hostile ideology.
As far as your historical assesment of Christianity, unless you claim yourself to be a Christian, I would prefer to give it less weight than a single neutron.
Just goes to show that a little false ideology goes a long way. Thanks for letting me know.
I've exploded this myth in post 1973 and 1997. Why to you persist in this error?
Please document for me an instance where creationism itself is responsible for spawning, hosting, or cultivating a relationship with a hostile ideology.
See post 2001. Clear as day.
Assume for the sake of argument that what you claim is true. Assume for a moment that there is a strong relationship between Darwinian evolution and communism - communists love Darwin to death, and long to bear his children, and sleep with The Origin of the Species under their pillows. Assume all that's true. So what? Why is that important?
As far as your historical assesment of Christianity, unless you claim yourself to be a Christian, I would prefer to give it less weight than a single neutron.
LOL. No wonder this is presenting you with such difficulty - you are laboring under the misapprehension that the truth is dependent on the source. If I am a Christian, my post is worthy of consideration. If I am not, it is not worthy of consideration. Not even if it's true. Which it is, whether I'm a Christian or not.
I did not see where you mentioned this. I do not read these posts as thoroughly as I should, and going back I see some fine comments by donh, yourself, et. al. I tend grab at this and that word byte and slog along.
At any rate, I think the issue has more to do in the end with atheism. As you've said more than once, and even taught me, evolutionism takes many forms, with some maintaining a more radical theory than others. Although communism may reject "survival of the fittest" as a proper principle to apply in their system, it still elevates the state over God. Not unlike evolutionists insofar as they think they are entitled by law to have their point of view alone represented in public schools.
Insofar as you claim to present an accurate historical assessment of Christianity, absolutely. Your words do not mean squat if you do not know what the Christian faith entails.
Furthermore, truth is indeed dependent on the source. There's no "misapprehending" about it. And you are sorely mistaken if you think I am laboring under any difficulty here.
We're making progress. Evolution is all about survival of the fittest (actually it's called "natural selection"). Atheism is not part of evolution theory at all. But that's the hook upon which you now hang your claim of a "strong relationship" between evolution and communism. It ain't much to go on.
Either the events I described took place, or they did not. Don't take my word for it - go and see for yourself.
Furthermore, truth is indeed dependent on the source.
Oh, well. I thought you were objecting to evolution. Now I see that you have bigger fish to fry, and that you wish to deny the existence of objective truth. My mistake.
Truly, you give yourself too much credit. All you've done is recite other peoples work and timelines. By no means do your posts explicitly reject any connection between communism and evolutionism.
Tell me. Did Marx wish to dedicate a portion of his major writing to Darwin's Origin of Species or not?
Although communism may reject "survival of the fittest" as a proper principle to apply in their system, it still elevates the state over God. Not unlike evolutionists insofar as they think they are entitled by law to have their point of view alone represented in public schools.
Now we're back on public policy debate. As a private individual, you are absolutely free to worship whoever and however you choose. But government schools must not take preference to any one particular religious viewpoint. Both Creationism and Intelligent Design are religiously-based ideas, and do not meet the standards of scientific theory.
Personally, if I was a grade-school science teacher, I would take advantage of this controvery as an exercise for my students in identifying the characteristics of a good theory.
Although I've been using "survival of the fittest" most lately, it's a tad imprecise for me. My personal favorite (I think it was donh who I first saw use it) is "survival of the least inadquate."
That the events took place I have no doubt. That they are representative of Christianity I have every doubt.
Communism, atheism, naturalism, humanism. These all find a happy home in evolutionism and vice versa. A mutual synergy. These and their fruits are all antithetical to Christianity, including innocent bloodshed.
". . .and that you wish to deny the existence of objective truth. "
Could you please explain to me how objective truth can exist indepently from a source? Why did you stretch my words as if to say I believe there is no such thing?
Yes, his final work, Das Capital, but as I pointed out, it was a publicity flourish, because Marx was already a published communist activist years before Origin was published, so Darwin's work had no effect on Marx's political beliefs. Meanwhile, Darwin had become famous, so Marx wanted to get some milage out of a famous man's name. He could have dedicated that book to Queen Victoria, for all that would have proved about her complicity in communism. Come on, I know you see this.
Hey, I just found an online copy of Das Capital, and it's not dedicated to Darwin! Instead, it's dedicated to someone named Wilhelm Wolff. Now what? Karl Marx's CAPITAL.
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