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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."
That is an autobiographical statement on your part.
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?"
So you put an implicit backhanded charge of wife-beating on the same low level as calling evolution a theory.
This is the same puzzling approach that VadeRetro takes; you both seem to think that there is something dirty or shameful about saying evolution is a theory. But why? "Theory" (unlike "wife-beater") is a value-neutral term.
I have no objection to labeling ALL scientific theories as speculation. I object strenuously to labeling just evolution as speculation.
Is that what is happening?
For all we know, the book in question already does label things like "plate tectonics" as theories. That has been my guess, anyway. You are assuming otherwise? On what basis?
Useless perhaps :) but I don't see what's "sexist" about it. I know the sex of neither you nor longshadow.
And groupies can be of either sex as far as I know.
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The biblical account of creation attests to more than one single ancestor WRT life in general, so I am not at all surprised by this.
Don't quit your day job.
I have done it twice already, guess you like to see it again. All below has been thoroughly proven by science. All below is the overwhelming concensus of scientists (with the exception of the phony evo 'scienitists' who have never been inside a laboratory such as Gould, Eldredge and Dawkins):
I already gave scientific proof of His existence in the post you just responded to. Since no doubt you did not bother to read it, here it is again:
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
Of course it does and Behe proved it with the bacterial flagellum. It has been extensively discussed in these threads already and has not been refuted by any of the many scientists that have tried.
To me an even more impossible example of irreducible complexity is the mammalian reproductive system. Let's just consider this - you need a totally new developmental program that not only will give you a completely new species which clearly could not reproduce with the old one, but you also need the change of numerous functions to enable the young to feed from the mother instead of from an egg. Of course if all these changes took place in a single individual that individual could not reproduce and it would all be for nothing so you need to have a whole group of individuals making all these changes at the same time. Of course all these changes, in the whole group had to take place in a single generation because if the change had been gradual you could not have them continue reproducing. This same problem is true with all the different modes of reproduction in nature of course, however with mammals it is far more obvious. Evolution has no answer to this important question which strikes at the heart of the theory because it destroys the whole idea that these differently reproducing species could have ever descended from each other.
No what you are looking for is to distract from the issues and attack messengers with ad hominems. You have been guilty of that numerous times and one particular case stands out as a tribute to your dishonest tactics. Why you need to prepare your smears is quite obvious. You know quite well that evolution is false and that you can only defend it with smears at opponents.
This take on the question would have no force in any other arena.
Your disregard for the truth does not say much for your position. Once one starts saying that children should be lied to then one can go on to say that one needs also to lie to stupid people because they cannot understand things, and then you can go on to say it is okay to lie to non-experts because heck, they cannot understand either, and then you can also say that you can lie to those who are experts too because they are obstinate or perhaps have some irrational notions that keep them from seeing the truth. So eventually all lies become justifiable. But then we know already that evolutionists have no regard for truth for after all they are the folks that believe that 'the ends justifies the means'. You are demonstrating your adherence to this quite well in this discussion.
That is a joke! Who officially revised it? It is total nonsense. Every evolutionist has their own 'tree'. It seems that the only evidence they have of anything is what they can draw with their crayons.
Dingbat science in action. Can I quote you? Lions and tigers are the same species?
They certainly are, they can interbreed and produce viable offspring. Dogs and wolves are also one species as are zebras and horses. Now if you want dingbat science, there is a famous example which your buddy Vade used to give. It was of these birds which the evos called a ring species but of course could not bother to check to see if they could mate even though they were supposedly observing for half a dozen years. They said that the ends of the ring were separate species because they had a couple of yellow stripes the others did not have and in addition sang somewhat different songs. As I pointed out quite a few times to your friend (and finally the laughter made him stop posting this ridiculous example) if that is what made a different species then Chinamen and Englishmen must be different species because they speak differently and have different coloring. It is evo 'science' which is ridiculous.
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