Posted on 12/19/2006 2:19:29 PM PST by Sopater
ATLANTA — A suburban school board that put stickers in high school science books saying evolution is "a theory, not a fact" abandoned its legal battle to keep them Tuesday after four years.
The Cobb County board agreed in federal court never to use a similar sticker or to undermine the teaching of evolution in science classes.
In return, the parents who sued over the stickers agreed to drop all legal action.
"We certainly think that it's a win not just for our clients but for all students in Cobb County and, really, all residents of Georgia," said Beth Littrell of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
The school board placed the stickers inside the front cover of biology books in 2002 after a group of parents complained that evolution was being taught to the exclusion of other theories, including a literal reading of the biblical story of creation.
The stickers read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
A federal judge ordered the stickers removed in 2005, saying they amount to an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. The school board appealed, but a federal appeals court sent the case back, saying it did not have enough information.
"We faced the distraction and expense of starting all over with more legal actions and another trial," said board chairwoman Teresa Plenge. "With this agreement, it is done and we now have a clean slate for the new year."
School board attorney Linwood Gunn said the agreement is not an admission that the stickers were unconstitutional. "The school board attempted to reach what they thought was a reasonable compromise," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I could likewise choose to reject science altogether based on its abyssmal track-record for mis-understanding reality. Instead, I choose to use science where applicable and reject it when it makes pronouncements it is unequipped to make.
"Thanks, I'll stick with science. It doesn't seem that inferior a method for judging reality when one considers the alternatives."
Unfortunately, if the universe and life is supernatually-created, you have deliberately chosen an inadequate vehicle for making that decision and will accept a wrong answer.
Now it's perfectly fine to deliberately choose an inadequate methodology that will return the wrong answer, but people need to be aware that's what they are doing.
Religion has no place in the public schools, unless of course you teach every religion's theory.
So, better teach them kiddies the fables of Odin and all the rest.
You want to teach creationism, do it in a christian school.
Scientific theories are below actual facts.
Otherwise they would be called, well 'facts'.
To claim otherwise is dishonest.
So what is the belief in naturalism doing in public schools?
That is as much a metaphysical belief as any religion. It is merely pantheism in different clothes.
"The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." Carl Sagan
Which naturalism?
Naturalism may refer to:
* Naturalism (philosophy), any of several philosophical stances wherein all phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural are either false, unknowable, or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses
o Methodological naturalism is the belief that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural
o Metaphysical naturalism, the belief that the natural world is all that exists
* Ethical naturalism, the theory that ethical terms can be defined in non-ethical terms
* Humanistic naturalism, an outlook that places the emphasis upon a naturalism based upon scientific reasoning
* Natural history, a broad area of the natural sciences concerned with living things
* Sociological naturalism, the view that the natural world and the social world are roughly identical and governed by similar principles
* Naturalism (art), an artistic style
* Naturalism (literature), a literary, cinematic, or theatrical style
* Naturalism (horse), a race horse trained by Lee Freedman
* Naturalistic observation, an empirical method of study by which the researcher introduces no outside stimulus, instead witnessing behavior as it naturally occurs in the environment
(source Wikipedia)
Otherwise they would be called, well 'facts'.
To claim otherwise is dishonest.
Sorry to have to disagree with you. On this point, I think Heinlein said it best.
Piling up facts is not science--science is facts-and-theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning: a valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness.
A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and new but also discloses unsuspected facts [Heinlein 1980:480-481].
Thanks for being understanding. So many posters on FR just bash away without caring where the other person is coming from.
Depends on which naturalism is being taught.
Sorry to have to disagree with you.
On this point, I think it is obvious that theories can and must change to fit the facts, not the other way around. This makes the theory subservient to the facts.
Of course, evolution turns this on its head and that may be why you prefer theories over facts.
LOL, you've already set out on this thread that you believe science to be an unnatural approach toward evaluating reality.
No discussion with you is worth pursuing, and I'm sure you feel likewise.
The judiciary is one third of the government of the U.S. If you have a problem with the constitutional balance of powers system of the United States of America then you live in the wrong country. You'll have to move to another country if you want my children's education dictated to them by a handful of radical religious fanatics. As long as you're in the United States of America you will have to deal with the fact that we have a system of laws with fair judges who will see to it that your radical taliban style of ignorant superstition idolizing stays out of our public schools.
Of course, evolution turns this on its head and that may be why you prefer theories over facts.
I don't believe that you are wallowing in hundreds of millions of facts with no organizing structure whatsoever.
Please reread the quote I posted.
Theories can, and indeed must, change to fit the facts, yes. That does not make theories subservient to facts.
Facts are meaningless without theories to organize them, and to give them meaning. What can you tell me from a few hundred million facts concerning evolution? Nothing. You have to organize those facts, evaluate them, one against the other, and arrange them in ways (including chronologically) which give them meaning. That process, after a lot of hard work and testing, can result in a theory.
What you are really trying to say is that your theory, or way of organizing these facts, is different from mine. It also appears from your post that your way of organizing facts is different from the way the vast majority of scientists organize them.
That's the biggest liberal lie going. If the public whose tax dollars are paying to have their own children educated, wish to have religion in schools, then they have the right to have say in it. Schools at one time in our country's history had Bible reading and prayer in them every day and the country was in far better shape that it is now. Plus, if you eliminate all references to organized religion in the public schools, then you are simply promoting humanism or secularism, which are belief systems in their own right and hence a religion, by definition.
This effort by evolutionists to get religion pushed out of schools under the guise ot science and their approval and support of the ACLU in those efforts revelas the liberal bent that most evolutionists have.
Wow, Dan, they're bringing out the heavy artillary. They're quoting Heinlein and posting cartoons at you. Pretty serious for a bunch of intellectual giants.
It's a matter of lying by omission.
Every other item in every other textbook is subject to the same caveats. Mentioning only one implies, incorrectly, that is it in a different category.
Nope, unless you teach all religions, you teach none.
Send your kids to your religious school.
I went to parochial school K-12 (and learned about evolution)
Religion has no place in public schools, kids need to learn science, not interpreted fables.
Creationism is a faith based belief, based on nothing other than your belief that the bible is a scientific text. Not based on observable and tested science.
Like I said, teach religion in religious school, and send your kids there.
I don't see you using your giant intellect to show us all some tested data and analysis.
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