Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.
Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.
"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.
Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.
The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.
"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.
Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.
"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."
The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.
It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.
The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."
The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."
The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.
The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.
Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.
The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.
"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.
The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."
The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.
Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.
Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.
Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.
New books will be distributed next summer.
State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.
"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"
State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.
"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.
State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.
"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."
Let's reveal the full quote, shall we?and you got all that from this filthy slur?
God of dysentery?
3,890 posted on 07/17/2003 2:16 PM CDT by js1138
From the looks of you evo's attachment to things anal, you ALL are merely taking license to sign on to js1138's disgusting God Bashing spree.
Also let's show a little more of the text that Vade was quoting from (than he quoted) (emphasis mine):
To: VadeRetro
Would a theist truly be satisfied with an argument which meekly asserted "well . . . the Almighty is at least responsible for the flagellum of a bacterium?"
God of dysentery?
3,890 posted on 07/17/2003 12:16 PM PDT by js1138
As science progressively answers more questions about the natural world, God is relegated to a smaller and smaller creative role. However, this argument is clearly attractive to creationists. Since science can never hope to fully answer every question, there will always be gaps where God can still play a role. Teaching the "God of the Gaps," in science classes has serious ramifications to science. This mentality, if adopted, could potentially lead to lazy science. Why work a lifetime on difficult scientific questions? Don't worry, when you get stuck on a tough question, the answer is already there, "then the miracle happens." Furthermore, "God of the Gaps" should clearly be offensive to theists. Giving God responsibility over only those things whose naturalistic mechanism we don't fully understand, would trivialize God's role. Would a theist truly be satisfied with an argument which meekly asserted "well . . . the Almighty is at least responsible for the flagellum of a bacterium?" That's just pathetic.The fact that your creationist theory implies that God explicitly designed H. pylori to use its God-designed flagellum to cause us diarrhea is your dragon to slay, not ours.
What the heck are you writing about?
That quote was from someone antipathetic to creationists and IDists some of whom are not creationists. The implication was drawn by himin his attack on ID, and not attributed to a creationist. Nice straw man.
The God of the Gaps is the essence of Irreducible Complexity. Once science discovers how the IC mechanism could indeed have evolved (or discovers how it did evolve), then it's no longer IC. By definition.
And if you want to argue that ALS doesn't think the Designer of the flagellum is God, good luck.
Well whether ALS does or does not believe the designer is God, I do believe it. In any case, my comment was addressed to your argument. A false one. As to whether God created evil, I think I have displayed the answer clearly.
What difference does the source make? Circumstantial ad hominem. That the stated problem presents itself is obvious. Indeed it's been obvious, in some form, to Christians and other theists all along. They only debate is about the solution to the problem, or if there is a solution.
Frankly I think God does, as The Bible has him say of himself, "create evil." Or, rather, in my view, he invests the world and all the things in it with being, and some of those things are "evil" in the sense of tending to thwart human wants, needs and desires. Tough toodies. That's the price that must be paid for the wonderful diversity, multiplicty and dynamism of the creaturely world.
Well, that's the "problem of evil". There is also the "God of the gaps" problem here, or what might also be called "the unintended promotion of deism". I don't think you're so obtuse as to fail to see how that arises, or at least tends to, in creation science, and maybe even especially in ID.
The problem doesn't arise for me, as I hold that the world is not in any sense apart from God, but is rather a manifestation of (a portion of) God's own being. (I think there are also aspects of God's being that are expressed non-materialy, and exist beyond the world, so I'm not a pantheist positing that God and the world are co-equal. In terms of a very rough analogy, I suspect that the world is like God's "body", or maybe even just a portion of His body, and that other aspects of God, including his mind, transcend the world.)
ID, OTOH, is all about saying, "these things were the product of a designer because they couldn't have been created by natural causes." The corollary to that is that things that things which can be explained by nature cause need not be attributed to God. Creation science is likewise about arguing that there is evidence of God acting in the world in this or that instance or respect.
The problem is that all these arguments point to a God (or "intelligent designer") who is present and active here and there, now and then, in the world. But a God that is occassionaly present is also one who is occassionaly absent, and this is deism rather than theism.
Where was that? (Pardon, I'm just jumping in to this conversation.)
I thought I made it clear. You don't want Jerry Falwell teaching biology, and I look askance at creationist arguments put forth by one antipathetic to creationists. Simple isn't it.
Don't you read?
Where was that? was Stultis' question. Post 4130 contained the answer(Vaderetro understood and selected the precise portion out of the context). The answer to the question "Does God create evil?" is yes. I gave Stultis the direct answer to save him time if he wished.
Because He said He did.(through Isaiah)
Alamo-girl explained it. The verses in post 4130 also explain it. You can't have a drawing on white paper without darker lines. Without evil we would have no free choice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.