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."
This "fact" is making a terrible assumption. Homeschoolers are better educated on average than the public school products, this I will not disagree with. However, a parent who has the time and resources to teach their children will almost always surpass the quality of education provided by the state. Let me restate your theory in a few different ways: The fact remains that 90% of homeschoolers are smarter than the Christians churned out by public schools. The fact remains that 90% of homeschoolers are Christians and they are smarter than the Christians churned out by public schools. The fact remains that 90% of homeschoolers are Christians and they are smarter than the average student churned out by public schools. This whole thing is a function of homeschooling and available parents, not religion. You are making the absurd hypothesis that Christianity makes people inherently more intelligent.
It is a durned good thing we finally caught up technologically with the design so we could finally safely pull out each others' wisdom teeth and prevent infection. Wouldn't the designer be upset that we are improving upon his design when we do such things? Oh well, I'm leaving 'em in my kids then.
Sometimes when I read f.Christian's posts, I ponder that his expressions carry a lot of feeling that I might understand better if it were music instead of words.
I've been following this debate for a while between you and exmarine. To be honest, when you first started I wasn't sure where you were going. I tend to pay high respect to what you write, normally, but I couldn't get it. I think I do now. Subjectivity in regards to human life is only normal, but it does not imply moral behavior or relativism, as exmarine puts it. There is a value to all life, but people value terrorists far less than family and friends. People value family and friends far more than strangers, but that does not make killing the stranger a moral thing to do. Simply because you place no value on my life for instance (subjective), you cannot simply kill me and justify it as moral. Subjective value does not necessitate moral relativism. Or something like that.
Although you speak far more eloquently than I, this is the exact point I was trying to make to exmarine for an eternity. It is so logical, and yet he refuses to see it. Even when everyday examples are put in, he won't listen.
Pedagogy? Why bring that up? :-)
But seriously Don, pedagogy is not primary, it serves a goal; here that goal is teaching about science. Science is much more than a set of published results, it is a process, a history, a community etc. Learning about the governing paradigms is central, it isn't all that should be taught.
if you are going to give special consideration to ID
I don't know what gave you that idea. I don't see how teaching about ID serves the goal. OTOH if I were convinced it would, the I would support doing so.
We have a common enemy, much more formidable than either side of this debate and yet laughably inferior: the liberal. But I don't see evolution as a direct brother to liberalism. What does evolution have to do with high taxes, weak foreign policies, and welfare?
No I don't. And I believe you are creating a relationship between two things by simply stating those two things in the same sentence. Back up the relationship.
To be honest, I don't care if they teach evolution in public schools or not yet. But what do we say about natural history? Can we say in our schools that dinosaurs lived 200 million years ago? Just curious, not an attack at all. I just want to see what you think.
NO we won't. You're side will actually win here on Earth for a short time.
God is the one who will shut you up in the end.
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