Evolution Disclaimer Supported

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 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.

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."

If you want your children to be taught a falsehood by being taught that it does, so be it. But please don't presume to impose that upon mine.

School choice would resolve this dispute. I suspect that the schools that refrain from teaching evolution as a done deal, will end up having the most successful students -- and the least pathological.

So when you ask "what happened before the Big Bang," you are asking a mathematical question, which does admit of a definitive answer; the knowledge and powers of God as you imagine him don't enter into it.....
......My argument is that nature operates according to knowable rules. It is the antithesis of "anything goes".

Ok. According to your piece of what it was like before the "big bang", time was non existent, yet every direction pointed toward the future. Assuming everything is laid out before us as you have mentioned, & nature operates to knowable rules, then explain the concept of :
$non-existent = zero
Sorry... You don't have the luxury of even adding any operands to that equation, nor can any variables such as time be introduced to the equation. All you have to work with is one big fat "non-existent"... What is our "knowable" rule of how that equation equals to anything besides "non-existent" ?

Read through your argument. I imagine it is exactly like the arguments put forth over the past 2 thousand years against anything that seemed to negate a passage in the Bible. They were all eventually silenced. Yours will be too. I doubt you yourself will ever be silenced, but those that think the way you do are going to fall deeper and deeper into obscurity until Creationism as you see it will go the way of the flat earth. If I listen hard, I can hear your voice dwindling even now...

"....racists.....evil-utionists.... I'm melting....."

All hypothesis are not equally likely. The hypothesis that there are infinite universes for example is totally unscientific because it claims something to have happened about which we know absolutely nothing about.

Yup, just like you said. Your argument there says perfectly that multiple universes are just as unlikely to be fact as religion. After all, "it claims something to have happened which we know absolutely nothing about."

"Stalin wiped darwinian evolution out of Russia using the firing squad argument."

Yep. He practiced what he believed, and what he believed was ultimately inspired by Darwin. Lysenkoism was his fig leaf, and by extension now it is yours.

I don't want to bring this up, but let us not forget the countless atrocities "inspired" by religion, and yes, even Christianity. Do I think Christianity is evil? No, because I am not going to make the conclusion that because some Christians are evil all are. You and gore are making the conclusion that since some evolutionists are racist or socialist or whatever, that all are.

Do you believe there is no connection between Marxism and Darwinism whatsoever? Loaded question. To show you why: Do you think there is no connection between Christianity and fascism (Hitler), slavery, Holocaust, feudalism, inquisitions, molestation, etc. whatsoever?

Do you believe there is no connection between Marxism and Darwinism whatsoever?

Loaded question. To show you why: Do you think there is no connection between Christianity and fascism (Hitler), slavery, Holocaust, feudalism, inquisitions, molestation, etc. whatsoever?

"Do you think there is no connection between Christianity and fascism (Hitler), slavery, Holocaust, feudalism, inquisitions, molestation, etc. whatsoever?

No. But the issue is creationism, not Christianity.

"I don't want to bring this up, but let us not forget the countless atrocities "inspired" by religion, and yes, even Christianity.

How long did it take that Red Herring to evolve? Why keep bringing up Christianity? One need not be a Christian to subscribe to creationist theory, but to be a Communist one must subscribe to evolutionist theory.

"I have been patient and polite. I have responded with diligence and I have given citations for all the assertions I have made.

No. What you've done is make a mountain out of a mole hill question. What you've NOT done is answer the question forthrightly. An honest answer would not require anyone to abandon the validity of evolution theory, so why be afraid to face any connection between the two? Is this kind of obfuscation characteristic of those who represent your views?

No. But the issue is creationism, not Christianity.

How does one argue against your idea of Biblical fundamentalist creationism without going after the source? You attack evolution on scientific grounds but claim a beginning based on completely un-scientific grounds. Once attacked, you become defensive and say that evolutionists just want to bash religion.

Then you make loaded comparision questions between evolution and communism. I'm sure there is a link somewhere, just like the community leaders of some of the Christian world are linked with molestation. Not all evolutionists are communists or racists (in fact, social darwinism was an extremely capitalist idea) and not all Christians are molesters. You're making an unfair statement.

