Textbooks at center of evolution debate

Associated Press ^ | 10/31/03

[I Am Not A Mod]

AUSTIN -- Texas will be under the microscope this week in the fight over teaching evolution in public schools as the State Board of Education votes on adopting biology textbooks that have been at the center of the debate.

The board meets Thursday and Friday and is set to consider proposed changes submitted by 11 publishers. The board's decisions -- which could determine which textbooks publishers offer to dozens of states -- will end a review process that has been marked by months of heated debate over the theory of evolution.

Religious activists and proponents of alternative science urged publishers to revise some of the 10th-grade books and want the board to reject others, saying they contain factual errors regarding the theory of evolution. Mainstream scientists assert that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a cornerstone of modern research and technology.

Board members can only vote to reject books based on factual errors or failure to follow state curriculum as mandated by the Legislature.

"There's a bait and switch going on here because the critics want the textbooks to question whether evolution occurred. And of course they don't because scientists don't question whether evolution occurred," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the California-based National Center for Science Education.

Among those questioning the textbooks are about 60 biologists from around the country who signed a "statement of dissent" about teaching evolution and said both sides of the issue should be taught. Several religious leaders also testified against teaching evolution.

Any changes to the textbooks will have implications across the country.

Texas is the nation's second largest buyer of textbooks, and books sold in the state are often marketed by publishers nationwide. Texas, California and Florida account for more than 30 percent of the nation's $4 billion public school book market. Three dozen publishers invest millions of dollars in Texas.

One of the most vocal advocates of changing the textbooks is the Discovery Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Seattle. Institute officials have argued at board hearings that alternatives to commonly accepted theories of evolution should be included in textbooks to comply with a state requirement that both strengths and weaknesses are presented.

"These things are widely criticized as being problematic. They aren't criticisms we made up; they're criticisms widely held in the scientific community," said Discovery Institute fellow John West.

Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, said there are no weaknesses in current textbooks' explanation of evolution. Publishers are required to cover evolution in science books.

The institute has referred to a theory dubbed intelligent design -- a belief that life did not evolve randomly but progressed according to a plan or design. No book on the mainstream market presents the intelligent design theory of evolution.

"We know that this is a very contentious issue. We know that, but the sorts of things we were proposing we thought were moderate," West said.

Samantha Smoot, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, which monitors religious activists, argues that the Discovery Institute's arguments are rooted in religion. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that the teaching of creationism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state.

"It says that the theory of evolution can't explain the diversity of life on this planet and that there must have been a designer," Smoot said. "That is a very valid and commonly held religious perspective, but not one that is upheld by scientific evidence. Therefore it's not one that belongs in science classrooms."

The Discovery Institute has maintained that its arguments have no religious foundation, but Smoot disagrees.

"The concept of intelligent design was crafted specifically to get around legal prohibitions against teaching religion in public schools," she said. "And as long as proponents of intelligent design deny that they're referring to God when they talk about the designer, they hope to be able to pull this off."

At least one publisher has submitted changes in line with the institute's recommendations.

Holt, Rinehart & Winston has submitted a change that directs students to "study hypotheses for the origin of life that are alternatives" to the others in the book. Students also are encouraged to research alternative theories on the Internet.

[donh]

Evolutionists just take it on "faith" that an answer to the complexity problem will be found.

Granting your less-than-universally-supported contention that there is a complexity problem...

Just as physicists and astronomers take it on faith that an answer to the dark matter conundrum will be found--or not... and go right on doing astronomy and physics, regardless.

[Stultis]

The particular Marxist story of Darwin's denial of Christianity comes from a Marxist

What in the world are you on about? Darwin's denial of Christianity is in his autobiography, in his own hand.

[Dimensio]

Someone who is, at best, tepid as to whether it's a good idea for God to exist is also generally counted as an agnostic.

That's an unusual definition. I can't even answer if it applies to me because you've not clearly defined "God" with respect to the definition.

[jennyp]

Some state that "99% of mutations are harmful"
Y'all are much more up to speed on this point.

Actually most mutations are neutral. Of the mutations that have some kind of effect, most are indeed harmful. But not all of them. There's a list of several examples of beneficial mutations here.

[milan]

Evidence?

Okay, I will play your game and then watch you explain it away. Mathematics. Heard of it? Calculate the probability of mutations happening in this many species in a positive manner to yield "improved" results. Math, you have heard of it, all sciences use it? All evolutionists dodge this fact. You have a better chance of having a purple dragon flying out of your butt than of positive mutations happening over billions of years to create the mass number of species we have alive today.

Are you referring to any generic god, or a specific God in particular?

Take your pick...here, I will add some to the fray. It takes less faith to believe in Bigfoot (not the truck), those purple dragons, and lochness monster, and the gremlins that cause my computer to crash. Generic or specific God...you choose.

Here is your strawman: explain to me how every species on this planet could have divided into two genders (please don't point to the few examples of asexual creatures). How is it that 99.99999% of all species have a male and female? How could that have "evolved" by cance mutations in separate species?

