[MHalblaub]

For me parts of the "Kansas Science Education Standards" are just copied out of a creationist textbook.

page 75ff
Additional Specificity:
1.c ...However, in many cases the fossil record is not consistent with gradual, unbroken sequences postulated by biological evolution.
f. The view that living things in all the major kingdoms are modified descendants of a common ancestor (described in the pattern of a branching tree) has been challenged in recent years by:

i. Discrepancies in the molecular evidence (e.g., differences in relatedness inferred from sequence studies of different proteins) previously thought to support that view.
ii. A fossil record that shows sudden bursts of increased complexity (the Cambrian Explosion), long periods of stasis and the absence of abundant transitional forms rather than steady gradual increases in complexity, and
iii. Studies that show animals follow different rather than identical early stages of embryological development.
...
3. d. Whether microevolution (change within a species) can be extrapolated to explain macroevolutionary changes (such as new complex organs or body plans and new biochemical systems which appear irreducibly complex) is controversial. These kinds of macroevolutionary explanations generally are not based on direct observations and often reflect historical narratives based on inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence.
...
7. Some of the scientific criticisms include:
a A lack of empirical evidence for a “primordial soup” or a chemically hospitable pre-biotic atmosphere;
b. The lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code, thesequences of genetic information necessary to specify life, the biochemical machinery needed to translate genetic information into functional biosystems, and the formation of proto-cells; and
c. The sudden rather than gradual emergence of organisms near the time that the Earth first became habitable.

page 105

Glossary:
Biological evolution: a scientific theory that accounts for present day similarity and diversity among living organisms and changes in non-living entities over time. With respect to living organisms, evolution has two major perspectives: The longterm perspective focuses on the branching of lineages; the short-term perspective centers on changes within lineages. In the long term, evolution is the descent with modification of different lineages from common ancestors. In the short term, evolution is the on-going adaptation of organisms to environmental challenges and changes.

The glossary is just a strawman for the creationistic mirco-macro nonsense.

[PatrickHenry]

200

[Quark2005]

ii. A fossil record that shows sudden bursts of increased complexity (the Cambrian Explosion), long periods of stasis and the absence of abundant transitional forms rather than steady gradual increases in complexity...

Misapplication of the Cambrian explosion. Typical. People forget that this "sudden explosion" spans a time period of 10 million years in the fossil record, it is only an "explosion" in the relative sense, and only an "explosion" in the realm of macroscopic organisms, which make up only a tiny realm of genetic lineages. Additionally, many hypotheses about the origin of triploblastic organisms have been given confirmation via analysis and transplantation of proteins (Zimmer's book on Evolution gives an excellent description of this.) Our (albeit limited) knowledge of the Cambrian explosion hardly detracts from the validity of evolution.