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.

[Dimensio]

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

I believe that the term is a substitute for the word "lie". Apparently it is incredibly rude to refer to creationists who knowingly repeat false claims as "liars".

[isom35]

I think george carlin once asked "if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes running around?"

[Dimensio]

I don't want our children to be taught unproven scientific theory

Then you would not wish children to be taught science at all. All scientific theories are "unproven".

[js1138]

I do not believe that a coke can will turn into the airframe of an aircraft if I sit around and watch it long enough.

Perhaps you'd care to explain why this is relevant.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

Apparently it is incredibly rude to refer to creationists who knowingly repeat false claims as "liars".

Perhaps they are being "differently honest."

"Creatively honest?"

[Californiajones]

But none of these changes indicate a complete cross species leap or evolution.


Time should NOT be the errant element of proving a chemical DNA process of evolution.

If evolution is indeed a innate scientific process, it's formula should be definable and demonstrable in everyday experiments.

But -- it's not. Because -- it's bunk.

One would think with all the time scientists have had in the last one hunded and fifty years, there would be some demonstrable table or formula or easy to understand lab experiment demonstrating this creative chemical process labeled evolution.

[Dimensio]

If you refuse to acknowledge that you were created in the image of God, then evolution is the theory for you. Have fun with it.

I believe that your statement is known as a "false dichotomy".

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Veracity Challenged?

[Lurking Libertarian]

If you refuse to acknowledge that you were created in the image of God, then evolution is the theory for you. Have fun with it.

I believe that we were created in the image of God. The evidence shows that evolution is how God created us.

[Californiajones]

If evolution cannot be reduced to a formula, then, how, pray tell, do Evos think that it should be taught to schoolchildren? Just pull out that old Time Life poster of the lowly ugly ape getting taller and taller and turning into a human being?

[AmishDude]

But what is the operating mechanism? And why most taxonomic schemes? Why not all? What happens in the exceptional cases? Why are there exceptional cases? What can you say about the trees? What are their depths? Widths? Can you quantify anything here?

There is a reason why you say "most" and it exposes why "evolution" isn't really explaining anything.

[js1138]

If evolution is indeed a innate scientific process, it's formula should be definable and demonstrable in everyday experiments.

What phenomenon required by evolution has not been observed?

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"But none of these changes indicate a complete cross species leap or evolution."

Actually, they do, thank you very much. You may not like the scientific definition of "species," but that is the one used, not your own preference.

"Time should NOT be the errant element of proving a chemical DNA process of evolution."

If I understand this vaguely-worded objection correctly, you are saying that evolutionary events involving billions of gene pairs should occur instantaneously.

Pardon me while I laugh myself silly...there, I'm done.

"If evolution is indeed a innate scientific process, it's formula should be definable and demonstrable in everyday experiments."

You are, once again, frequently-repeated erroring.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"If evolution cannot be reduced to a formula, then, how, pray tell, do Evos think that it should be taught to schoolchildren?"

How is Germ Theory reduced to a formula? How is astronomy reduced to a formula? How is geology reduced to a formula?

Again, your contention that a theory needs to be reduced to a formula in order to be scientific is just hilariously ignorant. Most theories in science are not reducible to a formula.

[Elsie]

And your empirical proof of that is....?

They get to ACT like little gods!

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"If evolution cannot be reduced to a formula, then, how, pray tell, do Evos think that it should be taught to schoolchildren?"

OK, so you are suggesting that, if something cannot be reduced to a formula, it should not be taught to schoolchildren.

Congratulations, you just knocked out most science, all language arts, and all other arts.

I guess the kids do arithmetic day after day until they go postal.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

Integrity Challenged?

[Dimensio]

The THEORY of evolution is just a very sad and feeble attempt to deny God.

I am afraid that you are mistaken. The theory of evolution makes no statements whatsoever regarding the existence of any deities. As such, it cannot possibly deny the existence of any specific God.

[narby]

"Continental drift" is quantitative. It can be measured.

So can evolution in short lifespan creatures in the lab, and by observing species in the wild, particularly "ring" species that are all alive right now.

Only mutation can be measured.

Yes. And DNA mutations cause changes in offspring. Accumulated changes are "evolution".

Only mutation can be measured. "Evolution", i.e., natural selection, cannot.

Natural selection is one proposed component of evolution, but the two are not synonymous.

[Matchett-PI]

Two items of possible interest to you and some others:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1585972/posts?page=52#52

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1585972/posts?page=69#69