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 see. A simple true phrase inflated into a religious dogma. Good thinking.
Oh, that's what you meant. Of course, I've never pointed that out. :-)
I'm going to have find what Bryant actually said -- as opposed to Fredric March -- before expressing my opinion on his testimony.
People --including me -- can misinterpret scripture especially the early parts and, for the record, the Bible is not a science book.
Something to mull. Western civilization including science and our country itself (think Declaration of Independence) is predicated on the treating of God's existence as axiomatic. Throw God out and everything falls apart.
Novum Organum is considered to be the founding document of Western Science.
Blackstone's Commentaries is considered to be the definitive articulation of British law, and the founding document of American law.
Exposing your children to these documents (or the Bible) is not going to turn them into religious nutcases.
Actually, it may be a good form of innoculation.
Mathematical topics (such as "Groups"), which are indeed often called "theories" in book titles I suppose, begin with axioms (e.g. the definition of a group) and then use logic to derive various implications of those axioms (theorems). They are not necessarily connected to the real world, nor do they even make any predictions of any kind about the real world unless it is also known or plausibly believed that a real-world system obeys the same axioms as are present in the mathematical topic. (Example: using the mathematical theory of symmetry groups, combined with geometrical knowledge of a molecule's structure, to make statistical predictions about the behavior of a large number of molecules. Example: Using the mathematical theory of PDEs, combined assumptions about the nature of a fluid such as water (i.e. "continuum hypothesis", invariance principle, etc), to make a prediction about the movement of the oceans.)
Scientific theories, by contrast, deduce and collate general statements about the behavior of (perhaps only certain aspects or regimes of) the real world from repeated empirical observations (well, scientists either deduce their statements or they make flat-out guesses). Often, indeed usually, using mathematical topics and theorems along the way, in a manner something like I've outlined above. Then those predictions (call them "hypotheses" I guess) are tested by further empirical observations, and discarded or at least refined if the resulting evidence appears to contradict them. The ultimate result is a scientific theory (i.e. the theory of General Relavity...).
So to construct a scientific theory is a much different procedure than to investigate mathematical theories (topics). A scientific theory can be refined and improved upon, and indeed can stand the test of time and be generally accepted as very very very accurate, but never can honestly be considered "truth". By contrast, if you've proven some aspect of a mathematical topic (i.e. a theorem), then it's a done deal and can never be refuted. (If it could be, you didn't really prove it.) Mathematical "theories", if they contain anything, really do contain FACTS and nothing but FACTS, and that's why it was kind of apples-oranges for you to bring them up in the first place.
I don't know what else to say about the above, other than that I would think a "Doctor Stochastic" would know all this already. But that's neither here nor there, I suppose.
Certainly many people doing math or physics or chemistry or biology or geology use theory in the same way. [in both science and mathematics]
Anyone who does, has confused things a little bit. Like I said, a "theory of..." mathematical topic is not the same animal as a scientific theory. See above.
Anyway, like I said, mathematical "theories" do indeed need disclaimers too. The disclaimer (and I think it's fair to call it that) for any mathematical theory is that it is only "true" subject to its axioms. I guess I could just have chosen to emphasize this answer more, and saved us both a lot of trouble.
When did I suggest you did?
Brian testified as an "expert," but not necessarily as a scientist. Maybe it was on the bible or something. He may not have actually been a trained theologian, but if no one objected, he would have been accepted by the court as an expert witness. I think the movie's dialogue was generally true to the trial transcript. Some liberties were obviously taken with it, but I understand that a lot of it actually happened that way.
If you cannot prove that God does not exist then you cannot dismiss the possibility of Creation out of hand as you are trying to do. Science is about truth seeking and if one dismisses possibilities without evidence then one is no longer seeking the truth and science becomes a joke which no one should bother with.
While science can only examine the material world, it can never disprove the immaterial which is very much a part of reality. In fact many scientists have become more certain about their religious beliefs through their scientific endeavors. They have considered their work as the discovery of the way God worked. Indeed, while science can only examine the material world, its discoveries prove the order in the natural world. Such order is inimical to a materialistic viewpoint since it shows intelligence and design in the Universe. Moreover, the product of science - the rules, formulas, equations, and cause and effect relationships formulated by science - have all a totally immaterial nature. This is so because the product of science is information, a totally immaterial concept.
I would say that they're being used in precisely the same sense. A theory--mathematical or scientific--is a conceptual framework. It is true that mathematical theories tend to be developed in a different manner from scientific theories, but this isn't universally true. Empirical observations often do suggest scientific theories, but they are not necessary for them.
The theory of quantum mechanics began crucially with the observation of spectral lines, for example, but the theory of General Relativity started with a purely geometrical notion, and was worked out in a purely abstract fashion, just as any mathematical theorem would have been. That it passed subsequent experimental tests has made it useful, but in neither case, pass or fail, would these tests have affected its status as a scientific theory.
