Posted on 11/06/2005 6:26:17 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
In the beginning, when voters created the Kansas Board of Education to oversee schools, those intelligent designers couldn’t have imagined it would go forth and multiply all this controversy.
The board could close the latest chapter of the evolution debate Tuesday when it is set to vote on science curriculum standards that change the definition of science and cast doubt on the theory of evolution. It’s possible another administrative delay could postpone the vote, but the approval is seen as inevitable.
Inevitable, maybe. Permanent, maybe not. The standards won’t go into effect until the 2007 school year. By then the school board could look dramatically different if moderates are successful in unseating conservatives in the November 2006 elections, both sides say. That could make the new standards moot, and start the whole debate over again. Both sides say the controversy has been too heated, and the implications for science, religion and education too great, for any easy solution.
The board’s conservative majority says it’s merely injecting criticism of what it calls a blindly accepted theory, and allowing students to decide for themselves. And they have their supporters. Polls indicate most Kansans have doubts about evolution and don’t dismiss the idea of teaching alternatives. Other states like Ohio and schools in Georgia and Pennsylvania have joined the debate as well.
“We want students to understand more about evolution, not less,” said John Calvert, leader of the Intelligent Design Network and one of the driving forces behind the changes. Intelligent Design is the belief that aspects of the natural world show signs of design, and not random evolution. “To understand a claim, you should also understand those aspects of the claim that some people think are problematic. That’s all these changes do.”
Moderates disagree and aren’t conceding defeat. They hope to unseat enough conservative board members in November 2006 to retake control of the board in time to change the standards back. They say the revisions to the standards are a step toward creationism and an unacceptable marriage of religion and public education. The changes, they say, jeopardize the state’s efforts to grow the bioscience industry and hurt school children who will one day graduate to an ever globalizing high-tech economy.
“This is distracting us from the goal of making sure every kid is well-educated,” said board member Sue Gamble, a Shawnee moderate. “Regular people are starting to say, ‘Enough is enough. We’ve got to stand up for ourselves.’ ”
In 1999, the board voted to remove most references to evolution, the origin of the universe and the age of the Earth. The next year, voters responded and the board’s majority went to moderates. The standards were changed back.
In politics, however, there’s no such thing as extinction: conservatives regrouped, retaking the majority in 2004.
“The state board used to be a pretty mundane office,” said Kansas State University political science professor Joe Aistrup. “But this is a clash of ideas, and it reverberates up and down, with everything that’s going on with conservatives and moderates. It’s not surprising that it’s become this high-profile, and voters will remember.”
The board’s 10 members serve four-year terms. Every two years, five seats come up for election. Conservative board members John Bacon of Olathe, Connie Morris of St. Francis, Iris Van Meter of Thayer and Ken Willard of Hutchinson all face re-election in November 2006, as does Waugh. Not every incumbent has announced re-election plans, but most are expected to run.
Conservative groups say they’re ready for a fight, and say the evolution issue cuts both ways.
“People will vote their wishes,” Bacon said. “I think the public of Kansas supports what we’re doing.”
Doubts about Darwin
The board routinely reviews curriculum standards for just about every facet of education, kindergarten through high school. The standards are the basis for state assessment tests and serve as a template for local school districts and teachers. Local districts are not required to teach the standards — they just risk lower assessment scores if they choose not to.
When a 27-member committee of scientists and teachers began the process of updating the standards, a vocal minority proposed inserting criticism of evolution. Six members of the Board of Education applauded the changes, and agreed to put most of them into the standards. Now the board is poised to put the amended standards to a final vote.
The changes to the standards incorporate substantial criticism of evolutionary theory, calling into question the theory made famous by Charles Darwin. Supporters say there isn’t proof of the origin and variety of life and the genetic code. The changes also alter the definition of science to allow for non-natural explanations.
Supporters of the changes say they don’t want children indoctrinated with an unproven theory. The board had two weeks of hearings in May to hear testimony from scientists who dispute evolution. Conservative board members said they made their case.
Calling them a farcical publicity stunt, mainstream scientists boycotted the hearings. Nobel Prize winners, scientists and religious leaders signed petitions opposing what they said was a blurring of the lines between science and religion and thinly veiled push for creationism.
