Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.
Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.
"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.
Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.
The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.
"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.
Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.
"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."
The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.
It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.
The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."
The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."
The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.
The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.
Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.
The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.
"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.
The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."
The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.
Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.
Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.
Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.
New books will be distributed next summer.
State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.
"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"
State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.
"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.
State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.
"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."
You have a point. I argue with LOTS of liberals. (I live in a college town.) I'm constantly amazed at how many are utterly paranoid (and hateful) about "right wing religous zealots". This perception indeed works against us because many moderates and independents buy into this mantra from the left, at least partially. But that's no reason for other conservatives to echo it!
This is the point I'm trying to make. The paranoia, even if qualified, that you and a couple others are expressing tends to reinforce the myths that all conservatives are religious nuts, or that all conservative Christians are intolerant. I prefer debunking these myths to echoing them. I get right in the face of libs who rant about "the religious right" and confront them with their manifest bigotry and intollerance.
Maybe it's me, but your message is too incoherent to reply to. Feel free to try again.
Loose lips sink ships.
In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Biology textbook hearings prompt science disputes [Texas], ALS wrote: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Largest denominational families in U.S., 2001(self-identification, ARIS)
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Add 827 Calvary Chapel Pastors nation wide. With a conservative estimate of 50 persons per pastor you would have
NAVIGATION OPTIONS: CALVARY HOMEPAGE FELLOWSHIP CHURCHES |
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I have a similar problem with atheists on this forum. I tend to classify atheists in three groups. The first group doesnt believe but doesnt mind if you do. The second wants to convince you and will argue in a respectful manner. The third group really hates God, they arent trying to persuade anyone. I decline to engage or encourage the third type.
Seems to me that passion can lead to trouble, because words spoken in the heat of a debate, can be harsh. This is particularly difficult for Christians, because we are committed to the Great Commandment:
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Matthew 22:37-39
But as Christians we step over the line when we do out of meanness or vindictiveness.
So why does your designer sometimes use a whole limb (birds) to invent flight, sometimes just the hand (bats), and sometimes just a finger (pterodactyl)? It's not a replication at all.
I am afraid you will have to ask Him that question when you meet Him.
However, as to design in general, once you understand the purpose of something and how it works it is easy for an intelligent designer adapt it to other situations. The same cannot be said of a stochastic process such as evolution. When one considers all the bird-like changes which were necessary to turn a mammal (the bat) into a bird-like creature, one understands why it disproves evolution. It required numerous changes to the physiology and genetics of a mammal. It involved the copying of features from a totally unrelated species. It involved the adaptation of the rest of the organism to features not normally found in the supposed ancestor species.
Therefore when evolutionists speak of convergent evolution they are talking nonsense. Since there was no ancestral trace for these traits they cannot be called evolution since there was nothing for them to evolve from. Since species cannot 'borrow' traits from widely unrelated species to call it 'evolution' is very dishonest. To say that bats developed flight because they 'needed to' when no other mammals had such a need to transform themselves to such an extent is also very ludicrous. Indeed the whole idea that 'need' cretes change in species is ridiculous. It is a deceitful borrowing of the maxim that 'necessity is the mother of invention'. The maxim applies to intelligent designers, it does not apply to anything else.
LOL! I guess I should've led off with IMO. I just can't find the chapter and verse in my Bible that says, "Strive to create as many Christian Churches as possible until they become too small to make any difference to anyone."
I was raised Protestant and still am, but I love participating in Catholic services. Blame the Jesuits. ;)
The following quote is frequently featured in my email sig:
He was an embittered atheist - the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
~~~George Orwell
Some other favs, just for fun:
In a reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence, not guilt, that is called upon to justify itself.
~~~Albert CamusMistakes committed by ignorance in a virtuous disposition, would never be of such fatal consequence to the publick weal, as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and had great abilities to manage, and multiply, and defend his corruptions.
~~~Jonathan Swift (prophecy of Bubba)When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
~~~Jonathan Swift (prophecy of Dubya)I've gone to hundreds of fortune-tellers' parlors, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.
~~~New York City Detective
They's sneakey alright.
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