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."
Indeed, I believe that religion can have the result of controlling a population through fear. Some have suggested that was the purpose of religion per se. And that may be the truth among some cultures, certainly some I've seen headlined recently on the Discovery channel LOL!
But my Christian faith is different because it is based on the Word and the Spirit: perfect love casts out all fear and we obey because we love, not because we fear. A lot of Christians however still live in fear, and to protect your rights, that'll do.
LOL. Anyone who claims a knowledge of history and tries to deny that science in 1859 was dominated by the concept of intelligent design, needs to go back for some remedial work. "Origin" was specifically written to challenge the concept of ID.
You are beginning to fling insults here. You really haven't made a logical case for worth and values being objective (i.e., existing outside of the perception of the viewer). When you can point to a measurable property of an object and say, this is its worth, you will have a valid argument.
I personally place a high value on human life. However, I also understand there are people in this world (Moslems, for instance) that value human life differently.
English eccentric scientists make a good read -- Fred Hoyle, Penrose, et.al. -- but their speculations remain on the back burner of science. I love speculators -- they encourage invention and discovery -- but until the invention and discovery actually occurs, they are closer to science fiction than science.
We live under a non-secular constitution. Do you really believe that God will come to our rescue to enforce it if we allow the state to ignore it?
Oh yes. If the majority of the people in this nation turn away from God, the nation will lose His blessing and become weak - or worse, the government will implode.
If the state offends God in its treatment of one of His children, He will intervene - not necessarily in the way you would expect, but He never abandons His children.
I personally place a high value on human life. However, I also understand there are people in this world (Moslems, for instance) that value human life differently.
Indeed, I gathered that you place a high value on human life. Your looking at geopolitical reality does not mean that personally approve of it.
but until the invention and discovery actually occurs, they are closer to science fiction than science.
And you are certainly welcome to hold that view. To me, the hypotheses and speculations of scientists like Penrose, Hawking, Rees and Crick - are more science than science fiction.
The question is whether or not there is a "well-known" (to quote "Truibune7") biologocal/cosmological "theory of evolution," as asserted earlier by him.
If there is, I've never heard of it... nor has anyone I know.
Now, let's see what they say at the site you linked:
Cosmic Ancestry is a new theory of evolution and the origin of life on Earth.
So, "Cosmic Ancestry" (which is an updated version of what is known as "panspermia") is a theory dealing with the origin and evolution of life on Earth. That's biology. Thus, it is NOT about Cosmology, which is about the nature and evolution of the Universe, despite the usage of the word "Cosmic" in its title.
As an aside, I personally don't have a big problem with the idea that the first forms of life on Earth could have originated from outer space. Since the (biological) Theory of Evolution does NOT deal with the issue of where or how the "first life" on Earth came into existence, it is perfectly compatible with panspermia.
Hoyle's enthusiam notwithstanding, I think it needs a bit more evidence in it's corner before it will get any traction.
God is infinite and eternal. He is the infinite reference point that is needed. Therefore, He is objective. He created, oversees and holds together the entire universe - that makes Him objective.
You are beginning to fling insults here.
No insults intended - please don't take them that way. I was only pointing out the glaring contradictions in your catholicism vs. your materialism. You are made in God's image as I am and you deserve the same respect that I do. I will try to be less forceful from here on out.
You really haven't made a logical case for worth and values being objective (i.e., existing outside of the perception of the viewer). When you can point to a measurable property of an object and say, this is its worth, you will have a valid argument.
Ahh...empiricism rears its ugly head! Tell me, how do you measure or test the proposition that all reality is measurable? Your method falls under its own weight.
Oh, I have made a logical case - no doubt about it. Your logic is horribly flawed - it does not fit human reality at all. The fact is that humans (except sociopaths) instinctively believe human life has objective worth (read our founding documents); the fact is that humans go home and love their family members AS IF those family members had value, and AS IF the love was meaningful! If all is meaningless matter in motion in a godless universe, LOGIC DEMANDS that love and people are no more meaningful than a rock, and even if you think otherwise, your thoughts are no more meaningful than the impersonal random stimuli that created them. Your logic is at odds with human behavior - you live a hopeless dichotomy!; your logic is at odds with the mannishness of man. In the world of materialism, the mannishness of man is EXCLUDED. Logic demands it. You simply have not reached the logical conclusion of your worldview - you are blind to it. That is unfortunate. I do not mean to put you down - only to show you the contradictions in your thinking. I do not mean to offend.
