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."
Isn't it your bedtimeTM?
irrelevant
adj : having no bearing on or connection with the subject at issue [syn: unrelated]
irrelevant
adj : having no bearing on or connection with the subject at issue [syn: unrelated]
Do you have to work at being irrelevant or is it something that just comes naturally?
So this baby seal walks into a club... 6169 posted on 01/29/2003 9:09 PM CST by Condorman (Rim-shot... Crickets... Flee angry mob...) |
That is exactly the description for Darwininian evolution and its just-so stories.
I accept the analysis but not the conclusion. It depends on your viewpoint (which is why we have the term viewpoint.)
I have known for some time that these discussions do not hinge on logic and evidence, but rather on worldview.
I agree with your last paragraph. For instance, recently a study on bird wing flapping was used as "evidence" for the ground-up evolution of birds. I considered it as just evidence for what birds do with their wings when they climb inclines. Another recent fossil find of a "4-winged" bird was used as "evidence" for the tree-down evolution of birds. You can't lose as the "evidence" points in both directions.
Very well. Point me to an array of articles in a micro-biology journal that supports your thesis, and I'll go read up on it.
No they do not. First of all ants are eukaryotes - a completely different order of being,
Which arises from prokariotes.
further apart from prokaryotes than plants are to animals.
Which arise from eukariotes.
Second of all ants are multicellular - a tremendous leap requiring numerous new functions, new organs, new arrangements which also is totally impossible.
Which arises from animals.
Third of all ants are sexual and prokaryotes are asexual.
Sexuals, which arise from asexuals.
Therefore, in the stuff that really matters biologically they are completely different.
Uh huh. Competely different, yet they are biological precursors, one to another. You make my case. Thanks.
Your 'analogy' is even sillier than saying that rowboats and planes are alike because they both can get you over water without getting wet.
The measure of an analogy is whether or not the parallel being drawn is compelling. You are free to reject my thesis, as it is simply one of many hypotheses, however, you are not free to mis-represent it. It may be wrong, but it is not irrelevant to the argument I am making.
Modern birds both climb and fly. What's your point, except that honest disputes occur about the most likely interpretation of incomplete evidence. Just as there are honest disputes among the world's religions as to the nature of god.
Just as we see speciation in action when we look at present-day specie-crosses, such as horse&donkey&zebra, or lion&tiger, or dog&cat, with their successively dwindling chances of successful fruition.
The reason you cannot infer evolution from fossils is twofold: 1. the bones show us only a very small part of what makes a species what it is. The DNA, the organs are the most important part of a species and there is no trace of that except in a handful of very special cases.
Oh, you know exactly, down to the minutest detail, what the makeup of Alpha Proxima is?
2. Homology is nonsense. There are far too many examples of totally unrelated species with similar features and what is worse, there are examples of closely related species with completely different features. Therefore homology, the only basis for paleontology is total nonsense. It's not science, it's fairy tales for atheists.
I'll assume you mean morphology when you say homology. What the micro-biologists do is establish homologies, what the field paleontologists do is investigate morphologies.
This is, of course, your patented brand of unscientific hogwash. Neither morphology nor homology is not the "only" basis for paleontology. Lining up the allied morphologies of the fossils with the geological strata in which they predominently occur is the primary basis of paleontology, and it was quite a compelling one, even before there was such a thing as micro-biology.
And therefore, neither God's intervention, nor random chance, win this round. Your feeble implication to the contrary notwithstanding.
I have already done that, addressed to you, twice. Kindly address your posts to someone else if you can't do even this tiny amount of homework.
As I said, having it both ways precludes losing.
I am being totally unanswered. Post your proof that the world is not the dream of an infinitely more interesting and complex entity than we are--as far above being intelligent as we are above having primative tropisms.
Science has also more than proven that there are definite rules in this world we live in. So even if it is the figment of someone's imagination, it does have rules.
So? Post your evidence that dreams can't have rules.
Right, because in failing (and sometimes before failing), it leads to unbridled tyranny. Which is, I point out, not democracy. Having a constitutionally limited government is a good plan. But constitutionality is orthogonal to whether or not you have a democracy.
- it was an utter failure in ancient Greece; that is precisely why the U.S. is not a democracy. A constitutional republic has the best track record - that would be America.
Sigh. Does or does not our Constitution establish a democratic union, and lay down the rules for it's operation in rather specific detail, Mr. Logical?
Being repetitive and rude and unwilling to defend your proposed alternative is not quite the same thing as "ripping to shreds with logic". Tell me again how the Bible does not support slavery. I somehow missed that lecture.
Since you can not find any logical or practical fault with moral absolutism, you are only left with attempting to defend your moral systems against logical attack.
Oh, indeed. Apprently, I also missed the lecture where you defended the genocide of the anabaptists by the Pope and Martin Luther. Perhaps you could give me a posting reference?
That is undemonstratable, rude, annoying and pointless, kindly knock it off or post to someone else.
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