Evolution Disclaimer Supported

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 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.

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."

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.

In your dreams, blueman, the ability to repeat the same inaccurate representations about the current state of science over and over until everyone else is too annoyed to go on is hardly the same as winning an argument.

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 have made no such admission. I, in fact, presented an entire scenerio in which I explicitly claimed that it required no miraculous intervention by either the Gods of probability, or the God of Moses. You really do just sleepwalk through this waiting for your chance to repost your patented canards about science, don't you?

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.

Tell me, do you have proof that the other beings that inhabit your dreams don't actually think, and therefore, are not?

Could you post that proof here?

You don't know squat about what happens behind the veil of reality, because all you have is reality to run tests on. "I think, therefore, I am" is an untestable hypothesis. You might be right, you might be wrong, you'll never know--because knowing, in a workaday critical sense, is a job for beings that can examine evidence, and evidence is the stuff of reality. You just can't peer through that door, until someone fits you with some of those keen 4-D meta-reality goggles--the ones where one pane is grue and the other is bleen. Your opinions about Decartes' principle are just that, pure opinions, one might say, ungrounded in any mundane need for evidence. And they are granted the appropriate level of respect we reserve for such things.

Tell us how one mutation created both male and female. I want to hear this one.

Like the change from prokariote to eukariote, solitary ant to social ant, from uni-cellular to multi-cellular, it was the introduction of a new paradigm for combining many critters into an new form of procreation--not a mutation of one critter into another. We can observe microscopic critters doing the very things that would have led to sex anytime we want to exercise a microscope on pond water. Many soft-bodied micros engage in genetic exchange through direct genetic manipulation that falls short of being procreative, but is very suggestive of sexual gamete exchange.

Mushrooms are, I aver, a good example of such a transition underway. In a mushroom, you see from 3 to 11 (last I heard) different sexes in offspring--classified by the type of genetic diddling they are outfitted to perform on each other, all much previous to combining together to produce a mushroom stalk.

It ain't as hard as you'd like to make it out to be, blueman.

Thus, you use definition 2 to hide Darwininian evolution behind the rigors of mathematical proof and use definition 3 to allow for disproof. Sweetikins.

If creationist and their ilk would carefully enuncate the difference between the two definitions each time they envoke them at arguement, I'd have no qualms about this.

However, my observations are the opposite of yours, what I invariably observe is the old theological fallacy-of-the-excluded-middle two-step. Once the unwary listener accepts the notion that any natural science can provide a proof(3). Creationists than immediately switch to proof(2), and claim natural sciences ain't got it, because "see, see, piltdown man--what kind of lame proof you calls that?".

The reason you cannot infer evolution from fossils is twofold: 1. the bones show us only a very small part of what makes a species what it is. The DNA, the organs are the most important part of a species and there is no trace of that except in a handful of very special cases.-me-

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.

I yearn for the day when you will stop skipping over analogical arguments by pretending to be too dumb to breath. The fact that we don't know everything there is to know about stars does not prevent us from forming theories about them. Just as the fact that we don't know everything there is to know about fossil bones does not prevent us from forming theories about them. If you don't quit tooling me to repost your arguments so transparently, I'll quit playing.

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.

In 1913, when the only way to guess what family a species might belong to was to guess from bone similarities, you might have gotten away with this definition. However, this is now, and now, micro-biologists do the work of establishing homologies. Paleontologists do the work of establishing morphologies.

homologies as I point out are not legitimate ways of figuring out descent.

Establishing genetic descent is, by definition, a "legitimate" way of figuring out descent. Conforming to the definition doesn't prove you've got it right, is all.

Once the unwary listener accepts the notion that any natural science can provide a proof(3). Creationists than immediately switch to proof(2), and claim natural sciences ain't got it, because "see, see, piltdown man--what kind of lame proof you calls that?".

I disagree with your interpretation of that scenario. Definition 3 includes the word convincing. It is the receiver that is to be convinced. It is easy to see why someone would be convinced about gravity or quanta, since they can be "measured" directly. Darwinian evolution is an "assumption".

Since way back in post 1081, g3k has been asked: HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?. Still no answer, except for dodges, evasions, excuses, and attempts to provoke a flame war (and thus an excuse to have the thread pulled).

