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."
-- To me, it is fairly obvious that Christian groups are the ones trying to 'indoctrinate kids into religion'. And, --- that the state is simply obliged to 'make no law respecting' any establishments of religions.
Hi tpaine! WRT to Louisiana Family Forum: I dislike the word "force." Other than that, I think LFF is simply exercising its First Amendment rights; i.e., to peaceably assemble for the purpose of petitioning the government to rectify a grievance. The grievance is that the government is in violation of its First Amendment responsibility to uphold the second phrase of the "religion clause": the LFF wishes to recall the government to its constitutional obligations. (These are all state matters anyway, it seems to me; so we really need to look at state constitutions to see what is permissible within a given jurisdiction.)
The religion clause has two parts -- the first one says that the government may not "establish" any particular religious sect as a national religion; the second part bars the government from "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (i.e., the free exercise of religion).
What are we really talking about here? IMHO, no one is seeking to "establish religion" here. What is at stake is the ending of a certain monopoly in educational instruction of the life sciences in the public schools.
Personally, I have no objection to the theory of evolution being taught in the public schools. I strongly doubt LFF is trying to censor it, they are just looking for "equal time" in what amounts to a key cultural as well as scientific debate.
However, I would like to see other theories that man has evolved dealing with issues of origins taught right along side of it (e.g., ID, Punk-Eek, even Genesis as a "baseline theory" if you will). Present all relevant information fairly, in a balanced way, and you will simply be carrying out the mandate of excellence in education.
People who have an opportunity to work through a wide variety of materials, and drawing their own conclusions therefrom -- this is the only way I know of to really and truly "learn" anything -- are getting "educated," not "indoctrinated."
Yes, BB, but little school children? Even their teachers are mostly incompetent to do what you suggest. The people most able to weigh the evidence and sift through competing explanations are those who have already learned the basic material and are now advancing the state of their science. I'm talking about research PhD types, who have the intellect and the educational background to do what you suggest. I fear that if you toss all that stuff at kids in school they'll come away totally confused.
Huh? That is a false conclusion. You are applying your empirical standard again. Empiricism as I have said over and over and over again, must be proven to be a valid system to test a proposition before it can be used. It is not. You cannot prove that only things that are measurable are real - I demand that you prove that prove that "only that which is measurable is real." Prove it empirically.
You are half-educated in logic. When I say "gee, doesn't this here thing look pretty similar to that there thing, I am drawing on the powers of analogy to suggest a possible relationship. This is called analogical reasoning, and is not subject to the law of the excluded middle. Look it up. Scientific theorizing leans heavily on this process. Since I am not arguing from absolutely established facts, such as to be grouped in sets by their attributes with formal assurity, the law of the excluded middle is not merely irrelevant, it is wrong. It is excluding possible relationships that it is not correct to formally exclude, since the current state of our knowledge is that they only exist conditionally in theory-sets, as a cloud of probability.
The discrete laws of traditional logic apply to what mathematicians call well-defined domains of discourse. The theoretical meaning of scientific facts is not any such domain. What theory-set a fact may belong to is forever up for grabs. All we can do is increase our confidance in a theory, we cannot prove it correct. Proof is beyond our capability, so the laws of formal proof are moot except as technical analytical tools for making oscilloscopes and such work.
What in Hail??? We are teaching Darwinism to "little school children?" Good grief, PH, then all it can be is an exercise in indoctrination. People need to have developed some critical skills to handle this material. High school would be the appropriate time for theories of evolution. IMHO.
Your confidence in the "suitably credentialled" (PhDs, et al) is touching, PH. But what is the basis of your faith in such characters, sight unseen? Why is it you just naturally assume good will on their part?
To my way of thinking, the suitable "base material" for little kids would be Genesis, not Darwinism or ID.
Well, sure, but that's a semantic point rather than a scientific one. The colorectal basis of peristalsis is likewise not peristalsis, but if you want to understand it, you are best off studying the bowels.
OK, that was vulgar, but this is the Smok'y Backroom. A more genteel analogy might be to say that the paint is not the image, and in fact I like that better, because the same image can be expressed equally well on a computer screen or a t-shirt as on a canvas. I see no reason not to expect that the same will be true of minds, with what is now instantiated in fragile wetware being expressed in greater detail on a grain of sand, a mote of dust, or a beam of light.
But if we're gonna rest on our laurels at this juncture, and not pursue other hypotheses, if only to "cross-check" the one we've already got, then we're not going to learn anything new about the mind.
Unless, of course, the hypothesis is the correct one, after all.
The problem here is that we're using nouns ("The" Mind, consciousness, "soul", if you will) to express what is probably better off as a verb. "Mind" is the action performed, for instance, by the brain.
Where did I say that? I said your statement was innacurate, and it was.
The very fact that you bother to respond to my post indicate that you are well aware that they did! That's one black mark for you! haha.
How's that again? Responding to a post is conceding its accuracy? Perhaps you should give a seminar on how, through excessive logic flogging, one can convince oneself that peace is war and black is white.
Addendum: Teach it, not as "religion," but as a "story" or "myth" that Western man continues to hand down to his progeny, as he has for two millennia by now. This is a fact having unquestioned historical basis -- and so Genesis is worth knowing if only for that reason. It lays out the basic issues extraordinarily well and in a manner that people of all ages and backgrounds can grasp -- even little kids.
Their work is published and reviewed by others. Anyone can study the material if he has doubts about its authenticity. I have confidence in the system because it works. In effect, they say: "Here's the evidence we have, and here are our conclusions." That's fine with me. That's what should be presented to children in school. If they want to study the material in depth, there are libraries. And if they want to become specialists in a scientific field, that's what universities are for. As for Genesis, we all start out with that. Not a problem.
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