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."
Good post.
Theologians thought they were in hot water when science began to discover the age of the substances around us. It did not square, at least on the surface of it, with what the Bible teaches. Just like evolutionists, they scrambled to concoct defenses and explanations that really didn't hold much weight.
What they seemed not to understand is that the universe will demonstate very well not only figures in the billions of years, but even to infinity. Science demonstrates fairly well these days that the laws of nature we've so long observed and calculated may not always apply the same way at any given time or place, black holes not withstanding.
So, walking on water, physically passing through locked doors, changing water into wine, etc. are not at all scientifically implausible, especially given the fact that there is relatively more space in what we see as a solid object than there is between the earth and the sun. Especially given the fact that science has yet to adequately account for the energy that permeates the universe.
So, I'm glad science has progessed to this point without having to constantly remind me that God did it. Heck, I don't care if they make these discoveries while avowing with great certainly to themselves "there is no God." I know already that He not only whipped all this stuff up, but that He will continue to sustain and govern it until He decides to pick up His marbles and end the game as we know it.
Each new scientific discovery confirms these things all the more. It is rather delightful to see so many peon scientists employed by God without their even knowing it, so that they may incidentally confirm to me what I already know, and what even a five-year-old knows.
And each and every one of them is more rational than undirected abiogenesis.
And would you include the Moonies, Jonestown, or David Koresh's little sect in your sweeping embrace of Christianity's successes?
Why not Charles Manson, too? He claimed to be Christ. Claiming oneself to be the the Messiah pretty much eliminates one from having any claim on being a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
I wish to add that scientists halt their own inquiry when they invoke the anthropic principle. As evidence, I give you this:
On page 9, with regard to an anomaly, the writer says: Do we need to introduce a new physics or invoke the Anthropic Principle to explain it?
IMHO, there is no substantive difference between halting inquiry by saying God did it v. by bucketing the anomaly into the Anthropic Principle. Neither is acceptable to me.
B. Rabbit and, I suspect, some others want to.
No, I really didn't. I forgot to reason that, in the case of mummies found in the desert, they weigh one third of what the living being did. This would lead the ancients, or anyone for that matter, to at least assume something of substance was taken from the body. Would they assume that substance is water? Probably. Would they, for that reason, conclude than man is made mostly from water? Probably.
Nevertheless, if one looks only on the surface of things it is not readily apparent that the bodies we see walking around and communicating are comprised of a mix that includes 2 parts H2O and 1 part other stuff.
I offer this only as a way of suggesting that ancient religious writings are not ipso facto false when they make claims to phenomena not readily observed by the human eye.
I'm sure we could go another 2450 posts and not have it figured out. Does this bother you? What does the number of posts devoted to the subject have to do with the validity of either side's arguments?
"For those theists who accept the fact of evolution . . . But for those who can't . . . "
The world is full of both kinds, and both have contributed great things to science. Is it proper in a constitutional democracy to deny one party either hearing or say in tax funded public schools? Neither can sufficiently prove or disprove their own views, and in my view, neither is particularly well suited to domination or total exclusion.
Unless evolutionists want to be so dumb as to say creationism does not exist, they ought to be willing to give it equal time in the classroom. As a firm believer in creationism myself, I would be doing a disservice to my children if I did not expose them to the teachings of evolution.
In short, the closed-mindedness of of evolutionist politics is astonishing in view of the fact it is they who claim to be "scientific."
DUMB/statist-mindedness of of evolutionist politics
What a coincidence. Lyndon Larouche had a big influence on Ted Holden too.
Take a look at the history of the Inquistion and tell me if it was driven by the philosophy that "God did it. You'd best not engage in scientific study or else . . ."
Speaking of inquisitions, I can well imagine creationists making genuine scientitific discoveries but having them ridiculed and discarded via evolutionist "inquisitions" in certain universities. Students, likewise, have been at the receiving end of "inquisitions" when they suggest there might just be some intelligent design behind all this stuff that looks and acts so consistently.
Gee, Ted, why not just post the bat graphic to go with the bat guano?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.