The Washington Times, Feb. 7, 2001, A6
   Kansas educators deny `naturalism' claims
   By Larry Witham
   THE WASHINGTON TIMES

   The panel of educators writing science standards for Kansas public
schools has rejected a complaint that the guidelines teach ``naturalism,''
which is a kind of atheism.

   ``These standards do not foster teaching naturalistic philosophy,''
said the statement. But, it said, ``Science itself is limited to natural
explanations.''

   The rebuttal, the latest exchange in a debate over teaching
evolution in Kansas public schools that flared in 1999, comes as the state
school board is expected to adopt the science standards in a vote Feb. 14.

   The 27-member science writing panel also suggested in their brief
statement that introducing students to an idea of science ``not anchored
in the natural world would make these {Kansas science}
standards the first to invite non-science into the science classroom.''

   Advocates of evolution use ``non-science'' to describe religious
explanations of nature.

   The public challenge, which recommended 10 changes in the Kansas
science standards, came last month from the Intelligent Design Network.
The Kansas group says natural science instruction often urges students to
reject all non-material influences in the world, such as God.

   The network, for example, has urged that the standards define
science as ``logical explanations'' of patterns in nature instead of
``natural explanations,'' which rules out non-material forces such as
divine intelligence.

   They want the standards to soften claims of scientists by saying
``many'' rather than all scientists agree on something.

   In a fourth-grade lesson where students learn the difference between
a ``natural'' and ``designed'' object, the group said students should be
introduced to the idea that ``some'' scientists think humans are designed
objects.

   A petition backing the recommendations has been signed by 95 persons,
including 50 with doctorate degrees.

   ``Our proposal is focused on one issue,'' said John Calvert, a
lawyer and trained geologist who is president of the network. ``It seeks
only to stop the teaching or preaching of naturalism to our children in
the area of origins science,'' he said.

   The group defines origins science as science that ``deals with the
origin of the universe {{}openbracket}and{{}closebracket} or life and its
diversity.''

   The Kansas School Board in 1999 was dominated by social
conservatives, who voted to delete large-scale evolution and an ancient
cosmos from the state science standards for student tests.

   Conservatives called this a ``local option'' approach that would
allow schools to avoid offending Christian parents who taught their children
a literal view of Genesis _ a six-day divine creation less than 10,000 years ago.
In the fall elections, the evolution-creation flap resulted in the defeat of
three conservatives on the Kansas School Board, which ordered a return to
the conventional science standards. These were set out in the 1996
National Science Education Standards, crafted by science educators in
Washington.

   The 1999 fight was led by Bible creationists who advocated a ``young
earth,'' but after their retreat the ``intelligent design'' group took the
lead by saying students should be given a broader definition of science.

   The National Academy of Science has called appeals to intelligence
or design in nature ``creationism,'' since conventional science says that
only laws and chance operate in nature.

   To rebut the charge that natural science expels God or the
supernatural from human reality, the Kansas panel said that the definition
of science in the Kansas standards gives it a humble standing in terms of
what it can explain.

   ``It does not propose or even suggest that ALL
phenomena result from only natural causes,'' the panel wrote in its
statement.

   The Kansas science standards debate exploded during the presidential
primaries, when George W. Bush said he supported national science standards
as well as control by state and local school boards.

   Mr. Bush's campaign science adviser, Robert Walker, a former
Pennsylvania lawmaker who was chairman of the House Science Committee, has
avoided comments on the debate over evolution in science education.

   Mr. Bush has promoted testing students under national standards,
which likely would include the National Science Education Standards. They
state that evolution is one of five ``unifying concepts and processes in
science.''