Srila Prabhupada, Los Angeles, December 29, 1973:
Just like they are putting on this theory that matter, from matter, life has come. “All right, matter, life has come from matter. Just prove it. Take matter, whatever materials you want, take, and produce life.” “That we shall see in future.” Then why you are talking this nonsense? Science means observation and experiment. There must be experiment also. But without experiment, they are putting on this theory and getting Nobel Prize. Although it is not a fact. We know. We are followers of Vedic principles. We know that matter or life, everything comes from life, not from matter. We know it certain. How do you know? Krsna says. Mattah sarvam pravartate: “Everything comes from Me.”
Split Outcome in Texas Battle on Teaching of Evolution
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/education/24texas.html?_r=1&ref=us
JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr, AUSTIN, Tex. — Moderates on the Texas Board of Education prevailed over conservatives Friday when, in a battle over the teaching of evolution, the board voted to drop a 20-year-old mandate that science teachers explore with their students the “strengths and weaknesses” of all theories.
Still, the conservative faction, led by the board’s chairman, Dr. Don McLeroy, managed to pass several amendments to the state’s science curriculum that opponents say would open the door to teaching objections to evolution and might encourage students to reject it.
Chief among these amendments is one that would compel science teachers to instruct students about aspects of the fossil record that do not neatly fit with the idea of species’ gradually changing over time, like the relatively sudden appearance of some species and the fact that others seem to remain unchanged for millions of years.
Dr. McLeroy, a dentist from College Station who describes himself as “a Darwin skeptic,” said during debate on Thursday that students should know that the fossil record does not depict a clean picture of gradual changes.
But some defenders of evolution said the amendment was intended to engender doubt in students about what most biologists accept as fact: that evolution occurs, even if there is debate about how and why.
Friday’s voting capped two days of discussion on the state’s science standards, which are routinely revisited every 10 years. But the final vote does not come until March.
Whatever the 15-member board decides then will have consequences far beyond Texas, since the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the nation. The new standards will be in place for the next decade, starting in 2010, and will influence the writing of the next generation of biology texts, which the state will order this summer.
Though the requirement to teach strengths and weaknesses of theories was first adopted here two decades ago, teachers have largely ignored it. But it has taken on new importance in recent years, as groups questioning Darwinism have invoked the mandate in raising objections to evolution’s being taught to the exclusion of other theories.
This year, a panel of science teachers charged with the once-a-decade rewriting of the curriculum recommended dropping the standard and requiring instead that students “analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical data.”
Many mainstream biologists say most of the objections like Dr. McElroy’s can be explained under Darwin’s theory. They accuse dissenting scientists of twisting the evidence to promote the notion of a divine hand guiding creation, an approach known as intelligent design. The federal courts have ruled that public schools’ teaching of either creationism or intelligent design violates the separation of church and state.
But even as evolution’s opponents have lost in the courts in recent years, they have gained ground on the Texas school board and now hold 7 of the 15 seats. In deliberations on Thursday, conservatives fought hard to keep the strengths-and-weaknesses standard, arguing that it protected the rights of students and some teachers to question evolution’s underpinnings.
“This is a battle of academic freedom,” said one member, Ken Mercer, a San Antonio Republican. “This is a battle over freedom of speech.”
But the board’s Democrats and moderate Republicans said the change recommended by the panel of teachers left plenty of room for teachers to raise problems with the theory. In the end, the conservative faction could not garner the eight votes it needed.
Still, critics of modern evolutionary theory hailed the board’s decision to ask students to learn more about what skeptics of Darwinism see as puzzles in the fossil record.
“They did something truly remarkable today,” John G. West of the Discovery Institute, a group that questions Darwinism, said in a statement. “They voted to require students to analyze and evaluate some of the most important and controversial aspects of modern evolutionary theory.”
Some biologists, however, said Dr. McLeroy’s amendment had handed teachers a hopelessly muddled task. They said species evolve at different rates — sometimes gradually, sometimes rapidly, sometimes remaining unchanged for eons — and that this has nothing to do with whether they share a common ancestor.
The amendment “makes no sense to me,” said David M. Hillis, a prominent professor of biology at the University of Texas, adding, “It’s a clear indication that the chairman of the state school board doesn’t understand the science.”
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