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 effect of an idea about the nature of reality on it's holders is not a reasonable measure of it's likely truth.
Do you really think "universal gravitation" is as speculative as evolution?
Universal gravitation failed the perihelion of mercury experiment and had to be revised; because it now fails the dark matter experiment, serious physicists are proposing yet another revision; and it is now beginning to come under revisionist attack from the forces of quantum gravity.
There isn't a particle of difference between assuming a continuous flow of evolution between fossil finds in distinct layers of dirt, and the assumption that the law of gravity exists over large distances containing nothing but vaccum, where no experimentation or data-gathering whatsoever has been done.
The inductive evidence available to support evolution is more fine-grained, abundant, available and accessable than that supporting universal gravitation. That's why there are dozens of referreed technical journals in the biological sciences whose detailed work is predicated on the notions of evolution.
Miller has no need of headlines. He is tenured, and is the co-author of one of the most respected basic biology textbooks in current use.
he has not disproved Behe
He had no need to. Behe made numerous predictions about explanations of verious apparently-too-complex-to-evolve biological machines that would never be published in technical journals. Some of which had already been published when his book was written. Apparently bench-checking was not his forte.
(and BTW the argument of the secretory system is not his originally so he may also be guilty of plagiarism).
Fat chance. Miller's books are top-heavy with current cites from the journals.
The real question is what people can accomplish when they are free to follow the truth without fear of arrest or damnation. (There are people posting currently on FR who have decided my soul is in peril because I do not tow the line on belief.)
Fine with me. I have no desire to spend eternity with a God who punishes people for their beliefs. Had enough of that here on earth.
If only every prophecy was so reliable...
This statement applies equally to any belief system, including evolution. Regardless of the volume of inductive evidence, or how fine-grained it is, in the end it is a belief system that foists itself upon the public arena as if it were absolute truth.
A good example of how science handles new ideas can be found in the way it handled quantum theory. Nothing in the realm of human ideas has upset so many long held and intuitive ideas.
Evolution is not a belief system. It is simply a scientific theory in which the vast majority (of scientists, if it need be said) have a high degree of confidence.
Evolution entails fundamental assumptions concerning the origin, purpose, and destination of life and all its elements. Those assumptions in turn have a tremendous bearing on how one conducts himself toward others and the world at large. It would be disingenuous to descibe it as anything less than a belief system.
Maybe scientists are the last to admit they have any beliefs, but in the end, that's all they have. They are no better in terms of ultimate knowledge and understanding than a superstitious pigmy. I suppose we can all pretend they know it all, but I refuse to give them equal or better status in determining what goes into public school textbooks.
Maybe I haven't been keeping up. I am not aware of a theory of evolution that also addresses the origin and purpose of life. Would you mind posting a short summary of it?
We should be so lucky. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is a little less transparent than that one ;)
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