Group

Here is the first of two older articles I am posting on the 1999 Kansas
Education Board evolution controversy. The first is the October 1999
commentary by Scientific American editor John Rennie in retaliation
against the Board *increasing* the curriculum content of evolution to be
taught in Kansas schools, but not by as much as the evolutionists wanted
[http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/jw_kansasoped101499.htm], in which
Rennie effectively called on college and universities admissions boards to
deny places to innocent Kansas students:

"If you are on the admissions board of a college or university
anywhere in this country, please contact the Kansas State Board of
Education or the office of Governor Bill Graves (785-296-3232 or
email, governor@...). Make it clear that in light of the newly
lowered education standards in Kansas, the qualifications of any
students applying from that state in the future will have to be
considered very carefully. Send a clear message to the parents in
Kansas that this bad decision carries consequences for their
children. If kids in Kansas aren't being taught properly about
science, they won't be able to keep up with children taught
competently elsewhere. It's called survival of the fittest. Maybe the
Board of Education needs to learn about natural selection
firsthand."

It was, as Mike Behe noted, a "chilling suggestion of John Rennie, editor
of Scientific American, that Kansas schoolchildren be held hostage until
the board acquiesces" (see tagline). And it is irrespective of whether their
college or university course had anything to do with evolution (e.g. biology,
etc).

If some CED members agree with me that Rennie's editorial, "A Total
Eclipse of Reason" was aptly named, they should wait until they see the
second article following shortly!

Steve

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Scientific American.
October 1999
Commentary

by John Rennie

A Total Eclipse of Reason

Kansas turned out the lights more permanently by endorsing ignorance
of evolution. This past August took me to Munich for a viewing of the
total solar eclipse. Years of casual study about total eclipses could not
prepare me for the merciless beauty of our sun as an unfathomable
black disk ringed in angry white fire. And the experience reminded me
of how thin the veneer of human rationality could be: standing in a field
under the weird end-of-the-world light, I felt some of the historical fear
of those events, as though monsters might suddenly claw their way out
of the earth to carry us away. But then the bright light of reason
returned, and I got over it.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the Kansas State Board of Education was
trying to turn out the lights more permanently. Acting out of a covert
social agenda, it decided that teachers could omit mentioning those
inconvenient ideas, evolution and the big bang.

This is just an embarrassment. And a betrayal of the majority in Kansas,
who I believe know better. At the end of the 20th century, for an
allegedly responsible governing body to endorse ignorance of evolution
and modern cosmology as a more appropriate way to teach science is a
grotesque perversion.

The reasoning--I gag at calling it that, but carry on--behind this
decision is that evolution and the big bang are just theories, not facts.
As such, other explanations for how life and the universe came to be
are not only equally valid, they're equally scientific. Never mind that
biologists and astrophysicists find overwhelming evidence in support of
these ideas. They must be biased.

Why stop at evolution and cosmology, though? Let's make sure that
the schoolkids of Kansas get a really first- rate education by loosening
up the teaching standards for other so-called scientific ideas that are,
after all, just theories. The atomic theory, for example. The theory of
relativity. Heck, the Copernican theory--do we really know that the
universe doesn't revolve around the earth? It sure looked that way
during the eclipse.

The irony is that so many people are worried about the state of science
education in this country for the wrong reasons. As W. Wayt Gibbs
reports in this issue in "The False Crisis in Science Education,"
although many policymakers are in a dither about poor science
teaching leaving the U.S. uncompetitive, little suggests that American
students are doing badly at all. The real crisis is not that science is
being taught poorly; it's that meddlers in Kansas and elsewhere are
stopping science from being taught, period.

Joking about flat-earthers in Kansas is easy. Ranting about it, easier
still. But I'm calling on educators and anyone else who can to act.

If you are on the admissions board of a college or university anywhere
in this country, please contact the Kansas State Board of Education or
the office of Governor Bill Graves (785-296-3232 or email,
governor@...). Make it clear that in light of the newly lowered
education standards in Kansas, the qualifications of any students
applying from that state in the future will have to be considered very
carefully. Send a clear message to the parents in Kansas that this bad
decision carries consequences for their children.

If kids in Kansas aren't being taught properly about science, they won't
be able to keep up with children taught competently elsewhere. It's
called survival of the fittest. Maybe the Board of Education needs to
learn about natural selection firsthand.

---
JOHN RENNIE is editor in chief of Scientific American.

---

(Rennie J., "A Total Eclipse of Reason," Scientific American, October
1999)
==================================================

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"Last August the Kansas board balked. Led by board member Steve
Abrams, a doctor of veterinary medicine, a 64 majority declined to adopt
the academy's standards on speculative aspects of Darwin's theory,
although students' knowledge of `microevolution'--small changes caused
by natural selection that can be observed in the laboratory--would still be
tested. That minimal act of defiance triggered an explosion of scorn and
rage, whose intensity can best be gauged by the chilling suggestion of John
Rennie, editor of Scientific American, that Kansas schoolchildren be held
hostage until the board acquiesces. He urged college admissions officers to
`Make it clear that in light of the newly lowered education standards in
Kansas, the qualifications of any students applying from that state in the
future will have to be considered very carefully. Send a clear message to
the parents in Kansas that this bad decision carries consequences for their
children. If kids in Kansas aren't being taught properly about science, they
won't be able to keep up with children taught competently elsewhere. It's
called survival of the fittest. Maybe the Board of Education needs to learn
about natural selection firsthand.' Rennie's threats aren't an isolated
overreaction. An influential segment of academia, with sympathizers in
the press and elsewhere, regards public acceptance of Darwinian evolution
as strictly nonnegotiable. Even First Amendment guarantees of freedom of
religion take a back seat to the requirement for everyone to affirm
evolution." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Hostages: A decision in Kansas to
question evolution dogma has given rise to hysteria and intolerance,"
American Spectator, December 1, 1999. Access Research Network,
November 8, 2001. http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_darwinshostages.htm)
Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol). http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Moderator: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CreationEvolutionDesign
& http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProblemsOfEvolution/ Book: "Problems
of Evolution" http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/PoE00ToC.html
& http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/pe00cont.html
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