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."
Ah, you're overlooking one of the benefits of "virtual ignore". I'm free to skim over such material without reading it. I'm confident I've missed nothing of value.
Careful, that's how cults get started.
Only Stalin who himself has been denounced by almost all Communists. That Darwinism was a great contributor to the zeitgeist which brought about both Nazism and Communism is undeniable. We are speaking of ideas. basic ideas and like it or not evolution is the basis to the scientific materialism on which Communism and Nazism was based.
As I have pointed out numerous times, it does not matter what anyone says, any definition of evolution which does not include creation of new genetic information is not evolution. The cowardly definition being used by evolutionists know about a change in frequency of alleles in a population is not a definition of evolution because you cannot create something by just changing the proportions of what already exists.
As to your being a liar, yes you are. When someone takes an article whose heading is "The Definition Evolution Shell Game" and claims that it supports a definition which it calls misleading is an absolute liar, especially when he continues to insist that the article supports it after the dishonesty has been pointed out.
My post to you was:
To deny that gravity has not been scientifically observed is totally ludicrous. If you wish to see it for yourself though, just go on top of a 20 story building and jump. You will observe it very clearly.
Your post in no way addresses it. We are talking about scientifically observed and yes gravity has been scientifically observed. It is considered a Law of nature. It can be scientifically observed by anyone and is observed by everyone on a daily basis.
Evolutionists because they have no evidence and can in no way claim that evolution has ever been observed deny that anything in science is beyond doubt as if by casting aspersions on science makest their theory true. The truth of science can be observed in many ways and our present technological society is abundant proof of it. Evolution is just a fairy tale which cannot be called science because it cannot provide any of the proofs for itself which real science provides.
Of course not. To do so would be to risk reading it and thereby observe your own bull-headed idiocy. Rest assured that the lurkers have read it. Unless they skipped over it because my point was obvious from the start.
When someone takes an article whose heading is "The Definition Evolution Shell Game" and claims that it supports a definition which it calls misleading is an absolute liar, especially when he continues to insist that the article supports it after the dishonesty has been pointed out.
I would offer you a shovel, but I see you brought your own. Here is what you've pinned your hopes on:
And here is what you fail to acknowledge:
What is the term for someone who refuses to admit when he's made a mistake, and insults and denigrates rather than accept it, apologise, and move on?
A: "A**hole".
Yeah, I'm tired and grouchy. What's it to ya? ;)
Well, they don't. And why must creation theory by definition be "religious?" Is it just because so many people who hold to different religions also happen to believe in creation? Please prove to me that creationism must absolutely entail religion.
"Indeed, -- why would anyone want the state to teach religion in public schools?"
Because, in case you haven't noticed, 90% of the general public believes relgion to be a natural part of existence. The general public pays schools to teach from what is commonly understood and observed by mankind. The most common and reasonable assumption to make about existence is that it did not just whip itself up out of nothing.
Public schools can treat of religious subjects with ease, and they do. The teach both evolution and creation as possible viewpoints and let students choose for themselves what to believe. At least public schools that know what education is.
"You do [entrust your children to the state]? Why?"
Because the state has been able to supply teachers who are better quailified than myself to impart the knowledge needed to be citizens who can function to the benefit of themselves and mankind. This authority does not derive from the state, but from myself as a parent, and ultimately my authority and accountability as a parent derives from GOD.
To the extent public schools depart from teaching necessary educational fundamentals I must take issue with their purpose. In fact, whose idea was public school education anyway? Probably some dumbass evolutionist who thought it smart to explain away the obvious to anyone with anything other than a wood block between their ears.
". . . the FF paid political lip service to a 'God' . . .
This is a truly unhealthy assessment of the place of religion in the lives of our forefathers. They were willing to give up their lives for what they believed and wrote, and they understood, plainly and simply, that a government derived from the people must have it's foundation in a higher principle of rights derived from Divine Providence. They also understood that the history of religions and religious persecution did not allow for a government established by the people to favor one religious teaching over another.
Because it is. "God (or any other higher intelligent power you care to call it) did it" by definition is religious.
Arrested emotional development...but in general he can spell, which attests to his attending public schools before they tanked. I'm thinking 50-ish.
So use a comparative philosophy or religion class. Creation/ID is not science and should therefore not be taught as an alternative. BTW, which creation STORY would you have being taught? What about Hindu, Norse, Greek, or any other of the myriads of creation stories out there?
What make Genesis any better a story than the Norse Mythology?
BTW, I had a friend of mine who used to put on a Viking war helmet (complete with horns) and sing songs to Valhalla when he was going thru his launch checks as a USAF missile launch officer in a Minuteman ICBM launch control center under the prairies of North Dakota.
Very good point. I've been trying to get this through to gore3000's head for about 1500 posts. Suprisingly, he doesn't seem to want to come on board. He firmly believes that if he asks people on free republic to answer an evolution/abiogenesis/beginning of the universe question and they do not know, then he has disproved any scientific theory related to said question and proved his own creationist theories....
You should have been here during the argument on circles, ellipses, and wildly elliptical orbits.
Only a bold revisionist would make that kind of claim. Not only does this event represent a small episode given the bigger picture of atheist/evolutionist/communist syncretisms, but it demonstrates how Stalin's early drink from Darwinian assumptions played itself out in a brutal way.
Communists make fine revisionists of history to suit their claims and aims. Looks like you'd fit right in.
BTW, it wasn't just Marx who went to Darwin for approval. It was a group of die hard, Soviet atheists. (Thanks to PatrickHenry for the fine link.)
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