I will grant you that the word "theory" is heavily abused throughout our culture as a synonym for "idea": "legal theory", "single bullet theory", "conspiracy theory", etc.
Well, even your boy Gould makes this admission:
Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty."
And further he says the following:
The second and third arguments for evolution—the case for major changes—do not involve direct observation of evolution in action. They rest upon inference
Seems to me that therefore, when even its strongest advocates have to admit that there is little factual evidence for evolution, the opponents of evolution do indeed have a point.
Further, his 'First argument' for evolution, is totally bogus:
First, we have abundant, direct, observational evidence of evolution in action, from both the field and laboratory. This evidence ranges from countless experiments on change in nearly everything about fruit flies subjected to artificial selection in the laboratory to the famous populations of British moths that became black when industrial soot darkened the trees upon which the moths rest.
Change does not equal evolution. Only increased favorable complexity equals evolution and that has never been observed in the lab. Secondly, the moth study has been proven to be a total fraud. The so called 'scientist' after working for a dozen years on the project and getting nothing out of it, glued moths to the side of trees to 'prove' his point.
Keep your atheism out of the schools where it does not belong. Atheism is as much a religious viewpoint as Christianity. Just because there is no church of the pond scum, it does not mean that it is not a religion. The vituperation, anger, and meanness shown by evolutionists at religious people show quite well that your beliefs have nothing to do with science and are completely based on faith.
The above is absolutely false and you know it. No one, but no one, has ever observed evolution happen. There is no billion year old man to tell us that. What we see happening, on a daily basis, millions of times, in every species we look at, is that the progeny are like the parents. Every birth is refutation of evolution.
Scientifically false. For a long time the single-celled organisms have been divided into the prokaryotes and the eukaryotes. Prokaryotes do not have a nucleus and eukaryotes do. Science has shown that one could not have arisen from the other. To make things more complicated, in the 1980's scientists discovered another set of single celled organisms, the archea, which likewise could not have arisen from the prokaryotes or the eukaryotes and also could not have served as ancestors for either. Those are the scientific facts which you so willfully ignore.
Current mission: support disclaimer. Staying on mission. If people want to quibble about what a theory is, let them. First, support disclaimer. Support targeting of evolution.
But yes, it's even worse that you have no frickin' idea what you're talking about and thus (what you believe to be) my religion is a completely wild-blue guess on your part. That's just pathetic.
That's your story and you're stickin' to it. But you also appeal to the lack of human eyewitnesses to common descent as a means of relegating evolution to conjecture. (You do recall "agreeing" to conjectural status, don't you?) That same standard of proof would make the idea that you had a great-great-great-great-great grandfather a conjecture, as you can't possibly have more than a piece of paper or two of who-knows-what authenticity to attest the existence of such a person and you probably don't even have that.
"I know what you are - I'll bet you're one of those FUNDIES ..." This type of crap would get you laughed out of any junior high debating club.
You just happened to notice my use of the juvenilism, "NOT!" I just happen to notice that you aren't passing the sniff test. You try not to get into the details of the anti-E technicals, which would only end with you linking TrueOrigins or AnswersinGenesis (at very best, Discovery-of-Nothing Institute). Even so, you've "agreed" with me on the opposite of what I've said, you've set an absurdly high bar for any statement avoiding the "theory" label, you've twisted words, and you've bludgeoned with feigned confusion.
Seen enough ducks to know a duck.
If you are trying to say that "common descent" is a "fact", then you're just flat-out wrong. You don't know for sure whether all living things have a common ancestor. You have no way of knowing this, and neither does any human. There is, to be sure, plenty of evidence which lends credence to this hypothesis, and as far as I can tell, that's what "the theory of evolution" is - the hypothesis that all current life descended from a common ancestor through well-known obvious mechanisms such as natural selection.
There's controvery on this branch and that branch about how exactly to reconstruct the tree of life, but it's a little too late to say that there is no tree, or that it's really five separate trees, or seven, or that humans at least are somehow disconnected from the rest of the thing.
A theory provides insight and mechanism to observation. It's a useful framework, not a guess or a pipe dream. Any useful framework (scientific theory) for the diversity of life has to deal with the evidence for common descent in the obvious way, which is that outwardly divergent life forms appear related because they are.
The preponderance of evidence for common descent has reached the status of fact. A scientific theory has to address why the preponderance of observation is what it is. It is possible to spin stories that ignore the preponderance of evidence, but such stories do not have the status of scientific theories.
A careful reader would have noticed that I specifically addressed Woese's idea that the last common ancestor was not a cellular life form but the RNA World. As if by now I don't know that I have this blue dung-flinging monkey screeching after me on thread after thread.
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