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]

Do you even realize how badly your theory has been torn up on this thread?

Nope. Not a clue.

[gore3000]

Will you concede that there might be another way for evolution/abiogenesis to proceed?

No, I will not. It is impossible as my post shows. It is all based on thoroughly proven scientific evidence. Now this is the thing about materialists - they are always bluffing hoping that the opponents cannot back up their statements. Seems to me that if you:

cannot refute some of the evidence or figures displayed in this post only because my studies and pursuits lie elsewhere.

Then you should not be making statements like the following which you made in Post# 1272 .

Abiogenesis has not been scientifically disproven. This is a lie.

[RadioAstronomer]

For a supposed astronomer you do not even know your terms. It is called the LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION it is far more than a theory. As I told physicist, by denying something which you know to be true you are being dishonest. If you are a radio astronomer you know that gravity has been observed. If you do not know it, then you are not a radio astronomer, so either way you are being dishonest.

Ah, here we go again. This is reminiscent of “is a circle is an ellipse” (which BTW you never did acknowledge).

A little history here:

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

“Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.”

F=Gm¹m²/r²

Where:

F equals the gravitational force between two objects
M¹ equals the mass of the first object
M² equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10^-11 N*m²/kg² (which is still being refined and tested today)

(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)

Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.

A few of the problems are:

It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.

Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.

A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model. However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.

So, YES, the term “Gravitational Theory” is quite valid.

[RadioAstronomer]

BTW, I am still waiting for your answer on the age of the earth.

[gore3000]

Please note that I have never denied that gravity exists.

Aaaah, the semantic fallback. In post# 1254 you said "If you think that gravity has been observed, what color is it? . In post# 1262 you said "The question isn't if gravity is true on Earth". Seems to me that you were indeed strongly implying that gravity does not exist. Denying something which you know is perfectly true (as you admit above) and trying to attack someone for saying it, is extremely dishonest.

[Tribune7]

However, I find it hard to believe, as I am sure you do as well, that Western culture would never have discovered America (Columbus), that nobody would have theorized about gravity (Newton), etc. etc, without using God as an axiom for their pursuits.

But remember what my initial point was way, way back: It is perfectly fine to presume (God's existence) in science or anything else. It is rational. There is evidence for it. It's been done before and has worked quite well. Those examples -- the most important were actually Blackstone and Bacon, our laws and literally science itself is founded on the assumption of God's existence -- were examples of how presuming God's existence had worked well.

Now, would Western culture have made those discoveries without treating God's existence as axiomatic? Well Western culture -- especially during the age of discovery -- is a Christian culture. So, you'd have to ask if a pagan culture is capable of doing this. I don't think so, and there is no evidence for it. That concept, however, is the basis of much science fiction and can be argued indefinitely without coming to an absolute proof. All that can be said definitively is that a pagan culture never made these discoveries or developed the scientific method.

[Condorman]

There is a tremendous amount of proof against abiogenesis. [snip, G.H.I.-type spam]

Pasteur: Proved only the non-spontaneous generation of fully formed cells.

Smallest living cell, 1 million base pair example: Based on fully formed cells.

Chicken and egg "problem": concerns fully formed cells.

Evasion, avoidance, (deliberate?) misunderstanding.

So fire up those neurons, here we go again: What evidence do you have that insists that life must have jumped from zero to fully formed cell in a single step?

[gore3000]

We're all still waiting for an answer from g3k: HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?

As I have stated DIRECTLY TO YOU numerous times, I will not answer your irrelevant question. Your dishonesty in not even addressing your post to me is self evident. You are a lamer gratuitously attacking me because I have thoroughly disproven your atheistic/materialistic, pseudo-scientific evolutionary nonsense. The proof is all over this thread from the inability of any of the evolutionists here in showing that abiogenesis is even remotely possible within what science knows to be absolutely true, to the inability of any of the evolutionists here to refute the following posts made some 400 posts ago:

Neither you nor any evolutionists has ever given proof that a single species has transformed itself into another more complex species. If I am wrong, let's see the proof. Come up with a real arguement that slams evolution can you do it?

