Evolution Disclaimer Supported

The Advocate (Baton Rouge) ^ | 12/11/02 | WILL SENTELL

[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."

[Grace]

As the discussion progresses I wonder who or what I am. As one who embraces Gen. 1:1 and John 1:1, I have never seen myself as one of "those" people or one of those "fundamentalists." My lifetime objective in learning to follow my Creator has produced guidance and peace of mind. Guess I'll stay where I am and enjoy the day. Very sincerely expressed...Grace

[Sentis]

gore300 wrote "No it is not artificial, it means something. Matter of fact, lions and tigers are the same species they can interbreed. Problem evolutionists have is that they cannot prove their theory using science so they distort science to prove their theory.

Yes it is! You aren't listening species means what ever scientists agree that it means it has no set meaning. I think your confusing Science with religion. Science changes as the facts as we know them change or are discovered to be different than what we believed before. Religion is unchanging and can't meet a changing world. Scientists do not distort science because science isn't an unchanging, unwavering, dogmatic idea. You are absolutely wrong here so just give up.


I haven't came into this debate before but I will utterly prove that evolution occurs if you like, when I have time after work to explain this to you. I will start now with a proof that evolution is in action in the world today.

Viruses and Bacterium that attack Humans are constantly under pressure to evolve due to Human endeavors to irradicate certain strains. The flu virus this year is not the flu virus from last year if it had not evolved there would be no reason for a different flu vaccination each year. Aids evolved from a virus that did not infect humans. Do you agree that God is not out in Southeast Asia creating new viruses each year? Do you agree that the changes in these viruses are an evolutionary process? These are simple examples and I will endeavor to continue to be very simple in my explanations to you.


First give me one proof you have that evolution doesn't exist any small thing and try to explain to me why you think this disproves it. Do not write a small book on this forum because I wont read a bunch of religious panderings that are meaningless. Do not continue to repeat species is an absolute there are no absolutes in science. Absolutes are the refuge of the mentally blind.

[Sentis]

f.Christian wrote "Welcome to the FR...
Creation/God...REFORMATION(Judeo-Christianity)---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern age of NEO-conservatism(moles/sleepers)! "



Does this make any sense to anyone? I'm not flaming you f.christian but please explain this for me? Your working on some level of conciousness I have never experienced :)

[PatrickHenry]

Does this make any sense to anyone?

For the deeply, hopelessly deranged, some courageous physicians are prescribing what they call "internet therapy," during which a few selected inmates at the asylum are permitted to log on and express themselves -- as best they can. Sometimes such inmates find their way here. It keeps them calm, and prevents them from bashing their heads against the bars of their windows.

[f.Christian]

When you think there is no truth and you only believe lies your soul dies!

[gore3000]

The biologists doing the work seem to think otherwise.

What people think is meaningless, the facts, the evidence is what counts. The squirt has clearly no ancestors and no descendants. That disproves evolution. It's about descent remember? The morons of evolution always seem to forget that.

[gore3000]

Back up your statements with facts, not rhetoric. -me-p> You CLAIM that ID is scientific fact and should be taught in Science class, in order for ID to be FACT, it must be PROVEN.

Again, more rhetoric, no facts. I already have given scientific facts proving intelligent design:
1. the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum much discussed on this thread.
2. the Universe (post#823):

Imagine that you are a cosmic explorer who has just stumbled into the control room of the whole universe. There you discover an elaborate "universe-creating-machine", with rows and rows of dials, each with many possible settings. As you investigate, you learn that each dial represents some particular parameter that has to be calibrated with a precise value in order to create a universe in which life can exist. One dial represents the possible settings for the strong nuclear force, one for the gravitationl constant, one for Planck's constant, one for the ratio of the neutron mass to the proton mass, one for the strength of electromagnetic attraction, and so on. As you, the cosmic explorer, examine the dials, you find that they could easily have been tuned to different settings. Moreover, you determine by careful calculations that if any of the dial settings were even slightly altered, life would cease to exist. Yet for some reason each dial is set at just the exact value necessary to keep the universe running. What do you infer about the origin of these finely tuned dial settings?
From: Stephen C. Meyer, "Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology.

3. the impossibility of abiogenesis:
There is a tremendous amount of proof against abiogenesis. First of all is Pasteur's proof that life does not come from inert matter (and this was of course at one time the prediction of materialists). Then came the discovery of DNA and the chemical basis of organisms. This poses a totally insurmountable problem to abiogenesis. The smallest living cells has a DNA string of some one million base pairs long and some 600 genes, even cutting this number by a quarter as the smallest possible living cell would give us a string of some 250,000 base pairs of DNA. It is important to note here that DNA can be arranged in any of the four basic codes equally well, there is no chemical or other necessity to the sequence. The chances of such an arrangement arising are therefore 4^250,000. Now the number of atoms in the universe is said to be about 4^250. I would therefore call 4^250,000 an almost infinitely impossible chance (note that the supposition advanced that perhaps it was RNA that produced the first life has this same problem).

The problem though is even worse than that. Not only do you need two (2) strings of DNA perfectly matched to have life, but you also need a cell so that the DNA code can get the material to sustain that life. It is therefore a chicken and egg problem, you cannot have life without DNA (or RNA if one wants to be generous) but one also has to have the cell itself to provide the nutrients for the sustenance of the first life. Add to this problem that for the first life to have been the progenitor of all life on earth, it necessarily needs to have been pretty much the same as all life now on earth is, otherwise it could not have been the source of the life we know. Given all these considerations, yes, abiogenesis is impossible.

