Posted on 06/13/2002 7:48:51 AM PDT by JediGirl
Last modified at 11:50 a.m. on Friday, June 7, 2002
On the Net: Nebraska Department of Education, the Concerned Citizens for Objective Science Education, and the Intelligent Design Network
By Scott Bauer
The Associated Press
LINCOLN -- The State Board of Education is being asked to allow for the teaching of numerous theories about how life began in addition to evolution.
One of those theories holds that aliens could have started life on Earth.
The board is considering whether to add state science standards to an accreditation rule schools must follow to operate.
More than a dozen people were scheduled to appear at the board meeting Friday to comment on the standards. Math and reading standards have already been added to the rule.
The science standards were approved in 1999. State law now requires schools to report how they are meeting such standards, so they must be added to Nebraska's accreditation rule.
The standards make it clear that evolution be taught as theory, not objective fact. They also ask that students investigate and use the theory of biological evolution to explain the diversity of life.
At an earlier hearing, several people supported the intelligent design concept.
Intelligent design is a belief that living things are too complex to have occurred through random genetic change and must have been designed by a higher power. The nature of that being is not specified, but backers acknowledge it could have been a biblical God, supernatural or extraterrestrial.
Critics of the concept argue that intelligent design is not science and that it is a disguise for creationism, which credits the origin of species to God and has been barred by courts from public schools.
The teaching of creationism in Nebraska drew heated debate in 1999 when the state board adopted science standards that left out any mention of creationism.
Some members of the state board in 1999 wanted to revise the standards to require schools teach that there are other theories in addition to evolution, including creationism.
You mean you proved the existance of God? Cool.
Here we go again!
There's nothing to be disproved. The existence of a deity is irrelevant in science.
Have you disproved the existance of Athena? Do you believe Athena exists? Are you agnostic about Athena? Or are you atheistic about Athena?
I am not too worried about disproving every god myth that comes along. I'll let advocates PROVE their case. It is not for me to have to prove that every whackjob god myth is false.
He never has been in a quandary over whether or not He exists. And neither are His children. "Proving" (or disproving) His existence is the burdensome business of the unbeliever. Believers have already settled the issue: Jesus is Lord.
Don't tell your mommy I pinged you............
Thank you Registered!
Allah never has been in a quandary over whether or not He exists. And neither are His children. "Proving" (or disproving) His existence is the burdensome business of the unbeliever. Believers have already settled the issue: Allah is Lord.
Hardly noteworthy anymore. However, please be sure to alert me (and the media) should you happen upon a school board composed of thoughtful, sensible people.
Oh, I love it.
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