Bloggers and national comedians lampooned the hearings as national and international media poured into Topeka. Board members say they received mocking e-mails from around the world. If the ridicule got to them, the conservatives won’t say. But they admit to a certain evolution fatigue.
“I’m extremely anxious to put this behind us,” Morris said. She has been a strong critic of evolution, even calling it “impossible” in a newsletter to supporters.
Other states have seen similar fights to change the way evolution is taught. Education officials in Ohio changed science standards there to cast doubt on evolution. A Georgia school district tried to put stickers on textbooks that read “Evolution is a theory, not a fact.” A judge later ruled the stickers illegal, saying their message promotes Christian fundamentalism. And a legal challenge is now in court in Dover, Pa., where school officials voted to include alternative explanations to evolution.
Morris and her fellow conservatives cite polls that show Kansans have doubts when it comes to evolution. The Kansas City Star conducted a poll last summer and 55 percent said they believe in either creationism or intelligent design — more than double the 26 percent who said they believe evolution to be responsible for the origin of life. But opponents say that’s beside the point: Most Americans say they believe in God, too, but that doesn’t mean he should be taught in public schools.
“I believe in the Biblical account of creation,” Waugh said. “But it has no place in the science class. In a comparative religions class, sure. The best place to teach is at home or at your place of worship.”
Board members say the public is behind them, and that unseating them on Election Day won’t be easy.
“People come up to me and tell me we’re doing the right thing,” Van Meter said. “We wouldn’t do this if Kansans didn’t support it.”
All eyes on Kansas
Evolution turned this little-known governmental entity into a battleground in the state’s clash between conservatives and moderates. And that’s the way it’s likely to stay for a while.
This year, it’s not just the board’s take on evolution that’s stirred controversy. Conservatives also want to make it easier for parents to pull children from sex education classes, and last month they chose Bob Corkins as education commissioner, even though he had no experience teaching or running schools.
All those issues prompted a group of Kansas residents to form the Kansas Alliance for Education, a group with the goal of defeating board conservatives. Alliance leader Don Hineman, a cattle rancher from Dighton, Kan., said the group will work to support candidates and get out the vote.
“There’s a sense of frustration that I think many Kansans share,” he said. “The conservative majority on the board is focused on a narrow agenda, at the expense of their objective, which is improving education for Kansas children.”
He’s not alone. Harry McDonald, an Olathe resident and the leader of Kansas Citizens for Science, has announced his candidacy for the seat now occupied by John Bacon. More candidates are expected.
“We need to take down two to retake the majority,” Gamble said. “I’m focused on four, but that’s an enormous undertaking.”
Calvert, the intelligent design leader, said he knows the evolution debate will factor into the election. No matter what happens at the polls, he said the public is coming around to the notion of challenging one of science’s sacred cows.
“It’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s really what the public wants. Anybody who takes these changes out really needs to be thinking seriously about what they’re doing.”
If conservatives hold on to the majority, Gamble said she expects a legal challenge to the new science standards. If moderates unseat conservatives, the latter will pour its energies into the next election, even if some conservatives admit to being weary of the fray.
Kris Van Meteren is a conservative activist who helped get his mother, Iris Van Meter, on the school board. He’s part of the effort that has kept evolution front and center. He said he hopes it’s not necessary, but his side will keep pushing until evolution comes down from its pedestal in the academic world.
“We’re not in this for one or two elections,” said Van Meteren, who changed his name to reflect his Dutch heritage. “That was clear in ’99 when we lost control of the board. Everybody thought, ‘They’re gone, that’s over.’ But even if we lose another election, we’re not going away.”
Evolution bump. Note how our favorite educator, Connie Morris, is 'extemely anxious to put this behind us..." No doubt she has other damage to inflict.
My guess is that major universities will announce their unwillingness to accept Kansas diplomas. The state schools might even be disaccredited.
This can happen. My local schools were disaccredited (some decades ago).
Conservatives and moderates. Where are the liberals?
It wil be defended tooth and nail but materialists needing it as a philosophical foundation, but there is growing erosion of its possibility as it has been taught and understood for a long time.
