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."

[betty boop]

Dear tpaine, please calm down, and realise you are in the company of friends. There's no reason at all for you to be so "agitated."

(I'm still thoroughly perplexed as to the gist of your argument here....)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Whether or not there are truly random occurences in Nature, we may often treat events as random when these events are made up of many small causes. Brownian motion is the easiest example. A particle undergoing Brownian motion is so jumpy that it has no defined velocity. Einstein and Smoluchowski made a great leap forward when they showed that the position not the velocity of the particle was what could be described. (The position moves "randomly" but total displacement is proportional to the square root of the time.)

In one sense: "Probability Is as Probability Does." (me) Any system satisfying Kolmogorov's axioms may be treated probabilisitically. (There are other axiom sets: de Finetti, Khinchine, von Mises [brother of Ludwig], etc.; these also work but the questions are subtly different.) Jon von Plato has a (rather technical) book on the subject.

Several people have looked at "randomly" occuring events to establish how one should deal with things. Nicole d'Oresme (1323-1382) (No, it wasn't a girl's name then.) was interested in the permanence of the solar system and was opposed to the Stationary Earth Theory as accepted at the time. (He later changed his mind.) Oresme showed that if the rotation period of the earth (day) and the revolution about the sun (year) were not comensurable, then eclipses would happen at different spots on the earth. He also pointed out that the sun would never be in the same place over the earth at an equinox. In addition he was of the opinion that non-comensurablilty was more likely than comensurablity. (Comensurable number have a rational ratio.)

Continuing toward modern times, it was shown by several (Kroneker for example) that on a square billards table, if the tangent of the x and y velocity components of a particle were rational, the particle would trace out a periodic pattern. (Reflecting boundary.) If irrational, the paths would be dense. Dense paths allow time averages to be equal to space averages. (von Neumann, Birkoff, etal.) This means that the time spent in a section of the table would be proportional to the area of that section. If one makes a square table with two opposite side replaced by semicircles, even rational velocities lead to dense paths. (Except for those exactly parallel or vertical to the sides.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your post at 4600!

When we are dealing with problems relating to God, it seems to me we have to draw distinctions between what man sees, and what God sees. And as to the latter, no human being can say what that is. When I mentioned God in the context of temporality, I was only referring to the human habit of seeing things in time.

But God is not at all bound by time. Time is but an image of God's eternity, part of His creation.

I'm back to being in exact agreement with you! Yeehaw!

[tpaine]

Me agitated? Hardly.

-- On the contrary, I merely asked you - 'why the 'low opinion' dig? -- You can't answer, so be it. Apparently you don't even think that having a 'low opinion of humanity' is a little 'dig'? Taking a bit of a shot?

Don't try to BS an old bs'er betty. Such hypocrisy is really amusing, imo.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your post and all the excellent examples! The last one about the billards table is particularly engaging to me. You've given me much to research! Thank you!

But focusing narrowly on algorithmic randomness, is there any reason not to use the Chaitin/Kolmogorov definition?

[gore3000]

Matter cannot organize itself. -me-

PROVE IT!!

First of all, you cannot prove a negative. Second of all, it is evolutionists that claim that matter can indeed organize itself. You are the ones who need to provide the proof. Now of course you cannot because you know my statement is true so you are just using the usual rhetorical games instead of providing evidence for your position.

[betty boop]

Every saint was a sinner once. (The great Doctor of the Church, Augustine, comes handily to mind.)

We are both sinners, which hardly makes us unique. But we pray to the Lord for forgiveness of our sins, and for the renovation of our souls. He sees our love for Him, and so helps us in this regard.

Praise the Lord! ...

[gore3000]

The last six sentences are the last six sentences that Nebullis posted at 4529. Was your message truncated or something?

Just bad editing. Had copied his whole post and did not delete the end.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your testimony! Amen to everything you said!

Praise God!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the explanation! I was concerned there was an addition point you wanted to make, but it got lost.

[Doctor Stochastic]

There is nothing wrong with the Chaitin/Kolmogorov definition of algorithmic randomness. It isn't too useful in the sense that no computable random sequence can exist. Knuth's Volume 2 (Chapter 3) has a discussion of randomness that is similar but one could generate a "random" sequence. (Of course, one cannot generate all such sequences nor could one tell if a given sequence was random.)

There are a couple of places where intrinsic "randomness" arises in physics. One is in Brownian motion. If trying to measure the Brownian particle more and more closely, the measuring instrument becomes subject to Brownian motion itself. Thus, even were the physical laws moving a particle deterministic, in practice, one would still have to average over the smallest measurement sizes to get results. This is a practical limit on measuring, not a claim that things such as position or velocity don't exist.

Another place is in the uncertainty relations (Heisenberg). These arise from the theory of Fourier transforms and the wave nature of particles. This is quite another problem from the Brownian motion "randomness." There doesn't seem to be anything to average over nor can one assume that the particle even has a sharply defined velocity or momentum.

I prefer in most things to avoid the term "random" because the concept isn't clearly defined. I like to talk about things like "idependent identically distributed" events. These are well defined. Of course "random variables" are not random nor are they variables. Since the 1920's, "random variable" means "measurable function."

