Wednesday, February 7, 2007

And the Pendulum Swings Back

Updated: 6:16 p.m. PT Feb 13, 2007
TOPEKA, Kan. - The Kansas state Board of Education on Tuesday repealed science guidelines questioning evolution that had made the state an object of ridicule.

The new guidelines reflect mainstream scientific views of evolution and represent a political defeat for advocates of “intelligent design,” who had helped write the standards that are being jettisoned.

The intelligent design concept holds that life is so complex that it must have been created by a higher authority.

The state has had five sets of standards in eight years, with anti- and pro-evolution versions, each doomed by the seesawing fortunes of socially conservative Republicans and a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans.

The board on Tuesday removed language suggesting that key evolutionary concepts — such as a common origin for all life on Earth and change in species creating new ones — were controversial and being challenged by new research. Also approved was a new definition of science, specifically limiting it to the search for natural explanations of what is observed in the universe.

“Those standards represent mainstream scientific consensus about both what science is and what evolution is,” said Jack Krebs, a math and technology teacher who helped write the new guidelines. He is also president of Kansas Citizens for Science.

The state uses its standards to develop tests that measure how well students are learning science. Although decisions about what is taught in classrooms remain with 296 local school boards, both sides in the evolution dispute say the standards will influence teachers as they try to ensure that their students test well.

John Calvert, a retired attorney who helped found the Intelligent Design Network, said under the new standards, “students will be fed an answer which may be right or wrong” about questions like the origin of life.

“Who does that model put first?” he said. “The student, or those supplying the preordained ‘natural explanation’?”

The Board of Education’s swing back wasn’t likely to settle the issue, given many Kansans’ religious objections and other misgivings about evolution.

“I don’t think this issue is going to go away. I think it’s going to be around forever,” board chairman Bill Wagnon, a Topeka Democrat who supports evolution-friendly standards, said before the vote.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

personally I believe that the gods where so wise that they felt that evolution was the best form of creation--really, Hermes presented it in the form of a pie graph and Lugh seconded it. And then, wouldn't you know it, Mithra dug it so hard that he presented in a report to Shiva who got a complete hard on for it. Still, in the end, Lilith said that they had no say in it (because if anyone is going to be on top, she is). Anyways, Gaia decided to go ahead with it, because in the end it is the Earth that creates everything. and there it is.

CatsDigMe said...

I wish I had paid more attention to the Greek studies we had in school, or at least paid attention to Greek god week on Jeopardy. I'll have to check with you anytime Mythology comes up. I suck at it.