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."
As magnanimous an acceptance speech as I've ever heard. Congratulations on your great acheivement. You can keep the plaque, but the statue stays put at Darwin Central.
The reason the word "evolution" is in quotes in the statement above is because it is not evolution. It is not what the theory of evolution is which is what Darwin originally stated - the transformation of species from bacteria all the way to humans. So again you continue to lie about what the article says.
Actually you were the first runnerup, so in case of Patrick's demise (or being finally banned from FR) the award would go to you (if you do not get yourself banned first!).
You are within sight of a truly astonishing revelation. I wonder if you'll have the courage to follow it though? Could it be that a paradox does not truly exist?
Instead of playing guessing games why don't you just say how it is not a paradox? Why do you and your fellow evolutionists try to destroy something which you do not consider evil?
The reason the word "evolution" is in quotes in the statement above is because it is not evolution. [snip]2782 posted on 01/04/2003 3:45 PM EST by gore3000
Let it be repeated 1720 times as the planets whip around in their "wildly elliptical" orbits, as it takes its rightful place in Gore-be-tron's™ delusional world where all Nobel prize-winning science disproves Evolution and "circles are not ellipses".....
Well golly-gee, that's awfully sweet of you Cutie-Pie, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline. After all, why would you want to hear anything from a filthy, dishonest liar like myself?
Please don't distract me from my vital work, trying to win the coveted "Nobel Prize for Biology," which -- as g3k has pointed out -- so far has somehow eluded every evolutionist in the world.
Yer funny! I never claimed "change in allele frequency" to be the theory of evolution. I said it was the commonly accepted definition of the word evolution.
By the same token, there is a definition of the word "gravity" (e.g. the force of attraction between two masses) and there are several theories of gravity which describe how this phenomenon works. RadioAstronomer attempted to explain two of these theories back at post 1303.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!
Did anybody else just get a flash of Bill Clinton handing out an award to someone else at the annual Liars Club dinner?
Does anyone know who won the Nobel Prize in Biology for 2002? I haven't been able to find it on-line and apparently I'm not on the mailing list...
You are playing Humpty Dumpty's game. Words can take whatever meaning you wish to assign to them. The statement you amde that the Declaration of Independence makes sense if you take the words "by the creator" is gramatically correct. However you did not write the the words, someone else did and he put them in for a reason. What you are engaged in is pure spin. I am not sure what you are so afraid of or what improvement you think would be made by your revision, it is in the end a trivial point as I doubt the National Archives are going to give heed to your suggestions. You have nothing to loose in your suggestions, but the men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence put all they owned, all they loved and their very lives on the line when the ink dried on that piece of paper. Now with as much as they had to lose don't you think they were a little more interested in just what exactly it said?
Now that question's really mean. How can you ask f.C something like that? ;)
Wrong again. Charity implies that someone holds the purse and distributes funds as he or she sees fit. This person "owns" the money.
Communism in the strictest sense means that no one person owns the purse. Funds are distributed according to need, not at the whim and philanthropy of some rich person.
Greed rudely introduces itself into any circumstance where humans have their self-interest at heart instead of the good of the group...which is precisely why ALL communism ultimately fails. We are all human. We are all acting in our self-interest most of the time, and will continue to do so unless and until (in the Christian tradition) God sets up His theocracy and rules us directly.
I will agree with you on one point, however. The root of Christianity is charity. The charity that came from the Son of God as He hung on a cross and died to wash away the sins of the world....but make no mistake. According to Christian theology, none of us are worthy of such a sacrifice and would never commit a charitable act unless the Spirit lived within us.
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.