Posted on 12/11/2002 6:28:08 AM PST by A2J
By WILL SENTELL
wsentell@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau
High school biology textbooks would include a disclaimer that evolution is only a theory under a change approved Tuesday by a committee of the state's top school board.
If the disclaimer wins final approval, it would apparently make Louisiana just the second state in the nation with such a provision. The other is Alabama, which is the model for the disclaimer backers want in Louisiana.
Alabama approved its policy six or seven years ago after extensive controversy that included questions over the religious overtones of the issue.
The change approved Tuesday requires Louisiana education officials to check on details for getting publishers to add the disclaimer to biology textbooks.
It won approval in the board's Student and School Standards/ Instruction Committee after a sometimes contentious session.
"I don't believe I evolved from some primate," said Jim Stafford, a board member from Monroe. Stafford said evolution should be offered as a theory, not fact.
Whether the proposal will win approval by the full state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on Thursday is unclear.
Paul Pastorek of New Orleans, president of the board, said he will oppose the addition.
"I am not prepared to go back to the Dark Ages," Pastorek said.
"I don't think state boards should dictate editorial content of school textbooks," he said. "We shouldn't be involved with that."
Donna Contois of Metairie, chairwoman of the committee that approved the change, said afterward she could not say whether it will win approval by the full board.
The disclaimer under consideration says the theory of evolution "still leaves many unanswered questions about the origin of life.
"Study hard and keep an open mind," it says. "Someday you may contribute to the theories of how living things appeared on earth."
Backers say the addition would be inserted in the front of biology textbooks used by students in grades 9-12, possibly next fall.
The issue surfaced when a committee of the board prepared to approve dozens of textbooks used by both public and nonpublic schools. The list was recommended by a separate panel that reviews textbooks every seven years.
A handful of citizens, one armed with a copy of Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species," complained that biology textbooks used now are one-sided in promoting evolution uncritically and are riddled with factual errors.
"If we give them all the facts to make up their mind, we have educated them," Darrell White of Baton Rouge said of students. "Otherwise we have indoctrinated them."
Darwin wrote that individuals with certain characteristics enjoy an edge over their peers and life forms developed gradually millions of years ago.
Backers bristled at suggestions that they favor the teaching of creationism, which says that life began about 6,000 years ago in a process described in the Bible's Book of Genesis.
White said he is the father of seven children, including a 10th-grader at a public high school in Baton Rouge.
He said he reviewed 21 science textbooks for use by middle and high school students. White called Darwin's book "racist and sexist" and said students are entitled to know more about controversy that swirls around the theory.
"If nothing else, put a disclaimer in the front of the textbooks," White said.
John Oller Jr., a professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, also criticized the accuracy of science textbooks under review. Oller said he was appearing on behalf of the Louisiana Family Forum, a Christian lobbying group.
Oller said the state should force publishers to offer alternatives, correct mistakes in textbooks and fill in gaps in science teachings. "We are talking about major falsehoods that should be addressed," he said.
Linda Johnson of Plaquemine, a member of the board, said she supports the change. Johnson said the new message of evolution "will encourage students to go after the facts."
Nope, me and Behe say that God made life. It is the atheists and materialists that say that junkyard piles of amino acids (which BTW are not found in nature except in living things as part of the process of protein formation) randomly arranged themselves into DNA or RNA chains of some half a million bases long (even though amino acids are the product of RNA not the material from which it is made). It is to such ridiculous extent that atheists and materialists try to go in order to deny God his due.
I only use those words when a person's common sense would clearly show them that what evolutionists are claiming is indeed ludicrous or total nonsense. However, if you wish for me to explain why I said it in a particular case, I will be glad to do so.
More fatuous sloganeering science bluffing from Mr. Blue.
What I say is true. Evolution needs to create new genes, new functions, new abilities. You cannot create anything by destroying it. This is why evolution is totally false and why its results when adopted philosophically end up in mass murder. It is addition by subtraction. It is 'pruning the races' by murder. However unlike pruning, natural selection destroys genetic information. It makes species less adaptable to environmental changes and hence less viable in the long run. That is why pure bred animals are much more fragile, less virile and live shorter lives than 'wild' breeds. Selection is a killer and you do not create anything by killing.
a population optimally selected to survive in its given environment--slowly changing the environment than acts like a surgeon's knife to shape the population.
