Groups weigh in before evolution vote in Kansas

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Groups weigh in before evolution vote in Kansas

USA Today, November 15, 2005

TOPEKA (AP) - National groups weren't waiting for the State Board of Education to vote on new science standards for Kansas' public schools before weighing in on whether they attack evolution and promote creationism.

Adoption of the proposed standards, which is expected, would be a victory for intelligent design advocates, who drafted the language criticizing evolutionary theory. They argued they're trying to expose students to legitimate scientific questions about evolution.

The board was expected to vote on the standards Tuesday afternoon. Six of the 10 members, all Republicans, already have endorsed the language in them.

"Under these standards students will learn more about evolution, not less," said Casey Luskin, a spokesman for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design research.

Luskin added: "Anyone who reads the proposed science standards will see that they deal solely with science, are based on scientific debates in mainstream scientific literature and do not include any alternative theories."

But many scientists argue the proposed standards promote intelligent design by incorporating common, already-debunked arguments against evolution.

Even before the vote, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a group opposing religious conservatives, launched an e-mail campaign to protest the board's anticipated action, calling the proposed standards "backward."

The Kansas board's action is part of an ongoing national debate over evolution. In Pennsylvania, a trial is underway in a lawsuit against the Dover school board's policy of requiring high school students to hear about intelligent design in their biology classes. In August, President Bush endorsed teaching intelligent design alongside evolution.

The Discovery Institute said Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania also have standards similar to the ones proposed for Kansas. Ohio was the first to adopt them, in 2002.

Kansas has attracted international attention, largely because Tuesday's vote was the third time in six years that the board has rewritten standards with evolution as the central issue. Hearings in May, in which intelligent design advocates attacked evolution, attracted journalists from Canada, France, Great Britain and Japan.

The proposed standards contain a disclaimer saying they don't promote intelligent design, which argues that an intelligent cause is the best way to explain some natural features that are well-ordered and complex. However, the standards repeat intelligent design advocates' arguments against evolutionary theory that natural chemical processes could have created the building blocs of life and that all life has a common origin.

In addition, the board rewrote the standards' definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

Critics argue that such changes are designed to allow teachers and students to discuss God in the classroom. They contend creationists repackaged old ideas in new, scientific-sounding language to get around a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1987 against teaching creationism in public schools.

Kansas law requires the state board to update its academic standards regularly. In 1999, the board deleted most references to evolution in the science standards, making the state an object of international ridicule.

Two years later, after voters replaced three members, the board reverted to evolution-friendly standards. Elections in 2002 and 2004 changed the board's composition again, making it more conservative - and more receptive to intelligent design advocates' arguments.

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