Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.
Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.
"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.
Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.
The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.
"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.
Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.
"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."
The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.
It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.
The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."
The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."
The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.
The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.
Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.
The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.
"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.
The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."
The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.
Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.
Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.
Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.
New books will be distributed next summer.
State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.
"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"
State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.
"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.
State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.
"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."
You are still on this after I reminded you a few hundred posts ago that the claim had been disproven and the author had been dishonest as we had discussed months ago. The whole argument on this by evolutionists is very dishonest. First of all, it is not just men and monkeys that do not have the ability to produce vitamin c, it also does not work on guinea pigs. Evolution is about descent, are you claiming we descended from guinea pigs now?????????
Here is the post where I completely destroyed this vitamin c nonsense - it was addressed to you:
I have never denied that chimps and humans cannot produce vitamin c. However, the devil is in the details:
It is interesting to note that most animals produce their own vitamin C. Man, primates (apes, chimps, etc.) and guinea pigs have lost this ability.
From: How Stuff Works
Hmm, your sources did not mention the guinea pigs did they? Guess man and chimp descended from guinea pigs? Are guinea pigs the missing link? Seems evo 'scientists' are very selective. They only 'remember' what serves their purposes. But wait, it gets better:
Actually, the LGGLO pseudogene (an inactivated Vitamin C synthesis gene) has been found in one human so far and no apes, according to Edward Max, but in his essay he predicts that it should be found in apes, too.
From: Shared Errors in DNA
So, it seems someone claims that this is not true, and cites an evolutionist as saying that this claim is an assumption not fact. So while to me, this might be credible enough, to you an assertion by a Christian alone would not be. So, we must dig a little deeper:
if primates closely related to humans have the SAME crippling mutations in their LGGLO pseudogenes as we see in the human pseudogenes, this finding would support the evolutionary model. As I pointed out, the data on this question are not yet available for the LGGLO pseudogenes, but in other shared pseudogenes identical crippling mutations clearly favor evolution
From: Response to Plaisted
So it seems that the evolutionists have been found lying again (and by this I do not mean you Virginia, or Jennyp or anyone else here - this garbage is all over the internet). Max in his original article, while not outright saying that men and chimps shared the exact same mutation in the exact same pseudogene went into a long and very contrived discussion which to most laymen would indicate that such was a proven fact. In other words, he clearly was trying to deceive and clearly deceived many. (the original article is here ). So much for vitamin c. Another evolutionist snow job disproven.
BTW this whole nonsense started - as usual - in that fountain of evolutionist disinformation - TalkOrigins
No, I read the drivel posted here, it was one insult after another which had nothing to do with the truth of the points made in the Wells article. The Haeckel drawings were a FRAUD. They have been proven by scientists to be a fraud. He did not do any research at all, he just drew them to defraud.
Further, the garbage spouted from it about development of species following the evolutionary tree is absolutely false and no decent scientist would make such a claim any more. It is a lie, it was never science and evolutionists are still 100 years after the fraud was shown to be a fraud lying about it.
That's not haiku. It's random misfires in the cerebellum.
otherwise it went great up to this point [post 3607]. And it happened to coincide with one poster getting back onto the thread after a hard day of not disrupting EVO/ID threads.
I don't know. It's still so difficult. The moderators are struggling with it but they just can't figure it out. If only there were at least one shred of evidence to guide them.
Mystery solved, thread went downhill from that post, So tomorrow, we can talk and debate with great fanfare and fun, but when 2:30 comes around, it will be time to turn on the VI and be done with it.
That's 5:30 Eastern Standard Time. No one gets home at that hour execept male nurses. Shift-change at the hospital is around 3:00, then perhaps a long commute.
Virtual Ignore is indeed our friend!!
Indeed.
Pray to darwin !
The full letter was posted by your friend js1138 in Post# 3352 . You saw it. He was not speaking of ascendancy he was speaking of mass murder - so that you folks do not get too confused here is the passage in question with the specific word that proves me correct so that you can read it without glasses:
The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.
... hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm ...
Atheism -- statist -- social engineering -- evolving govt -- MILITANT flaming liberal ...
that's a real hard one !
Interesting that you had to go to the 6th edition to find something that was an experiment. They do not appear in the first which I checked (and am sure you did too).
Let's look at how deals with science:
Great as are the differences between the breeds of the pigeon, I am fully convinced that the common opinion of naturalists is correct
Hmm, in spite of the evidence, I will stick to my story. That's science?????????
We can understand these facts, on the well-known principle of reversion to ancestral characters,
Which of course disproves evolution because new mutatants would perforce have to breed with those who do not have the mutation. This makes evolution impossible. However, he of course totally disregards it.
Furthermore, we know from dogs that even the most thoroughly bred ones do indeed revert to form even after uncounted generations. So whether the 'experiment' was true or false (and my bet is that it was false) fact is that it does not disprove that breeds do revert to norm and that such behavior does disprove evolution.
What the above shows is that Darwin was no scientist. He misused science at every point and ignored the facts when they did not serve his theory. So no, he was not a scientist and calling him that is an insult to all honest scientists.
Yes, of course, piling on the insults while you know I am not around to respond. Pretty filthy mode of arguing I would call it. Your reply is in post# 3698 and no, Darwin was not a scientist. To be a scientist you have to be honest and Darwin as I show was completely impervious to contrary evidence.
Further, let's look at this 'scientist's' tools:
His three foot rule was old and battered, the common property of the household; the seven-foot deal rod used in measuring plants had been roughly calibrated by the village carpenter; while for millimeter measurements he used paper rules. His weighing scales were faulty, and is chemical balance dated from his childhood experiments with his brother in the garden shed. For liquid-capacity measurements he used an apothecary's measuring glass, roughly and unevenly graduated. He had two micrometers which gave differing results, and took his equivalence of inches and millimeters from an old book where as one of his children later discovered, it was incorrectly given."
From: Gertrude Himmelfarb, "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution", Elephant Paperbacks, 1996, pp 144-145.
No, he was not a scientist.
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