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."
59 posts from 7000...
That hasn't happened to me in months!
You must have done something very, very bad!
We are getting there. :-)
I had it pulled. Was causing me grief. LOL!
Never ever ever ever joke about celestial mechanics. You get hammered!
LOL!
All your base are belong to us.
A moose bit my cheese eating sister.
Those have to be somewhere on a thread this long, so here ya go. :-)
It's all Bush's fault!
42
blah-blah-blah
Preamble: Were the Theory of Evolution even remotely like the grotesque caricature which various Creationist/ID websites present, there would be no debate. It is pernicious that one of the most elegant works of science should be so routinely misrepresented. Before one can evaluate its merits, he is obliged to at least understand what the theory actually does -- and does not -- state; to fail to understand the actual content of something before entering a discussion or debate about it is absolute folly.
1. In every generation, some individuals of a species fail to reproduce. Whether due to biological inadequacy or other mishap, their genetic material is dropped from the species' gene pool. Each new generation is the product of only those individuals that reproduce successfully. ("Success" is a relative term; differential success, like failure, can effect the genetic future of a species.)
2. By eliminating the genetic material of unsuccessful individuals and preserving the rest, nature imposes a filter -- successful reproduction -- on the genetic material of all living things. Because each generation is the result of this filter, the "genetic inventory" of each generation always differs from the one before it. Creationists call this "micro evolution." Please note: individuals never change; they either reproduce or they don't. It's the genetic inventory of a species that changes over time.
3. Mutations occur with virtually every act of reproduction. All genetic material, whether mutated or precisely copied, is subject to nature's filter. If a mutation is neutral or beneficial, or maybe not too harmful, it can endure as part of that species' genetic inventory; otherwise it's filtered out. Mutations that were originally neutral may turn out to be useful or harmful due to changing environmental circumstances, and will be filtered accordingly. If useful, the mutated characteristic can become prevalent within a few generations, and may seem to have wondrously appeared in response to an environmental challenge. In reality, a previously irrelevant feature has become advantageous.
4. Severe environmental changes can enhance the filter's effect, by eliminating numerous individuals that have become inadequate, leaving relatively few individuals whose genetic material will determine the species' future. This will cause rapid changes in the species' genetic inventory. Over thousands of generations, the genetic inventory of a species can become so changed that, by comparison with ancestors in the fossil record, we observe that a new species has evolved from the ancestral version. Conversely, during long periods of environmental stability, there may be only "routine" filtering for continued fitness, and no obvious speciation.
5. As successful species multiply and spread out over a large area, groups can become isolated, forming separate breeding populations. Over great periods of time, depending on environmental factors and the occurrence of mutations, a separate group can (if it doesn't go extinct) evolve into a new species; or it can remain relatively unchanged. The result may be a multitude of species (some living, some extinct) that can be traced to their common ancestral group. Over time, each new species can repeat this process, causing increasingly diverse species to radiate from a common origin.
Commentary: From our point of view, the filter (nature's evolution algorithm) can result in an enormous amount of waste. The rule is not what we might like: "Everything nice will be preserved." Instead, it is strikingly simple -- as natural laws must be -- functioning with inexorable predictability, with no subjective judgments built in. Simply stated, the rule is this: "Only that which successfully breeds can produce players in the next round." Therefore, when the avalanche is falling, there's no soft voice that says: "Oh, this one has such nice genes, let's whisk it out of harm's way." What we might regard as good and useful is sometimes filtered out along with the bad. The evolution algorithm is marvelously elegant in its operation -- but it's not what we would expect of an intelligent designer.
placemark
(Our resident Luddites won't buy a word of it, as usual.)
| Introduction to Evolution in five easy slogans |
| 1. Success breeds success. 2. A great journey always starts with a single step. 3. You put the "freak" in "Get your freak on", whether you want to or not. 4. Don't stand under a tree in a lightning storm - your descendants are depending upon you. 5. Keep in touch, or one day you'll go home and nobody will recognize you. |
Bravo PH, well done...
In my opinion, the point that those who are anti-evolution should really take a look at and try to understand is a point that you emphasized on your 2nd step...that is, that individuals never change......this particular point cannot be over emphasized...I have gotten the feeling during my months on these CREVO threads, that those who are anti-evolution, think that evolution is, for example, say a snake, one day decides it wants to crawl rather then slither, and so that snake one day just develops legs, and turns into a lizard...I mean, that actually seems to be what some of the anti-evolutionists seem to believe...or they believe that one day, an ape just decides to give birth to a human baby,...I mean, just how silly can anyone get...no one believes such nonsense ever happens, and no one who actually understands evolution believes that such events could have or ever have taken place...
And yet I actually saw a creationist poster ask you many months ago, where that ape was that gave birth to a human being....and in the next breath that same poster claimed she actually understood evolution...did she have any idea how goofy she made herself appear to anyone with any sort of common sense?
Your introduction to Evolution in five easy steps, should be read and understood...the thing is, how many who need to read and understand it, actually will make the effort involved, and will some people just brush it aside, put their fingers in their ears, close their eyes, and hum to themselves, because they dont want to at least understand what evolution is all about?....
Ah well, you made the effort and a fine effort it is...
Not one. But my plan is, one of these days, to post this thing as a stand-alone vanity thread. Posting it here was just a test.
Bravo PH.
I will be sending people here or copying and pasting. If I do the latter, I'll try to give you appropriate credit in no less than 50% of the time ;
(placemarked)
I stole your "Bravo" ;)
Steal away...
I noticed your tagline (Everything is blasphemy to somebody), and it reminded me of something my father used to say: "Everybody's an asshole to somebody."
If I recall, he was explaining something along the lines of why "you can't please everyone, so don't feel bad when someone thinks you're a jerk".
I know you've got a thick skin, so the responses from the resident illiterati to your posting this piece probably won't surprise you, but it's really starting to look like a lost cause. The opposition to reality-based thinking on FR is getting more actively hostile every day.
Maybe it's the format. People in real life aren't this nutty.
But they are. It's just that here, posting anonymously, there's no shame in revealing their innermost thoughts.
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