What IS the Matter with Kansas?

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

------- Original message -------
From: Randall  <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Sent: 2/5/'05,  23:16

http://tinyurl.com/9o492

Evolution on trial as Kansas debates Adam vs Darwin 
By Carey GillamMon May 2,12:15 PM ET


Evolution is going on trial in Kansas.

Eighty years after a famed courtroom battle in Tennessee pitted
religious beliefs about the origins of life against the theories of
British scientist Charles Darwin, Kansas is holding its own hearings on
what school children should be taught about how life on Earth began.

The Kansas Board of Education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style
hearings to begin on Thursday in the capitol Topeka. More than two dozen
witnesses will give testimony and be subject to cross-examination, with
the majority expected to argue against teaching evolution.

Many prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as
founded on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings, which
opponents say are part of a larger nationwide effort by religious
interests to gain control over government.

"I feel like I'm in a time warp here," said Topeka attorney Pedro
Irigonegaray who has agreed to defend evolution as valid science. "To
debate evolution is similar to debating whether the Earth is round. It
is an absurd proposition."

WIDESPREAD DEBATE

Irigonegaray's opponent will be attorney John Calvert, managing director
of the Intelligent Design Network, a Kansas organization that argues the
Earth was created through intentional design rather than random organism
evolution.

The group is one of many that have been formed over the last several
years to challenge the validity of evolutionary concepts and seek to
open the schoolroom door to ideas that humans and other living creatures
are too intricately designed to have come about randomly.

While many call themselves creationists, who believe that God was the
ultimate designer of all life, they are stopping short of saying
creationism should be taught in schools.

"We're not against evolution," said Calvert. "But there is a lot of
evidence that suggests that life is the product of intelligence. I think
it is inappropriate for the state to prejudge the question whether we
are the product of design or just an occurrence."

Debates over evolution are currently being waged in more than a dozen
states, including Texas where one bill would allowing for creationism to
be taught alongside evolution.

Kansas has been grappling with the issue for years, garnering worldwide
attention in 1999 when the state school board voted to downplay
evolution in science classes.

Subsequent elections altered the membership of the school board and led
to renewed backing for evolution instruction in 2001. But elections last
year gave religious conservatives a 6-4 majority and the board is now
finalizing new science standards, which will guide teachers about how
and what to teach students.

The current proposal pushed by conservatives would not eliminate
evolution entirely from instruction, nor would it require creationism be
taught, but it would encourage teachers to discuss various viewpoints
and eliminate core evolution claims as required curriculum.

School board member Sue Gamble, who describes herself as a moderate,
said she will not attend the hearings, which she calls "a farce." She
said the argument over evolution is part of a larger agenda by Christian
conservatives to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the
United States.

"I think it is a desire by a minority... to establish a theocracy, both
within Kansas and growing to a national level," Gamble said.

OLD TESTAMENT TEACHINGS

Some evolution detractors say that the belief that humans, animals and
organisms evolved over long spans of time is inconsistent with Biblical
teachings that life was created by God. The Bible's Old Testament says
that God created life on Earth including the first humans, Adam and Eve,
in six days.

Detractors also argue that evolution is invalid science because it
cannot be tested or verified and say it is inappropriately being
indoctrinated into education and discouraging consideration of
alternatives.

But defenders say that evolution is not totally inconsistent with
Biblical beliefs, and it provides a foundational concept for
understanding many areas of science, including genetics and molecular
biology.

The theory of evolution came to prominence in 1859 when Darwin published
"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," and it was the
subject of a 1925 trial in Tennessee in which teacher John Thomas Scopes
was accused of violating a ban against teaching evolution.

Kansas School Board chairman Steve Abrams said the hearings are less
about religion than they are about seeking the best possible education
for the state's children.

"If students... do not understand the weaknesses of evolutionary theory
as well as the strengths, a grave injustice is being done to them,"
Abrams said.



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