School Boards, Voters Battle Over Intelligent Design, Evolution

Pennsylvania’s voters swept out of office eight school district board members yesterday who supported telling students that intelligent design was an alternative to evolution. A day earlier, the Kansas State School Board voted to allow criticism of e

Pennsylvania’s voters swept out of office eight school district board members yesterday who supported telling students that intelligent design was an alternative to evolution. A day earlier, the Kansas State School Board voted to allow criticism of evolution.

All eight board members of the Dover School District had agreed with the school district’s policy that required ninth-grade teachers in a biology class to read a four paragraph statement stating that evolution theory is “not a fact,” that it has “gaps,” that intelligent design is a scientific alternative, and that students should learn more about it by reading a pro-intelligent design book. A ninth member of the board also supported intelligent design but was not up for re-election.

Richard Thompson, who represented the Dover Area School Board in the recent trial over intelligent design in federal court, says that despite the election results, intelligent design would not be deterred.

“This is an idea whose time has come. And the vagaries of the political landscape in particular localities are not going to stop the progress,” he said according to USA Today. Thompson is the president of the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian legal group based in Michigan.

Proponents of intelligent design say that their arguments for theory are based solely on observable evidence from nature, and that it does not rely on the biblical account of creation in Genesis. The theory states that certain aspects of nature are so complex that they could not have come about by evolution alone, but that the evidence points to an intelligent designer, although they say that science cannot identify who or what that is.

The majority of science organizations, however, have not accepted intelligent design as a valid scientific theory. Many critics have said that it is creationism in disguise and does not have scientific evidence to support it.

Following the end of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case over the controversial theory last week, the judge for the landmark federal trial said his ruling would weigh whether or not intelligent design is religious or scientific.

Kansas Votes to Include Criticism of Evolution in Curriculum

The Kansas State School Board was also involved in a debate over evolution on Tuesday. It voted 6-4 to teach students that there were doubts about Darwinian evolution theory.

“We can have an opportunity to have critical analysis of evolution. Prior, it was taught as dogma,” said Dr. Steve Abrahms, the Kansas School Board chairman, according CBS affiliate KWCH.

Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif., told CBS Radio News that the new standards were not good science.

"They are not conducive to good education in the state of Kansas, and it sets a very bad precedent for other states which will be revising their standards in the coming years," she said. "We can predict this fight happening elsewhere."

Another board member said she was “saddened” by the response to the curriculum change.

“I'm very saddened by the fact that Kansas is, frankly, being mocked, when in fact we have one of the most outstanding educational systems in the United States, but yet, by doing things like this, we are simply looked at, quite frankly, as yokels," board member Janet Waugh told CBS Radio News.

The issue of what should be taught in Kansas schools has been shifting back and forth depending on the makeup of the state school board. In 1999, the school board sought to introduce the controversy over Darwinian evolution into the curriculum. In 2000, new board members took the opposed teaching it. In 2004, the current board supporting the new standards was elected.

According to the Washington Post, some of the current board members have expressed views consistent with intelligent design.