sad day for science

Evolution Critics Score Win in Kansas

By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

TOPEKA, Kan. - Critics of evolution won a big victory with the approval of new public school science standards that cast doubt on Darwinism.
The standards were approved Tuesday by the Kansas Board of Education on a 6-4 vote that was lauded by "intelligent design" advocates, who helped draft them. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

The vote came amid an increasingly rancorous national debate on teaching evolution. In Pennsylvania on Tuesday, voters punished Dover school board members who backed a statement on intelligent design being read in biology class, ousting eight Republicans and replacing them with Democrats who want the concept stripped from the science curriculum.

Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism — a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation — camouflaged in scientific language, and it does not belong in a science curriculum. They worry that the vote will encourage attacks on evolution in other states.

"This action is likely to be the playbook for creationism for the next several years," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif. "We can predict this fight happening elsewhere."

The Pennsylvania election unfolded amid a landmark federal trial involving the Dover public schools and the question of whether intelligent design promotes the Bible's view of creation. Eight Dover families sued, saying it violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

In August, President Bush endorsed teaching intelligent design alongside evolution.

The Kansas board's vote is likely to heap fresh national criticism on the state. In 1999, the board deleted most references to evolution in the science standards. That decision was overturned in 2001.

But supporters of the new regulations say they will lead to open discussions.

"We are being very brave. We are brave enough to have all areas discussed," said board member Kathy Martin, a Clay Center Republican. "Students will be informed and not indoctrinated."

The board does not mandate what will be taught to public school students; that decision is left to local school boards. However, it does determine what students are expected to know for state assessment tests. The new standards will be in effect starting in 2008.

Some educators fear pressure will increase to teach less about evolution or more about creationism or intelligent design.

"What this does is open the door for teachers to bring creationist arguments into the classroom and point to the standards and say it's OK," said Jack Krebs, an Oskaloosa High School math teacher and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science, which opposes the changes.

The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that basic Darwinian theory — that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life — has been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.

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