There are many. The bacterial flagellum is one. The program by which a single cell at conception turns into a 100 trillion cells at the time of birth - with every single cell of the exactly proper kind in the exactly proper place is another. There are many more which have been scientifically proven, but these two should keep you busy for a while.
988 posted on 12/23/2002 7:07 AM PST by gore3000

'Gradual loss of egg laying' is more easily said than done. You must remember that the you need to provide nutrition to the developing organism throughout its development - as well as after the birth until it can feed itself. To say that all these changes can occur simultaneously is totally ludicrous and you have disproven nothing. Let's see an article describing how this change occurred in detail. Can you find any? I doubt it because this is one of the things evolutionists never speak of.
989 posted on 12/23/2002 7:14 AM PST by gore3000

And where did you debunk the flagellum besides in your own mind?

As to the eye spot, your article only says that because it happened more than once then therefore the eye spot could have occurred. It is not a refutation of the complex mechanism required for an eye spot.

BTW - a blog from Don Lindsay is proof of absolutely nothing. The guy cannot even give references for his nonsense.
991 posted on 12/23/2002 7:28 AM PST by gore3000

[gore3000]

It so happens that I have been to Physicist's house and have seen his degrees with my own eyes. ... You owe Physicist a BIG PUBLIC apology!

Physicist deserves no apologies. As I said if he is a physicist he should not have made the following statement denying gravity:

Uh, huh. And what makes YOU think that the force that keeps the moon in its orbit is the same thing as the force that keeps your keyster in its chair?

1235 posted on 12/28/2002 8:11 PM PST by Physicist

He is either not a physicist or he is totally dishonest. Such a person does not deserve any apology.

[PatrickHenry]

Now, would Western culture have made those discoveries without treating God's existence as axiomatic? Well Western culture -- especially during the age of discovery -- is a Christian culture. So, you'd have to ask if a pagan culture is capable of doing this. I don't think so, and there is no evidence for it. That concept, however, is the basis of much science fiction and can be argued indefinitely without coming to an absolute proof. All that can be said definitively is that a pagan culture never made these discoveries or developed the scientific method.

Well now ... It's certainly true that our scientific advances have been accomplished in a society that is essentially Christian. Yet our method of thinking about such matters is inherently Greek. It was ol' Aristotle -- a product of pagan times -- who codified our laws of logic. It was the Greeks who gave us geometry. They actually computed the size of the earth. Eratosthenes.

But no one would claim that the "Zeus hypothesis" is essential for going geometry, or logic, or philosophy, or any of the other Greek achievements. If such a claim were made, you would be among the first to respond: "Come now, one can do geometry without even thinking about the Olympian gods!" Yes, that's true. And one can do physics without thinking about Genesis, or the Sermon on the Mount. I believe the fallacy you are deeply entangled with is known as post hoc, propter hoc (after this, [thus] because of this]. I quite agree that (at least nowadays) our society is congenial to scientific work. But I suspect we could do our science if we were pagan Greeks. Can't prove it.

[PatrickHenry]

Another reminder: notwithstanding constant dodges, evasions, excuses, and attempts to provoke a flame war (and thus an excuse to have the thread pulled), we are all waiting for g3k to answer a simple question: HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?. A recent history of this question is to be found at post 1275.

[titanmike]

I answered your question on post 1287 and for you to go on trying to claim it hasn't been answered is dishonest at best. At least one of the techniques for geological dating which we read so much about, i.e. varves, has turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking on the part of scientists beyond any question after the Mount St. Helens eruption, and you'd think geologists and others might learn the tiniest bit of humility from that sort of experience, but that also appears to be wishful thinking.

[VadeRetro]

BTW, how DO you get paid for being one of the professional evolutionists on something like FR? I might be interested; it definitely sounds easier than working for a living.

