Posted on 02/28/2006 4:05:45 AM PST by 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.
I believe in the literal Iliad.
Ok, but apart from bookkeeping, database management, paid informers, espionage, and obsessive graphomania, what did the Romans ever do for us?
...One might make the more serious observation, that a wealth of Graeco-Roman records, literature and art failed to survive the purging zeal of some early Church fathers....
There may be other factors besides the orientation of the earth's axis, for example atmospheric conditions that facilitated a wider, more even dispersement of heat and humidity. IMO, the general geological makeup of this planet prior to the flood could easily have been far different that what has been observed since. The biblical text makes clear this event had not happened before and would never be repeated. For that reason it does not seem unreasonable to speculate that a vastly different physical earth preceded the flood.
Praise Zeus!
It has always been prudent to do so.
I like to join in, but I decided to leaf this one alone.
Peas be unto you.
Armadillos are just there to prevent possums from feeling stupid.
Fits under the same.. both may or one must..be wrong scenario.
I really do like the idea of this, particularly if one can include a literal belief in the Odyssey as well. Can I steal the concept, please? Here's what I want to do with it.
I am going to start soliciting funds for promoting Olympian Design; we hold that Homeric verse is inerrant and sufficient to explain all natural phenomena, though in order to skate around your awkward 1st amendment stuff, we stress that OD is not re-branded religious creationism on the grounds that we do not specify which Titan or Olympian actually made everything.
A key concept of OD is irreducibile gullibility, an absolute prerequisite for becoming an acolyte of this school of thought.
I accept donations by VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Krugerrands--whatever, just send it.
I simply interpret the physical evidence differently than you do.
Rejection is not really interpretation. There's a difference between 'interpret' and 'reject'. You are apparently confusing acceptance of evidence with interpretation.
It was a Vegan mind-control ray.
Whirled peas?
I got the idea from someone's post a couple of years ago. He said he believed in a literal Gilgamesh. Anyway, it's yours -- the gods are the common inheritance of us all. (Although I have some doubts about the Odyssey; I suspect that at least some parts of it are metaphorical.)
I leave the upcoming prime to the strongest. I've got to feed the dogs.
Set up
Okay
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