Evolution Disclaimer Supported

The Advocate (Baton Rouge) ^ | 12/11/02 | WILL SENTELL

[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."

[VadeRetro]

I suspect that even some evolutionists are uncomfortable with the notion that morality also evolves.

It should be expected. It's an adaptation, after all. One of the reasons I was upset over the banning of EsotericLudity many moons ago (a banning which eventually turned out to have been justified by his behavior on very different threads) was that I first saw the point below posted by him.

The Old Testament (Leviticus) expounds a nomadic, tribal morality. The New Testament lays out one more suitable for a sedentary, even urban one. It's much "softer," more "touchy-feely," because people are forced to interact much more with total strangers, not just family and extended family. The old laws had obviously become increasingly out of joint with the present-day realities. Pressures arise for new ways of getting along because things change.

[Fester Chugabrew]

"If god made it so, then there is no reason to study it."

Thankfully Newton, Galileo, etc. did not think this way. How does the assumption that "God did it" negate any need for study? I don't see the connection.

[longshadow]

BTW, I had a friend of mine who used to put on a Viking war helmet (complete with horns) and sing songs to Valhalla when he was going thru his launch checks as a USAF missile launch officer in a Minuteman ICBM launch control center under the prairies of North Dakota.

General Ripper's younger brother?

;-)

[whattajoke]

It is all a "presupposition" issue. You have prior commitments to a beleif system, that in turn gives you your interpretation of the SAME EVIDENCE that we all share. Bottom line.

You didn't look closely enough... there's a line below your "bottom line" which states that creationists ignore the very evidence you cite.

[Aric2000]

Thankfully Newton, Galileo, etc. did not think this way. How does the assumption that "God did it" negate any need for study? I don't see the connection.

I am glad that you think that way, but many do not, ask a number of us here, Patrick Henry, Radioastronomer etc. there are a few on this board that say exactly that. The study of evolution is a waste, godidit, that is all they need to know.

When I see a statement like that it scares the heck out of me, and it looks like it would you as well.

[Tribune7]

. . .concede that neither theory (multiple universes and religion) have any scientific evidence. Hard evidence, not assumptions deduced from order.

There is not a scintilla of scientific (measurable might be a better word) evidence for any explanation for the start of existence. All are ultimately matters of faith.

Some faith, however, is better founded than others. Undirected abiogenesis is one with any foundation. It is irrational to believe this.

The Judeo-Christian view is a faith with a strong foundation. Christianity, for instance, is backed by the testimony of millions whose lives objectively changed for the better by accepting its precepts. Those who followed these precepts have accomplished objectively beneficial things.

I said far earlier that our laws, science and the concept of free markets itself were discovered by men advocating Christ's teachings and are ultimately based on Christ's teachings.

[Tribune7]

3. The fittest survive. . . .Yes. The first three (#1 and #2) are man-made commands. The fourth (#3) is only an observation concerning reproductive plenitude.

Would you want live in culture whose morality is based on "survival of the fittest?"

[Aric2000]

Apparently it is OK for people to have free will, but not for the universe as a whole. You can see this problem most clearly in the desperate posts of f.Christian, which while syntactically disorganized, clearly display the fear that life (assuming evolution) has no direction and (therefore) no meaning. This is the fear that drives these debates.

I have never seen that put so succinctly, I need to paste that up on the wall. You are correct. Thanks

[B. Rabbit]

Would you want live in culture whose morality is based on "survival of the fittest?"

Yes.

[B. Rabbit]

I thought that the complaint for the longest was that evolution equated with communism not capitalism. IDers, which is it?

[balrog666]

Christianity, for instance, is backed by the testimony of millions whose lives objectively changed for the better by accepting its precepts. Those who followed these precepts have accomplished objectively beneficial things.

Skipping over any discussion of "objectively", wouldn't the Muslims say the same thing? Or Jews? Or Buddhists? Or Hindi? Or Jans? Or Shintoists? Or Taoists?

And would you include the Moonies, Jonestown, or David Koresh's little sect in your sweeping embrace of Christianity's successes?

[balrog666]

The robber barons and opium lords of the East India Company saw evolution as a religion they could work with whereas Christianity no longer really worked for their purposes.

What? You're still here, Ted? And still posting the same old slop?

[Aric2000]

Would you want live in culture whose morality is based on "survival of the fittest?"

But we don't, so what's the problem?

The fact of the matter is, that religion gives many people comfort, and gives them direction. They need religion in order to treat others the way they feel they should be treated. They need the threat of eternal damnation etc in order to be moral creatures.

Some of us, not many, but some, have realized that we do not need that threat to be moral. Most do though, so as long as there are people that need religion in order to be moral, then there will be religion, and we will not live in the society that you think is forming.

Morality is a necessity in this society, religion has made that possible, but as morals mature, then religion will become less necessary as more and more people do not need those threats to be moral.

It is like evolution, when something better forms to take somethings place, the original part is either changed to something else, or dropped.

Morals will always be a necessary part of this society, and religion will be needed for a good LONG time.

But, again, religion and science are like oil and water, one explains with god, the other CANNOT use god. but science as a basis for society will not work, not yet anyway. Morals MUST be maintained, as long as religion is needed to maintain those morals, then it will be around, so quit freaking out!!

[atlaw]

You wrote: "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."


Your observation that "[a] mummy, of all things, gives little evidence of water" misses the point. To deliberately create a mummy, one must deliberately dehydrate a corpse, a process that presupposes a certain knowledge about the water content of the body.

As for which came first, "[t]he ancient writing that man is made mostly of water, or the scientific observation of the same," it seems fairly obvious. If you are talking about some form of script in a tomb in which mummification is evident, then one can safely conclude that the writing is descriptive of the contemporaneous mummification process. Furthermore, writing itself is a fairly recent development, and there is considerable evidence of ritual mummification that pre-dates any known contemporaneous writings. One need not invoke divine intervention to conclude that knowledge about the ratio of water to tissue and bone in a human body (by simple observation as well as the practice of mummification) came long before any written accounts of it.

[tpaine]

Aric2000:
"If god made it so, then there is no reason to study it."


Thankfully Newton, Galileo, etc. did not think this way. How does the assumption that "God did it" negate any need for study? I don't see the connection.
2462 -fester-

It doesn't 'negate', -- it 'discourages'
such study, -- as many victims of the inquisition tell us.

[Tribune7]

Apparently it is OK for people to have free will,

Don't open that can of worms :-)

You can see this problem most clearly in the desperate posts of f.Christian,

I think Fletch likes to give the needle and keep the thread bumped in an unique and original fashion.

[VadeRetro]

The Egyptian desert creates mummies very naturally. Die out there and later somebody finds a very dry, very lightweight mummy. None of the ritual steps the Egyptian immortality-of-the-body cult eventually added are really necessary for good preservation, nor are they even sufficient in themselves without the dry air. Yes, such a mummy gives no evidence at all of water. It gives evidence that when the water is gone, the rest doesn't weigh much. (Did you really not realize this, Fester?)

[Tribune7]

Would you want live in culture whose morality is based on "survival of the fittest?" Yes.

Thank you for your honesty.

I have concluded that a significant number -- if not most -- of the pro-evo posters are not seeking to expand the realm of human understanding via the scientific method but to create a society in which Chirst's teachings are abolished and God is denied.

I'd like to point out, however, that if you are sincere, your wish can be easily realized by simply committing a significant felony and taking residence in a State Prison.

May your wish never come true.

[js1138]

I think Fletch likes to give the needle and keep the thread bumped in an unique and original fashion.

Unique does not necessarily equate with useful. Effdot's posts are nonresponsive.