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."
You're mistaken. The speed of light is constant, regardless of the frame of reference.
Ewww, gross! At least wash your hair.
Then I only think the way that I do because He wants me to... Whoa. That makes my atheistic actions God's Will and therefore holy! Goodbye free-will, hello true moral relativism! All actions are predetermined by God and therefore we are all acting under His script on His stage. No more faults, no more vices.
Musical scores in movies strike me the same way - sometimes the scene would make no sense without it, sometimes it heightens our anticipation or amplifies our revulsion. And so many times, music can express when words fail. Hugs!!!
Your one sick overblown god you should get rid of - - - POPE // EGO . . . way over rated phony bloated self ! ! ! f.Christian
I see what you mean A-Girl. This here post by f.Christian would make a beautiful song. I'm going to call Celine Dion and see if she'll cover it.
Aw! And you have the most darling little dimples!
I tell you that there are those who use the word "evolution" as part of a "theory" that the universe came into existence by accident and you say that's not true. I provide links. You say the words don't really mean what they say they mean.
To dredge up a spectre from the past, the term evolution often takes on several meanings in today's scientific circles, often in very misleading ways.
This is why it's important to identify which meaning of the word "evolution" before we start debating the term. In that spirit, summarize, if you would, the all-encompassing cosmological theory of evolution to which you are referring.
what does Dawkins really mean when he titles his book: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design?
Could it mean that evidence of evolution demonstrates spontaneous emergence of order and self-regulation in undirected systems?
That particular post by f.Christian (which evidently is a condemnation of self serving attitudes, making ones self their own God or Pope) - brings to my mind something more despairing and tragic, like the Requiem Mass (Mozart.)
I am reading Emperor's New Mind and do not at all come away with this conclusion. I am tempted almost to ask whether we refer to the same book. There is without doubt something deep and mysterious going on at the level of fundamental perception and it is intangible. There must of course be a material aspect to perception and some understanding of this is imperative but it is not appropriate to simply declare that materiality encompasses all because we can't describle or understand something real in non-material terms.
It is a stretch for ordinary humanity, even brilliant ordinary humanity, to try to understand that space-time is an aspect of physicality or that light speed is constant relative to everything else. Neither of these make any sense at all from an everyday perspective, which is the perspective in which we all live. And this is only classical physics. Things become much stranger at the quantum level. Some physicist wag once said that anyone who thinks they understand quantum mechanics hasn't studied it enough. I agree. Einstein was wrong about it. I would go so far as to say that the conscious, everyday perceptional frame of reference and mode of thinking is inadequate to really understand it and that this is because what we experience is not what's really going on at quantum levels.
My position would be that there is some "thing" that is operative, immaterial and intangible at the heart of reality and that anything less than this acknowledgement is denial.
All material is ultimately quantum mechanical in nature. People think that when one billiard ball hits another, the action is obvious and simple, but it's not. What is actually happening is that a billion billion electron wavefunctions are interacting with each other nonlinearly, diffracting through each other, interfering with each other, amplifying and cancelling each other out by turns.
Yes and No, Physicist, if you will. Billiard balls is a poor analogy. There is no thing at the heart of materiality. We perceive things. Methinks thee doth protesteth too loudly. As I have said before, I have great respect for your intellectual capacity, but I do not think such capacity is alone capable of understanding fundamental reality because it is not equipped to handle, in any way, intangibility. If Einstein couldn't get it, after trying for decades, can anyone? Well, I think so, but it requires something more than intellectual capacity. All, as always, in my humble view, and on a silver platter.
Yes, and a lot of this is going on here, A-G.
My sneaking suspicion is that the philosphers are patiently waiting for the scientists and that those philosphers would include Buddha and Jesus.
We're talking "little kids" here, Doc. Plus I thought the main mission of public education is to transmit the culture to the rising generation. (Silly me, what a "conservative idea." Of course, the Prussian Wilhelm Von Holbach transformed the mission of the public schools into "factories" preparing children to earn a living and become a "productive" member of society.... IMHO, this was a disastrous innovation which has resulted in massive cultural ignorance even among the "credentialled.") The theory of evolution is part of that culture; but it's not the only part.
Good grief, tpaine, your certainly have a "religion phobia." Of course I agree with you that the public schools must remain non-sectarian. But do you realize you can actually speak about God without reference to religion, or any religious sect?
Or is it really God Himself that you are "allergic" to?
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