TOPEKA CAPITAL JOURNAL, January 15, 2001, Monday

Failed experiment
 
 

    In 1999, the Kansas State Board of Education rewrote science standards.
Now it may be about to rewrite history.

    The new board, bolstered by several new science-minded members elected
last November and sworn in on Tuesday, is moving quickly to put the failed
experiment in the past. After a two-hour debate at its meeting last week,
the board now appears poised to reverse the controversial policy the old
board created in August 1999.

  The board at that time had removed evolution and the Big Bang from state
science standards, leaving statewide tests silent on the issue and leaving
it up to local districts to decide whether to even teach evolution.

    The policy, instituted by board members with a creationist bent, ran
counter to recommendations by a high-powered committee of science
professionals --- and made Kansas an international laughingstock.

    Much of the laughter was unwarranted, being based on misinterpretations
of what the state board had actually done. But the damage was done --- and
the tone was set for the elections last November in which moderates retook
the board. They are expected to reverse the policy at their meeting Feb.
13-14.

    If it puts this behind us, it won't come soon enough.

    Most observers were just baffled by it all. Many people don't believe
that creationism --- or some form of intelligent design beliefs --- and
evolution are mutually exclusive. If God created Earth, is he or she not
smart enough to have thought of evolution too?

    Well, we'll never settle that. The only thing that remains is to do our
best to repair the damage this has done to the state's image.

    It probably won't happen, but the state board's corrective action next
month should get the same amount of publicity as the former board's August
1999 action did.

    If nothing else, the state's image ought to be allowed to evolve to its
former self.