Intelligent design loses in Kansas election
Intelligent design loses in Kansas election
By Monica Davey and Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times News Service. Monica Davey reported from Topeka, and Ralph Blumenthal from Houston
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published August 3, 2006
TOPEKA, Kan. -- Less than a year after the Kansas Board of Education adopted science standards that were the most wide-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution, voters on Tuesday ousted the conservative majority on the board that favored those guidelines.
Several primary election winners, whose victories are virtually certain to shift the conservative majority to at least a 6-4 moderate majority after November's general election, pledged on Wednesday to work swiftly to restore a science curriculum that does not subject evolution to critical attack.
They also said they will try to eliminate restrictions on sex education passed by the current board and to review the status of the education commissioner, who they said was hired last year with little schools background.
In a state where the fierce fight over the teaching of evolution has gone back and forth since 1999, the primary results were seen as a significant defeat for the movement of intelligent design, which holds that nature by itself cannot account for life's complexity.
Defenders of evolution pointed to the results in Kansas as a third major recent defeat for the intelligent design movement across the country.
"I think more citizens are learning what intelligent design really is and realizing that they don't really want that taught in their public schools," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education.
In February, Ohio's board of education dropped a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution. Last year, a federal judge ruled that teaching intelligent design in the schools of Dover, Pa., was unconstitutional.
Scott said opponents of evolution hardly are finished, however. "They have had a series of setbacks," she said, "but I don't think for one moment that this means the intelligent design people will fold their tents and go away."
Supporters of intelligent design and others who had favored Kansas' standards for science said they were disappointed in Tuesday's outcome, but they said they had also won a series of little-noticed victories in other states such as South Carolina. There, supporters said, state officials decided this summer to require students to look at ways that scientists use data "to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."
Design backer speaks out
John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an organization at the forefront of the intelligent design movement, said any repeal of Kansas' science standards would be a disservice to students and an effort to censor legitimate scientific challenges to Darwin's theories. Still, he said, no local political skirmish will ultimately answer the broad issue.
"The debate over Darwin's theory will be won or lost over the science," he said.
It is unclear that the Kansas vote necessarily reflected a widespread change in thinking around the state. The overall turnout in Tuesday's election was only 18 percent, the lowest in 14 years, a fact some political experts here attributed to relatively low-key races statewide and painfully steamy weather.
Several groups that favor the teaching of evolution had worked hard to stimulate the turnout among moderate voters, including the Kansas Alliance for Education, which raised more than $100,000 to battle the current majority and its science guidelines, and Kansas Citizens for Science.
Balance seen certain to shift
Five seats were at stake in Tuesday's vote, four of them held by the board's conservative Republican majority. Two conservatives lost to moderates in the Republican primary, ensuring a shift in control on the 10-member state board. Both face Democratic opponents in November, but the Democrats are considered moderates as well, so the board that takes office in January is nearly certain to have at least six moderates.
"We need to teach good science and bring the discussion back to educational issues and not continue focusing on hot-button issues," said Jana Shaver, a longtime teacher and college trustee from Independence who won one of the seats from conservatives in the Republican primary. She won a large majority over a conservative, Brad Patzer, who was seeking to claim the seat of his mother-in-law, Iris Van Meter, who did not seek re-election.
Connie Morris, a former west Kansas teacher and author who had described evolution as "a nice bedtime story," lost the Republican primary to Sally Cauble, also a school teacher and a local school board member from Liberal, who said she favors returning to what she considers a more traditional science curriculum drawn up by a committee of science experts.
Kansas has been over this ground before. In 1999, the state made national headlines by stripping its curriculum of nearly any mention of evolution.
Two years later, Kansas voters removed several conservative board members, and the curriculum change was reversed.
Then, a conservative majority took control in 2004 and revived the issue, leading to the bitter 6-4 vote last year, in which the board adopted the current, sweeping standards.
- - -
What the Kansas board changed
Standards for a new science curriculum critical of evolution were pushed through last year by six conservatives on the Kansas Board of Education.
The standards include:
Evolutionary theory that all life had a common origin has been challenged by fossils and molecular biology.
There is controversy over whether changes over time in one species can lead to a new species.