No. God has His own views on things, and they may be at disagreement with the views held by other rational beings. Hence, God's views are subjective. They may be right, they may be eternal, but they are by no stretch of the definition "objective."
I'm not very keen on directed panspermia either, but I believe they are serious and thus try to keep an open mind and watch and wait.
I gave the site as an example because their theory replaces the (Darwin) "Theory of Evolution" by saying that the diversity comes primarily from cosmic seeding and not by random mutation and natural selection. So it appears the cosmic side of their theory cannot be uncoupled from the biological.
To me, it presents the same problem in trying to debate Intelligent Design or Creationism v. Darwin's Theory of Evolution. If the subject is narrowed to exclude first cause, physics, information theory, mathematics, cosmology, chemisty, philosophy, theology, geology, archeology, etc. - the deck becomes stacked such that there is nothing left to discuss but the fossil record.
Thank you all for your helpful insights. WRT to the above, it seems to me we cannot forget that the “observer” in the context of QM is an abstraction. For ordinarily when we think of what an observer does, we are thinking of an experience in consciousness; and as Physicist points out, atoms, subatomic particles, etc., do not possess consciousness.
Still, QM, for pragmatic reasons, has extended the use of the term “observer” to “anything that collapses the quantum state to a specific value. All that is required to do this is an interaction whose outcome is dependent upon the QM state of the particle whose QM state is in question” (as longshadow has stated the issue). You’ve got to call it something, I guess. Which is all perfectly legitimate – as long as we don’t forget that the QM usage of the term is a technical convention of a highly specialized field that has a very specific meaning unique to that field.
Let me try to explain why I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of the abstract nature of QM’s “observer,” and its departure from conventional understanding of that term. It all has to do with a doctrine called neutral monism, developed by Charles Pierce, William James, Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead and others. On James’ formulation, to quote Evan Harris Walker, “the substance of the world is reduced to pure experience. Mind and matter become the same entity, the stream of experiences [observations] rather than states of a mind substance.” Russell wrote, in A History of Western Philosophy:
“While physics has been making matter less material, psychology has been making mind less mental…. Thus from both ends physics and psychology have been approaching each other, and making more possible the doctrine of ‘neutral monism’ suggested by William James’ criticism of ‘consciousness.’ The distinction of mind and matter came into philosophy from religion, although, for a long time it seemed to have valid grounds. I think that mind and matter are merely convenient ways of grouping events. Some single events, I should admit, belong only to material groups, but others belong to both kinds of groups, and are therefore at once mental and material. This doctrine effects a great simplification in our picture of the world….”
And therein lies its great appeal for science. But – there’s a fly in the ointment. Russell continues:
“There remains, however, a vast field, traditionally included in philosophy, where scientific methods are inadequate. This field includes ultimate questions of value; science alone, for example, cannot prove that it is bad to enjoy the infliction of cruelty. Whatever can be known, can be known by means of science; but things which are legitimately matters of feeling lie outside its province.”
Walker points out, “The great simplification that this doctrine of neutral monism effects is that the whole of existence can be expressed as a single thing in the form of a single expression or equation…. Value judgments, feelings, and morals are either derivable or do not exist as anything meaningful. Russell gives neutral monism his blessing for the sake of its aesthetic appeal, but he seems unwilling to do without the concept of value judgments as something having an existence so basic that it rivals physical existence. Somehow, what the physical laws allow us to do must be tempered by the addition of moral laws or ‘values’…. [H]owever desirable monism may be in the pursuit of a pure and objective science, we are left feeling that such a philosophy must provide us only an incomplete picture of reality”….
[For our present purposes, we may define “value judgments” as works of conscious experience that are known by means of introspection.]
