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."
I'm seriously answering: Your entire question presupposes claims not in evidence. "Evolving" has nothing to do with "higher" or "lower", just different; comparing and contrasting a crow with a crocus would elucidate the point. There is no "end," ultimate or otherwise. (If it's not ultimate, it isn't the end.) Evolutionary theory is about process, not about "ends" or "higher" or "lower."
Are you sure that gravity does not propose the pulling of a greater mass to a smaller mass?
Are you sure you want a response to it?-me-
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.
Okay. In post# 1922 you said:
Okay, okay. Look, I did not deliberately lie. Your post DOES highlight a fairly significant lapse in reading comprehension, but my statement was not an intentional falsehood. Fair enough?
I ignored the above out of kindness, and gave you a chance to likewise ignore it again when you asked me to answer. So you are forcing me to speak my mind.
I ignored it because I could not accept your apology. If you had said that when I first pointed out that the title of the article and the words immediately preceding those you quoted completely refuted your claim, I could have accepted it. However when you denied it again after it had explicitly been pointed out to you that your claim was false, I cannot truly believe that you had made a mistake in good faith.
body snatchers---
whirlpools...
Only lead foil can save us now...
if you don't want your brain/family sterilized---
the shield between state and TALIBAN--religion(evolution/atheism/TYRANNY) is gone...
this is... chernobyl---radiation(evo lies) poisoning...
NUCLEAR SOCIAL----ALIEN ANTARTICA/AMERICA!!
Please supply some context for this remark. I'm not sure where you're going here. Meanwhile I can tell you for certain that Nostradamus and Miss Cleo do not hold weight in my world.
Thanks.
We don't need to ban things from public schools. Knowledge seem to be banned de facto.
Which came first? The ancient writing that man is made mostly of water, or the scientific observation of the same? A mummy, of all things, gives little evidence of water.
They certainly are. According to scientists (even to such an atheist as Hawkings) they are the only possibilities. You yourself seem to reject the theory of multiple universes so the only possibility then is Intelligent design.
Now it might be true that the above does not tell us who the designer was. However, it does disprove materialistic atheism. Your attempt to pit one religion against another to claim all are false does not work. That there is a designer tell us that at least one religion is correct and that there is a Creator to which we owe respect to.
You mean that man (and all other specie) did not evolve from bacteria? Are you denying that higher more complex species arose from lower, less complex species? Is that what you are saying? Are you so desperate in proving your theory true that you are willing to make it utterly meaningless?
So you want to justify the absence of any creationist teaching in public schools on the basis of "separation of church and state," right?
In the first place, how is it that the state can co-opt the right to teach my children? Did the state give me my children? No. I entrust my children to the state with the hope than can apply the same common sense my forefathers had when they understood and thoroughly defended the fact that our existence and our rights come from GOD.
Are you sure that gravity does not propose the pulling of a greater mass to a smaller mass?
Are you showing your ignorance again or your dishonesty?
I'm sorry you saw it that way. It is possible I was not clear. I will concede that I was wrong (go figure) and say that perhaps ID and multiple universes are competing theories. What you continue to ignore is my question to you that asks if you will concede that neither theory (multiple universes and religion) have any scientific evidence. Hard evidence, not assumptions deduced from order.
All you are doing is showing your dishonesty. The constant badgering of evolutionists prior to this banning and to othe bannings shows quite well you are a bunch of thugs who wish to silence opposing views.
Nope. However, that Communism and Evolutionism share the same materialistic/atheistic world view is undeniable. Further, that evolution gave scientific credibility to Marxism's program is also undeniable. The similarities between Nazism and evolution are just as profound if not more so.
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