America's Children and Future Are Threatened

I am sorry if I sound a little annoyed, but this story and this situation is pathetic. My tolerence for religion grows weaker every day. If you want to beleive in God then fine, go ahead. But at least adapt your religion to what science proves. The church has done this for centuries.

Why stop at Evolutionary theory, while your at it down there in Kansas why not insist on teaching the alternative view that the Earth is the center of the universe.

The people of Kansas should be embarassed by this development and should do something about it right now!



Boston.com / News / Nation / Echoes of Scopes Trial heard in 'intelligent design' hearing: "Echoes of Scopes Trial heard in 'intelligent design' hearing
Kansas panel eyeing school science change

By Nina J. Easton, Globe Staff | May 6, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The state's board of education yesterday kicked off a spirited four-day hearing on proposed changes to school science standards that could determine how evolution is taught to the children of Kansas -- five years after voters rebelled against a state school board that had sided with creationists.
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Employing a courtroom format similar to the famed 1925 Scopes Trial in Tennessee that pitted creationists against evolutionists, the dispute seemed similar -- only this time evolution's critics insist science, not religion, is their motivation.

Instead of relying on pens, these lawyers used PowerPoint projections in an auditiorium packed with local residents and journalists from around the world. The ''jury' consisted of three school board members who had already made up their minds -- a veterinarian, an elementary school teacher, and a former preschool operator. All three continued to make clear, as they have in the past, their personal doubts about evolutionary theory.

Yesterday's witnesses studiously avoided references to God and Christianity, flaunted their scientific credentials, and tossed around words like ''reasoned,' ''empirical,' and ''peer review' as they touted intelligent design theory. Intelligent design, a relatively new twist to criticisms of evolution, posits that certain aspects of the universe -- particularly the origins of life -- are too complex to explain through natural causes, and that scientists should be willing to attribute mysteries to an ''intelligent designer.' Critics say the theory is just creationism dressed up as science.

The proposed change to school standards ''does not introduce religion. It does not introduce creationism,' insisted William S. Harris, a professor of medicine credited with groundbreaking research on fish oil's role in combating heart disease and cofounder of a Kansas group, the Intelligent Design Network.

Scientists opposing changes to state standards boycotted the hearing, saying the session was rigged to showcase intelligent design theory. Harry McDonald, a retired biology teacher and president of Kansas Citizens for Science, called the hearings a ''farce.'

''These are whiney people who haven't done good science on this issue,' he said in an interview. ''They haven't gotten their work accepted through peer review, and so they go crying to the school board.'

Intelligent design advocates are actively promoting teaching their critiques of evolutionary theory in at least 16 states besides Kansas, though in yesterday's hearings they stressed they do not argue in favor of forcing the teaching of their own theory. They point to public opinion polls indicating that only a third of Americans believe Darwin's theories are supported by the evidence.

Opponents say intelligent design is stripped of references to God so as not to cross legal lines set in 1987 when the Supreme Court outlawed the teaching of creation science.

While mainstream scientists are refusing to send witnesses to the Topeka hearings, they tapped one of the Midwest's top civil rights lawyers, Pedro Irigonegaray, to question proponents of the intelligent design. In cross-examinations, Irigonegaray made the case that Kansas teachers and students already have the right to criticize and debate both evolution and intelligent design, that intelligent design advocates had religious motivations, and that reliance on intelligent design risked thwarting scientific inquiry.

The proposed changes, which are being promoted by a three-person school board subcommittee that was not part of the original revision process, would inject language into statewide standards that are critical of macroevolution theory, which refers to evolutionary changes that can result in new species.

Intelligent design advocates say they embrace microevolution -- evolutionary changes within a species. They also want students exposed to evidence challenging Darwin's theory that human and animals share ancestry, and arguments that the origins of life cannot be reduced to chemical reactions.

Both sides agree that the current school standards do not address origins of life, do allow intelligent design to be discussed, and do not refer to evolution as random or ''unguided.'

In 1999, a Kansas school board controlled by religious conservatives voted to downplay the importance of evolution in the standards. The following year, voters recast the school board with moderates back in control.

In media briefings conducted outside yesterday's ''courtroom,' science groups questioned the religious motivations of witnesses appearing on behalf of intelligent design.

Harris, the day's first witness, acknowledged his ''designer' would be ''the God of the Bible' and that his interest in school standards dates back to 1999, when antievolutionists were more openly called creationists. He also said that reading ''between the lines,' the standards embraced atheism and naturalism."