In Lawrence, KS.. ( University town and rabidly Liberal )
At least that is the one Liberal pocket I am familiar with..
Most of KS is either Conservative or Moderate..
Where you find concentrations (infestations?) of Liberals is in the college towns..
Little pockets of infection scattered throughout the state..
As for the TOE's erosion as an explanation of speciation, the evidence supporting it continues to grow..
The evidence that already exists is overwhelmingly supportive..
Only in the minds of the irrational.
Next the ID nuts will be attacking gravity: "we see no proof of gravity; our evidence suggests humans are kept in place by the hand of an invisible sky-god."
Ah, we haven't had a thread about the idiocy in Kansas for a few weeks. This is good weekend material. Cranking up the ping machine ...
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Well, I'm glad to see that this can be a dispassionate discussion! Exclamations like yours cannot dismiss criticism of what is, finally, only a theory.
When advocates of pure TOE can demonstrate repeatedly, under identical conditions, in a variety of locations and times, the competition among complex organic and inorganic compounds leading to viable primitive life, then I will say that TOE absent everthing else is science. Until then, begging to introduce immense spans of time as the deus ex machina of a materialist theory is the same thing as saying "The gods did it!"
The inadequacies of TOE as an explanation of origins of life, which seem to be forgotten when it is taught, must be mentioned even as the truths of TOE are explained. Otherwise, education is incomplete and limited by secularist and materialist prejudices and opinion.
We wouldn't want that, would we?
There is no erosion of support among people who understand it or who are willing to approach it with an open mind.
Any teacher who spoke about the *failure* of evolution to explain the origins of life should be fired. They would either be amazingly incompetent or liars. The ToE has never been concerned with life's origins, any more than the Theory of Universal Gravity attempts to explain the origins of matter or the Germ Theory attempts to explain the origin of germs. And we know that you know better. Why must you therefore make things up?
You might wish to explain why the icons of intelligent design -- Behe and Denton -- have accepted evolution as a fact, including common descent. There is no position among people educated in science that does not accept common descent, even among the critics of Darwinian evolution.
Haven't seen you around geezer. You obviously haven't been corrected yet on your mistaken definition of "theory". It does not mean "guess" as non-scientists assume. It the context of evolution, it is an explanation of how things work. As in the "Theory of Gravity", or "Music Theory", or "Nuclear Theory". Evolution is both a scientific theory, because it explains how things work, and an observed fact, because it does in fact occur, as even ID proponents have begun to acknowledge when they get under oath at trial.
When advocates of pure TOE can demonstrate repeatedly, under identical conditions, in a variety of locations and times, the competition among complex organic and inorganic compounds leading to viable primitive life
Obviously you have also not been corrected on your mistaken conflation of various hypothesis of how the first life came to be, vs. how species arose via evolution theory. The two are utterly unconnected. Whether the first life form was "planted" by God or a space alien, or arose via abiogensis is irrelevant to the observed fact that evolution occurs and is the cause of the various species.
Now you know these things, and you can either dispute them with me (in which case you will continue to be wrong), or you can move on to other issues regarding evolution. It will be interesting to see if you bring these issues up in later threads.
> Conservatives and moderates. Where are the liberals?
Sitting on the sidelines, laughing. Congratulating themselves for the yeomans work being doen by their supposedly conservative useful idiots on the school board, busy making all conservatives look like uneducated, anti-science boobs.
PatrickHenry, allow me to express my appreciation for your excellent EvolutionPing. I've never come across an argument for Intelligent Design that would survive your list of caveats under "How to argue against a scientific theory."
What's really funny about the whole thing is that the concept of Intelligent Design is completely in harmony with the Theory of Evolution. Most Catholics accept the scientific theory of evolution as the means God used to create humans. The God part is based on faith. The evolution part is based on evidence. An elegant solution to the problem, and why Catholics don't feel the need to insert God into biology and astronomy texts. I guess they aren't as insecure about their faith as the folks on the Kansas school board.
The fanatic at work. He's gonna do what he's gonna do. Consequences be damned and who cares what the scientific evidence is?
What he said...
Thanks for the ping!
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