Posted on 05/12/2005 5:30:04 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
With its lavish illustrations of colorful, cuddly critters, "Our Family Tree" looks like the kind of book kids keep by their bedside to read again and again.
But when its St. Paul author, Lisa Westberg Peters, planned to talk about the book in classroom appearances today and Friday at a Monticello, Minn., elementary school, educators got cold feet.
"Our Family Tree" focuses on evolution, the scientific explanation for human origins that some believe contradicts biblical teachings. Peters' appearances, which were to focus on helping kids learn how to write, were canceled.
"It's a cute book. There's nothing wrong with it. We just don't need that kind of debate," said Brad Sanderson, principal at Pinewood Elementary.
Monticello's assistant superintendent, Jim Johnson, said school officials made a reasonable request of Peters to talk about writing but leave the discussion about evolution to teachers. When she refused, the visit was scuttled.
Across the country, there has been increasing opposition to teaching evolution. Peters said officials at two other Minnesota school districts have asked her not to talk about the book in visits over the past year.
The author believes that she is being censored -- something the schools deny.
"Once you start censoring, it's a slippery slope. Are geology and physics next? You have to stop it right away," said Peters, who won a Minnesota Book Award for "Our Family Tree," published in 2003.
In Kansas, the State Board of Education is expected to require that teachers tell students that evolution is controversial. Bills have been introduced in Georgia and Alabama to allow educators to question evolution in the classroom and offer alternatives.
Last year, the Grantsburg, Wis., school district drew widespread attention when a new policy urged teachers to explore alternative theories to evolution.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
This statement demonstrates the bias inherent in the page you posted. When you actually look at what that page said, it doesn't boil down to anything different than the definitions that wallcrawlr posted.
However your page does try to get us to believe that theories should be trusted completely by telling us that theories are "the endpoint of science" and change less often than scientific "facts". Both are slight of hands. "endpoint" inplies a finality, but in fact, theories are sometimes replaced and should not be assumed to always be the "endpoint". There are many more facts than theories, so yes there are more changes in facts than in theories. But my guess is that the average "fact" doesn't change much in relation to the changes in theories.
also, do you generally trust wikipedia with other sourcing of things...havent you found it to have a somewhat liberal bias??
Since you have made science a profession, I'm not surprised. Most people who have taken a year of college science could not design the simplest double blind experiment, nor could they tell you why the concept is important. I could say the same about most people practicing in the social sciences and psychology.
Not to mention nearly all the anti-evolution posters to these threads.
nope..i didnt miss it and i'm not going to pick and choose which ones i would disclose.
I simply added it to the discussion. click on the link, each of the sources use similar language when giving a definition.
it is what it is.
Thanks for the ping!
There is heavy irony in your attempt to mock evolution.
‘Evolution is just a theory.’ What people usually mean when they say this is ‘Evolution is not proven fact, so it should not be promoted dogmatically.’ Therefore people should say that. The problem with using the word ‘theory’ in this case is that scientists use it to mean a well-substantiated explanation of data. This includes well-known ones such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Theory of Gravity, and lesser-known ones such as the Debye–Hückel Theory of electrolyte solutions and the Deryagin–Landau/Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) theory of the stability of lyophobic sols, etc. It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture.
I know what people mean when they use the word "theory", I would simply say that it has varying definitions depending on the group using it.
Including me ... but so what? I'm not afraid to admit that I *believe* in Creation as a matter of religious faith. It is part (not all) of the structure of what I believe as a Christian.
If something that I believe is literally true turns out to be false, then I was wrong. Big deal. My faith does not stand or fall on this point.
Rather, whether we recognize our sin, realize justice is deserved on breaking Gods laws, know that Jesus took our punishment for us, and trust in that Grace.
To what argument are you referring?
If you are referring to the concepts of evolution, there are forensic aspects and process aspects.
The processes necessary for evolution have all been subjected both to observation and experimental analysis. Mutations happen; they are subjected to selection. those are the minimal requirements for evolution to happen.
Evolution predicts that the boundaries between closely related species should be fuzzy and difficult to establish definitively, and in real life, this is the case.
When you make a forensic case for a proposed history, you are making predictions about the self-consistency of additional evidence that might turn up after you tell your story about what happened. Since evolution was first proposed, we have had 150 years of additional evidence, all of it consistent with the assumption of common descent.
Different sciences have different kinds of data available to them. Astronomy is strongly forensic. It tells a story about what has happened in the past, and it relies on the consistency of its predictions to support its veracity. It cannot conduct experiments on the composition of stars.
Maybe you need to understand that when multiple definitions are listed for a word, the applicable definition is based upon the context, not what you want it to be so that you can "prove" a false point about the "theory" of evolution being a "belief".
Including you, what? I'm not following the intent of your post.
It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture. - AIG
While it's true that AIG agrees that theory is different that belief. AIG agrees with me when I used the term "evolutionary beliefs" instead of "evolutionary theory". AIG doesn't belief evolution is a theory in the sense that it is well substantiated. However the definition that Wallcrawlr posted includes says "substantiated or widely accepted".
Evolution unfortuantely is widely accepted and thus a theory according to Wallcrawlr's posted definition. But only because it's widely believed.
Exactly. To digress from the topic somewhat, one reason I believe in Biblical Creationism is that it's clear to me that a materialist worldview is logically incompatible with Christianity. If Darwinism "must" be correct, because any other explanation is supernatural, then what possible benefit is it to you or me that the Romans executed an irritating Jewish rabbi two thousand years ago?
Evolution before eight or it's too late?
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