Dagmar!
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."
Captain's Log, stardate supplemental. We have taken aboard Nomad, an alien probe whose mission it is to destroy all forms of life which are not perfect. Dr. McCoy seems especially concerned.
"Blast it, Jim, we've got to stop it," said McCoy. "It's just zapped Lieutenant Uhura!"
"She was singing off-key, Doctor," said Spock defensively.
"IM-PERFECT." The Nomad unit blasted two security guards.
"Blast your logic!" said McCoy. "We've got to do something! None of us here is perfect."
"Perfect," said Kirk. "That's it," he said.
"What's it?" said McCoy, always the slow one.
"IM-PERFECTION." The Nomad unit blasted two more security guards.
"If we sent it to a place where everyone was nearly perfect...."
They rushed Nomad to the transporter room, and just in time, too; they were running out of security guards.
80 years later....
"Captain," said Data. "I'm picking up an object, coming out of a space-time disturbance on our starboard bow...."
Failed Church History, did you? I did not. After Christ's Ascension, the early Christians did indeed live communally. Please review the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-10.
I am not ranting against the existence of slavery. I was asked to document the fact that the Bible explicitly permits slavery, and permits beating slaves, specifically because they are property. No amount of Clintonian spin will remove these passages. They are as clear and direct and unambiguous as anything in the Bible. They are not mentioned as things people do; they are listed as permitted things, as part of God's law.
All of these things are either explicitly forbidden or mentioned as abominations. Slavery is explicitly permitted.
But you are missing the point entirely. The original discussion was related to the origins of communism, which is obviously a far older concept and practice than Stalin's corruption of the ideal. Communism even had God's blessing as it related to the early Church...a fact that seemed to escape Ananias and Sapphira...and they paid for their error with their lives.
It can't be very difficult for someone who has surveyed all Nobel Prize winning work and has declared that it all disproves evolution. An intellect of such sweeping power should be able to give us his answer. HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?.
Dakmar...
I took a few minutes to decipher that post, and I must say I agree with a lot of what you said.
fC...
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)!
Dakmar...
Where you and I diverge is on the Evolution/Communism thing. You seem to view Darwin and evolution as the beginning of the end for enlighted, moral civilization, while I think Marx, class struggle, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are the true dangers.
God bless you, I think we both have a common enemy in the BRAVE-NWO.
452 posted on 9/7/02 8:54 PM Pacific by Dakmar
If God is Love, then He wants us all to live in harmony with each other and the world He provided. In such a world, every person's needs would be provided for completely, and each person would maximize his or her potential. All things would be owned communally...just as they were in the early Church.
What is the definition of such a culture...? Communism.
You are pre-supposing that there are only two points of view. Your views of god/creation are not your neighbors view. - Thus, the needed separation.
Yes, I am. Namely, given the fact that the universe exists we are faced with only two possibilities as to its ultimate origin and purpose. Accident or Intelligence. What might you propose as a third point of view?
The multitude of those held by your neighbors, of course.
Do try to answer on point. - Or don't bother to try at all. Those are your two possiblities.
I've always thought our forefathers were more concerned about the Federal Government somehow advocating/establishing/funding a particular denomination of religion than a generic understanding of God and the rights we have from Him by nature.
Again, you seem to base your thought on a preconceived view of a type of 'god'. The founders arguably did not. In fact, I doubt that there is, or ever was, a 'generic understanding' of god. -- Despite the lip service by politicans.
I suppose, if you want to revise their writing so as to omit all references to God, Divne Providence, Creator, etc., you'd have a leg to stand on here. Their references are generic as far as I can tell, and they are many.
Again, you avoid the point to argue about word meanings. -- Enjoy your games and dreams that -- "Very few people ever controvert my posts." -- Whatta laugh...
You are stuck in the Cold War. Take the issue up with God, as it was He who determined how Christians should live together after Christ returned to the Father.
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