2 Science Groups SayKansas Can't Use Their Evolutino Papers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: October 27, 2005 6:46:14 PM EDT
To: JMG <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Cc: Dave <dave () farber net>
Subject: 2 Science Groups SayKansas Can't Use Their Evolutino Papers


http://nytimes.com/2005/10/27/national/27cnd-kansas.html? 
ei=5094&en=8207d57fc0db8eca&hp=&ex=1130472000&partner=homepage&pagewante 
d=print
2 Science Groups Say Kansas Can't Use Their Evolution Papers
By JODI WILGOREN
CHICAGO, Oct. 27 - Two leading science organizations have denied the
Kansas board of education permission to use their copyrighted materials
in the state's proposed new science standards because of the standards'
critical approach to evolution.

The National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers
Association said the much-disputed new standards "will put the students
of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the
world."

The stinging rebuke came less than two weeks before the state school
board is expected to put the science standards into effect. The new
standards have also received a lukewarm review from an external
education company.

While the copyright denial could cause delay in their adoption, as the
standards are rewritten, it is unlikely to derail the board's
conservative majority in its mission to require that challenges to
Darwin's theories be taught in the state's classrooms.

"Kansas students will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher
education or the demands of an increasingly complex and
technologically-driven world if their science education is based on
these standards," Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy,
and Michael J. Padilla, president of the teachers' group, said in a
joint written statement today. "Instead, they will put the students of
Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the
world."

In the statement, as well as in letters to the state board, the groups
opposed the standards for singling out evolution as a controversial
theory, and also for changing the definition of science itself so that
it is not restricted to natural phenomena.

A third organization, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, echoed those concerns in a news release supporting the
copyright denial, saying: "Students are ill-served by any effort in
science classrooms to blur the distinction between science and other
ways of knowing, including those concerned with the supernatural."

The president of the state school board, Steve Abrams, who is the leader
of its 6-4 conservative majority, said members could approve the
standards on Nov. 8 as planned - but with a caveat directing a copyright
lawyer to remove direct references to the groups' materials.

"The impact is minimal - it won't change the concepts," Dr. Abrams said.
"They obviously don't have copyrights on concepts."

But the chairman of the standards-writing committee, Steve Case, said
copyrighted material appears on almost all of the document's 100 pages,
and predicted it could take two to three months to revise them.

"In some cases it's just a phrase, but in some cases it's extensive,"
said Dr. Case, an assistant research professor at the University of
Kansas, who opposes the criticism of evolution that conservatives
inserted into the standards. "You try to keep the idea but change the
wording around, the writing becomes horrifically bad."

The copyright skirmish is not a surprise: the two groups took a similar
step in 1999, when the Kansas board stripped the standards of virtually
any reference to evolution, a move that was reversed when conservative
members were ousted from office.

A board member who supports evolution, Sue Gamble, said the science
groups' strong statement would not block the standards' adoption but
could have a longer-term effect.

"Nothing is going to stop these six members from doing what they're
going to do," Ms. Gamble said of the board's conservative majority, four
of whom are up for re-election in 2006. "It won't make any difference,
but I think it will make a difference next year in the election."



--
"We've got the hatemongers who literally hate this president, and that
is so wrong. . . . The people who hate George Bush hate him because he's
a follower of Jesus Christ, unashamedly says so and applies his faith in
his day-to-day operations." -- Rev. Jerry Falwell, on C-SPAN's  
"Washington Journal"



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