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."
I'm surprised we are reading from the same text. Prime mover as a cause does not rule out randomness. Wolfram goes into great detail about using random numbers for the initial conditions. I wanted to make that clear before moving on to the rest of your post at #4224.
I gather it all has to do with the ability of earlier iterations to convey information to later states of the system.
Evolution certainly does.
In any case, to the extent that natural selection seems to depend (at least in part) on the preservation of information and its transmission to "later iterations" of the system, perhaps Wolfram's insight that its role may not be the decisive role is analogous to whether we, as observers, "encounter" an island of order or a patch of apparent chaos at any given iteration of the systemic evolution, which is essentially unpredictable.
Wolfram thinks that selection at the level of variation that produces highly complex results is washed out. I can buy that, by the way. Instead, self-organization of random noise can produce highly complex adaptive systems.
We have a fair macroscopic viewpoint of nature. We can see the end results. We can see the obvious order that has emerged. It wasn't until people, like Darwin, actually looked carefully at inheritance and change that the realization set in that random factors are at work. Wolfram repeats that random initial conditions lead to ordered end results.
Personally, I don't see how we could have gotten to string theory without going through quantum mechanics. OTOH, we might have advanced in a number of other ways, e.g. by focusing on dimensions and dynamics.
I am wrestling with your distinction between materialism and physicalism. At the moment I cannot clearly see the difference -- at least any difference that affects my way of thinking.
The difference is a technical one and in everyday conversation the two terms are used interchangeably. IMHO, it is most important at the reins, i.e. which direction to take, not whether to go.
That's the first thing I thought of, but I agree with js1138. Apart from the strong possibility that gravitational fields can be described as a sum of particles, after the fashion of the other forces, I think that forces in any case would have to fall under the category of materialism. Otherwise, all that would ever have been necessary to defeat materialism is to point out that forces exist, which would have settled the matter thousands of years ago.
At a deep level, it doesn't make sense to talk about particles in the absence of forces, or forces in the absence of particles. "Material" necessarily comprises both.
The second thing I thought of was a song, but I don't believe a song can exist independently of any physical instantiation. A song is a pattern, but a pattern of what? A pattern of material. (Yes, yes, I know what you'll say: "what about when the song is in your head?" That, of course, is the question upon which the discussion hangs, so we must stay agnostic on that...er, score.)
Or else you're a bored radioastronomer who has nothing better to do with his time...say! What does an ennui-stricken scientist do to liven up his life? Perhaps assume an alter-ego such as G3K??? ;^)
Inquiring minds want to know! Is RA really G3K?
Wolfram repeats that random initial conditions lead to ordered end results.
That is where I crash and burn by running headlong into Kolmogorov and Chaitin, randomness and complexity. How do you reconcile it?
Now you've done it!
I've seen his eyes...they look ok to me! :^D
Thank you, I was going to bring that up before. What you previously posted about materialism and physicalism had to do with metaphysics, but the question of how consciousness works is one of epistemology. It is possible to be a philosophical non-materialist and still expect/accept a material explanation for the workings of the mind. Nobody invokes mysticism to explain how a Slinky works.
Doctor Materialist says "Whatever is behind that door is based on all the physical laws that are in the room of all scientific knowledge.”
That's where I'm confused. "Scientific knowledge" comprises what we know. It isn't about what we can know, but currently don't. If that's the difference between materialism and physicalism, then I submit that materialism is purely a straw-man position that nobody has ever seriously advocated. (Ironically, it's the holy-book-thumping mystics that come closest to saying that we already know almost everything we are capable of understanding.) Nobody seriously contends that we actually have an adequate explanation in hand for consciousness. Dennett named his book Consciousness Explained to be provocative and boost sales. Few people seriously contend that there are no discoveries yet to be made that will affect our understanding of consciousness. (Certainly I don't, but I expect the missing pieces to come from biology and chemistry, rather than physics.)
So I'm afraid I still don't see the difference between materialism and physicalism when it comes to understanding the mind.
A welcome bit of friendly advice instead of an attack. Well then, I will tell you a secret, f.Christian. You would be very surprised at just how many evolutionists actually spend time pondering the metaphysical.
Shabbat shalom!
If so, I will first curse him mightily. Then I will kick him soundly in the shins. Then I will buy him a beer.
However, I'm of the mind that I need not begin to plot violence upon his person.
That is another topic. FACT is can't have them in atheism or naturalism. Face it.
There are those whose intrinsic moral values are already there, and there are those that need coaxing in order to follow those moral imperatives. Christianity is and was needed for those that needed that coaxing. Along with other religions.
You obviously do not understand what objective means. It has nothing to do with what a person believes to be moral. You haven't been following the thread very well. Go back to my post 3566 for a refresher. I don't want to keep repeating myself so I will just leave it to you.
Be moral or rot in hell forever, well, if I was immoral, that threat would sure put me on the straight and narrow.
What is this - your straw man? This is out of the blue - I didn't say this. Who are you talking to? Are you making a claim you can state and then tear down? Go ahead.
Christians believe that EVERYONE should need their moral restraints in order to be moral, and he and I are telling you that it is far from necessary. Some have other beliefs that keep them moral, and some have NO beliefs at all and are still moral.
This and the rest of your posts seem to be a summary of your rejection to Christianity. No one is forcing you to believe in Jesus Christ. By the way, you can't get to heaven by being moral - no one can. It is by Grace through faith in Christ - it's a free gift! It's good news to those who recognize their need for a Savior.
God is necessary for moral absolutes. Either it is God or it is man. Name another possible source (please review the definition of "absolute" before you answer). Who you decide God is is up to you.
There must be a lot of material out there written about information in biology that I haven't read. One thing I can say is that information in biology, normally thought of as contained in the DNA sequence, is far from absolute. DNA can be thought of as carrying information about it's environment and when that environment changes, a sequence of DNA has as little information as any random piece would. For example, a virus is quite active in the environment of its host but completely inactive or dead outside of it. How is it possible to make definitive statements about the information contained in a particular sequence of DNA? I don't think the field of information theory has progressed far enough in relation to biology.
You wrote that objective human value is excluded because it can't be observed or measured. Your same rule must also apply to morals - they can't be measured or observed either, therefore they must also be subjective. Inconsistency and contradiction are always the result of holding erroneous views.
Listen, I've got to run off and play sailor for the weekend; I won't be able to answer any of your replies until Sunday night or Monday. Until then, take care and I look forward to taking this up with you once I return.
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