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 you're missing my point. I don't consider these any more "material" than the other things I mentioned. They're made up, created by scientists to plug into theories, albeit very useful and effective ones. In a sense, it is the theory that is material.
I don't know, maybe you and I are saying the same thing just using different words.
I see; you're excluding everything a scientist does except their published work from the realm of science. That is far too limited a view IMO.
What a silly statement. Try reading some history. The term "ID" probably wasn't in use, but the concept certainly, and it meant exactly what it means today. It was the standard model of life, the universe and everything. It was specifically what "Origin of Species" was written to argue against.
And the gaps in the fossil record. I do not see where these fossils "fit as expected into a time and structure line." That is a false statement. Where is the evidence for that? Where are all of those transitional intermediate forms - there should be billions of them.
Try arguing against what I said, not what you imagine I said.
You think evolution is science, then you won't have any trouble explaining to me how information is added to the genome in the molecule-to-man process; or how the first protein molecule self-assembled. I'm still waiting for someone, anyone (in the world!) to explain these to me in the form of scientific evidence.
If you can tell me how an "information scientist" can read a genome and predict what will emerge from it and whether it will successfully reproduce, then I will accept the information paradigm. Otherwise I will assert that what you are calling information is a byproduct of selection.
Simple example: Let's say there's a new Ice Age. Biologists predict, using the theory of evolution, that animals will either become extinct or adapt to the cold. Of those that survive, we can predict which that they will have some means of insulation, some means of food/energy strorage, etc.
However, since the mutations that produce these are random, we have no way to predict which species will have thicker fur, more blubber, hibernation, etc. Nor can we predict which species will not receive any useful mutation, and go extinct.
No, it's wrong. A law is an observed fact or regularity: Kepler's laws, Ohm's law, the gas laws. These are explained by theories: Newtonian gravitation, the theory of conduction in metals, the kinetic theory of gases.
In fact, the laws are not "always and everywhere" true: eg: Kepler's laws make no allowance for perturbations, the gas laws break down near absolute zero, etc
I was trying to figure why we are in the Smokey Backroom. It's usually reserved for unseemly arguments. Nobody was getting ugly, though some were shouting (using too many capital letters.)
I suspect it may have been the size of the thread combined with the shouting. But that's just a guess.
What I'm saying is that there is that there is a well-known "theory of evolution" which involves cosmology (and biology) and can be traced to the ideas published by Darwin. It is good that you are disassociating yourself from it.
This is from a site which considers this cosmological view as something to be taught uncritically to school children:
Evolution, the sequence of events by which the world came to be as we see it today, is the central organizing principle of the historical sciences -- biology, geology, and cosmology.Now what concept is the word "evolution" describing in this context?
What is meant by the term evolution? Thomson (1982) has distinguished three meanings: 1) biological change over time; 2) descent through common ancestry; and 3) the Darwinian mechanism of mutation and natural selection. A fourth definition is also commonly used today, 4) an extension of the term beyond biology to include the origin and development of the universe, galaxy, sun and earth. . .The term "theory of evolution" often applies to cosmology especially in the popular culture as is often demonstrated by mass market "news" magazines.
There is the observed fact that humans, gorillas, chimps, et al, share the exact same mutation which prevents the synthesis of vitamin C. The gene is there in all the species, just like it is in all mammals, but in the hominids all share the exact same mistake that keeps it from working. Like it or not, most people, (including *all* biologists that I'm aware of) consider this as evidence of descent from a common ancestor.
It's the same logic used in court to detect plagiarism; identitcal *mistakes* are evidence of copying (that's why mapmakers put imaginary streets on maps)
That may be so, but the popular press is often riddled with usages that differ wildly from the way words are used in technical fields. In the evolution/creationism threads, for the past few years we've been mainly discussing biology. Sometimes the origin of life itself comes up, but that's really a chemistry problem (an unsolved problem so far), and it doesn't deal with the way species evolve once life actually begins. The topic of the origin of the universe is usually discussed in astronomy/cosmology threads. Cosmology and biology are different sciences. It doesn't matter how the universe got itself created as far as the biological theory of evolution is concerned, and vice versa. One is independent of the other. It's just wrong to lump them all together as if they were the same thing.
Man, what church do you go to?
