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."
Tribune7: "Evolution" is the noun. A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea
"the sequence of events by which the world came to be as we see it today" is an adjective clause. This is a clause which acts as an adjective. An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words
If what you say is true, the the "sequence of events" phrase could be used in the same way as an adjective. For example in the phrase "biological evolution," "biological" is the adjective modifying "evolution," the noun. The statement in question is not structured like that. The "squence of events" phrase is equivallent to the word "evolution," not dependent on it.
Now don't you think you've tortured the English language enough for now?
Emphasis mine. This is key. Discussion of religious beliefs, even the practice of religious precepts in schools, government, or any other public place, if not mandated by law, is within the intent of the first clause.
So do we all. This thread has been just fine. But I fear that with the re-appearance of two posters who have been absent the last couple of days, things may take a sharp turn for the worse. Your first clue will be the sudden appearance of a certain color in the thread. I hope I'm wrong.
I entertain serious doubts that pedagogy is not primary in education.
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.
That's history and social studies. If you are going to teach business practices, business practices are what you should teach, not history of accounting and Roman maritime banking law.
This doesn't explain anything. One of the major concerns most creationists have with the theory of evolution is that it involves undirected mutations. How does the First Cause change that? Extreme determinism?
It occurs to me that the disappearance of Mr. Blue seems to correlate with the banishment to the smokey backroom.
Science at the higher levels is taught as edsheppa explains.
Eagles may have trouble with Jets, but they're gonna tear apart the Falcons, and the Jets aren't going to make it past the Raiders in any case.
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