School Board Panel: Ohio Students Should Be Taught Evolution, Controversies That Surround It

Associated Press / ABC ^

[RCW2001]

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio Oct. 14 — A state school board panel Monday recommended that Ohio science classes emphasize both evolution and the debate over its validity.

The committee left it up to individual school districts to decide whether to include in the debate the concept of "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is guided by a higher intelligence.

The guidelines for the science curriculum simply put into writing what many school districts already do. The current guidelines do not even mention evolution.

"What we're essentially saying here is evolution is a very strong theory, and students can learn from it by analyzing evidence as it is accumulated over time," said Tom McClain, a board member and co-chairman of the Ohio Board of Education's academic standards committee.

Conservative groups, some of which had tried and failed to get biblical creation taught in the public schools, had argued that students should learn about intelligent design. But critics of intelligent design said it is creationism in disguise.

On Monday, the committee unanimously forwarded a final draft without the concept in it to the full 19-member board.

Board member Michael Cochran, who had pushed for intelligent design in the standards, said, "The amendment allows teachers and students in Ohio to understand that evolution really is a theory and that there are competing views and different interpretations. This allows them to be discussed."

The Ohio school board will decide Tuesday whether to adopt the new standards or order that they be revised.

On the Net:

Ohio Department of Education: http://www.ode.state.oh.us/

[Dimensio]

As opposed to your method of 'refutation', which involves taking the person's words completely out of context to dishonestly pretend that they were implying something that they were not implying, as you have done.

[Dimensio]

Your comment does not in any way show that my claim regarding your out-of-context quotations are false. I guess that you know that should you try challenging my claim I will smack you down with documentation of your out-of-context quoting.

[Dimensio]

Are you so ignorant evolution that you do not know that it proposes descent of higher more complex species from lower less complex species or are just lying to support a fellow evolutionist?

I know what the theory states. It does not state that higher must come from lower. It postulates that 'less complex' to 'more complex' (in terms of the overall organism) is the trend, but not that it is the hard rule.

[DaGman]

Sorry but my intent is not to insult. So, my apologies if it came across as such. My feeling is that evolution is based in sound scientific concepts which are taught starting in elementary school. The topic has been debated endlessly here. The creationist position is always based in an assertion that evolution is a theory and is somehow flawed because there is no, in their opinion, proof. Therefore creationism should be taught alongside evolution, which one can only be because, in truth, creationists also know creationism is flawed. Therefore, in their opinion, teach two flawed theories.

Fact is, evolution has tons of evidence that validate it. Creationists don't agree and I can't help that.

[Junior]

placemarker

[gore3000]

Yes, and the whole history of evolution is an example of species "learning" (in a passive sense) from prior selection events.

And where is the brain to this intelligence that 'learns'? It is nowhere to be found. Have you ever seen a smart rock? Some of them are billions of years old, you would think that in all that time they would have learned something!

[PatrickHenry]

Double placemarker (if you know what I mean).

[gore3000]

As opposed to your method of 'refutation',

There you go again, no facts, just insults.

[gore3000]

Your comment does not in any way show that my claim

None of you evo losers has shown any of my quotes to be false. In fact I almost always post not just a quote but a link to the complete article. Still you guys dishonestly claim that my quotes are false. I deal with the scientific questions, not opinions and I have shown that the scientific facts are indeed as I have stated them. Just because you and your fellow evolutionists are so totally ignorant of the science of evolution that you cannot discuss it rationally does not mean that others are not. It shows quite well that you and your friends adhere to evolution not because it is science, but because it supports your atheistic beliefs.

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker. Repeat maneuver 69.

[gore3000]

I know what the theory states. It does not state that higher must come from lower.

I already posted the words of your worm eaten hero to show you are absolutely wrong. Are you know making the moronic (and totally anti-evolutionary) statement that bacteria descended from man???????

Stop wasting bandwith with ideocies.

[Dimensio]

I already posted the words of your worm eaten hero to show you are absolutely wrong.

Great. Except that you have a documented history of quoting people out of context to make the implication of their statements completely different.

Basically, you've been caught lying outright before. Why should I believe you now?

[AndrewC]

Why should I believe you now?

You don't have to believe him, but you would be wrong. Charlie hizzelf stated ---Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.[emphasis mine]

from On the Origin Of Species (1859) Charles Darwin, Chapter XV: Recapitulation and Conclusion

[gore3000]

Fact is, evolution has tons of evidence that validate it.

The evidence for evolution is really not worth very much and the objections to evolution are indeed quite strong. I will take a living organism's evidence of design over a few bones everytime. Let's look at the following for example:

How can evolution explain euglena - an organism which is both a plant and an animal and has an eye? Where did it descend from?

How can evolution explain the descent of the Hymenopimesis Wasp - an insect that reproduces itself by almost killing a spider, forcing the spider to build a special web for the eggs and then killing the spider?

How can evolution explain the butterfly - an organism which is essentially born twice?

How can evolution explain the platypus - a mammal which lays eggs, defends itself with a poison spur, has a duck-like bill, an elector censor in the bill, webbed feet, a cloaca, and the ability to vocalize many different sounds?

How can evolution explain the bat's sonar which is better than what our navy has?

How can evolution explain the fugu fish whose genes are so close to man that examining its genome showed us 1,000 genes in humans which the genome project had been unable to find?

The bones could have never told us the unique characteristics of these species. Therefore bones, a terribly reductionist method of comparing species, is unable to show us if species are really descendants of each other. They do not even show us the mode of reproduction of a species in most cases - a terribly important fact needed to prove descent. So yes, the facts against evolution are quite strong and the evidence for it is quite weak, in fact, it does not prove anything.

[Dimensio]

Let me explain something to you.

You -- that is, you personally, not creationists in general -- have demonstrated that you have no credibility whatsoever because you have been documented as a quote-doctor. You have been shown to take quotes out of context deliberately to misrepresent the statements made. You are a demonstratable liar.

It does not matter what you say and it does not matter what you quote. I do not answer to liars like you because you will either ignore anything that refutes your position or you will doctor the quotes until they no longer have their original meaning.

[Dimensio]

ACK.

My apologies, AndrewC. My comments were directed to gore3000, not to you.

[AndrewC]

My apologies, AndrewC. My comments were directed to gore3000, not to you.

No problem. I understand when someone steps into the line of fire, sometimes one gets hit. Anyway, originally, it was not you that denied what Darwin stated in Origins.

[gore3000]

have demonstrated that you have no credibility whatsoever

You keep attacking the quotes from opponents of evolution but can never show that they are false, untrue, or altered. If people did not wish to make those statements then why did they make them? Someone had a gun to their head? Everytime people give evidence against evolution all you folk can do is insult and say 'it's not so'. Well show that it is not so if that is the case. Fact is that evolution is bunk and the evidence is everywhere so all you folk can do is say that the evidence is a lie. Well, from the actions of the evolutionists on these threads it should be quite clear to any reasonable human being who the liars are, which is the side which has no evidence so it must always insult the messengers.

[gore3000]

My apologies, AndrewC. My comments were directed to gore3000, not to you.

They were just as wrong and as vile regardless of who they were directed at. AND YOU WERE SHOWN AGAIN THAT YOU WERE WRONG only thing is that instead of admitting it, or dropping the subject you continue with your moronic assertion that evolution does not say that higher forms descend from simpler less complex forms. You are the perfect example of an evolutionist ideologue.

[gore3000]

I do not answer to liars like you

PROVE ME A LIAR. You do not answer but you sure insult people. Keep your mouth shut if all you can do is insult and have nothing else to say. Lame slimer.