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."
LOL. Go back and read post #3768.
See my post 3770 for your answer. Who said it wasn't in dispute? It certainly was! Heard of the Missouri Compromise of 1820? How about the Compromise of 1850? How about the Northwest Ordnance from 1790 (all concerned slavery)!
I don't want to be overly picky but that clause we are discussing is not an apositive but an an adjective clause. The sentence still makes perfect sense if you take the clause out. The sentence makes little sense if you take out the noun "Evolution," (Note: The relationship of noun-"Evolution" in the preceding sentence would be an example of an apositive.)
I don't know why you're arguing this point so much. Darwin may have limited his views to biology. Mainstream science may limit "Theory of Evolution" to biology.
There are obviously those, however, that seek to expand "theories of evolution" to the history of the universe and they obviously have influence in our culture. I see this as a far more serious problem than the biological debate.
I did, but you consider it foolish.
Fire-and-brimstone lectures and vague threats of eternal damnation are hardly conducive to civil debate. But thank you for your input, anyway.
I guess the moderators concluded that there's no way a thread could have gotten this long without there being a really nasty flame war in here somewhere. It's kind of like how the EEOC identifies racial discrimination.
Can you cite an example?
Ask me again at 5:30 pm.
Oh, yeah? Well you should go back and read post #3781!
;^)
And thank you for that link and dialogue! It is excellent - reminds me of the tortoise in Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
I do hope you are planning on writing books for the general public! You have a great way with words that would help all of us understand. One thing though...
Some of the concepts are difficult to grasp from words alone, and charts and graphs can be intimidating. It is my hope that some physicist (ahem...) will publish in e-book form with selectable animations like this one.
I could visualize your dialogue with an animation that follows the conversation!
If basic moral principles are man-based, then they are relative and carry no moral weight whatsoever! By your reasoning, I can use logic to make up MY OWN moral precepts and mine would be just as valid as those made up by any other man or group of men. The only way moral principles can carry any weight is if they are "self evident" (e.g. all men are created equal) and they can't e self-evident unless the source is God Himself. There is no source outside of God that can produce universal truths such as these.
I realize I'm just a layman, but - hey - I hypothesized a good test for ID and even offered a couple of ways to falsify it! I said: Algorithm at inception is proof of intelligent design.
Of course, that should be taken in the common usage of the word evolution and not the technical usage theory of evolution - because the technical usage excludes inception altogether.
Thank you
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.
Exactly.
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.
Undirected Big Bang/expansion/swirling gases form suns/cooling matter orbiting suns form planets/cosmic rays act on chemicals in seas on planets to form single-celled asexual reproducing life/which evolve to multi-celled sexual life to survive/which leaves seas etc
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?
In other words, the theory of evolution shows the universe to be a matter of chance, which is not a subject of biology.
'Has not been supported?' LOL! What planet are you living on? Honest scientists will tell you that the more we come to know, the more we realize how much there is that we don't know.
You cannot convert lack of evidence into support for your own pet theory.
But there is much evidence that points to creation, not a lack of such evidence.
Of course, you may not exist at all, so maybe it evens out in the end, heheh.
Escapist nonsense. Do you look both ways before you cross the street?
Not even remotely true. Darwinism is open to falsification on any number of points:
Now do a thought experiment. Take yourself back to 1860 and assume the role of an ID proponent. What would you assert as the age of the earth and why. Would you believe in mutation or not, and why? Would you expect to find a sorted array of hominid fossils or not, and why?
Theorizing is not science unless falsifiable statements are made.
Wow! Agreement.
I can recall from my own experience in 1957, several Adventist children left the classroom during prayers. Are Adventists liberal? Your assumptions as to why people consent to things is way off base. Just because people aren't marching in the streets doesn't mean they agree with everything going on.
Define alorithm in a non-circular way.
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