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."
Martin Luther said: People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.... This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.
Was Luther's interpretation of Scripture incorrect? IF so, where else did he go wrong?
Was Copernicus' theory wrong?
At the risk of beating a dead horse I will rephrase Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things] in a way that might make it more clear
When I create light, I create darkness and when I create peace I create evil: etc. This was demonstrated in Genesis --->
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
The Hebrew word translated as divided has this definition according to the Blue letter Bible (www.blueletterbible.org)
1) to divide, separate
a) (Hiphil)
1) to divide, separate, sever
2) to separate, set apart
3) to make a distinction, difference
4) to divide into parts
Jhn 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Jhn 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand.
Jhn 10:29 My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father's hand.
Jhn 10:30 I and [my] Father are one.
js1138 replies: God of dysentery?
...and then you:
You can spin in any MIScontext you want, but the fact you toads feel compelled to give it so much attention, only goes to PROVE you ALL know it was wrong.
Any side issues you wish to inject are merely side issues, they cannot wipe clean the sins of the transgressor js1138.
Let the Lurker and Honest Observer observe the sickness and parallels of the evos with that of sick minded liberals.
[yada, yada, yada] ...materialistic, atheistic, bible bashing, God hating evolutionists.
VadeRetro and js1138, although I can't speak for them, seem to have just been making a point about the tendency of creationism and/or ID to reveal a "God of the gaps." It is hardly outside the bounds of discourse in the Smokey Backroom to make the piquant observation that relegating God to fiddling with flagella makes him the "God of dysentery".
Rather than addressing the argument about whether creationism teaches a "God of the gaps," and possibly attempting to refute that accusation, you'd rather whine and wail. Fine, it's fairly characteristic of your contributions here anyway. But there is something more you failed to notice before launching into your rant:
Leaving aside the "God of the gaps" problem, it's not just evolutionists who believe that God is indeed the God of dysentery. AndrewC, for example -- at least as I read the implications of what he has just been saying -- would also accept that God is the God of dysentery. In fact I believe the bible teaches that He is the God of dysentery, for He is the God of all things.
All that is was created by him. Hell was created by God, and the bible tells us that He even "creates evil". So what is the big problem with him creating the bugs that cause dysentery?
Although I am a "philosophical" theist, and not a Christian, and not a biblical theist, I agree with some of the things the bible teaches, and I agree with this.
In that sense, maybe I'm more of a creationist than you are. In my view you can't be a thorough-going creationist and theist if you only reserve little nicey-nice puppy dog and cuddley kitty type things for God to create. God is the God of majestic mountains majesty, amber fields of grain, AND of dysentery.
The "grand designer", I presume you mean - I seem to recall a long thread wherein a certain someone appeared to accept that the evidence shows a clear evolutionary path for the flagellum in particular ;)
Not exactly. What was established was that yersinia pestis had flagellar proteins. The question was how they got there. I don't think yersenia pestis has a flagella and it is apparently not using the proteins for secretion.
I seem to have started this mess, and I say fair enough. However, this discussion is just an extension of all the pretty pictures about how wonderful the design is. I do not consider the universe to be about good or evil.
That almost wraps it up. A good summary of what was said and by whom. But it leaves out the motive for starting the discussion, which is the irony of the flagellum being the single best icon of ID, and at the same time characteristic mostly of disease causing organisms. It is one thing for creation to have sufficient freedom to enable the possibility of evil. It is quite another thing to have evil things in such abundance, existing independently of the guilt or innocence of the victims.
That is also fair. But I do consider the universe to be about good and evil, else I would be just a glorified rock.
serious question jennyp: Do you believe js1138's statement was a scientific one? Do you believe he was making your case or that he was enjoying himself when he made his filthy remark?
A scientific statement? Of course not. It was a distillation of what is implied when the flagella is the "poster boy" example of something that had to have been designed by God. As such, there was nothing filthy about it. He was highlighting the absurdity of the position you ID'ers put yourselves into when you latch on to that claim.
I do believe the question has been answered with each desperate post by you and a few others to try to recast his moment of corrupt glee into a biological treatise.
So your answer to my two-part question...
Do you believe that God designed the H. pylori's flagellum? And since H. pylori specifically uses its flagellum to attack the intestine, thus causing diarrhea, did God design diarrhea?...is "yes". Thank you. Now, I'm wondering if you believe that bacterial diseases such as diarrhea came about as part of The Fall? As I understand it, in The Fall God removed His protection against the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, thereby allowing death & deterioration & destruction to occur. IOW, The Fall did not consist of God making positive acts of design to create the world's deadly & destructive things; they came about as the natural consequence of the material world.
So if the deadly flagella came about as part of The Fall, then it was part of corrupt nature taking its course, and not because of any affirmative, positive step that God made. But of course that means that it must have evolved and was not designed.
But you say that the flagella, which is the very instrument of death for H. pylori, E. coli, & others, was created by a positive, affirmative act of creation by God.
So help me out, ALS. Help me understand how you resolve this contradiction in your belief system? And if there is no contradiction, then please tell me precisely where my description of your beliefs re: the flagella is incorrect?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.