Punk-eekostal Church – a new branch that popped up from nowhere and they really like to sing.
The First Primordial Biologists – adhere to a literal interpretation of abioGenesis, and water is very important to them.
Kelvinist – Entropy is ultimately predestined.
What denomination?
Naturalism
Nihilism
Materialism
or Scientism
LOL!
Exactly. The term "Stellar evolution" for example is a theory describing the life cycle of a star. However, very few people that I am aware suggest that variations in a star's composition may give it an advantage competing for resources.
As has been pointed out numerous times, "evolution" is often generalized to mean "change over time." This is not necessarily incorrect, it just means that people on both sides should be aware of the usage being argued.
A similar semantic problem often crops up with the use of the word "information" in connection with DNA. Too many people leap upon that word and run around claiming that the Almighty is speaking to us via chemistry.
[sigh] Darwin, and his theory of evolution, do NOT describe or explain Cosmological phenomona. It provides no explanatory framework for the formation and growth of the large-scale structure of the Universe. The Universe, like many other things, "evolves," but the "Theory of Evolution" is not Cosmological theory. If your "well known" theory of Evolution involving Cosmology and biology were "well-known," why have we not seen it published in a scientific journal?
This is from a site which considers this cosmological view as something to be taught uncritically to school children:
Evolution, the sequence of events by which the world came to be as we see it today, is the central organizing principle of the historical sciences -- biology, geology, and cosmology.
Now what concept is the word "evolution" describing in this context?
The word "evolution" in this context is being used in accordance with the primary definition I quoted from Webster's in an earlier post to you. It refers to ANY process of formation or change; development. Thus it can be used to refer to the processes of change in biology, geology, & cosmology, as well as culture, language, art, fashion, music, stars, and so on.....
In this sense, the word merely means "a process of change," and SOME processes [NOTE the plural] of change surely underlie biology, geology, and cosmology (among many others). But the process of change in biology is obviously distinct from the process of change in geology or cosmology (and all other fields), as the biological process of change ("evolution") as elicidated first by Darwin, involves heritable traits, reproduction, mutation, and natural selection. The processes [NOTE the plural] of change for the other topics involve DIFFERENT mechanisms, that DO NOT trace back to Darwin, and are not connected with his Theory of (Biological) Evolution or its modern incarnation. Galaxies don't inherit "traits" from two parent galaxies; galactic star goats do not eat slow stars, rocks don't "reproduce" offspring, continents don't have genetic code, ...... and so on.
In conclusion, the author is correct; "evolution" (meaning "a process of change") IS the underpinning of biology, geology, and cosmology. What you seem to not understand is that those "processes of change" are DIFFERENT for each respective field of science. The common denominator between all three fields is that they are about things that change over time. That's all that is meant in this context by the usage of the word "evolution" -- a process of change over time, which is why we refer to these sciences as "historical sciences."
I do not however believe we will ever be able to have a discussion about intelligent design without it becoming multi-discipline. Related subjects that have a bearing on the issue - such as consciousness - will delve into psychology, theology, physics, biology, etc.
Further, the state-of-the-art in science is multi-discipline. Information theory and mathematics in molecular biology, cosmology and directed panspermia in evolution, quantum mechanics and physics in biology, etc.
IMHO, the most helpful statements in these debates come when a poster essentially says something like "the material world is all that there is" or "the Bible is the inerrant Word of God". Once they have made such a declaration, there is really no point in belaboring a point that is totally repugnant to their worldview.
[snip] A fourth definition is also commonly used today, 4) an extension of the term beyond biology to include the origin and development of the universe, galaxy, sun and earth. . .
This is exactly in accordance with the Webster's definition I cited previously for the word "evolution": "a process of formation or change; development," as in "the origin and development of the universe, galaxy, sun and earth. . ."
The term "theory of evolution" often applies to cosmology especially in the popular culture as is often demonstrated by mass market "news" magazines.
I hope after four posts from me that it has become clear that you can't interchange the word "evolution" for "the Theory of Evolution" any time you like.
As for popular culture and mass market "news" magazines, I hardly think they are the arbiters of proper usage of scientific terminology. We are trying to discuss a scientific topic, and precise meaning counts. You can try all you want; Cosmology is not part of Darwinian Evolutionary theory.
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