It can't be very difficult for someone who has surveyed all Nobel Prize winning work and has declared that it all disproves evolution. An intellect of such sweeping power should be able to give us his answer. HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?.

believing God doesn't exist (materialism), and believing God's existence is irrelevant to the question at hand (strict naturalism),

Then naturalism is just an excuse for not having to back up materialism with facts because it is well known that materialism is indefensible.

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?

There is no need to do that. You already conceded that the scientific community regards abiogenesis as scientifically impossible:

the scientific community concurs that instantaneous biogenesis from amino acid junk is, while not quite impossible, scientifically fruitless to consider.
6173 posted on 01/29/2003 7:30 PM PST by donh

You can claim all you like but you have not backed it up in any way. I have asked for an example of a hypothesis which fits the scientifically known facts about living things showing how abiogenesis might be possible and have received no such example (in fact there is a million+ dollar prize for anyone who does just that). This is the slimest kind of scientific proof possible, which does not require any evidence, and materialists cannot even provide that. I think that that makes my statement that abiogenesis is scientifically impossible quite legitimate. Further, your statement below admits to as much:

Tell me, do you have proof that the other beings that inhabit your dreams don't actually think, and therefore, are not?

You are trying to confuse the issue. The question is whether there is intelligence in the Universe. You tried and failed to show that there is none in our reality. You then tried to assume that our life is a dream and I pointed out that whatever this reality is it definitely had intelligence also because the dreamer must be intelligent. Descartes's statement proves the existence of at least one intelligent being and that being is the one observing this thing we call the reality we live in.

Your whole argument on this point is the very reason for Occam's Razor. You are trying to put off an obvious conclusion by taking it to further and further levels. This is totally fruitless and does not change the results.

We can observe microscopic critters doing the very things that would have led to sex anytime we want to exercise a microscope on pond water. Many soft-bodied micros engage in genetic exchange through direct genetic manipulation that falls short of being procreative, but is very suggestive of sexual gamete exchange.

Nice try, however, since these were not sexual creatures you need to show how such a thing happened. Further, since single-celled creatures are not sexual, and sexual creatures are multi-celled you first have to jump into multi-celled creatures (which do not exchange genes) or propose a way in which both multi-cellularity and sexual differentiation occurred in one gigantic jump. Sounds like a miracle to me.

Oh, for goodness sakes. Of course there are explanations being offered for multi-cellularity.

Really? So tell us poor fools what the scientific explanation for multi-cellularity is (and what scientific evidence - if any - there is for such a gigantic jump.

Just as the fact that we don't know everything there is to know about fossil bones does not prevent us from forming theories about them.

The assumptions of physics are backed up by numerous scientific experiments. The assumptions of paleontology are backed up by nothing at all. The true emptiness of paleontology can be shown by the problem of dinosaurs. This is the one major category of life for which there are absolutely no living examples. As a result the arguments about how they lived, and their biological makeup are endless and have been going on for over a hundred years with no definite resolution. The reason for this is that paleontology can teach us nothing new. All it can do is draw straight lines between two points - straight lines drawn from ignorance because the evidence before it is extremely scanty. These straight lines are proven false by the variety seen in living things. Even supposedly closely related species exhibit tremendous differences in behavior, function, and genetics which cannot be discerned from fossil remains. Therefore the 'trees' built up by this false methodology cannot stand and do not explain anything.

homologies as I point out are not legitimate ways of figuring out descent.-me-

Establishing genetic descent is, by definition, a "legitimate" way of figuring out descent.

You are not addressing the point you claim to be addressing. The point is that homology is not a legitimate way of figuring out descent. Due to the many examples of apparently homologous features, functions, and even genetics in completely unrelated species homology cannot be used as evidence for descent. Indeed, the fact that homologues are to be found in widely divergent species is proof of intelligent design and a disproof of evolution.

now, micro-biologists do the work of establishing homologies.

Nonsense. There is practically no DNA more than 50,000 years old. Therefore micro-biology cannot prove descent either without making totally unwarranted assumptions about genetic change which have absolutely no scientific evidence to back them up.

Paleontologists do the work of establishing morphologies.

Paleontologists cannot do that legitimately as already explained because they do not have access to 99% of the evidence of what makes a species unique. Further, while the paleontologists always like to give pretty pictures of their supposed creatures they find, these creatures are just a product of someone's imagination. Most of the features shown have absolutely no evidence for them in the fossils found. Indeed most of these creatures are totally imagined from just a couple of bones. A full skeleton is an extremely rare find.

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