Yes
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."
The ChiComs seem have a great talent for converting human beings, either into robots, or corpses. Thanks for this post, V3.
All you are saying here is that the numbers you read are based on an earth centered coordinate system. We all know since Galileo that this is an artifact. With respect to the physics of the solar system, the reference plane should more properly be determined using the total solar system.
Yes, the question is what caused the original angular momentum. An area simply collapsing would not have a net angular momentum. But my real question has to do with the Mars-sized body forming by accretion and having such an eccentric orbit so as to allow it to collide with the earth and form the moon.
For a solar system-spanning and navigating race, perhaps. For earthbound sailors and astronomers, hardly. Earth-centric is, by overwhelmingly popular vote of those directly concerned, correct for us.
And this makes you what -- designated Nerd-by-proxy of the day?
;-)
Yes
You say God created, I say god imagined up. What is the detectible difference?
And your conclusion is not related to your premise. How, logically, do you conclude that since God didn't imagine it up, he must have created it out of something?
It is not a premise, nor a premise disguised as a question. It is a question, and a simple one at that, concerning your contention. How do I physically detect the difference between "God created" and "someone imagined up"?
Moreover, how could something (matter?) exist prior to God creating it unles you are assuming eternal matter? - which is one of the four options I gave.
I do not assume either that matter exists eternally, not that matter exists before God. I simply ask a few questions about your position you refuse to answer. Did God make the universe and all its matter out of something or nothing? If the former, what--and how can I detect it? If the latter, how is that detectibly different than the claim that "someone imagined it up"?
What is the purpose of this exercise? It seems to be purely polemical.
What is the purpose of your question concerning the 4 possible explanations of the universe's existence? Something other than to simply ask a question? If you wish to withdraw this contention before the bench, the prosecution will withhold further questions.
It's inherited from wherever the cloud came from, just like its energy and momentum.
An area simply collapsing would not have a net angular momentum.
Of course it would. For it to be identically zero would be unmistakably exquisite fine tuning. The net angular velocity would be extremely small at the outset, of course, and the axis of rotation would be difficult to establish, what with particles travelling in all directions about the center of mass. But make no mistake: the larger the cloud, the larger the expectation value for the net angular momentum.
longshadow:
And this makes you what -- designated Nerd-by-proxy of the day?
I'm worried. I've heard that mass perterbation can lead to blindness, which is a serious handicap for an astronomer.
This is an accreted body. Where would it get the stuff to make itself?
Why?
I have sensed a sea change in the intelligent design movement since late October
If ID plays by the rules of science, and comes up with something tangible to put on the table, than it is science. I doubt that creationists will rejoice, in the end, at the outcome. Personally, I feel God is outside the realm of evidence, so I doubt anyone's feelings about God will be enhanced by tangible evidence of any sort, but who knows?
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