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."
Have you ever observed limestone transforming itself into marble? Has anyone? Is this science?
How strange. There's verbal discription of these so called missing links, and yet.....................no pictures. I wonder why? Surely there must be millions upon millions of these missing links strewn all over the globe since they lived millions of years during their transition to another species, and yet they only talk about them.......NO PICTURES!!! To me, that says it all.
So that's how the eye evolved. It's no wonder you idiots believe in fairy tales of evil-lution. With scrambled brains such as yours, it's easy to see why you confuse truth with fairy tales.
See I can get down to your level too. So there. Now grow up and answer the question.
I answered this exact same question back in post 1997. ...
Actually your answers were just plain lies as I showed in Post#2068 and numerous times by chester, most clearly in Post #2040 where he gives the text of the correspondence between Darwin and Marx. That Marx thought that Darwin's work was immensely helpful to his theory is beyond doubt from the following:
When Marx read the Origin, he entusiastically declared ti to be "a basis in natural science for the class struggle in istory". ... If Darwin had not the least idea of what Marx was up to or what they might have in common, Marx knew precisely what he vauled in Darwin, Recommending the Origin to Lassalle, he explained that "despite all deficiencies not only is the death-blow dealt here for the first time to teleology in the natural sciences, but their rational meaning is empirically examined." The other reason for his interest in the Origin emerged in Das Kapital, where he complained of the abstract materialism of most natural science, "a materialism that excludes history and its process." It was his hope that by focusing attention on change and development, the Origin would destroy both the old-fashioned supernaturalism and the equally old-fashioned materialism.
From: Gertrude Himmelfarb, "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution", Page 421.
What question of yours has not been addressed?
Let's see, "In the beginning God (Aleph-Tau) Created the Heavens and the Earth." So that the discussion of beginnings belongs to the Bible, DOESN'T IT. So you so-called evolutionists stay out the beginnings area. IT belongs to "Religion".
Post 2065:
Unless you can demonstrate that Marx's philosophy at the beginning of his publishing career is significantly different than that at the end of his publishing career you have proved nothing.
Another example of your "open mindedness"? We can certainly add it to your new refrain each time you call the troops to a thread "[This ping list for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads,"
Now you can put whoever you like on 'virtual ignore', although it is a very childish thing to do. However, when you use this virtual ignore to ignore refutations made about your statements which have been made directly to you, you are being dishonest - as you showed numeroust times in the discussion with chester before he was on virtual ignore. It seems pretty clear that your problem is two-fold:
1. you do not like to have your opinions challenged by others so you just ignore anything that does not agree with your views.
2. you do not have a response to those who disagree with you and use the 'virtual ignore' as an excuse for dishonestly dismissing refutations showing your views to be false.
It seems therefore that you are totally unable to function in a normal environment and must close yourself to all but those who parrot your exact same views. These are the signs of an ideologue and a deeply disturbed person whose egotism and arrogance have forced him to separate himself from normal concourse with fellow human beings.
Ah, just like that charlatan Darwin! Good. Another evil theory bites the dust. Now I can forget all that satanic trig they made me learn in school. It wasn't scriptural anyway.
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