Posted on 02/27/2004 12:04:20 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
OKLAHOMA CITY (CNHI) — The Oklahoma House passed a bill Monday that would require public school textbooks that discuss evolution to include a disclaimer stating that it is a controversial theory and not fact.
Rep. Bill Graves successfully included the language in House Bill 2194, a measure that originally changed the format for Braille versions of instructional materials.
“I think so many of the textbooks make it appear that evolution is a scientific fact and it’s not,” said Graves, R-Oklahoma City. “Even the U.S. Supreme Court says it’s a theory, so I was just trying to make that clear.
“I think it’s very important for children to know,” Graves said. “If they just believe that they came from some slime in a swamp that’s a whole lot different from being created in the image of God.”
According to the bill, any state school district textbook that discusses evolution would have to include a disclaimer that states, in part, “This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory which some scientists present as scientific explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants and humans. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered as theory, not fact.”
The disclaimer goes on to state, “Study hard and keep an open mind. Someday you may contribute to the theories of how living things appeared on earth.”
The bill passed on a 96-0 vote and now heads to the Senate.
Officials with the State Department of Education did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Sean Murphy is the Capitol Bureau reporter in Oklahoma for Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. He can be reached at smurphy@cnhi.com.
It's the collective we, not you and me. You can substitute other theories like the sun revolving around the earth if flat-earth is bogging you down. The point is if we assume theories are fact we turn our minds off. Thinking should never be limited or based on assumptions of certitude. Assuming theories are facts is like howling at the moon - it might make you feel a little better but it does not accomplish much. BTW: I am pretty sure that is not really your "logic" - I was just pushing the point to illustrate a concept.
Maybe God was drunk waxing poetic at the time.
He ranks first among the works of God...
I guess He changed His mind ... I hope that doesn't happen often.
Just a clarification: this is a widely held misunderstanding.
Scientific Theories NEVER become "Laws" because they are fundamentally different creatures: a scientific "law" is nothing more than statement of an observed relationship: "Bode's Law" describe's the observed spacing of planetary material in the solar system, for example. As such, they rest soley on empirical evidence, and can be overturned whenever a conflicting observation is made and verified.
Scientific "Theories" on the other hand are models having broad explanatory power over a range of phenomona. They not only fit the observed evidence (much as Laws do), but also must make useful predictions, which can be used as the basis of attempted falsification of the theory.
"Laws" lack the explanatory power of scientific theories: see Bode's Law as an example -- Bode simply tells us that the planetary material doubles in distance as we move for one to the next in the solar sytsem, but offers absolutely no explanation for this phenomonon.
We can observe the planetary motion - we cannot observe species descending from common ancestor because it is a theory that can never be observed or proved unless Mr. Peabody prefects the Way-Back machine.
The problem is the majority of Dinosaurs weren't behemoths but human size or smaller so where are they listed in the Bible? Plus Dinos were a very diverse group with a Triceratops differing from a Tyrannosaurs equally if not more as much as a cow does from a lion so if they exsisted ancient people would have different names for them instead just groupping dinosaurs under the vague term of behemoth
Where are the Unicorns, cockatrices, And giant sons of God that go around inpregnating human females mentioned in the bible?
I still have to wonder if you're comparing apples to apples. You seem to be saying that the theory of the heliocentric system is incomplete - that is, that there's something more to the mix than what the current theory describes. Are you saying the same thing about the theory of evolution, that there's apparently something more to evolution than modification by natural selection?
Nonsense. Theories are what make it possible for us to think creatively. And we get nowhere if we're constantly wondering about the truth of our premises. If every time I get a discordant result, I consider the possibility that the atomic theory might not be correct, that perhaps electrons don't really exist, that maybe the Coulomb force law doesn't depend on the inverse second power of distance, etc., how far would I get? The answer is, nowhere.
Over what sort of timescale?
- we cannot observe species descending from common ancestor because it is a theory that can never be observed or proved
"We can't observe it because we can't observe it". Droll. Wrong, however. The fossil record is complete enough to reconstruct all of the major branches of the tree of life, and the picture it gives is getting more detailed all the time. Furthermore, we can observe evolution occurring in realtime. It is slow, but unmistakable.
Someone sold the Okie legislators a Trojan horse.
Sure we can. We can compare their genetic codes, and notice that they all diverge from an ancestral code by point mutations.
Ignorant is as ignorant does.
And the really sad thing is I distinctly remember being "taught" in school that theories and laws are just steps along the same continuum. And this was a private school, no less. Science education in this country is definitely in major trouble.
I don't believe it is incomplete, in the sense that I don't believe there is more at work than the known forces. What I'm saying is that our understanding of how those forces interoperate to produce the solar system we see is incomplete. But just because there are aspects of planetary motion we can't readily explain, it doesn't mean that there's anything more at work than gravity.
Are you saying the same thing about the theory of evolution, that there's apparently something more to evolution than modification by natural selection?
I don't believe that evolution is incomplete, in that I don't believe there is more at work in the origin of species than natural variation plus natural selection. What I'm saying is that our understanding of how those factors have interoperated to produce the species we see is incomplete. But just because there are aspects of biology we can't readily explain, it doesn't mean that there's anything more at work than Darwinism.
It was bound to happen..... "Sooner" or later!
bada-bing, bada-boom!
Correction: we assume based on our current theories that genetic codes diverge from an ancestral code. We cannot observe this actually happening or duplicate it in the lab. We can actually observe planetary motion.
Yes, I was taught the same thing in school. What amazes me is how tightly so many people cling to the notion, to the point where they'll tell a practicing scientist that he's wrong, and that he knows nothing about how science is done, when he tries to set them straight.
If one assumes theories are facts, theories will never be challenged and nobody will think outside the box. If you pretend theories are facts, you are not praticing science.
If you pretend magic is real, you aren't paying attention to the real world.
How long you been doing science, LVD? I'd just like to know how seriously to take your opinion.
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