[milan]

Pleasant concept, however. But it's not science.

"I don't know how it started , but it started." <-----That's your version of science. That or "Evolution has nothing t do with how life started." That would be like saying "Gravity has nothing to do with mass."

[general_re]

How does ID/creationism explain why dandelions produce flowers?

[VadeRetro]

Mathematics.

Plastics.

[Held_to_Ransom]

Your secular conditioning is strong. It's hard to break such things when they are set hard in your youth.

[PatrickHenry]

Now that was funny.

[Stultis]

Your secular conditioning is strong.

What are you, Yoda?

[PatrickHenry]

That too was funny. Did everyone get new writers?

[Held_to_Ransom]

A Christian.

[Stultis]

I happen to be a non-religious agnostic, leaning pretty strongly towards philosophical theism. But I don't accept the anti-intellectual notion that one was to embrace some putatively correct ideology to understand the views of a thinker. You have to be willing to consider perspectives that may differ from your own with varying measures of sympathy or detatchment, but you don't have to be "programmed" (or deprogrammed).

If you are it can be a problem. In attempting to understand Darwin, you are clearly more sympathetic to Fiske's perspective on Darwin than you are to Darwin's own expressed views. This may lead to a deep and subtle understanding of Fiske, but it only obscures your grasp of Darwin's own thinking.

[Dimensio]

I will play your game and then watch you explain it away. Mathematics. Heard of it?

Yes, I have. I suspect that you're about to go on some tirade on "probability" and invoke totally unrealistic probabilities in an attempt to "prove" that evolution is "statistically impossible".

Calculate the probability of mutations happening in this many species in a positive manner to yield "improved" results.

Yep, you did. Except that your argument is even less thought-out than the usual probability arguments. For one, it's far too inspecific. Are you referring to the probability of it occuring across all life forms on the planet? In that case, there are very good odds that amongst all the reproduction going on at any given time that there will be beneficial mutations. Maybe not as good as 50%, but certainly a measurable amount and even at smaller probabilities, the continued series of reproductions will result in additional beneficial mutations which increase the number of organisms with higher survival chances due to their beneficial mutations.

Math, you have heard of it, all sciences use it? All evolutionists dodge this fact.

No, the problem is that creationists often misuse it in an attempt to construct bogus arguments using false probabilities to "prove" that evolution is statistically impossible in much the same way that I could "prove" that it is statistically impossible that you were ever born.

You have a better chance of having a purple dragon flying out of your butt than of positive mutations happening over billions of years to create the mass number of species we have alive today.

Now you're just making things up. You've not even calculated the probabilities for beneficial mutations over millions of years, much less the probability of a purple dragon flying out of anyone's butt. That you use such vague and bizarre argument tactics tells me that you've pulled this "information" from a creationist reading material, but you've failed to do any of the calculations yourself.

It takes less faith to believe in Bigfoot (not the truck), those purple dragons, and lochness monster, and the gremlins that cause my computer to crash.

Okay. Why? Justify your answer.

explain to me how every species on this planet could have divided into two genders

Every species on this planet hasn't divided into two genders.

(please don't point to the few examples of asexual creatures).

Few? FEW?! Dual-genders only exist in kingdom Animalia! There are four other kingdoms!

If you're wanting to know how every animal species became multigendered, then you've already made an erroneous assumption. The gender-split didn't just happen to occur within multiple species at the same time, it happened in one spcies that branched off into the various multisexual organisms that we see today. If you have a question about how it really happened as opposed to your strawman scenario, I'll dig up some information for you.

How is it that 99.99999% of all species have a male and female?

99.99999% of all species don't have male and female distinction. Those species that do have such distinction do so because of a common ancestor that developed it, not because they all developed such on their own, individually.

How could that have "evolved" by cance mutations in separate species?

It didn't. See above.

[Dimensio]

"I don't know how it started , but it started." <-----That's your version of science.

Actually, that's just his personal explanation. A more "scientific" response would be "we have insufficient data to adequately formulate a theory on the ultimate origin of life -- though we do have a few competing hypothesis. Nonetheless, that life exists now and that physical evidence indicates that at one time this planet could not sustain life at all (and moreover, at one time this planet did not even exist) is sufficient cause to believe that there was a process by which the first life forms appeared on earth, even if we cannot yet explain that process."

That or "Evolution has nothing t do with how life started." That would be like saying "Gravity has nothing to do with mass."

No, it would be like saying "Gravity has nothing to do how mass (and energy, since matter and energy are ultimately the same thing) ultimately came into existence", which is accurate.

[PatrickHenry]

Actually, that's just his personal explanation.

Actually, I never said any of that. I don't know where that post came from.

[Dimensio]

Actually, I never said any of that. I don't know where that post came from.

Sorry. For some reason I got the crazy idea that he was honestly quoting you rather than misrepresenting your position. I should have known better.

[PatrickHenry]

I sometimes say foolish things, but there are limits!