http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/05/02/life.evolution.reut/index.html

Evolution on trial in Kansas May 2, 2005 Posted: 12:20 PM EDT (1620 GMT)

TOPEKA, Kansas (Reuters) -- Evolution is going on trial in Kansas.

Eighty years after a famed courtroom battle in Tennessee pitted religious
beliefs about the origins of life against the theories of British scientist
Charles Darwin, Kansas is holding its own hearings on what school children
should be taught about how life on Earth began.

The Kansas Board of Education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style
hearings to begin Thursday in Topeka. More than two dozen witnesses will
give testimony and be subject to cross-examination, with the majority
expected to argue against teaching evolution.

Many prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as founded
on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings, which opponents say
are part of a larger nationwide effort by religious interests to gain
control over government.

"I feel like I'm in a time warp here," said Topeka attorney Pedro
Irigonegaray who has agreed to defend evolution as valid science. "To
debate evolution is similar to debating whether the Earth is round. It is
an absurd proposition."

Widespread debate
Irigonegaray's opponent will be attorney John Calvert, managing director of
the Intelligent Design Network, a Kansas organization that argues the Earth
was created through intentional design rather than random organism
evolution.

The group is one of many that have been formed over the last several years
to challenge the validity of evolutionary concepts and seek to open the
schoolroom door to ideas that humans and other living creatures are too
intricately designed to have come about randomly.

While many call themselves creationists, who believe that God was the
ultimate designer of all life, they are stopping short of saying
creationism should be taught in schools.

"We're not against evolution," said Calvert. "But there is a lot of
evidence that suggests that life is the product of intelligence. I think it
is inappropriate for the state to prejudge the question whether we are the
product of design or just an occurrence."

Debates over evolution are currently being waged in more than a dozen
states, including Texas where one bill would allowing for creationism to be
taught alongside evolution.

Kansas has been grappling with the issue for years, garnering worldwide
attention in 1999 when the state school board voted to downplay evolution
in science classes.

Subsequent elections altered the membership of the school board and led to
renewed backing for evolution instruction in 2001. But elections last year
gave religious conservatives a 6-4 majority and the board is now finalizing
new science standards, which will guide teachers about how and what to
teach students.

The current proposal pushed by conservatives would not eliminate evolution
entirely from instruction, nor would it require creationism be taught, but
it would encourage teachers to discuss various viewpoints and eliminate
core evolution claims as required curriculum.

School board member Sue Gamble, who describes herself as a moderate, said
she will not attend the hearings, which she calls "a farce." She said the
argument over evolution is part of a larger agenda by Christian
conservatives to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the
United States.

"I think it is a desire by a minority... to establish a theocracy, both
within Kansas and growing to a national level," Gamble said.

Old Testament teachings
Some evolution detractors say that the belief that humans, animals and
organisms evolved over long spans of time is inconsistent with Biblical
teachings that life was created by God. The Bible's Old Testament says that
God created life on Earth including the first humans, Adam and Eve, in six
days.

Detractors also argue that evolution is invalid science because it cannot
be tested or verified and say it is inappropriately being indoctrinated
into education and discouraging consideration of alternatives.

But defenders say that evolution is not totally inconsistent with Biblical
beliefs, and it provides a foundational concept for understanding many
areas of science, including genetics and molecular biology.

The theory of evolution came to prominence in 1859 when Darwin
published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," and it
was the subject of a 1925 trial in Tennessee in which teacher John Thomas
Scopes was accused of violating a ban against teaching evolution.

Kansas School Board chairman Steve Abrams said the hearings are less about
religion than they are about seeking the best possible education for the
state's children.

"If students ... do not understand the weaknesses of evolutionary theory as
well as the strengths, a grave injustice is being done to them," Abrams
said.

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