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."
You missed.
Yes indeed. Would you consider the differences to be dramatic? Exclusive of one another? Are you driving at the point that, in order to open the classroom to creationist considerations we must necessarily open the classroom to every single religious view on the matter?
"We made from water everything living? Will they not then believe?"
Looking at the surface of things, one would never imagine that living beings are made chiefly of water. Does this saying hold true by scientific testing? How much of the human body, for example, is made of water?
Creation/God...REFORMATION(Judeo-Christianity)---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...
Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern UPSIDE/REVERSE DOWN age
Right. As you may recall, whenever the false "Darwin-Marx" issue was raised, I used to post a link to a website which was titled "Is the Bible's God a Communist?" That link wasn't posted to bash the bible [attention, moderator!] but in order to show that communism has an ancient history which is totally unrelated to Darwin. That website has many passages from scripture that are ... well, hardly encouraging for a free-enterpriser. But one of the creationist crowd managed to get such posts deleted, with the complicity of one of the pro-creationist mods. So I won't post that link again. But you can do a Google search on "IS THE BIBLE'S GOD A COMMUNIST?" and locate it for yourself.
The point of this [attention, moderator!] is that communism existed long before Darwin, and its doctrines are not related to the theory of evolution, all claims to the contrary being purest nonsense.
In fact, everything in science should be labeled a theory, since it is always open to review and alteration because of new evidence.
This is one of the arguments that is always being used by evolutionists. While technically true, most of these have been proven through controlled repeatable experiments, which is the heart of the scientific method, and therefore they have a degree of certainty that cannot be claimed for evolution. The ones which do not have experimental proofs often are stated as being just theories, and no one has a problem with that. So the situation is kind of the opposite of what you're saying, i.e. evolution has to have a special status and be stated as a proven fact when it's not.
My error was grevious, but it's better than 1 x 10 followed by 39,999 zeros.
Remember the old Star Trek episode, when Kirk drives the destructive probe insane? "Must analyze ... an-a-lyze! ... ANALYZE!!!"
Indeed. Some very serious examinations the intersection of socialism and religion have been undertaken, particularly in the context of Christianity. It seems entirely fair to link to an online edition of Thomas Headlam's "The Socialist's Church", for example - one may agree or disagree with the notion of Christian socialism, but it is hardly bashing religion to point out that it exists.
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