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."
Are you sure you want a response to it?
Barring the "age of the earth" question I can't think of a time you've been reluctant to express an opinion. By all means respond.
Heaven forbid, they are just good'ol plain commies eh?
In addition, Serge Bernstein's book on probability was not reprented on the same grounds. Even quantum mechanics was not fully accepted in the USSR because of its inherent indetermancy. The "Communist State" allowed of no "random" components. Every thing was designed by the Party.
To be fair, Kolmogorov was only censored but the evolutionary biologist Vil'yams was executed for holding Darwinist views. (I wonder if Vil'yams's family came originally from England.)
Nope. You will observe the effects of gravity.
Semantics. Gravity is a scientific fact. An undeniable fact by even the most obtuse. Evolution is not a fact and it has never been observed in any scientific manner. Evolution proposes the tranformation of species, such has never been observed. Gravity proposes the pulling of a smaller mass towards a greater mass, this is observed on a daily basis by every human being on earth. So there are scientific theories which are absolutely true and evolution is not one of them.
Of mine there have been plenty, just to list a few:
1. what Nobel Prize for biological work has tended to prove evolution? I asked that one of you and you just responded with a challenge which was met - and of course ignored.
2. how does a species change modes of reproduction while continuing to reproduce?
3. show that the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex and does not disprove evolution.
4. show one single example of a species which has been proven to have transformed itself into a more complex species.
5. show a single example of a mutation which has created a totally new favorable function in an organism.
6. give a hypothesis showing how abiogenesis would be possible according to presently known scientific facts.
Need more?
Yup, just like you said. Your argument there says perfectly that multiple universes are just as unlikely to be fact as religion. After all, "it claims something to have happened which we know absolutely nothing about." -ME
Now that is a pretty ridiculous statement. Are you denying your own existence? Do you hate God so much that to deny him you are willing to say you do not even exist? Are you so far out as to say such a thing? -YOU
WHAT? Please explain how you made the conclusion that I doubt my own existence or doubt the existence of the universe. Intelligent Design and Multiple Universes are not the competing theories here. TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE SARCASM, ALL I SAID WAS THAT THE MULTIPLE UNIVERSE THEORY WAS JUST AS 'FAITH BASED' AS ANY RELIGION. THERE IS NO SUBSTANTIAL, HARD EVIDENCE FOR EITHER. You deny your own religion when you laugh at theories that have no evidence.
Do you or do you not agree that there is no hard evidence which supports any of the world religions and therefore creationism? I will concede all day, and all of the night, that there is no evidence which supports multiple universes.
LOL!
Yeah, right; oh Wildly Elliptical one.
Only G3k could manage to mangle the reality of Ted getting banned in yet another incarnation after having been banned for his misbehavior as "medved" and turn it into some sort of Evolutionary conspiratorial pogram.
In G3k's little twisted delusional world, he probably thinks we took out our guns and threatened Ted: "Register under a bunch of phoney screen names to mask your identity as a previously banned FReeper, or we'll shoot your ASCII bat, Splifford."
It never occurs to him that Ted managed to get himself banned the first time by his own hand, just as his new incarnations are banned because the management of FR doesn't like banned FReepers sneaking back in under phoney names.
Oh, yes; one last thing -- as for "silencing" a critic, how many voices is Ted supposed to get on FR (the rest of us have only one each.) Is he entitled to extra screen names for some reason? Is he exempt from the same rules we have to follow?
And finally, don't think for a moment that the Tedster ISN'T still with us.....
Bwaaa-haa-ha-ha. Yeah. You got it. It says it right there in the Bible so we're all wrong.
That is not the point that has been made. The point being made is that evolution and Communism are birds of a feather and go together. They are both atheistic and materialistic and give backing to each others views. Which came first is irrelevant to the point. That they do go together is proven by both chester's quote of the correspondence between Darwin and Marx in Post# 2040 and my post showing quotes of how much Marx was delighted by the Origins in Post # 2309
And there it is. The demonizing of freedom, and most importantly free will. This says quite clearly that subconsciously, you want to be controlled.
But beryllium falls like boron.
Very true indeed. The evidence is there for all to see but to those who willfully close their eyes to it.
Such a prediction by soliton is utterly ridiculous and completely unscientific. It is RNA that produces amino acids. Amino acids do not produce either RNA or DNA, they are just constituent parts of proteins when assembled properly by living things. You can take all the amino acids you want, all the proteins you wish and you will never get a single strand of DNA let alone a living organism.
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