Churchland, however, would finds this formulation “deeply suspect, in that it assumes that our faculty of inner observation or introspection reveals things as they really are in their innermost nature. This assumption is suspect because we already know that our forms of observation – sight, hearing, touch, and so on – do no such thing. The red surface of an apple does not look like a matrix of molecules reflecting photons at certain critical wavelengths, but that is what it is. The sound of a flute does not sound like a sinusoidal compression wave train in the atmosphere, but that is what it is…. If one’s pains and hopes and beliefs do not introspectively seem like electrochemical states in a neural network, that may be only because our faculty of introspection, like our other senses, is not sufficiently penetrating to reveal such hidden details. Which is what one would expect anyway. The argument from introspection [conscious experience based on observation] is therefore entirely without force.” ….
Walker observes: “But Churchland’s statement is quite misleading. ‘The red surface of an apple does not look like a matrix of molecules reflecting photons’ because that is not what it is. ‘The sound of a flute does not sound like a sinusoidal compression wave train’ because that is not what it is…. If we wish to determine the structure of an object that reflected into the eye photons of wavelength [red], then our science can do that, and it can, indeed show us the matrix of molecules at the surface of the apple. But these two are hardly identical. One is the initial train of events that gave rise to a neural stimulus; the other lies somewhere beyond that neural stimulus…. The sound of the flute is indeed a compression wave train in the air, but the sound you experience is not a compression wave train, and it is not located in the air.… ‘If one’s pains and hopes and beliefs do not…seem like electrochemical states,’ it may be, in fact, that such a concept is an entirely false hypothesis. Churchland gives no scientific data to prove that such is the mechanism of consciousness, nor has anyone else. In fact, if you were to ask, he would likely have no idea how you would prove such a notion scientifically”….
Indeed, the question may, in the language of Stephen Wolfram, be “computationally irreducible.” Your “system” – consciousness – cannot run faster than the “system” it wishes to explore – your consciousness.
But that doesn’t mean that we humans are reduced to a linear series of neural synaptic events electrochemically induced and somehow sorted out by the “mechanism” called brain. It also doesn’t mean we ought to devalue or delegitimate human conscious experience, introspectively examined. For if we do this, then ultimately there is no way to guard against the depredations of folks who think it’s O.K. “to enjoy the infliction of cruelty.”
To put it another way, in this day and age, folks like Ray Kurtzweil assure us that machines will become more and more “human-like.” On my more pessimistic days, I think the only way that can happen is first to have thoroughly accustomed man himself to be more machine-like. Kind of a “split the difference” sort of thing here…. To the extent that doctrine – even a magnificent system like QM -- becomes an end-in-itself, and not a means to an end, man is less than a man and more of an automaton…. JMHO
In conclusion, FWIW, I do think it’s very important to understand that when we say an atom is an “observer,” we are using an artificial construct. It may be “real enough” in the “language system” of QM – which itself is a system of description (and prediction – in this regard a mighty tool) that is itself artificial. For analogously to the examples given above, there is always a way to describe an event “scientifically.” But the actual character or substance of an event is (hypothetically) always more than its description.
Arguably, the more we forget the distinction between description and substantial reality (assuming we even noticed it in the first place), the less “human” we become; and the more we become machines ourselves, integrated – dissolved -- into the vasty gears of the universal machine.
However, worth cannot be measured in this way. What I may consider worthwhile, you might consider minor or even disregard altogether. This makes "worth" or "value" inherently within the eye of the beholder, and no two observers will agree on that value. This is a good thing, as it is the basis for all economic systems.
You are making statements and declaring them logical without backing them up.
"If all is meaningless matter in motion in a godless universe, LOGIC DEMANDS that love and people are no more meaningful than a rock"
Care to delve deeper into that statement? How does logic demand this? I think therefore I am... I don't need a supernatural being to know that my family has importance, it is self evident with or without your God.
"your thoughts are no more meaningful than the impersonal random stimuli that created them."
Because you say so? Regardless of the processes which generate thought, they are my own thoughts. You are again delving into areas that we don't quite understand completely yet (human thought) and because of our lack of knowledge you assume a God. Our ignorance does not necessitate a supreme intelligence.
This was the reasoning that was used in the Islamic world in response to the Mongol invasions. There was a turn towards fundamentalism whose evil effects are still with us.
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