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.
Those who believe in Evolution have their minds as closed as those who don't.
When you have all parties to the 'debate' with their minds made up....it's just an argument...usually one with name calling and demeaning of the other sides cranium capability.
It would be nice if IT was a debate....but's it's AS BAD as those threads on DU.
It's just a chance for those Evolutionists to show off their 'superior brainpower"....and a chance for the Religionists to let the Evolutionists know that their going to hell.
Sad way to run debate.....
redrock
Are you declaring that changes in HOX genes are examples of miracles? Is this where the miracle needs to be inserted?
"Is your father home?" he asked.
"No," she said, "but I'm the best piece in Westphalia!"
[Har-de-har-har. Snort. Slap knee.]
Which god was that?
Certainly you don't mean the one who spoke with Moses; the one who wrote with His own hand on the tablets of stone: "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day."
You don't mean that God, do you?
You must mean some other God, like the Bhuddist God or the Hindu God or the Madeline Murray O'Hair God.
In what scriptures do we find the god who used evolution to create man. Where do we find this "evidence" that this god (if he exists anywhere but in your mind) used "evolution" to create man?
And what evidence do you have that it was this so-called "god" who did anything and not just "nothing"?
Is it scientific to conclude that God is an unreliable eyewitness?
Actually, that's not a half bad idea. It would probably be a heck of a lot more useful (not to mention lucrative) as a major than sociology or communications.
Do you have empirical evidence that it is not eyewitness testimony?
huh?
What's always been funny to me in that one is that it never says Lot didn't know what was going on between the lying down and the getting up.
A very finely tuned "I wuz drunk" defense.
A debate is a formal, public arguing of issues. It does not require the changing of minds. It does not even require that those who argue the merits of a side believe what they argue for.
The function of these threads is to demonstrate that FReepers are not dimwits.
I have to say that many of the people I argue against are quite knowledgeable and articulate. Not about biology, but nevertheless articulate.
Also, I have to admit that some have a more detailed knowledge of biology than I have, but for some reason are unable to see the picture that evolution paints. It's like the 3-D images that were popular a few years ago. They look like random noise until you see them, but seeing them requires looking.
This is a question that should be decided at the local level...the state or federal level is not where the question should be decided. People in Salt Lake City shouldn't be deciding how Ogden youngsters are taught. Good call by the legislature.
I'm not sure of the units, but I am PRETTY sure they use the Drift-o-meter from the Tectonics LTD. company.
I think the bs stands for Bottom Shifting.
Observe the nautical terms on the dial.
Second and third hand accounts of alleged eyewitness testimony.
Ah... calling for the OTHERS side's explanation of THEIR stuff, without giving the explanation of your OWN stuff!
I see...
You are, IMO, confirming that the 2 different approaches cannot (and I would suggest, should not) be compared. Religion and science are different species.
And if the Bible is what it says it is, then we have an eyewitness account of abiogenesis and the origin of species...How much more empirical proof do you want above and beyond an eyewitness account?
Sorry, you start with an 'if' and then move to a conclusion as if the statement is true. Kind of like what you said was wrong with evolution: "Several elements of the current theory go beyond observation, and beyond evidence, and into assumed conclusions, which later get stated as fact.
Who was the eyewitness to abiogenesis? You can't say Adam, unless he witnessed himself created, and that's a bit of a leap. In Genesis 2, Adam was asleep when Eve was created so it would be tough to call him an eyewitness to her creation as well. The garden seems to have existed first (as indicated in Genesis 1).
I could tell what Mrs. Elsie does with mine, if you're really that interested....
See my post above!
I find it interesting that someone whose screen name indicates an affinity for low-tech engineering can't figure out how a toilet works. Perhaps indoor plumbing is new to him.
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