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."
Watched a documentary last year...the info not really breaking news..but considering the crowd it came by....yes!
Top shelf researchers....not Christians.
The program explored their collective knowledge about DNA and cell activation.
first..they discovered and shared the reality..that our DNA should have degraded via its exposure to a multitude of factors..such as the varied radiations that bombard this planet.
Its not the DNA as a whole that breaksdown..but the components within the DNA structure that mutate from radiations.
they discovered a unit..which transits the DNA like a monorail train...correcting the DNA's imperfection...it does this like a computer program.....re-writting out faulty code.
so a self correcting mechanism exists..so perfect...the science community can only stare at it wonder...like a child.
next linkage is in the "Firing order" of our DNA...the on ..off activity between cells...in the development stage in the womb.
sequential...and perfect.
like a computer software program.
yes..there are mutations...but only due to externals..some carried via gene..or by input from radiations to chemical.
it seems that Chimpanze's are wired to speak..have the same make-up as us to speak..except the "Programming" forbids it...it never happens..because the Chimp's encoded DNA never sends the commands.
turns out..this 'Software programming' is being discovered in many species of life...the reason things stay as they are..is the programming.
here..the science community marvels..and comments..it looks like intelligent design..and they are not afraid to say so.
*** The ancient Kabbalistic view of the Hebrews is one of intelligent design....the model is..we are given all to look into..but we only grasp understanding in stages..as we are in effect..."Enlightened to do so"...
we are being permitted to look into these wonders...it could be viewed..that we are granted so..and have developed to a degree to be trusted with it.
Outside of intelligent design...then we as humans are in a race...a race to not be expunged from the history record.
just a few years ago...21 fragments from Shoemaker Levy 9 spiraled in on gravametrics and wolloped Jupiter.
had a few of them spiraled in on the earth..we would not be having this conversation.
life forms on this world have been terminated in the past..due to external realities.
unless we can go off world and survive out there..we might just go bye bye as a life form.
maybe the program is rocketing about the universe in these comets...and takes when the environment sustains the DNA locked within.
this too could be faulty thinking....as nothing new has really appeared record wise out of the blue in a long series of time here.
human consciuosness is another debate.....might be the hardest debate of all..as no one has really gone to the other side..and returned with proof of anything.
all our hopes and dreams are burried in faith....we conclude we exist..and matter..somehow..all of this going on around us.
....is for our benefit.
I have several reasons for not doing so - and you just gave me another one!
First of all, the whole intent of the question is to both distract from discussion of evolution and to start an attack on religion. I see no reason to indulge him in that.
Second of all, the question is irrelevant to the discussion and certainly to all my posts. In general I use the assumptions of evolution to show its contradictions and how even under its own assumptions it does not work. I cannot waste my time on irrelevant discussions.
Thirdly, his insistence, post after post about it shows him to be a thug, so he is discrediting himself, not me when he makes this statement. Further, because his minions go along with him and make the same statements, it shows everyone who the hyenas of evolution are and how they run in packs like all thugs.
However, the most important reason for my not answering is that it gives me a legitimate reason to repost the questions which the evolutionists have been avoiding for some 900 posts on this thread which show evolution to be totally false. If he was not so arrogant, he would see he is only harming his side by this, but then I have never accused him or any evolutionist of being a mental giant.
I suspect that the practicing scientists wo post on these threads often find themselves staring in wonder.
But there is a difference between open and gaping.
So it comes down to whether the thread is an attack on religion or an attack on evolution.
Perhaps it could be a discussion rather than an attack if we all put our cards on the table. There is little point in trying to hide from the fact that design really means created by God. Any other designer would first have to have been created by God. So the discussion cannot escape being about religion.
Why is that?
Why is what?
Ahh - unanswered questions. They really spice up the discussion. How about: SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE OF A MUTATION THAT ADDS GENETIC INFORMATION or how about WHERE DID ALL THE SEDIMENT FROM THE GRAND CANYON GO? or even WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF POLYSTRATE FOSSILS?
The simple fact of the matter is that even if the Earth were 50 billion years old, abiogenesis cannot, does not and will not ever happen.
Let me guess. The people finding these fossils, analyzing them and reporting on their apparent age are:
a. mainstream scientists
b. creation scientists
Well, I guess I can't make you read it.
It's all center, no guards, ends, forwards, or tackles.
This compiler does not support negative zero.
Illegal operation attempted on null value.
Besides, you seem to be implying the existence of a creator co-equal with God, that is, something not created by God.
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