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."
Oh, you know exactly, down to the minutest detail, what the makeup of Alpha Proxima is?
Who's talking about alpha proxima? We are talking fossils and you are avoiding the point.
2. Homology is nonsense. There are far too many examples of totally unrelated species with similar features and what is worse, there are examples of closely related species with completely different features. Therefore homology, the only basis for paleontology is total nonsense. It's not science, it's fairy tales for atheists.-me-
I'll assume you mean morphology when you say homology. What the micro-biologists do is establish homologies, what the field paleontologists do is investigate morphologies.
Wrong assumption, I mean exactly what I say. Paleontology only works on homologies and homologies as I point out are not legitimate ways of figuring out descent. For that reason and the one above bones cannot give evidence of evolution.
We have been over this already:
"The Origin-of-Life Prize" ® (hereafter called "the Prize") consists of $1.35 Million (USD) paid directly to the winner(s). The Prize will be awarded for proposing a highly plausible mechanism for the spontaneous rise of genetic instructions in nature sufficient to give rise to life. To win, the explanation must be consistent with empirical biochemical and thermodynamic concepts as further delineated herein, and be published in a well-respected, peer-reviewed science journal(s).
From" Origin of Life .
If there was a scientific explanation, the prize would have been claimed already. As we have been discussing, there is no way that any theory of life from matter can fit in what is scientifically known about life, that is why scientists do not propose such stuff. Also the law of Biogenesis - that life comes only from life is still completely accepted by the scientific community.
Which arises from prokariotes.
No they do not and I already showed you why many posts back - the tremendous differences between the two and there not being any intermediates betweem the two.
further apart from prokaryotes than plants are to animals.-me-
Which arise from eukariotes.
They may be eukaryotes, however, there is absolutely no explanation for multi-celled organisms arising from single celled ones. This is another totally unsupported evolutionist assumption. It takes evidence to say scientifically that anything descended from something else, there is not the vaguest evidence for multi-celled organisms arising from single celled ones. Saying it does not make it so. And that is the problem with your whole argument - you have no evidence. Science demands evidence.
Sexuals, which arise from asexuals.
Tell us how one mutation created both male and female. I want to hear this one.
And therefore, neither God's intervention, nor random chance, win this round.
No, the only scientifically viable explanation for life is creation. Life from matter, as you have admitted is scientifically impossible. Yet it exists, so since it did not come from matter it must have required divine intervention.
I am being totally unanswered. Post your proof that the world is not the dream of an infinitely more interesting and complex entity than we are--as far above being intelligent as we are above having primative tropisms.
Don, whether it is a dream or not, it is OUR reality. The dreamer has to be more intelligent than us as you acknowledge. Therefore even in your supposition (which I do not agree with but are just going along with your premise) this reality in which we live in has come about as a result of the actions of an intelligent being. You started with this supposition in order to avoid the clear implications of intelligence in our universe. Your problem is that no matter how you cut it, even when putting all of reality into a dream, you end up with intelligence being the source of order in our reality.
This should be no surprise because the one thing that we can be sure us is Descartes's dictum - I think therefore I am. Somehow, somewhere, no matter how one philosophizes on the issue there is an intelligent being in the Universe therefore there is intelligence in the Universe, an intelligence that cannot be explained by any materialistic explanation.
Really? Care to give the post numbers? Bet you do not. Naturalism is another word for materialism, part of the semantic games played by those who like to confuse the issues. Your lack of willingness to explain how your views differ from those of materialism shows only that you wish to give yourself room to dance around the issues.
Sounds like the evos have finally found the ancestor of birds! Those Chicomms can do wonders with Super Glue!
Then kindly tell your friends (and refrain from it yourself) of saying that evolution is a "scientific fact", or that evolution is "science", or that anyone that does not believe in evolution is "unscientific" and similar hogwash.
When shown that you cannot back up your claims then evolutionists retreat to the 'science cannot prove anything' nonsense. Science can indeed prove a lot and that you and I are exchanging these words in the manner we are gives substantiation to dozens of scientific theories.
Right, and we are not talking mathematics, we are talking science and science has its own ways of proving things. Your whole argument, as with other evolutionists when totally beaten, is to retreat into semantics. Of course tomorrow you will say that evolution is a scientific fact. In true commie/Clintonian manner what you said yesterday is also irrelevant to you.
Heredity. Variation. Selection.
What do you have to offer?
Darn!
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Rats!
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Dang!
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Blast!
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Argh!
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Sonovabagadonuts!
Yo Pat, mine doesn't seem to work. Can I borrow yours?
Yup, you evolutionists have lost the argument 20 times over on it so let's not let the lurkers see what a beating you folks took.
I don't offer just so stories.
Really? Care to give the post numbers? Bet you do not. Naturalism is another word for materialism, part of the semantic games played by those who like to confuse the issues. Your lack of willingness to explain how your views differ from those of materialism shows only that you wish to give yourself room to dance around the issues.
You can follow an entire thread of this discussion, going back through #6161, #6129, and #6041. I just checked, and can report that my 10 year old niece can grasp the difference between believing God doesn't exist (materialism), and believing God's existence is irrelevant to the question at hand (strict naturalism), given this much information on the subject, this many times.
Perhaps the difference is, that she isn't paying just barely enough attention to enable her to repost yet again her own personal bizzaro take on what science presently believes, yet again.
Since I failed to detect it in your responses, could you return the courtesy and repost the cites of microbiological journal articles that support your claim that science has proven that life could not have arisen from natural causes?
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