Source: Tribune news services.
By Monica Davey and Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times News Service. Monica Davey reported from Topeka, and Ralph Blumenthal from Houston
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published August 3, 2006
TOPEKA, Kan. -- Less than a year after the Kansas Board of Education adopted science standards that were the most wide-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution, voters on Tuesday ousted the conservative majority on the board that favored those guidelines.
Several primary election winners, whose victories are virtually certain to shift the conservative majority to at least a 6-4 moderate majority after November's general election, pledged on Wednesday to work swiftly to restore a science curriculum that does not subject evolution to critical attack.
They also said they will try to eliminate restrictions on sex education passed by the current board and to review the status of the education commissioner, who they said was hired last year with little schools background.
In a state where the fierce fight over the teaching of evolution has gone back and forth since 1999, the primary results were seen as a significant defeat for the movement of intelligent design, which holds that nature by itself cannot account for life's complexity.
Defenders of evolution pointed to the results in Kansas as a third major recent defeat for the intelligent design movement across the country.
"I think more citizens are learning what intelligent design really is and realizing that they don't really want that taught in their public schools," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education.
In February, Ohio's board of education dropped a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution. Last year, a federal judge ruled that teaching intelligent design in the schools of Dover, Pa., was unconstitutional.
Scott said opponents of evolution hardly are finished, however. "They have had a series of setbacks," she said, "but I don't think for one moment that this means the intelligent design people will fold their tents and go away."
Supporters of intelligent design and others who had favored Kansas' standards for science said they were disappointed in Tuesday's outcome, but they said they had also won a series of little-noticed victories in other states such as South Carolina. There, supporters said, state officials decided this summer to require students to look at ways that scientists use data "to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."
Design backer speaks out
John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an organization at the forefront of the intelligent design movement, said any repeal of Kansas' science standards would be a disservice to students and an effort to censor legitimate scientific challenges to Darwin's theories. Still, he said, no local political skirmish will ultimately answer the broad issue.
"The debate over Darwin's theory will be won or lost over the science," he said.
It is unclear that the Kansas vote necessarily reflected a widespread change in thinking around the state. The overall turnout in Tuesday's election was only 18 percent, the lowest in 14 years, a fact some political experts here attributed to relatively low-key races statewide and painfully steamy weather.
Several groups that favor the teaching of evolution had worked hard to stimulate the turnout among moderate voters, including the Kansas Alliance for Education, which raised more than $100,000 to battle the current majority and its science guidelines, and Kansas Citizens for Science.
Balance seen certain to shift
Five seats were at stake in Tuesday's vote, four of them held by the board's conservative Republican majority. Two conservatives lost to moderates in the Republican primary, ensuring a shift in control on the 10-member state board. Both face Democratic opponents in November, but the Democrats are considered moderates as well, so the board that takes office in January is nearly certain to have at least six moderates.
"We need to teach good science and bring the discussion back to educational issues and not continue focusing on hot-button issues," said Jana Shaver, a longtime teacher and college trustee from Independence who won one of the seats from conservatives in the Republican primary. She won a large majority over a conservative, Brad Patzer, who was seeking to claim the seat of his mother-in-law, Iris Van Meter, who did not seek re-election.
Connie Morris, a former west Kansas teacher and author who had described evolution as "a nice bedtime story," lost the Republican primary to Sally Cauble, also a school teacher and a local school board member from Liberal, who said she favors returning to what she considers a more traditional science curriculum drawn up by a committee of science experts.
Kansas has been over this ground before. In 1999, the state made national headlines by stripping its curriculum of nearly any mention of evolution.
Two years later, Kansas voters removed several conservative board members, and the curriculum change was reversed.
Then, a conservative majority took control in 2004 and revived the issue, leading to the bitter 6-4 vote last year, in which the board adopted the current, sweeping standards.
- - -
What the Kansas board changed
Standards for a new science curriculum critical of evolution were pushed through last year by six conservatives on the Kansas Board of Education.
The standards include:
Evolutionary theory that all life had a common origin has been challenged by fossils and molecular biology.
There is controversy over whether changes over time in one species can lead to a new species.
Source: Tribune news services.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 6:08 PM
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