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."
Not necessarily. Have you seen some of the mediocre workmanship and shoddy engineering attributed to "intelligent" design?
"Evidence" is not the issue. Both theories deal with the same evidence. Both have nothing to draw from other than reason, senses, and experience. The problem arises when conclusions are drawn from the evidence. Evolutionism, by virute of it's preconceived biases, is inclined to rule out intelligent design when confronted with the evidence. It thereby disqualifies itself from proper adherence to the fundamentals of scientific method.
What gall, to fill the world with such "expertise" while expecting the rest of the world to fall in lock step behind the ignorance, as is seen by the reaction to an innocuous little disclaimer placed on a textbook!
Perhaps you are asking that I provide evidence that would lead one to conclude that creation theory is positive, or "true." I would not pretend to supply evidence that would satisfy the intellectual apetite of anyone who has already ruled out the possibility of intelligent design. An individual can be faced with a fact so simple as 2 + 2 = 4 and convince himself it is not true if he is ignorant of numbers or too proud to admit realities outside himself.
Otherwise, however, the grand scale of design as seen throughout the universe is self-evident testimony to an unimaginable intelligence, from the smallest object we've been able to observe to the greatest. Would you consent to providing proof-positive that I am wrong in assuming intelligent design as a factor in the universe as we know it? If so, please begin. If not, then why deny my point of view equal time in the public arena?
". . . competing scientific theories are necessarily independent . . . ."
Logic may lend itself to this conclusion, however it is conceivable that both theories could co-exist. In other words, I see no reason to consider them absolutely mutually exclusive, especially where available evidence is concerned.
Evolutionists are certainly reasonable with the evidence they present, and not completely unreasonable in the conclusions they draw. It is not difficult to understand why they adhere to their beliefs so tenaciously, because on the surface of it, the answers all seem to be there. Those who are engaged in the serious pursuit of evolution sciences, however, are the first to admit that much is missing from the picture.
What I find laughable are the ones who scramble their biases and excuses every time reaosnable evidence is posited that legitimately tests their own conclusions.
This is bad science in and of itself. Good science does not discount anything, at least if it wants to accomplish something. I cannot imagine the truly successful scientists from whom we've benefited throughout history assuming the "non-existence" of something as they engaged in their practice. Good science is continually finding things it never knew existed, and it is continually modifying its assumptions.
Turn it around. Until the existence of a natural random begining to the universe can be substantiated, science must assume the opposite is true. I posted something similar earlier.
Our society is predicated on the assumption of the existence of God. I agree that proper science should not involve itself in the supernatural. When it makes claims that an event is not supernatural without being able to prove it, it is no longer science.
LOL.
Oh, dear; not another pornography thread....
;-)
Only if the addressee and addressor were reversed.
Thus far you have confronted me with no evidence of an intelligent designer. You sound like (former) US Rep. Cynthia McKinney: "I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case."
In like fashion, I am aware of no evidence showing that all species were independently created by an unknown, unidentified designer. A complete investigation might reveal this to be the case.
I am also aware of no evidence showing that invisible flatulent elves with tiny Zippos are lighting their farts to power the Sun. A complete investigation might reveal this to be the case.
By similar token, I am aware of no evidence showing that Janet Reno is Fester Chugabrew's father. A complete investigation might reveal this to be the case.
How many other possibilities for which you have no evidence would you like me to consider?
why deny my point of view equal time in the public arena?
BECAUSE YOU HAVE PRESENTED NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IT!! ARGHH!!
Logic may lend itself to this conclusion, however it is conceivable that both theories could co-exist. In other words, I see no reason to consider them absolutely mutually exclusive, especially where available evidence is concerned.
Allow me to agree with you here. Creationism and evolution are compatible. My beef comes when creationism tries to pretend that it is backed by facts, evidence and is, in fact, science.
I absolutely agree. And when science finds evidence of a heretofore unknown designer, it will modify it's assumptions. Not before.
Placemarker.
What assumptions? Plus Darwininians won't allow the search for a designer as it is not falsifiable and therefore not science by their definition. You wouldn't believe in a designer even if the entire Bible were found to be coded in the DNA of the Amoeba.
If were the Old Testament in the original language(s), that would be really cool.
If it were the King James Version, I'd have to say, "Wait a minute..." ;)
Sez you. The anomalies of normal science are where all the exciting stuff happens. What anomalies in the theory of evolution lead to the "designer conclusion"? Or are you suggesting that science sets out on a search for an unsupported, preconceived conclusion?
Pitching explanations to the level of the audience is not "talking down", particularly in an elementary educational setting.
Look beyond your nose and you'll see problems. Dr. Shapiro sees them and so do others. Typically you load the question for a conclusion. I merely stated you won't allow for the search to even begin. You use the word conclusion. Finally, I see you don't deny my surmise.
Hogjowls. We cannot perform anything but ex post facto "tests" on the data, just as we can't perform anything but ex post facto tests on fossil data. We cannot generate "new" experiments in either case, we can only postdict the behavior of data we have not yet uncovered.
Also, most of the testing of the theory of gravity and relativity has been done using what we see from our own solar system, so that statement is false to a great extent.
How many times to I have to say this? My interlocutor was talking about the UNIVERSAL law of gravitation. To demonstrate the UNIVERSAL law of gravitation, you must look at least once, somewhere other than locally.
Evolution claims it is totally untestable in the present - although it should be testable if it were true. We certainly should be seeing, at the minimum, species in different stages of developing greater complexity. We do not see even that.
Of course we do. Horses and mules, teacup poodles and Mastiffs, North/Souch Herring Gulls, mushrooms, jellyfish, ants, termites, ocean snails. We isolate groups, we observe attenution in their successful crossbred progeny. We find numerous examples that have attenuated far enough that their crossbred offspring are viable, but not successful, such as mules, llama/camels and dog/cats.
Of course you can. Being that there are 4 different DNA bases possible....
You have once again inadvertantly failed to submit your proof that there could have been no intermediate steps between stray amino acids and DNA.
Yes that system is also very interesting and in my view probably had to be intelligently designed also.
Ah, so now the argument is that something you have absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever had to have been irreducibly complex. I guess we know what imaginary class of being "irreducibly complex" belongs to now.
Just because something exists does not mean that it exists due to evolution.
Nor does it mean it doesn't exist due to evolution.
How does the sytem know what parts to use?
How does genetic heritage know what color to make eyes? It probably experiments, and the successful experiments survive a little better than the unsuccessful. Just because you lack DNA doesn't mean you can't use the processes of regeneration and selection.
Aaah, when all else is lost then comes the semantic excuse - what is the meaning of 'is', what is the meaning of 'alone'. A species is a group of individuals that can procreate and produce viable young. That is the only legitimate scientific definition of species.
More mischaracterization of science from the champ. Most scientists realize that speciation is an arbitrary, human-assigned differentiation that, by its very stochastic nature, far from perfectly accurate.
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