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."
I think I'll stick with the usual definition of the law of the excluded middle. ;)
Mostly, I wanted to make it clear in my follow-up to myself that I was talking about the informal fallacy of the excluded middle, and not the law of the excluded middle. For the lurkers, the law of the excluded middle says that all propositional statements are either true or false; that is, the statement "P or ~P" is always true, and tautologous. As in "either animals evolved, or animals did not evolve". "Either Santa Claus exists, or Santa Claus does not exist". And so forth...
But there is no evidence for evolution.
This is a disingenuous statement. Evolution is presented as dogma in high school textbooks, colleges, universities, the major media, in our entertainment, everywhere. The links you speak of are entirely fabricated.
To say that if you believe in evolution, you cannot be religious, is not only ridiculous, but assinine.
Evolution is itself a religious worldview, for it concerns itself with man's origin. And by the way, it (both the spelling and the theory) is asinine.
Now onto the question of if you believe that it all came about as a huge accident, why shoudl you care? This belief would tell me that life is WORTH MUCH more then if goddidit because if goddidit then he can do it again, but if it is all indeed a cosmic accident, then life is worth a heck of a lot more, because we have one shot here, and that's it, the chances of it happening again are miniscule, whereas if goddidit then who cares, he'll just do it again.
There is a kind of twisted way in which this may seem to make sense, but only if one is willing to make the major league assumption that God would, indeed, 'Do It Again'. Since by definition your worldview excludes God, such an assumption is prohibited and therefore unavailable for the illegitimate usage you have employed here.
If there is no God, life is indeed a meaningless charade which no one can fathom. If evolution is true, then... that a person only gets 'one shot at it' merely serves to increase the sense of urgency felt by those who wish to infuse life with meaning through deeds undertaken with the desire for lasting results that benefit others, and conversely, to increase the sense of despair felt by those who conclude that it is not worth the effort since we are all going to die anyway. Neither of those options is remotely the same as having the real meaning and purpose derived from the correct understanding of man's origin, identity, purpose, morality, and destiny. Such needs require a self-sufficient source of power and goodness that is found only in a Creator.
The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
A thinker your not, you follow your heart.
What an embarrassingly petty and thin-skinned cartoon you scribble of your Lord. That can't possibly please Him.
LOL. Seriously, a lot of people write those 3 little letters, but I seriously just lost it. But to be honest I thought SwordofTruth was a Christian rapper. Witness:
Your time on Earth is but a vapor.
Your body will die and you will meet your maker.
I sound the horn, ring the holy bell.
And sentence you to eternal hell.
You are asking us to accept something that collapses under its own weight - ie, "If we don't know stuff, there must be no God." Do you see the problem? Why would anyone conclude that's the end of the story? The awareness of a huge lack of knowledge begs further inquiry, not less.
You misunderstood me. I stated that I was willing to admit that my knowledge is very limited on a universal scale, and that there is a possibility that a God exists. But I asked exmarine, and yourself now, to also admit that your knowledge is equally as small and that there is distinct possibility that he does not as well. I am not making the statement that "Since we don't know stuff, God MUST not exist". You two are the ones trying to make the opposite argument into fact.
Looking beyond your sarcasm (red herring), you have just admitted that you and your family have no worth. So, why can't you live like they don't? It seems you have a problem.
You state the facts wrongly here. Creationism has the effect, not the purpose, of denying that evolution engages in true science. I know you're smarter than that. You've posted some great challenges to me on this thread, BTW. Thanks. Really.
There are several reasons why this opening statement rings hollow.
First, the fervor with which you cling to and defend evolution betrays your casual statement above which merely asserts 'that that is a way to look at it'.
Second, there are only two sides to this fence. The only options are evolution or Creation. Since you obviously reject Creation, you have nowhere else to go but evolution.
Third, evolution is anything but logical. It takes more faith to believe in evolution than Creation.
Fourth, evolution is undeniably a worldview.
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