Exactly why I recommend unrestrained hedonism from the get-go.

Well, I suppose then that "restrained" hedonism is just a code name for Bondage & Discipline.....

;-)

Do you believe there is no connection between Marxism and Darwinism whatsoever?

What you've done is make a mountain out of a mole hill question. What you've NOT done is answer the question forthrightly. An honest answer would not require anyone to abandon the validity of evolution theory, so why be afraid to face any connection between the two? Is this kind of obfuscation characteristic of those who represent your views?

I will answer the question. Yes. There is a connection. But don't try to play innocent. You are trying to establish a cause and effect relationship that is false. You are implying that to be a evolutionist, you have to be a communist. It is quite the opposite, and therefore unimportant to the argument.

Where are publicly funded schools prohibited from teaching a theory which acknowledges the existence of God? I believe our constitution explicity states that our government shall not establish a particular religion. I don't see a conflict. The intelligent design people refer to the existence of an Intelligent Designer, but I don't believe they anywhere specifically require it to be one god or another.

"Then you make loaded comparision . . ."

Have you not made a loaded assumption in stating that I somehow represent Biblical fundamentalist creationism? Is that the only kind of creationism allowed? I've not reduced evolutionism to a singlular level like that.

"Not all evolutionists are communists . . ."

Very true. But all communists are evolutionists and atheists at heart.

". . .you become defensive and say that evolutionists just want to bash religion."

Given the general tone of discourse from evolutionists to creationists, I would say they take delight in bashing religion. Yes. Should they be denied credibility because they may be defensive about this? Does this somehow add weight to evolutionist "science?"

I've always thought our forefathers were more concerned about the Federal Government somehow advocating/establishing/funding a particular denomination of religion than a generic understanding of God and the rights we have from Him by nature.

Of course, and the left want to hide this fact. I will look for the article where I read this, but as I understand it, sometime in the 1800's Webster was arguing in front of the supreme court that a public school system should not be created because it wouldn't ensure that children were raised in Christian values--the supreme court agreed with his reasoning, but determined it was worth the risk.

"I will answer the question. Yes. There is a connection. But don't try to play innocent. You are trying to establish a cause and effect relationship that is false. You are implying that to be a evolutionist, you have to be a communist.

The candor is appreciated, but you err in assuming the direction of any cause and effect relationship I see between the two. I mean, just because all communists happen to be evolutionists does not mean the treaching of evolution is responsible for bringing about communism. A conclusion like that would be like, . . . well . . . drawing a line between two similar fossils and assuming one evolved from the other.

According to your piece of what it was like before the "big bang", time was non existent, yet every direction pointed toward the future.

No, no: At the instant of the Big Bang (not "before"), all the directions pointed towards the future. Think again of the South Pole: at that point (not south of it), all the directions point north.

[Geek alert: note the caveat in my repost. Some current models have the universe--meaning "everything we can in principle travel to"--arising out of a higher-dimensional multiverse, in which there exist one (or more!) timelike dimensions and up to 26 extra space dimensions. I reiterate that these directions are not parallel to or equivalent to the time and space dimensions of our universe, and events in that superspace (assuming it exists) don't come "before" or "after" events in our universe in the context of our time. To say that they do would be like standing to the south of a desktop globe, tracing a meridian to the south pole of the globe, and saying, "see, I am to the south of this point!"]

I'm not clear about what you're asking in the rest of your post.

Fair point. But do you concede that the entire movement for creationist teachings in public schools would instantly halt if it were put forth that Muslim, Hindu, Cherokee, and Buddhist creation mythology would be given an equal share of time in classrooms as Christianity? Maybe you yourself wouldn't mind, but everybody else would go into a hysterical panic.

I did jump to a conlcusion, but the only voices you here begging for creationist classrooms are Christian fundamentalists. Therefore, 99% of the time the assumption is correct. Agreed?

Would you say that all Nazi fascists were Christians? (just so I can make a similar comparison...)

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