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

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."


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: crevolist; evolution; rades
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To: donh
As with other historical sciences, stellar evolution, biological evolution, and language evolution are all based on synchronic observaton. Only biological evolution has older objects to play with. Linguistics gets about 7000 years directly.
6,181 posted on 01/30/2003 6:19:39 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (The world is a solemn place, with room for tennis. - John Berryman)
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To: donh
you DO think something can be made true by simply imagining it.

How else can truth be made? It is a concept.

6,182 posted on 01/30/2003 7:41:46 AM PST by AndrewC
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To: donh
Thank you so much for your post!

You do not address my central point. I am not completely sure it exists, but I am completely sure that, at our current state of knowledge, it is at least as plausable as the whopped-up-from-organic-tar theories Behe and Dembski attempt to claim the universe is confined to. Please note that they have no claim on the prize, either.

I have not read - nor even looked for the existence of - a biogenesis theory authored by Behe or Dembski. And Yockey's work is a falsification of abiogenesis, he does not offer an alternative and instead says that life should be taken as an axiom. Rocha is working on an abiogenesis theory with eyes wide open to the obstacles of which there are many.

IMHO, at this state of the art, it takes faith to say either one: that God created life or that life arose naturally from non-life.

6,183 posted on 01/30/2003 7:46:00 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: donh
Thank you so much for sharing your theory in more detail! What you suggest is in the same "ballpark" that Rocha is investigating. If you want to read up on his work:

Syntactic Autonomy: Or Why There is no Autonomy Without Symbols and how Self-Organizing Systems Systems Might Evolve Them

The idea that life may have originated from pure RNA world has been around for a while47, 48. In this scenario the first life forms relied on RNA molecules as both symbolic carriers of genetic information, and functional, catalytic molecules. The neutralist hypothesis for the function of RNA editing assumes such a RNA world origin of life. It posits that RNA editing could offer a process by which the dual role of RNA molecules as information carriers and catalysts could more easily co-exist. The key problem for the RNA world origin of life hypothesis is precisely the separation between these two functions of RNA. On the one hand RNA molecules should be stable (non-reactive) to carry information, and on the other hand they should be reactive to perform their catalytic function. RNA editing, could be seen as means to fragment genetic information into several non-reactive molecules, that are later, through RNA editing processes, integrated into reactive molecules46. This way, the understanding of this process of mediation between the role of RNA molecules as information carriers and catalytic molecules based on RNA editing, can also offer many clues to the problem of origin of a semiotic code from s dynamic (catalytic) substrate.

Given many random distributions of the reactivity of a RNA sequence space, we could study how easily can reactive sequences be constructed from RNA edition of non-reactive molecules. A study of this process is forthcoming.

You are welcome to your opinion, donh; I'm glad you have one - it shows you care.

I don't know whether Rocha's mechanism will bear up under experimentation, but if it does, it'll nicely fit with my hypothesis that algorithm at inception is proof of intelligent design because whereas it is a proposed mechanism for abiogeneis, the mechanism itself is akin to a finite state machine and thus may tilt to the manifestation of an algorithmic step-by-step instruction. And that's my opinion, which I am also welcome to!

6,184 posted on 01/30/2003 8:10:09 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: AndrewC
How else can truth be made? It is a concept.

Interesting thing to say. I'll agree that truth is a concept, to the extent that anything a human can think about is a concept. I don't think it follows that the universe does not manifest behaviors all on its own, whether humans think about it or not, which humans can, more or less accurately, ascribe truth to their descriptions of.

6,185 posted on 01/30/2003 9:30:48 AM PST by donh
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To: Alamo-Girl
the first life forms relied on RNA molecules as both symbolic carriers of genetic information, and functional, catalytic molecules. The neutralist hypothesis for the function of RNA editing assumes such a RNA world origin of life. It posits that RNA editing could offer a process by which the dual role of RNA molecules as information

You can't call it genetic information if you don't have any genes. In my opinion, RNA is also too complicated to be the initial genesis of life. The first "signaling" across a barrier, as I have suggested, could have simply been differentials in tension between bubbles. Lipids, I therefore suggest, preceeded RNA.

I do think Rocha is on the mark, however, in pointing out that it is very key that some RNA is stable, and some is not. Notibly, mRNA is not stable. For lipid world, (which, I've posited, started into the signaling busines by passing long-chain hydrophobic/philics to understocked neighboring bubbles) stability of signal would be a death sentence. If you want to regulate chemical production in a feedback loop, you cannot send a signal to the factory floor that endures forever.

6,186 posted on 01/30/2003 9:44:02 AM PST by donh
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To: Alamo-Girl
I have not read - nor even looked for the existence of - a biogenesis theory authored by Behe or Dembski.

