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."
All you did was pretend there is a distinction between "depends on" and "derives from."
Not at all. You are just pretending that I didn't. The proof is in the post, to which you have never replied.
If you care to tell me how these two differ I might consider whether what you've presented is really a "rebuttal."
Words have meanings, particularily in context. Read my post & reply, or don't. -- Your call.
Co-starring Duane Gish. Gish and Morris have combined to write some of the most disingenuous and downright silly stuff I've ever seen linked here. Here's on the ICR site even today is an article written by Gish from 1994 citing evolutionist Colbert in 1953 as saying that whale origins are simply a mystery:
Speaking of whales, Colbert said, "These mammals must have had an ancient origin, for no intermediate forms are apparent in the fossil record between the whales and the ancestral Cretaceous placentals. Like the bats, the whales (using the term in a general and inclusive sense) appear suddenly in early Tertiary times, fully adapted by profound modifications of the basic mammalian structure for a highly specialized mode of life. Indeed, the whales are even more isolated with relation to other mammals than the bats; they stand quite alone." [3]That looks awful, considering that Gish is even there waving away the new legged cetacean transitionals Pakicetus and Ambulocetus. Colbert's observation has been outdated for years even by 1994. It looks worse when he dismisses the "new" transitionals for having legs and thus not being whales. (But if they looked the same as modern whales they wouldn't be transitionals! Catch-22.)
When some of the ICR staff looked at the picture with the knowledge that Thewissen and fellow workers called this creature a whale, they laughed. Evolutionists may claim that this was because of ignorance of subtle distinctions of anatomy; on the other hand, associating the word "whale" with a creature with large and powerful front and hind legs does seem a bit ludicrous to skeptics.It's all like that. Charlatans trolling for suckers.
This is a false dichotomy. Would God require us to believe a lie?
1955. Typo.
Distinct, yes; "above," no. Theories never "graduate" to become "laws" in science. "Laws" in science are nothing more than empirically establish generalizations. The minute we find and verify an observation that violates a scientific "Law," the "Law" is either modified if feasible to make consistent with both new and old empirical evidence, or abandoned out right.
Scientific "Laws" differ from scientific theories in that they lack the broad explanatory power of the latter. "Bode's Law" tells us what the planetary spacings are; but provides nothing of explanatory value about it. It describes a phenomonon, but says nothing of the mechanisms behind it.
In short, scientific "Laws" are empirically derived and are characterized as "descriptive"; theories also fit the empirical evidence, but additionally provide a framework for explaining a broad range of phenomona, and are capable of falsification. Thus, they are referred to as being "explanatory" versus a "Law," which is merely "descriptive."
I understand the laws of thermo to be absolute. Is this incorrect?
All scientific "Laws" are provisional, since they are based soley on empirical evidence. Again, in science, a "Law" is not "above" or "better" or "more refined" than a theory.
Lastly, no one is arguing that the 2nd LoT is invalid. The arguments that evolution somehow violate the 2nd LoT are invalid, as they either mischaracterize what the 2nd LoT means, or leave out critical details, such as the ability for parts of some systems to experience a DECREASE in entropy as long as the entire system (including it's surroundings) experiences a net INCREASE. Such phenomona are not violative of the the 2nd LoT.
Also, you seem to think that a theory is just a step below a law and that with enough evidence a theory may become a law. This however is a deep rooted misconception.
Theories and laws are two different critters and the one doesn't turn into the other. A scientific theory is an explanation whereas a scientific law is a mathematical description of an observed regularity.
You may find more here or here.
The IEEE reports similarly.
The Astronomy Dept. at New Mexico State University concurs.
As does the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.
If you want to read The Codex Leicester in its original form, however, you'll have to contact Bill Gates, who bought it in 1995. I will fully admit that I have not done so myself; I can't read mirror-imaged 16th-Century Italian.
Basically, yes. To equate in any way the God of creation with anything else that mankind can worship or call "god" is just about THE definition of blasphemy. 3028 -vvv-
What do you propose as the punishment for blasphemy?
I beg to differ, Venerable Geezer. New critters are dug up, brushed off and placed into the puzzle on a daily basis. Sure it's a little difficult because we're not sure what the picture on the box looks like, but we can reconstruct a fairly accurate representation just based on how the pieces fit together.
"Everyone" used to be a literal Genesis creationist. Nevertheless, the geological evidence, when people started giving it serious and systematic study, was undeniable. Those who will follow the evidence did follow the evidence. Those who won't, didn't.
AFAIK = "As far as I know"
OTOH = "On the other hand"
LOL = "Laughing out loud"
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