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."
IMHO, when kids are taught to be critical thinkers, universal application will not be averted.
Not true! RA is very good at multi-tasking ;^)
As I see it, by its very definition it is. And that fits in with the character and moral consistency with which we're raising our kids.
Yeah, right. I can hear the alien dialogue now:
Ogg: I donno what's wrong with those humans, I keep signalling, but there's no response. Aren't they listening?Goo: It's strange. Surely, their SETI workers wouldn't let anything distract them for a moment.
Ogg: Distractions? But surely they could handle a little multi-tasking, and still keep their minds on the Search.
Goo: Maybe. Maybe not.
Yeah, what you said. What I said. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Rotation has no velocity?
No net velocity. The motion on the one side cancels the motion on the other side. But that's beside the point. The point is that while you can make velocity disappear by an appropriate choice of coordinates, you cannot make angular velocity disappear.
But you just did. "The motion on the one side cancels the motion on the other side."
That's quite a "teaser"... I look forward to the detailed film report at 11....
Angular velocity is the angle swept out per unit time, rather than a distance per unit time. It does not cancel, as both "sides" of the object are travelling the the same angular direction, even as they travel in opposite rectilinear directions.
Evolutionists do use them to claim that a species is xxxx years old. Glad you agree with me that such claims are totally phony.
Since, as I said, mutual descent is not what's been suggested, there is no point in my answering this. What the ribosomal genetic clocks suggest is that they all came from something else not presently observable, and not as a direct linear descent from a single common ancestor.
Another 'the dog ate the homework' excuse from evolutionists! There is no descendant/ancestor relationship possible between these species, yet more complex species do show features from both the prokaryotes and eukaryotes. What this means is that evolution is false and ID is correct since obviously the parts were reused by the intelligent designer (since descent is scientifically impossible). Science is about facts, not about excuses. It is the same problem as the descent of mammals from egg layers. Too many changes necessary at once for it to be possible.-me-
Same over-reaching argument over and over. You don't know how many intermediate steps, in how many directions, from how many intermediate environmental pressures there were,
More evolutionists gobbledygook. We do know quite well the differences between an egg laying reproductive system and a mammalian reproductive one. The problem that evolutionists have with this one though is that they cannot give their 'in millions and billions of years anything is possible' excuse. There could not have been intermediate steps because the change had to have occurred in a single generation for the simple reason that a species that does not reproduce dies off. Therefore it is absolutely impossible for the change to have occurred gradually or in any kind of random manner.
You don't need a SCIENTIFIC refutation of a non-SCIENTIFIC thesis.
ID is a scientific thesis, and the facts used to show the impossibility of evolution in my Post# 5138 . Now if you have scientific evidence against it, let's see it. A scientific theory, in order to be true, is supposed to explain the scientifically known facts better than any other theory. Well, ID explains the scientifically known facts much better than evolution because the excuse that there is one chance in an infinite number of chances that evolution may be true, which is what my post shows the chances of evolution being true are, just does not cut it.
I am getting sick and tired of your totally uncalled for insults. I proved your statement wrong by quoting YOUR ARTICLE. It did not say what you said it claimed to say that is why it completely disproves your statement.
If I had been lying, I would not have been able to show your statement false with the words of your very own article. Whether your statement was a deliberate lie, whether it was from not reading the whole article or whether it was from your inability to see the point of it due to a closed mind, does not matter. The post you are referring to is Post# 5119 and the article in question is In Ancient Ages Clues to Climate .
If you cannot act like a human being and discuss things in a civil manner like a normal person, then shut up.
No, it is not, the information already given to you is completely current and you should have checked it out before making the above statement. Unlike you , I back up my statements.
Nonsense, as I have said, you still need to train them personally in hand writing recognition:
smARTwriter®
A compact, complete word or sentence recognizer for the user's own natural handwriting, this solution seamlessly integrates case-differentiated letters, numbers, symbols and punctuation with no additional operational actions required. Self-trainable recognition software allows adjustment for idiosyncratic characters and control gestures or special handwriting needs. smARTwriter supports most European languages and most popularly deployed operating systems.
From: Art Andvanced Recognition Tehcnology
5111 posted on 01/15/2003 8:36 PM PST by gore3000
Yes there is motion, as I said something spinning, spins. But it spins in relation to something. To what is the angle measured? It is external to the object in question. The whole point of this exercise is to determine why something would spin. I am essentially saying that the impetus is external to the body. IOW gravitational forces directed towards a central point is not enough to impart angular momentum to the body in question. I believe it must come from something external to the mentioned body.
I think there is a misconception being promulgated on these threads that there is such a thing as evolutionist science and creationist science. This is politicizing science and it is totally wrong. Science, real science, follows its own music. It goes where the evidence, the technology and the possibilities lead it. There is much science going on and tens, if not hundreds of millions is spent every year on scientific research. Much of what has been found dealing with the questions being discussed here has had nothing to do with what we are discussing. It has been found by normal scientific research trying to solve some problem, some scientific question. For example, the drive to compare genomes is not being led by a desire to answer questions about evolution. It is being led for the purpose of learning more about our own bodies and finding out how it works by making comparisons which may elucidate some questions we cannot answer because we would not rather kill humans for research and also because with our bodies being just about the most complex ones around, we can sometimes find answers by looking at much simpler creatures to see how organisms work.
I saw this quote today on another thread:
"there is a small but growing segment of the Evolutionists here on FR that asserts, out of the chute, that I am (1) a "liar" and (2) a "Creationist", the latter of which charges is intended to be pejorative. These are ad hominem attacks intended to discredit me personally. I am neither. Well, if this is the "mode of argument" chosen, those employing it will find that I do not turn the other cheek."
I can't say that I blame the person who said this. Let's hope the trend reverses itself and we can get on with some civil debate.
See my post 5277 for a fuller answer. However, let me say that unlike evolutionists, our side is not getting any government money for such research. I am sure many ID'ers do have some ideas on that.
Lions and tigers, by this definition, are the same species, as are horses and zebras. Would you like to try again?
Nope, I would not. It just proves my point, looks are deceiving and this is the only objective manner of determining a species. The differences between lions and tigers in looks are far, far smaller than those between a chihuahua and a great dane which no one calls different species.
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