4. that the development of a human from conception to birth is a program:

Competence may reflect the expression of receptors specific for a given signaling molecule, the ability of the receptors to activate specific intracellular signaling pathways, or the presence of the transcription factors necessary to stimulate expression of the genes required to implement the developmental program induced.
From: Cell Interactions in Development

[PatrickHenry]

Me:
I'm curious about the "Dr." in your screen name. If you have a doctorate, in what field did you earn it? I don't think this is too personal a question, as you are quite open about displaying the "Dr."

You:
It's my "screen name". When one signs up to post to FR, they choose a sequence of typographical symbols as their "login". Here's the one I chose: Dr. Frank

Hope this helps

It does. You're relatively new in these threads, so I was trying to assess your character. You've been more helpful than you know. Thank you.

[Condorman]

The fact you are able to express your experiences so well and reflect upon the same attests mightily to the possibility of intelligent design.

Huh?

[Condorman]

I guess you claim you've never been unconcious.

Do you claim that an unconscious person has no experiences?

[Aric2000]

You did NOT answer the question!!

Can you PROVE the existence of God?

AGAIN, A LITTLE MORE SLOWLY THIS TIME.

Can YOU PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD?

When you can prove the existence of god, then we will talk about the scientifically proven ID theory.

Until then, you are full of it.

ANSWER THE QUESTION!!

Can you scientifically PROVE the existence of GOD?

[Dr. Frank fan]

You're relatively new in these threads, so I was trying to assess your character.

Because "my character" (as you estimate it from the sequence of typographical symbols which constitutes my screen name) affects whether the sentences I have typed are right or wrong. Understood.

Now I know which fallacy is your favorite, and we both understand each other better. Swell!

[Aracelis]

Are you his groupie?

A useless, sexist remark. Longshadow and I are colleagues.

[AndrewC]

Do you claim that an unconscious person has no experiences?

ex·pe·ri·ence    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (k-spîr-ns)
n.

1. The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.
2. 1. Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.
   2. The knowledge or skill so derived.
3. 1. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
   2. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.

Yes. Does a rock experience things?

If you experience your gall bladder being removed, you are not unconscious.

[AndrewC]

A useless, sexist remark.

An erroneous remark. Madonna has groupies. J lo has groupies.

[AndrewC]

It does. You're relatively new in these threads, so I was trying to assess your character. You've been more helpful than you know. Thank you.

As you can see, what you say is not important. How you are "think" is important to these guys. It is so that you may be attacked by Ad Hominem. You notice, PH did not offer to describe his background so as to inform you. It was a one way street. It is evident that people will freely give the information they wish to give and have other information they consider unimportant to the conduct of a political and cultural chat forum. There is even a profile page provided for the individual to give publicly the information she/he desires. Further, the policy on this site is to protect poster privacy ---Don't violate poster privacy.

It is not unusual to be curious about a specific name for instance, "Dr. that got shot in the butt", might provoke the question --- "Did you really get shot?". However, as evident in this case, you have been assessed to be of the wrong "mind". Thus the question about your screen name had an ulterior motive --"I was trying to assess your character."

All this considering that the first question that I could find from PatrickHenry to you is the "Dr." question. The humorous part of the justification for this question was your openness in displaying the "Dr." in your screen name. As I wrote previously, "Illegitimi non carborundum".

[donh]

Of course it does. Irreducible complexity proves design and Darwin himself admitted that it would disprove his theory.

More proof by repetition.

(BTW - since there were no human designers when bacteria arose, guess Who that designer was?)

I've already guessed here at freerepublic, in your presence, at least three times that I remember. In my opinion, the designer will turn out to be a hot community of co-operatively interacting RNA captured inside long-lasting sulfurize bubble clumps.

Can I prove it? No, no more than Behe can prove the existence of irreducible complexity.

And, by the way, bacteria are not the hard case. The hard case is viruses. Viruses are simple because they prey on the DNA of other entities. How viruses could have come to be is the worst of the chicken and egg problems, in my opinion.

However, my paradigm provides a possible answer: they were the working arm of the pre-DNA co-operating communities for altering the pattern of the next adjacent RNA group in whatever closed cycle the RNA's modified each other to keep going. Analogs to the ribosomes in our biota, which are the engines that read the RNA tapes to produce proteins.

What does your paradigm provide us with? A picture of a loving God who thought poleomylitis would be a chummy good thing to do to my children.

[donh]

For pete's sake: they are PUTTING A TRUE STATEMENT INTO A BOOK.

This is an inadequately pursuasive point. Here is an example of a true statement that is freighted with intent. "It is true, isn't it, that you haven't beaten your wife in the last month?"

My point remains intact. I have no objection to labeling ALL scientific theories as speculation. I object strenuously to labeling just evolution as speculation. It is not warranted on the available facts.

[donh]

We are not talking equilibrium here, and anyway the equilibrium is that order disintegrates not that order arises at random. You materialists have the whole thing backwards.

Brother. 1) Yes, we are talking equilibrium, that was the whole point of the punctuated EQUILIBRIUM idea you crevos point to so often, as if you understood it. 2) No, equilibrium is not substantially related to the entropy debate. 3) It's a wonder to me you can tell forwards from backwards.

[donh]

Is this abandonment representative of evolution theory in general? Has it been challenged over time and accepted by the scientific community?

The Tree of Life was officially revised in 2000. The current tree shows chronological overlaps that are impossible if life had one single common ancestor. This has not sunk in universally as yet, but most working micro-biological palentologists now accept it. Since it is based on DNA mutation distance calculations for ribosomes, it will be very hard to mount a challenge at this point. We don't revise the root of the Tree of Life on a whim.