This is an excerpt for the "Daily Oklahoman" (aka "The Daily
Disappointment" because of it's extreme right-wing bias)
I have included my rebuttle to the disclaimer (which is nearly
word-for-word identical to the Alabama disclaimer) below this excerpt.
Susan
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Ruling halts evolution
disclaimer
02/03/2000
By John Greiner and Paul English
Capitol Bureau
The state textbook committee has no authority to
require an evolution disclaimer on all new biology
textbooks, Attorney General Drew Edmondson ruled
Wednesday.
The committee also violated the state Open Meeting
Act when it adopted the disclaimer during a Nov. 5
meeting because its agenda gave no indication a
disclaimer or any other statement for textbooks would
be considered, Edmondson wrote.
Edmondson's formal opinion has the effect of law
unless it is overturned in court.
The adoption of the disclaimer sparked a statewide
controversy over evolution and creationism in the
classroom. Many teachers and other educators opposed
the evolution disclaimer.
John Dickmann, the textbook committee member who
introduced the disclaimer, said he wanted textbook
publishers to stop representing evolution as fact and
present other options such as creationism.
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MY REBUTTLE TO THE DISCLAIMER
------
"Message from the Oklahoma State Textbook Committee:
"This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory, . . . "
This statement is incorrect. Evolution is not controversial in scientific
circles. There is still much to learn about how evolution happened and
there is still controversy over details of evolution such as whether
Neanderthal is ancestoral to our species or whether it is a sister-species.
The fact that evolution happened was resolved to the satisfaction of nearly
all scientists in the last century. Evolution reamains controversial among
a few Biblical literalists, but not among scientists as this statement
implies.
". . . which some scientists present as scientific explanation for the
origin of living
things, such as plants and humans. "
This is completely incorrect. Abiogenesis is the discipline which examines
the origin of life. Abiogenesis is a relatively new science, less than 50
years old. Evolution is defined as "a change in the gene pool of a
population through time." Evolution is the history of life and is silent on
the subject of origins, focusing instead on mutation, natural selection and
common descent.
"No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any
statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact."
This statement has two problems. First: no one now living was present
during *any* historical event, but we know the past occurred because of the
evidence of past events left behind. Second: A scientific theory is not an
imperfect fact. In common usage, the word "theory" means "guess" or
"unsustantiated idea" but in science the word means a system of thought
that explains a collection of data. Evolution is a fact. It has been
observed to occur many times. The formation of a new species was first
observed in 1907. Many new species and subspecies have been observed since
that time. The Theory of Evolution provides a systematic way of thinking
about all the evolutionary data that has been collected in the last 150
years.
"The word evolution may refer to many types of change. Evolution describes
changes that occur within a species. (White moths, for example, may evolve
into gray moths). This process is micro evolution, which can be observed
and described as fact. Evolution may also refer to the change of one living
thing into another, such as reptiles into birds. This process, called macro
evolution, has never been observed and should be considered a theory."
This passage is a snarl of half-truthes and misrepresentations. "Evolution"
refers to a change in a gene pool over time. All evolution is "micro" in
the sense that all changes are small and incremental. Even "sudden"
evolution is sudden only in as geological time is measured and and happens
very slowly compared to human history or a human lifetime. "Macro"
evolution has been observed to occur in the fossil record many, many times.
"Evolution also refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces
produced a world of living things. "
Evolution does not speak to "directed forces." It simply cannot. If the
history of life is directed, that fact is transparent to science. If, for
example, mutations are not random as they appear to be, that does not mean
that evolution does not happen. Many religious people believe that God is
directing history. Neither evolution, nor any branch of science can detect
that fact or make any statements about it.
"There are many unanswered questions about the origin of life, which are not
mentioned in your textbook, including: Why did the major groups of animals
suddenly appear in the fossil record, known as the Cambrian Explosion?"
This first question seems to be based on an incorrect assumption: that
*all* phyla, "major groups" appeared during the Cambrian era and that no
evolution has occurred since that time. Our own phylum--cordata--appeared
at the time of the Cambrian, but there were very few vertebrates, no
representatives of the class mammalia, no members of the order primate, no
representatives of the family hominidae, no members of the genus homo and
no members of the species homo sapiens. All of those groups appeared long
after the Cambrian.
"Why have no new major groups of living things appeared in the fossil record in
a long time?"
The phrase "Major Groups" here probably referrs to phyla. A great many
phyla appeared in the fossil record during the Cambrian and only a few are
still living. Two or three phyla have appeared since the Cambrian. All the
groups below "phylum" (subphylum, class, order, family, genus and species)
have appeared since then, and many new species have emerged in historical
time.
"Why do major groups of plants and animals have no transitional forms in
the fossil record?"
This question is based on a misrepresentation. Above the questioner seems
to use the term "major groups" to mean phyla. It is impossible for one
phyla (such as cordata, our own phylum which we share with fish) to evolve
into another (such as arthropoda, crabs, insects, etc.). Everything living
today is descended *from* the animals and plants present in the Cambrian.
However, that is not the impression given in the second question. The
question seems to be saying that there are no transitional fossils. Thomas
Huxley, late in the 19th century described the series of transitional
fossils of the horse lineage. There are many other examples of transitional
fossils in the fossil record. Our own ancestry is very well documented in
the fossil record and includes many examples of transitional fossils.
"How did you and all living things come to possess such a complete and
complex set of instructions for building a living body?"
This is actually studied by microbiology and geneticists and is related to
evolution but is not evolution itself. Sequencing the genome of human DNA
and that of many other plants and animals may answer this question.
"Study hard and keep an open mind. Someday you may contribute to the
theories of how living things appeared on earth."
Here the word "theory" is used correctly in a sentence. This leads to the
conclusion that the author of this statement does understand the correct
meaning of the word "theory." One wonders why it is used incorrectly in the
first sentence of the disclaimer. And again, the author conflates evolution
with abiogenesis.
----------
For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this one.
--Albert Camus
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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