Then kindly explain to me how you get from a bacteria with some 1 million DNA base pairs and some 600 genes to a human with some 3 billion DNA base pairs and some 30,000 genes by destroying genetic information. Anyway you slice it 4-2 does not equal 6.
Speaking as a math fan, when you revise a root, you are revising an entire tree. Revising the ROOT of the tree of life remains a non-trivial event in biology.
Now just note this, that the change has been towards more domains instead of less.
No. Before the new revision there were no such things as domains, now there are 5, one of which includes the old ...kingdoms, that's it... (animals, plants, shrooms).
Now if evolution were true and science was really finding evidence for evolution, then the domains should be less
Do you even have a notion of an argument to back up this contention? Even if you knew what a domain was, how in tunket do think you can make an argument that the number of domains is relevant to evolutionary theory? Is it your plan to have an anti-evolutionary theory to hand, no matter how irrelevant, vague, or unsupportable, to bear into service when your brain draws a blank?
since domains are totally separate entities which cannot have descended from each other.
Once again, not right, not wrong, not even in the game.
Some domains show chronological anomolies with respect to each other for the lesser ribosome; that wants an explanation which, at present, is lacking except as near-pure speculation. If they were truly unrelated to each other descent-wise, they'd be built along different basic DNA coding plans, and couldn't eat each other. The new revision makes a case against the notion of common descent from a single initial common ancestor--it does not make a case against common descent.
So you see, you guys attack me
I don't know about others, but I attack you because you reset your brain to 0 every time we start a thread, causing everyone to do a great deal of work that need not have been done in order to play with you--because you make outrageous claims you rarely back up or apologize for, such as, oh, lions and tigers are the same species, or circles are not elipses, or "it's been proved that naturalistic abiogensis is impossible"--because you create outrageous requirements for evidence which you don't yourself abide by...have I missed anything?...Oh yea, because you constantly draw absurd conclusions, and from them incredibly over-bold vague generalizations about science and the results of scientific work that are unshared by the vast majority of the world's scientists, and then go puffing about and preening like some kind of bizarre peacock of scientasters as if these clownish flights of fancy were so obviously credible that you need not soil your hands with actual justification.
for saying that scientific research keeps finding more problems with evolution all the time,
It is the job of scientific research to find "more and more problems with evolution all the time".
and the above just proves me right again.
It proves you to be an untrustworthy science reporter once again.
Nope, me and Behe say that God made life.
This is the same loud avoidance of the question we always get from you, not an answer--please forward the proof I asked you for. Why should I believe abiogenesis was an instantaneous jump from lumps of clay to prokariotes, rather than process of numerous intermediate steps. Kindly surprise me by not once again answering this request by simply restating your absurd claim.
How do you get from a tangle of dynamically altering relationships in loosely bound carbon compounds to the closely packed simple uniformity of a diamond lattice? You apply pressure to a system that's capable of flexibly altering it's own makeup, and viola! as if by magic, new relationships will form themselves up. You make too much of the information argument--Carbon compounds producing carbon compounds have to obey the laws of physics and chemistry just as much as simple carbon molecules and diamonds do. New environments will carve new "information" into any dynamic system in feedback they might encounter.
Once again, Mr. Blue science, we need to consult an actual biologist after one of your newsflashes. Pure breds are fragile because their biota has been sculpted by human concerns, rather than the general concerns of survival on a raw planet. Naturally pure breds will be less generally fit. They have not been selected for general fitness.
What you say is blue.
More fatuous sloganeering science bluffing from Mr. Blue.
It's not the least bit fatuous. Trying to create new life forms with natural selection is like trying to construct a skyscraper with a wrecking ball and a truckload of dynamite. Even talking about it is ridiculous.
Basically, evolutionists are talking about all of our biosphere having been created via an endless series of mutations, so that the question becomes, what sequence of mutations gets you from bacteria to fish, ducks, and humans.
The short answer is that bacteria remain bacteria no matter what you do. The whole thing is a bunch of garbage.
Of course it is. Animals cannot descend from plants, evolution is about descent - remember? The multiplication of kingdoms gives scientific authority to the non-evolution of species. For example, three of the Kingdoms - the archaea, the eukaryotes and the prokaryotes have been shown that they could not have descended from each other by science.
It is the job of scientific research to find "more and more problems with evolution all the time".
Well, I am glad that you at least agree with me that science is continually finding problems with evolutionary theory. It seems to me that if evolution were true science would be resolving problems with evolution instead of finding new ones.
