Utah House kills evolution bill

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette ^ | 28 February 2006 | JENNIFER DOBNER

[PatrickHenry]

House lawmakers scuttled a bill that would have required public school students to be told that evolution is not empirically proven - the latest setback for critics of evolution.

The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars, had said it was time to rein in teachers who were teaching that man descended from apes and rattling the faith of students. The Senate earlier passed the measure 16-12.

But the bill failed in the House on a 28-46 vote Monday. The bill would have required teachers to tell students that evolution is not a fact and the state doesn't endorse the theory.

Rep. Scott Wyatt, a Republican, said he feared passing the bill would force the state to then address hundreds of other scientific theories - "from Quantum physics to Freud" - in the same manner.

"I would leave you with two questions," Wyatt said. "If we decide to weigh in on this part, are we going to begin weighing in on all the others and are we the correct body to do that?"

Buttars said he didn't believe the defeat means that most House members think Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.

"I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape," Buttars said.

The vote represents the latest loss for critics of evolution. In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes.

Also last year, a federal judge ordered the school system in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County to remove from biology textbooks stickers that called evolution a theory, not a fact.

Earlier this year, a rural California school district canceled an elective philosophy course on intelligent design and agreed never to promote the topic in class again.

But critics of evolution got a boost in Kansas in November when the state Board of Education adopted new science teaching standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory, defying the view of science groups.

[RogueIsland]

Cool screen name. Variation on Mona Lisa Overdrive I assume?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"You're doing just fine in proving that yourself."

Non-answer.

Again, it is disturbing that someone who hasn't a clue about what a scientific theory is is teaching children science.

[AmishDude]

What, exactly, does evolution "explain". Evolution is not a process. You cannot generate it, you cannot make it happen. You cannot reproduce it in a lab. It is a paradigm. Mutation is a theory.

[PatrickHenry]

If ID/creationism can't even win in Utah, then it's dead.

It's the continuing effect of Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al. God bless Judge Jones! A great conservative American.

[Ben Chad]

Reason prevails - thank the Lord!

[highball]

Cool screen name. Variation on Mona Lisa Overdrive I assume?

I would have said Bachman-Turner Overdrive myself, but then cyberpunk's never really been my thing.      ;-)

[Elsie]

"I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape," Buttars said.

Even those on C side of this argument know that the ToE says it's our COUSINS who are the apes; not ol'; Grandpa!

[Elsie]

Please remember to use moderator-compliant FReepSpeaktm. We now say "frequently-repeated error," sometimes called (after the poster has received numerous corrections) a "compulsively repeated error" instead of the harsher term. Everyone be nice.

OUCH!!

Did you E guys get burnt?

[Coyoteman]

What, exactly, does evolution "explain".

Evolution explains the relationships between and among the folks in the picture below.

Or, as Heinlein noted:

Piling up facts is not science--science is facts-and-theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning: a valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness.

A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and new but also discloses unsuspected facts [Heinlein 1980:480-481].

Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

[Elsie]

The athiest materialist secular agenda destroys all and the children suffer the most...

Now now; we mustn't call them ATHEISTS!

---

NIV Matthew 18:5-6
5. "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
6. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

[AmishDude]

"Evolution" cannot be tested in a lab. Period. It is not able to be reproduced via a controlled experiment. By definition.

[Elsie]

AllMost of the INTERPRETERS of the evidence says it does.

[PatrickHenry]

Elsie-thon placemarker.

[RogueIsland]

I would have said Bachman-Turner Overdrive myself, but then cyberpunk's never really been my thing. ;-)

Ah, yes, that must be it.

[Elsie]

What do we use the term "frequently-repeated error" in lieu of? I don't want to accidentally not substitute when I should.

When you RAIL backward against your friends on the other side of the argument; then THAT is what is bad!

(Poor Dimensio; his world is reduced by many magnitudes...)

[Elsie]

Wait! He said, "Be nice."

[narby]

Even those on C side of this argument know that the ToE says it's our COUSINS who are the apes; not ol'; Grandpa!

So the common ancestor to todays' great apes, which includes humans and chimps wasn't an ape himself. Oh.

[Elsie]

Revelation 6:8

  I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

 

 

Thanks for setting a precedent whereby I can post Scripture without having to worry about certain folks saying I'm SPAMMING thread.

[narby]

It is not able to be reproduced via a controlled experiment.

We can't reproduce continental drift in the lab either. What's your point?

[Elsie]

Chimps are people too.

"Some are more equal than others..."