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Utah House kills evolution bill
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette ^
| 28 February 2006
| JENNIFER DOBNER
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.
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy; US: Utah
KEYWORDS: biofraud; crevolist; scienceeducation
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To: PatrickHenry
Mea culpa, I didn't link it. Send in the cheerleader, 40 pom pom whacks.
581
posted on
02/28/2006 5:26:34 PM PST
by
zeeba neighba
(What I'm reading now: The Professor and the Big Bologny Sandwich: read the book to see who chokes!)
To: Fester Chugabrew
It does seem odd that evolution, as opposed to other notions, has lately been singled out for special treatment by legislatures. Why is that? Why isn't the general public clamoring against teaching the theory of gravity as "just a theory?"
Very simple: There's no money in it. A creative person could pull it off, but distorting what evolution says is much easier and it fills the coffers - which is the ONLY reason the DI, AiG, Dr. Dino, etc do what they do. It's plain as day.
To: redrock
The building blocks are all the same. Therefore everything may reasonably be assumed to have common origins. But history? This is much more difficult to ascertain, and cannot be done empirically. Many confuse reasonable conjecture with immutable fact. Evolution is largely reasonable conjecture. Immutable facts are hard to come by. Science is more subjective than it cares to admit. Legislatures are not entitled to outlaw evolutionspeak. Nor should they be asked to endorse creationspeak. These are things we as a free people may enjoy in our respective vocations. You are correct in asserting that evolution is a religious conviction for many people, but they are entitled to those convictions - within limits of course. For example, if they want to invoke Darwin to practice eugenics, the law should come down hard on the first practitioner.
To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
Oh, please DO enlighten us as to how that much of a shift in physiographic forms came about only 5-6k years ago.Who is in control of the elements? God or Mother Nature?
And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:37-41 KJV)
To: PatrickHenry
... an "unfortunate, but possibly inadvertent omission of proper attribution." Or maybe, "coming from a 'scholarly' tradition in which transgressions of untruth-speaking, rule-breaking, and property-misappropriation are allowed if not actualy encouraged."
585
posted on
02/28/2006 5:28:18 PM PST
by
VadeRetro
(Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
To: phantomworker
I've got a head start...wrote a couple of punning short stories for a seriously ill relative who needed laughs. One was fish.
To: VadeRetro
Well no, I'm not in "science"
587
posted on
02/28/2006 5:29:31 PM PST
by
zeeba neighba
(What I'm reading now: The Professor and the Big Bologny Sandwich: read the book to see who chokes!)
To: VadeRetro
13,000 feet would be sufficient for any deity contemplating global genocide.
588
posted on
02/28/2006 5:30:13 PM PST
by
js1138
To: zeeba neighba
It's commentary, but thanks for the link.
What does it being commentary have to do with the fact that you chose to pretend they were your words? And then you thank VadeRetro for the link that you so conveniently forgot to supply.
You're weird.
To: P-Marlowe
"Who is in control of the elements? God or Mother Nature?"
In other words, God made massive changes to the Earth's physiographic form 5-6k years ago, and then hid all of the evidence, replacing it with evidence that shows 4.5G years of stuff happening in an uninterrupted sequence...
God's starting to look a little weird.
590
posted on
02/28/2006 5:31:16 PM PST
by
BeHoldAPaleHorse
(Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
To: PatrickHenry; ml1954; VadeRetro
Attributionally challenged?
591
posted on
02/28/2006 5:31:23 PM PST
by
CarolinaGuitarman
("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
To: zeeba neighba
Now you've been accused of being
"dishonorable". You are really packing in those badges of honor. Congratulations! And... consider the source.
To: js1138
"13,000 feet would be sufficient for any deity contemplating global genocide."
But the Bible specifies that it went up to over 29,000 feet.
593
posted on
02/28/2006 5:32:05 PM PST
by
BeHoldAPaleHorse
(Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
To: js1138
13,000 feet would be sufficient for any deity contemplating global genocide. There may be a textual-literacy requirement to cover the last tip of everything for people with minds of pure concrete.
594
posted on
02/28/2006 5:34:07 PM PST
by
VadeRetro
(Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
Maybe the mountains were lower then. Prove they weren't.
595
posted on
02/28/2006 5:34:40 PM PST
by
js1138
To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
You beat me that time. ;O
596
posted on
02/28/2006 5:34:51 PM PST
by
VadeRetro
(Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
God, who could create the heavens and the earth and all that in them is in six days can certainly flood the Earth in 40.
Don't you think?
God's starting to look a little weird.
I'd suggest you take that up with him. Jesus acknowledged the truth of the story of Noah. I am not about to call Jesus a liar. Are you?
To: VadeRetro; js1138
There may be a textual-literacy requirement to cover the last tip of everything for people with minds of pure concrete.
Speaking of concrete, which one of our YEC's told us last week that a sort of calcified concrete mixture shot up from below creating all the fossils at once at the time of God's earthicide?
To: P-Marlowe
599
posted on
02/28/2006 5:36:31 PM PST
by
zeeba neighba
(What I'm reading now: The Professor and the Big Bologny Sandwich: read the book to see who chokes!)
To: From many - one.
NO wonder I can never listen to one complete Beer Game! I always have so many serious questions to ponder!
"One was fish?"
Fish: the relative who walked out of the sea so many milenia ago?
Or Fish: the short story: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (I Can Read It All by Myself Beginner Books)?
600
posted on
02/28/2006 5:37:01 PM PST
by
phantomworker
(It doesn’t matter what other people think or feel or say. “You are the only person who defines you.")
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