Doubting Darwin

[Guest guest]

The evolution of a fight to the end

In Kansas, God and science are going toe to toe againBy Alex Johnson

Reporter

MSNBC

Updated: 8:11 p.m. ET May 4, 2005Defenders of Charles Darwin's theory

of natural selection are boycotting four days of hearings — beginning

Thursday — over the science curriculum in Kansas, where the state

Board of Education is made up of a majority of conservatives critical

of what they see as errors in the standard theory.

 

Mainstream science organizations spurned invitations to participate,

dismissing the hearings as an effort "to attack and undermine

science," in the view of the American Association for the Advancement

of Science, which publishes the journal Science.

 

The hearings, which run through Saturday and resume again on May 12,

will resemble a trial. Three school board members will hear arguments

from witnesses on both sides. The panelists — all three of whom have

said they have doubts about evolution — will report to the full

school board, which is expected to approve new science standards next

month.

 

Spreading across the nation

The Darwin defenders acknowledged that their boycott would leave

opponents of evolution unchallenged, but they said they hoped to

avoid the publicity that a media-saturated argument over science and

the Bible could stir up.

 

Nonetheless, a showdown is inevitable. Efforts to compel schools to

teach or, at least, give equal time to the purported errors of

evolution are underway in nearly two dozen states, led by two groups

of activists united by their belief in a supreme being who set

history in motion.

 

Newsweek: Doubting Darwin

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6884904/site/newsweek/

 

One group is made up of religious conservatives who espouse the

traditional biblical account in which God created the world in six

days. The Supreme Court, however, barred the teaching of creationism

in a 1987 decision striking down a Louisiana law that said evolution

could be taught only if "creation science" was also taught. So today,

the movement has shifted to the campaign by intellectual thinkers,

some of them scientists, who argue that life on the planet is too

complex to have come about by chance.

 

That supposition is called "intelligent design." Its leaders say that

as a matter of science their principles are not religious, but

mainstream scientists have labeled them Creationism Lite, and

Christian activists have latched onto them as an alternative stick

with which to whack Darwin.

 

Publishers call the tune

For mainstream scientists, the Kansas debate is just a skirmish. The

real battles will come in the next few years as schools adopt new

textbooks.

 

Intelligent design campaigns are being pursued in both California and

Texas. Their school boards have long dictated the content of many of

the nation's textbooks because of the clout they have with publishers

owing to their enormous student populations. Publishers routinely

tailor their textbooks to the tastes of review boards in those states

to avoid the devastating prospect that a multimillion-dollar new

edition could be rejected.

 

"They call the tune, and the publishers dance," Diane Ravitch, an

assistant education secretary in the administration of former

President George H.W. Bush, testified before Congress two years ago.

 

The result, Ravitch complained, was the creation of "a convenient

bottleneck where pressure groups from across the political spectrum" —

including opponents of evolution, she said — "can intimidate

publishers and get them to revise their books."

 

Fast Forward Evolution in schools

The Kansas debate comes as many states are gearing up to accept bids

on new science textbooks:

— 2005: Alabama, Florida, Illinois*, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, West

Virginia

— 2006: Arkansas, California, Illinois*, Nevada, Utah*

— 2007: Georgia, Illinois*, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, South

Carolina, Utah*

(* Illinois and Utah review texts in most or all subjects annually.)

 

Source: Association of American Publishers

 

 

 

Ravitch's testimony came as Texas was going through a wrenching

review of its biology texts. Those books were introduced into Texas

classrooms this year. Mainstream scientists fought off major

concessions on evolution this time, but the battle is being continued

in the Legislature, where a bill is under consideration that would

give the state Board of Education — which is dominated by Republican

social conservatives — even more control over the content of texts.

 

In California, meanwhile, a case awaits in U.S. District Court filed

by parents who claim that they were denied their civil rights when a

school district near Sacramento rejected their proposal that schools

should be required to teach the purported flaws of evolution.

 

While California's textbook battles have usually been fought by

groups pushing more traditionally liberal causes, such as gender

equality and multicultural history, the lawsuit signals that the

evolution dispute is likely to become a hot-button issue there, as

well — just in time to begin picking up steam ahead of next year's

acceptance of bids for new science textbooks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7736155/

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