I'm not a "wannabee" biologist, geologist, paleontologist, or anything else of such a level of difficulty. I certainly don't think I'm a physicist or a chemist. So what am I doing? I have an antiquated, never-used undergrad degree in psychology and I argue with nutcases like you purely as a hobby.

Recall now that I mentioned the preponderance of evidence for the age of the earth. The Age of the Earth and How We Know. I asked you why you would overthrow the same in favor of two paragraphs of vague mumble whose ultimate source was unknown to you and which in any case only referred to calculations done elsewhere by the unknown author.

This is your supposed answer:

There are several possible reasons why lines of evidence might converge or appear to converge.

The lines of evidence might actually converge.

Or there might be an official paradigm of some sort in place and the lines of evidence might appear to converge because in each individual case, researchers know that they will perish rather than go on publishing if they ever publish anything which does not support the paradigm.

"Maybe the big preponderance of evidence is all an illusion or more likely a world-wide fraud conspiracy and they're all in on it and that's why all the evidence is against me and whoever put the note in that bottle."

It's been an interesting hobby, but it's getting a little old. I've seen you and done you a hundred times over the last four years. You've had a different name most times, but the common signature is that you threw every shred of normal commonsense reasoning away a long time ago to live in a world in which magic is more plausible than cause-and-effect, "It's a miracle" is a great scientific explanation that keeps getting overlooked, and a vast conspiracy keeps all the real evidence hidden from the public.

Bulletproof delusional systems are fun for a while, but the thing is that bulletproof means bulletproof. No matter what is shown you guys, you go out as deluded as you come in. Been here, seen you, done you.

[PatrickHenry]

Am I correct that you are sticking with your "Lord Kelvin's estimate of the age of the earth disproves evolution" claim?

[Aracelis]

you must have deemed yourself "physicist" rather than acquiring the title from an institution of higher learning.

Hehe! Fresh-meat, huh guys??? :-D

[titanmike]

I'm no expert in the field and I'd have to do those calculations myself before I'd try to make a case based on them. Nonetheless arguments based on uranium/thorium dating would appear to be a bit less weighty after reading that than before reading it, and the varve evidence is indisputable.

In short, the scientific establishment does not appear to be on terribly much more solid ground in their pronouncements on the subject of the age of the Earth than Bishop Usher was. The truth has pretty much got to be somewhere in the middle.

[titanmike]

One way somebody could get to call himself "Physicist" would be having the paint people paint the words "Janitor" and "Physics Lab" on the wrong two doors...

[PatrickHenry]

I'm no expert in the field ...

Agreed. Well, if you're not impressed by geologists, and if Physicist doesn't impress you, may I inquire as to your own field of expertise?

[B. Rabbit]

I have thoroughly disproven your atheistic/materialistic, pseudo-scientific evolutionary nonsense

You may know a lot of big words and are far better read on this subject than I. But this statement shows you are a simple, simple man. Shouldn't you win a Nobel for this? Shouldn't I call the collective scientific minds of America and direct them to this thread?

You think because you have a couple of questions which at this time cannot be fully answered BY THE PEOPLE ON FREE REPUBLIC (no disrespect, but there are greater scientific minds) then you have disproven the theory of evolution? Are you really that simple?

If it is that simple to disprove a theory, then let me disprove the existence of your god with one request: Show me one piece of hard evidence that proves there is a god. If it really is this simple I am going to be the most famous man in history... You demand one piece of evidence from evolution and when you don't get it from THE SELECT FEW PEOPLE ON FREE REPUBLIC (or in many cases when you do get it shoved into your face post after post by the others here much more intelligent than I) YOU MAKE THE STATEMENT THAT YOU HAVE DISPROVEN EVOLUTION. Well I am going to make the same ridiculous statement. I have disproven god.

[Junior]

Are you really that simple?

Yes. Yes he is.