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.

[PatrickHenry]

Lettuce take this up at another time.

There is nothing lower than a fruit pun. They plum the depths.

[js1138]

You continue to slander people you have never met and about whom you know nothing. You are a disgrace to your religion.

[Junior]

I found exactly one website through google that gave the same figures you did, and guess what? It was the Institute for Creation Research. Of course, like all creationist sites, it failed to give the source for its percentages. I doubt you'll have any better luck; I will not, however, accept your assertions sans reference.

[ToryHeartland]

Surely you are at least somewhat aware of the exhibit known as the 'limestone cowboy?

I've been trottin' out these boots so long

Singin' the same old song

I know every trick in the dirty hoodwinks of Creo-Lore

Where hustle's the name of the game

And fossils get washed away like the snow and the rain

There's been a load of ossifyin'

On the road to my surprizin’

But I'm gonna be where the nuts are pointin' at me

Like a limestone cowboy

Rotting out in a boot in a creo-mangled rigmarole;

Like a limestone cowboy

Foolin’ folks on school boards that just don’t have a clue,

And suckers thinkin' this is a bone…

[pace Glen Campbell...]

[Junior]

They plum the depths.

And leave one quite melon-choly.

[RightWingNilla]

I found exactly one website through google that gave the same figures you did, and guess what? It was the Institute for Creation Research.

I am shocked I tell ya. Shocked.

Those folks suffer from chronic CDD.

[RightWingNilla]

LOL. Another FILK for your collection Junior.

[DoctorMichael]

Is 1201 a prime?

http://www.prime-numbers.org/

Yes, it is!!!!!!!

[Junior]

That one's going on the filk page at Darwin Central.

[Junior]

Amen. I love these things.

[Virginia-American]

Thatcherite: Specifically what in YEC would lead to a prediction of marsupial fossils in Antarctica?

Fester Chugabrew: One does need even need a biblical text to reasonably surmise that mammals could be dispersed on a wide basis

Marsupials, Fester, not Mammals!

Try to understand the logic:

Marsupials are found in Australia and S. America. They are not found in Eurasia or Africa.

According to standard geology, S. America, Antarctica, and Australia were once a single land mass.

Therefore, one expects to find marsupial fossils in Antarctica.

They were found. QED

[of course, I left out a lot of details, but that's the outline]

[BMCDA]

We have third-party references for the Greek guys. All we have are the Gospels for Jesus. We don't even have any Roman records of his existence, and the Romans kept track of everything -- especially folks who caused enough trouble to be crucified.

And we also take their more extraordinary claims with quite a load of salt. For instance no one believes that Romulus ascended to heaven to become a god as Livius wrote in his Ab Urbe Condita.

[Junior]

There is one extant marsupial species in North America (the possum); however, it appears to have migrated north a couple of million years ago when the two continents became joined.

[PatrickHenry]

And leave one quite melon-choly.

I really don't carrot all for this crude form of humor.

[ToryHeartland]

no one questions the authenticity of the words of Plato, Aristotle or Homer, et al.

Let me modestly suggest that there is in fact a centuries-old industry dedicated to precisely this task; it is called classical philology, and it is the basis for much of our understanding of the ancient world.

[Junior]

I really don't carrot all for this crude form of humor.

Then I shall do my utmost to squash any further attempts at such.

[ToryHeartland]

And we also take their more extraordinary claims with quite a load of salt.

As a recovering classical philologist, I must pedantically point out that we actually take such claims cum grano salis

[balrog666]

What is this fruit fetish all about? Did I miss another obsessive Creationist rant on homosexuality?

[Lurking Libertarian]

that no one questions the authenticity of the words of Plato, Aristotle or Homer, et al.

I don't know anyone who accepts the truth of Homer's religious statements, or the historical accuracy of his accounts.

[PatrickHenry]

Then I shall do my utmost to squash any further attempts at such.

Apple my hair in frustration. I am getting berry angry. What the fig is wrong with you? Mango get a life! Anything beets this nonsense.