How do you get from a tangle of dynamically altering relationships in loosely bound carbon compounds to the closely packed simple uniformity of a diamond
Changing the subject. I asked you how do you get from bacteria to man by destroying genetic information. You cannot, therefore natural selection, which all evolutionists call the engine of evolution is total bunk. You cannot create new genetic information by destroying genetic information 4-2 does not equal 6 and no amount of rhetoric, semantic verbiage, big words or repetition of the lie can change that.
I agree. 100 hundred percent. What you don't understand is that there is nothing wrong with God's existence as an axiom. It is perfectly fine to presume it in science or anything else. It is rational. There is evidence for it. It's been done before and has worked quite well.
On the other hand, there is no evidence -- not an iota -- for an undirected, naturalistic begining to the universe. Now, you can presume it. This has been done. It is being done today in our public schools, in fact.
In every case in which this presumption was made, the results were undesireable.
Do we understand each other yet?
You claim to speak in the name of science and then say "Evidence? I bet there is LOTS of evidence, we just haven't discovered it yet." I understand that you claimed this. I don't, however, know why you claimed this. I don't know if you understand that betting on undiscovered evidence is not a scientific principle.
Once again, Mr. Blue science, we need to consult an actual biologist after one of your newsflashes. Pure breds are fragile because their biota has been sculpted by human concerns, rather than the general concerns of survival on a raw planet. Naturally pure breds will be less generally fit. They have not been selected for general fitness.
No, that is not the reason - any decrease in the genetic pool of an organism, for whatever reason, renders it less adaptable. There are many examples of this which have nothing to do with human 'sculpting', loss of genetic diversity is always bad for a species:
For example, a flower species may have two forms, and because of a new subdivision, they might become separated to two ends of the development. The first form, a tall, sturdy, but unattractive plant, may become isolated to the north end of the subdivision while the second form, a weaker, prettier plant, is isolated to the south end. Even though the new homeowners may preserve both populations on their various lots, the two types of plants are sufficiently isolated from each other that they can no longer exchange genes. In this situation, each type is exposed to environmental pressures without the ability to crossbreed with the other type to form plants with new, perhaps more advantageous, combinations of genes. The new pressures created by building the development may affect the two types of plants differently. For example, the weaker variety might dwindle away due to the lack of shade caused when nearby trees were cut down for the subdivision. If this form had been able to crossbreed with the tall, sturdy variety, plants with the prettier flower type might have survived. Since they were unable to do so, the gene responsible for the attractive flower might be lost permanently.
From: How does genetic diversity become reduced .
If you believe in the above then Intelligent Design certainly is science. When we look at the Sistine Chapel ceiling no one would think that it arose by the random fall (upwards yet!) of buckets of paint. We make the logical conclusion that an intelligent designer, a great artist painted it. While the painting itself does not tell us who the designer is, we clearly know that there was an intelligent designer behind it.
Just simple full-disclosure common sense, nothing more.
That is utter fantasy, without any hope of there ever being a definitive demonstration. You can't possibly ever know all the ramifications of traits you do not possess. Nature slews off capabilities all the time that are no longer of use. Seals do not have useful leg genes anymore. Skylarks do not have useful shell creation genes anymore. The cost of supporting any currently expressing genes is high, and evolution is therefore prejudiced against maintaining them if they don't pay their own freight, at least once in a while.
There are many examples of this which have nothing to do with human 'sculpting',
Yes, indeed, however, they are still examples of niche specialization where the local population was subjected to especially magnified pressure outside the norm for the whole environment.
loss of genetic diversity is always bad for a species:
Another non-scientific principle: so long as the pressure that caused the specialization prominently exists, the species designed for it will thrive better than the generalist.
We are much more complicated than earthworms, but that is no guarantee whatsoever that we will thrive better than earthworms. The chances of that being so are extremely slim, in fact. Neither "Information" nor complexity are good indicators to look at in this regard. Environmental fit is.
Changing the subject.
No, it isn't. Anerobic prokariotes have no genetic predisposition for dealing with an oxygenated environment. How did this information for coping with oxygen get carved into the genome of any creature arising from prokariotes?
Ans. It was carved in by an environment gradually changing to oxygenation, by favoring those creatures best able to tolerate oxygen.
Oh, you mean like the way we've settled down in physics and have no more significant problems to resolve? Even for you, this is a pretty feeble tack to take.
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