Evolution Disclaimer Supported

The Advocate (Baton Rouge) ^ | 12/11/02 | WILL SENTELL

[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."

[B. Rabbit]

2900

But is it really 2900? My guess is it is much smaller. Probably more like 300. Your atheistic, communistic, evolutionary brainwashers want you to believe that there are 2900 posts on this thread, but that is only because they are immoral slime. In the real world, we question these things, you robots believe that just because it says "2900" under the posting that it is actually 2900.

If you look at my "Young Thread Website" linked here, you will see that posts were actually multiplied by 30 early in the thread's existence. So what you see as 900, was actually 30. Postings became smaller and smaller as the thread went on, and now equate to approximately 1 to 1. But scientists all over the world (I am not making generalizations!) recognize now the inaccuracies of the previous post-counting techniques. You Old Threaders need to wake up and smell the roses.

By the way PatrickHenry: HOW OLD IS THIS THREAD?

[BMCDA]

What these IDers seem to be saying is that because the probability of one particular path out of many paths is small, it couldn't have happened and, therefore, (leap!) that particular path was chosen from the outset and programmed into the leaf.

LOL! Seems that's what their "theory" is saying after all.

BTW, someone posted a good critique of the ID'ist probability argument on this board just a few days ago.

[VadeRetro]

I think it's actually (52!)^N - very much larger.

Anticipated you here, starting where it says, "You're an evo materialist atheist and who cares what you think?"

[Tribune7]

Though we've pointed out time and again that many of the evolutionists on these threads are Christians . . .

Let's make an assumption, just for a moment, that common descent via the means described by macro-evolutionary theory is true. Would it be more important for someone to believe in that or to believe in God?

[longshadow]

.... therefore, (leap!) that particular path was chosen from the outset and programmed into the leaf.

I look forward to seeing their model of how the leaf's trajectory is "programmed" into it ahead of time....

[VadeRetro]

I look forward to seeing their model of how the leaf's trajectory is "programmed" into it ahead of time....

Infidel idiot! If we don't understand something, that's only MORE PROOF of supernatural causes.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

It's really a bit naive to propose that the changes in DNA that make up the diversity of life were programmed into the first replicative organisms.

If I am naive, then I am in good company with Rocha, Pattee, von Neumann, Chaitin and others.

Following is the abstract of Rocha's Syntactic Autonomy: Or Why There is no Autonomy Without Symbols and how Self-Organizing Systems Might Evolve Them:

Two different types of agency are discussed based on dynamically coherent and incoherent couplings with an environment respectively. I propose that until a private syntax (syntactic autonomy) is discovered by dynamically coherent agents, there are no significant or interesting types of closure or autonomy. When syntactic autonomy is established, then, because of a process of description-based selected self-organization, open-ended evolution is enabled. At this stage, agents depend, in addition to dynamics, on localized, symbolic memory, thus adding a level of dynamical incoherence to their interaction with the environment. Furthermore, it is the appearance of syntactic autonomy which enables much more interesting types of closures amongst agents which share the same syntax. To investigate how we can study the emergence of syntax from dynamical systems, experiments with cellular automata leading to emergent computation to solve non-trivial tasks are discussed. RNA editing is also mentioned as a process that may have been used to obtain a primordial biological code necessary open-ended evolution.

And from the same document, the section on RNA editing:

The idea that life may have originated from pure RNA world has been around for a while47, 48. In this scenario the first life forms relied on RNA molecules as both symbolic carriers of genetic information, and functional, catalytic molecules. The neutralist hypothesis for the function of RNA editing assumes such a RNA world origin of life. It posits that RNA editing could offer a process by which the dual role of RNA molecules as information carriers and catalysts could more easily co-exist. The key problem for the RNA world origin of life hypothesis is precisely the separation between these two functions of RNA. On the one hand RNA molecules should be stable (non-reactive) to carry information, and on the other hand they should be reactive to perform their catalytic function. RNA editing, could be seen as means to fragment genetic information into several non-reactive molecules, that are later, through RNA editing processes, integrated into reactive molecules46. This way, the understanding of this process of mediation between the role of RNA molecules as information carriers and catalytic molecules based on RNA editing, can also offer many clues to the problem of origin of a semiotic code from s dynamic (catalytic) substrate.

Given many random distributions of the reactivity of a RNA sequence space, we could study how easily can reactive sequences be constructed from RNA edition of non-reactive molecules. A study of this process is forthcoming.

[PatrickHenry]

Your atheistic, communistic, evolutionary brainwashers want you to believe ...

Verily, the spirit is upon you.

[tpaine]

"Let's make an assumption, just for a moment, that common descent via the means described by macro-evolutionary theory is true. Would it be more important for someone to believe in that or to believe in God?"
2905 -t7-

Neither belief is important to your peers. -- Only the way you act towards others is important to them.
- Thus, your insistant *actions*, -- insisting that others believe as you do, - are important.
-- Keep your beliefs to yourself, and no one cares.

[PatrickHenry]

Would it be more important for someone to believe in that or to believe in God?

Why do you believe it has to be one or the other? They are not inherently contradictory ideas.

[balrog666]

Let's make an assumption, just for a moment, that common descent via the means described by macro-evolutionary theory is true. Would it be more important for someone to believe in that or to believe in God?

Gee, would it matter if they are doing state-of-the-art pharmaceutical research or are hoping to be a goatherder in Burkina Faso?

[VadeRetro]

Would it be more important for someone to believe in that or to believe in God?

What is the importance of belief in Zeus?

[f.Christian]

Evolution is a . . . mass // mess // mesh . . . of contradictions - - - impossibilities!

[PatrickHenry]

What is the importance of belief in Zeus?

Without Zeus, life would have no meaning and morality would be impossible. Don't you know anything?

[viaveritasvita]

tpaine wrote: "...and no one cares...."

I care, tribune7, as many others do. We're out here following the discussion and cheering for you and the others who have the courage to stand against those who imagine that human reasoning is the be all, end all. Thank you!

[Doctor Stochastic]

It's the ID-Creationist confusion between the ex-ante and ex-post. The Liberals have a similar problem about pursuit of happiness.

[viaveritasvita]

[For at least 50 years] even Christian geologists insisted that science should govern our Biblical interpretations, not the other way around. They insisted we could and should stretch the meaning of any Scripture as far as necessary to make it conform to the current majority view of scientists. That approach, of course, is how earlier compromising Christian scientists had arrived at such concepts as theistic evolution, the gap theory, progressive creation, the local flood, and other such adjustments. They assumed that the evidence for an ancient earth was so strong that the plain record of the Bible had to be reinterpreted to accommodate it. This approach soon led to full-blown theological liberalism and worse. Henry M. Morris

[Doctor Stochastic]

I look forward to seeing their model of how the leaf's trajectory is "programmed" into it ahead of time....

Perhaps a guidance system comprising Seven Spanish Angles. (If not performing a flamenco on the head of a pin.)