[gore3000]

Boyer points out that the calculus was "in the air" at the time.

I am sure it was in the air. Read recently about the discovery of DNA which was also 'in the air' at the time and was a race between Watson and Crick and Linus Pauling. There comes a time when technology, knowledge and need allow certain discoveries.

[gore3000]

My post addressed the issue that intelligence was required to manufacture stone tools, and that this information had to be passed on through education...not genetics.

Yes, but your reference addressed that because it was not genetic, intelligence was determined. I do not see any difference why the same assumptions cannot be made when genes are involved and that is what I was addressing.

[gore3000]

Capitalist economic structures also form complex structures. Local conditions often dominate the placement of buildings and of what suppliers and customers an enterprise may have. (Designed economies such as the socialist, communist, fascist, Clintonian, etc. don't work as well.)

Capitalist economies may look random, but they are not. The look random because they have so many inputs - some 6 billion of them. They use the insight and intelligence of the whole world to work. The reason that managed economies do not work is that it uses the input of only a few. So really the difference is that capitalist economies have more intelligence behind them than managed ones.

[viaveritasvita]

Start @ 4526

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for all the explanations and examples!

I agree with you on the difficulty in finding true randomness; notoriously, the software function used to generate a random number doesn't. Wolfram made a note of that under the problem 10 link. The only math I've seen that would be a fair toss of the coin is Chaitin's Omega.

The research I've done thus far has focused on information theory and molecular biology and therefore my emphasis has been on algorithms. But the subject of algorithms brings in Chaitin, so I wanted to be more comfortable with the game rules and terms - to continue reading with comprehension. Thank you so very much for all your help and your patience!

[Doctor Stochastic]

The only "truly random" systems (currently) seems to be based on quantum mechanics. On the other hand, one does not need "randomness" to do either probability or statistics (or physics either.) For example, Champernowne developed the number .110111001011101111000.... (in base ten though) which contains every k-bit pattern with probability 1/2^k. (One concatenates the integers.)

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker.

[B. Rabbit]

Really? So I am sure you know the explanation of how a species can scientifically change its mode of reproduction WHILE CONTINUING TO REPRODUCE. Specifically you should be able to explain how mammalian reproduction scientifically arose by random stochastic mutations from reptilian egg layers.

You, as usual, completely ignored my other points. So I will state them again. I want you to address these issues, not the issues you want to address. I've also added in new ones, and as you are so fond of repeating the same 5 questions over and over again, as will I until you address them. The answer to your question above lies in one of them:

Because parts of a theory cannot be explained yet, does this immediately disprove a theory? A theory being a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that are made. Asking a theory to explain a certain aspect of the model, which the theory cannot explain as of yet, does not mean that the entire theory is debunked. When Newton's theory could not explain the the motion of Mercury exactly, but was close, was it thrown out? No. Einstein's model answered many of the questions about the errancy of the Newtonian model.

Evolution does not necessitate atheism. I can prove it right now. I am creating a religion (although it is not real, it makes me a theist regardless) which states that the universe was created and my God created the first life (abiogenesis not being a tenant of evolution). God then set forth a process called evolution which He knew with infinite wisdom would eventually create an intelligent enough being to worship Him. Say what you will about the lunacy of this religion, it is a religion nonetheless (plus I will claim that you are a B. Rabbiticism basher if you do). I just called my buddy and he said he will convert to my new religion, so I officially have a following. A similar process is done by real religions around the world and has been loosely declared by the Pope...

NEW POINT #1 (related to above point): Some people also believe in the morality, story, and ideas behind the Bible. However, they also believe that man (multiple men)had a part in its creation and therefore mistakes were perhaps made. Therefore, many Christians recognize this possibility and refuse to throw the baby (the overlying theme and beauty of the Bible) out with the bathwater (the scientific inconsistencies).

NEW POINT #2: This is for you and f.Christian and it attempts to counter the ludicrous connection with liberalism and evolution. I will prove the point by asking you a question, your answer will either show you that you're wrong or prove that you only equate conservative thinking with Christian thinking. A man explained all of his beliefs to you over a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and you learned that he was against any increase in taxation from what it is now, especially for welfare purposes. If you learned that he thought that the government was too filled with bureaucratic nonsense and needed to be slimmed down. He believed that the capitalist state is the only one which will eventually lead to a strong economy, and a strong foreign policy is essential to the protection of its people. After all this, he told you he thought that there was something to the theory of evolution, would you label him a liberal? Would you be so narrow minded?

New Point #3: I've learned a lot since joining this thread, and the following statement derives from this attained knowledge. If a large number of RATIONAL men believe something to be true, it is irrational to conclude with complete authority that they are incorrect unless you can provide absolute and compelling evidence which destroys the theory. This is true for religion, and right now, it holds true for evolution.

[B. Rabbit]

Sounds good to me, what shall we call ourselves, rabbitites?

Yes, and I will be Rabbit-Pope I. I was going to call my 'priests' rabbis but apparently that is already being used. Do you want to be a rabbiti?