If you calculate the odds against prokariotes leaping suddenly into existence, assembled from coal tar, and conclude it to be highly unlikely, you are assuming a theory of biogenesis in order to refute it.

6,187 posted on 01/30/2003 9:49:06 AM PST by donh
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To: Alamo-Girl
IMHO, at this state of the art, it takes faith to say either one: that God created life or that life arose naturally from non-life.

IMHO, it takes faith to believe an oscilloscope is telling you the truth about a signal. Science is a faith-based undertaking.

6,188 posted on 01/30/2003 9:54:34 AM PST by donh
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To: Doctor Stochastic
stellar evolution, biological evolution, and language evolution are all based on synchronic observaton.

Um, aren't all the signals we receive from distant stars millions to billions of years old, just like fossils?

6,189 posted on 01/30/2003 9:58:18 AM PST by donh
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To: donh
I'll agree that truth is a concept, to the extent that anything a human can think about is a concept.

Well, the monitor in front of your face is not a concept(at least I think so), but rights and truth are.

6,190 posted on 01/30/2003 10:02:03 AM PST by AndrewC
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To: donh
Yes, but what we see are lots of stars at different ages rather than a single star observed over a long period of time.

It's like examining a bunch of people and inferring that one proceeds from being a baby to an oldster. It's not too hard.
6,191 posted on 01/30/2003 10:10:13 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (The world is a solemn place, with room for tennis. - John Berryman)
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To: Condorman; VadeRetro; PatrickHenry
So this baby seal walks into a club...

Sick, you guys are sick, sick, sick.

6,192 posted on 01/30/2003 10:35:08 AM PST by donh
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To: AndrewC
Well, the monitor in front of your face is not a concept(at least I think so), but rights and truth are.

Sure it is, and it requires a substantial amount of ideation, both for me to recognize what class of thing it is, and for the designers to have produced it. The concreteness of a particular manifestation of a thing is no sure measure of its objective existence. I'm convinced of the objective existence of the law of gravity outside of human perception of it, for instance. I am less sure about rights and truth having cooresponding objective manifestation outside the realm of human perception, but I am open to demonstration, as soon as anyone can think of a persuasvie experiment.

6,193 posted on 01/30/2003 10:46:42 AM PST by donh
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Yes, but what we see are lots of stars at different ages rather than a single star observed over a long period of time.

How is that different from observing lots of fossils, and lining them up by morphological similarity to observe that the morphological sequence matches the chronological sequence and bridging the gaps in the story by assumption?

6,194 posted on 01/30/2003 10:50:48 AM PST by donh
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To: donh
Thank you for the three replies! I did not make the claim you mentioned at 6187. I agree with your conclusion at 6188: Science is a faith-based undertaking.

I have no opinion with regard to the scenario you outline at 6186. My interest is with the origin of life itself – the issues addressed by The Gene Emergence Project

Thanks for the discussion!

6,195 posted on 01/30/2003 10:56:26 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: donh
Sure it is, and it requires a substantial amount of ideation, both for me to recognize what class of thing it is, and for the designers to have produced it.

So it goes away when you go to sleep?

6,196 posted on 01/30/2003 11:00:28 AM PST by AndrewC
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To: donh
It's not.
6,197 posted on 01/30/2003 11:05:08 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (The world is a solemn place, with room for tennis. - John Berryman)
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To: AndrewC
So it goes away when you go to sleep?

No. And if there is something objective for the concepts of gravity or truth to correspond to, they don't go away when I'm asleep, either.

6,198 posted on 01/30/2003 11:10:51 AM PST by donh
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To: Alamo-Girl; donh
I [A-Girl] agree with your [donh] conclusion at 6188: Science is a faith-based undertaking.

I think you guys have your terminology messed up. I posted this somewhere, about 10 days ago. It may be useful here:

One can "believe" in the existence of the tooth fairy, but one does not -- in the same sense of the word -- "believe" in the existence of his mother. Belief in the first proposition (tooth fairy) requires faith, the belief in something for which there is no evidence or logical proof. The second proposition (mother) is that kind of knowledge which follows from sensory evidence. There is also that kind of knowledge (like the Pythagorean theorem) which follows from a logical proof. In between mother and the Pythagorean theorem are those propositions we provisionally accept (or in common usage "believe"), like relativity and evolution, because they are scientific theories -- logical and falsifiable explanations of the available data (which data is knowledge obtained via sensory evidence).

6,199 posted on 01/30/2003 11:13:12 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: donh
No. And if there is something objective for the concepts of gravity or truth to correspond to, they don't go away when I'm asleep, either.

How do you know?

6,200 posted on 01/30/2003 11:25:58 AM PST by AndrewC
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