Evolution Disclaimer Supported

The Advocate (Baton Rouge) ^ | 12/11/02 | WILL SENTELL

[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."

[PatrickHenry]

Post 7,000 exists; and it stands as an indelible fact of history. I could ask the mods to delete it, but then it wouldn't belong to anyone. What would that accomplish? It's not as if any of you creeps would achieve the glory. So it's me or nobody. I ask you now, which would you prefer? (Or is that a question that ought not be asked?)

[Hoplite]

Post 7,000 exists; and it stands as an indelible fact of history.

Jeez Patrick - look at the topic of the thread! Even if we accept that post #7,000 actually exists, now that it's yours, what makes it so important?

Paluxy retort: Post #7,000 and Post #1 exist on the same thread, ergo, your theory of increasing importance of primes is erroneous, as they are contemporary, not successive.

Last Mondayism retort: This thread was created at midnight on the night of 8/20-21, and everything before post #6,961 was created to make it look like #7,000 would be important, when in fact it's really only post #40.

Transitional post retort: If post #7,000 is supposed to follow post #6,999 - where are all the posts in between? Post #7,000 was obviously created as is - and is therefore no different nor more important than any of its supposedly preceding peers.

Etc...

Or is that a question that ought not be asked?

Lemme tell you a little story:

You know when I was a little boy, there was an old member of Darwin Central that posted on the same website as us, named Charles. He was ... I guess he was just a little more luckier than my daddy was. He got himself a prime. It was a big deal in round that website. Now my daddy hated that prime. 'Cause, his friends were always kidding him about, "They saw Charles out parading with his new prime and Charles is going to start another Crevo thread now he had a prime." One morning that prime showed up deleted. They complained to the Admin Mods. After that, there wasn't any mention about that prime around my daddy. It just never came up. One time we were poking around that website and we passed Charlie's "In Forum" page and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went somewhere else or something. I looked over at my daddy's face, I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, "If you ain't better than a member of Darwin Central son, who are you better than?"

[longshadow]

So it's me or nobody. I ask you now, which would you prefer? (Or is that a question that ought not be asked?)

I think you are about to experience that awakening moment of lucidity, sort of like when the narrator character in "Fight Club" comes to the stunning realization that he and Tyler Durden are one in the same person....

"It's called the "changeover"....."

[dread78645]

So it's me or nobody. I ask you now, which would you prefer?

"PH takes a break from the Darwin Central annual awards banquet."

[tortoise]

Re: computational requirements for human level intelligence

Simulating the human brain at any level of detail is computationally very expensive and still a couple of orders of magnitude beyond our biggest systems. Virtually all estimates like this are based on models of biological equivalence, not computational equivalence. There is a very good argument to be made that biological equivalence for computing power is only as useful with respect to intelligence as the model being used.

Computational equivalence (equivalent silicon required to implement functions and structures) is being actively worked on by both the wetware neural modeling researchers and the theoretical computer science folks (mostly converging on Bayesian computational models from somewhat different directions). In the last few years, the average estimates for computational equivalence from both the wetware and hardware researchers have decreased significantly and from different research directions. Both the neural guys and the compsci guys seem to be estimating that computational equivalence is about two orders of magnitude below the biologically equivalent model.

The wetware researcher models are slowly converging with the compsci models, which is partly why their estimates roughly track each other. One of the major drivers of insane computational needs has been the conservative need to compute the state of the entire data structure at every time quantum. Current computational models on both sides of the fence have become much sparser and less pathological from a silicon standpoint. The models are still massively parallel (kind of like millions of very simple bucket-brigade stack machine macro structures), but the algorithms allow large quantities of state to be ignored in any time quantum.

More and faster CPU/memory are always welcome though, because even the mediocre approximations have a bad habit of unbounded resource growth under ideal conditions.

[Seamoth]

Well, I tend to think of opuses as attention spam, but, getting the word out there crosses a psychological barrier wherein you know that you'll forever be branded a crybaby & idiot if you -do- post again. So here's my official opus: I endeavor to be a builder, and to not to tear down others; I'm not reaching that goal on this site, so, bye. If I like you, you know how to get in touch.

[PatrickHenry]

Understood.

[PatrickHenry]

Here's another major prime I scored: Post 2,000.

[Hoplite]

What FreeRepublic called the Battle of 7,000 is over. I expect that the Battle of 8,000 is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Freeper civilization. Upon it depends the understanding of our own evolutionary history and the long continuity of our articles and our replies. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Patrick Henry knows that he will have to break us in this thread or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Freeperdom may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole website, including the non-crevo threads, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if FreeRepublic and its crevo threads last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

So there!

[PatrickHenry]

Earlier major primes in this thread:
6,000. BMCDA.
5,000. PatrickHenry.
4,000. Condorman.
3,000. Condorman.
2,000. viaveritasvita (who's that?).
1,000. donh.
666. donh.

[RadioAstronomer]

final bttt for posterity.

(Welcome to the desert of the real)

[RadioAstronomer]

bttt