Senate sends Jindal bill on evolution

A bill to overhaul the way evolution is taught in Louisiana public schools easily cleared its final legislative hurdle Monday despite threats of a lawsuit.

Opponents, mostly outside the State Capitol, contend the legislation would inject creationism and other religious themes into public schools.

However, the Senate voted 36-0 without debate to go along with the same version of the proposal that the House passed last week 94-3.

The measure, Senate Bill 733, now goes to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is expected to sign it.

Backers said the bill is needed to give science teachers more freedom to hold discussions that challenge traditional theories, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“It provides assurances to both teachers and students that academic inquiries are welcome and appropriate in the science classroom,” said Gene Mills, executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum.

Mills’ group touts itself as one that promotes traditional family values. It was called an influential mover behind the bill.

However, officials of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., said the bill represents an intrusion of religion into public schools that may warrant a lawsuit.

“It is the ACLU’s position that we intend to do whatever is necessary to keep religion out of our science classrooms.” said Marjorie R. Esman, executive director of the group in New Orleans.

It would allow science teachers to use supplemental materials, in addition to state-issued textbooks, on issues like evolution, global warming and human cloning.

The aim of such materials, the bill says, is to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied,” including evolution.

“I just believe that it is important that supplemental scientific information be able to be brought into the school system,” state Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa and sponsor of the bill, said after the vote.

Nevers said that, despite the rapid pace of changes in science, textbooks are only updated every seven years.

Critics said DVDs and other supplemental materials with religious themes will be added to classrooms to try to undercut widely accepted scientific views.

Nevers noted that the key change made in the House would allow the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to toss out science supplemental materials that it considers inappropriate.

Opponents contend the bill is a bid to allow the teaching of creationism and intelligent design. Christian creationism is the view that life began 6,000 years ago in a process described in the Bible’s Book of Genesis.

Intelligent design advocates believe that the universe stems from an intelligent designer rather than chance.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a prepared statement that the bill “is clearly designed to smuggle religion into the science classroom, and that’s unwise and unconstitutional.” Joe Conn, a spokesman for the group, said attorneys will review the bill.

Lynn’s group calls itself a national watchdog organization to prevent government-backed religious teaching.

Barbara Forrest, of Holden, a member of the group’s board of trustees and a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, also criticized passage of the measure.

“I think what the Legislature has done is an embarrassment to the state in the eyes of the entire country,” Forrest said.

“I don’t think any lawsuits will be brought because of this act,” he said.

In 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1981 state law that required equal time on creationism when evolution was taught in public schools.

I did indeed answer your question.

No, I'm afraid you didn't. (You're not alone--I've asked this question of other antievolutionists here, and they didn't answer either.) You've said a lot about what the answer isn't, but not about what it is.

You had said, in post #39, "Yes, old fossils of apes exist, and yes, older forms of what looks to be man (but is it really?) exist, but where is the link?" My question, from post #41, was, What would you expect such a link to look like? In other words, how would we know the link if we found it?

In #52, you said, "some clear transition where the two species are clearly transforming from one into another." "Some clear transition" is not an answer--I'm asking you what such a transition would look like.

In #60, you made a long statement about your issues with evolution, but still didn't attempt to state what a transitional fossil would look like.

And that's all you've said. If you want to abandon the topic, that's fine--people have obviously moved on. But if you want to take another shot at it:

You claim there is no evidence of change from one species to another--no transitional fossils, especially from proto-human to human. My question is, let's say such a fossil existed--a fossil of a creature that was somewhere on the line between the ape-human common ancestor and modern humans. What would it look like? How would we know it for what it is? How would it be different from the fossils we do have?

If you don't want to try and answer what to your mind is a hypothetical question, just say so. But please don't just insist again that no such fossil exists and call that an answer.

I have answered your question. However, since you missed it - here it is - again: a transitional fossil would have to show CLEAR transition between one species to another - without a doubt. The fact that evolutionists cannot decide if something is human or ape means that it is not clear that one is becoming the other. There have been many hoaxes and many so-called links which have proven to be made of composite fossils: i.e. fossils which are made up of bones from more than one species. This is not a transitional fossil, obviously. Nor can one call a transitional fossil something which one cannot clearly identify. An objective scientist would have to be able to authenticate that 1) the fossil was an intact fossil and not a composite, and 2) that it shows CLEAR transition from one species to another - not that it resembled one or more species. I am not seeking to abandon the topic, but this is as clear an answer as it is possible to make on the subject. While you may disagree with me (which is fine), please do not claim I have not answered your question.

I can only conclude that you don't understand my question. It's like I keep asking you "what would something transitional between a circle and a square look like?" and you keep answering "you know, something that's clearly between a circle and a square." I'm asking for the equivalent of "a square with rounded corners" or "a circle with slightly flattened sides."

See, it seems to me that a fossil that can't clearly be assigned to ape or man but looks kinda like both, is exactly what one would expect from a transitional fossil between the ape line and the human line. You seem to want something else but will not or cannot say exactly what that is.

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