At 12:15 PM 8/12/99 -0700, Robert Cleland wrote:
> I shouldn't have been surprised by all the hype concerning the
>action of the Kansas Board of Education, but all the same, I was
>surprised. The PI this morning headlined it's article "Kansas bans
>teaching of evolution...". If my information is correct, what KBE did was
>to decide, against the advice of their advisory committee, that evolution
>would not be included on their state-wide tests. I doubt that this will
>actually have any major impact.

More properly the headline should've stated that Kansas allows
local school districts to ban the teaching of evolution.

(which their action does - or at least the members of the Board
seem to think it does, if they're wrong perhaps you'll excuse
me for accepting their statements at face value?)

> With state tests, what counts is what IS included, not what is
>left out, since they don't begin to cover the totality of the subject. If
>they had decreed that "creation science" would be included on the tests,
>it would have had a huge impact!

The outright teaching of "creation science" is still held to be
unconstitutional, and the board was to clever to cross that line.
No point - it would've been tossed and it is unlikely the Supreme
Court would accept a case on an issue which was so recently decided
by them.

However, this makes open various paths which scientific creationists
have been exploring since their somewhat recent setback (it should
be remembered that the invention of "creation science" was due to
earlier court decisions banning the teaching of religion as science,
they're now trying to get around the setback that the SC ruled that
"creation science" is really religion despite their claims to the
contrary).

One path, for instance, is to switch to textbooks which are sanitized
of any mention of evolution, or which denigrate evolution, or which
attempt to establish that there's no evidence for so-called "macro"
evolution.

In some states at least, the State Board determines which textbooks
are available for purchase by local school districts. While I don't
know if this is true in Kansas, if so the board has real power to
at least diminish, if not entirely eliminate, the teaching of
evolution in public schools in Kansas by eliminating textbooks which
mention the subject (based on the fact that no testing on that
aspect of biology will occur at the state level).

And, of course, it's all about politics, Robert. Proponents don't
intend to stop at the Kansas Board of Education.

If this step doesn't bother you, would you mind telling us what
step might?

> High school biology courses are not standardized, and vary
>greatly, from teacher to teacher, depending on the teacher's interests,
>and the general guidelines set by the state boards of education.

In some states, however, textbooks ARE standardized. There are
"creation science" textbooks, used in non-public schools. There are
also textbooks sanitized of any mention of evolution, poised to
replace standard texts.

....

> What really does make a difference is the textbooks,

Thank you kindly!

> since so many
>HS science teachers really don't know very much biology, but get a lot of
>their information, and even their teaching outline from the textbook. Two
>states, Texas and California, determine what HS biology texts there will
>be, and what will be in them. No publisher will publish a biology text
>that doesn't pass muster by these two states. The real battle is making
>certain that neither of these two states requires that evolution be
>eliminated from the textbooks. If either did that, it would really change
>HS biology! There have been battles about evolution in biology texts in
>both states, and so far, evolution has won.

OK, I'll agree with this statement. If TX and/or CA refuses to buy
textbooks which cover evolution, then life will suck.

Since you believe the Kansas action is being over-hyped, please recall
that there was AMPLE coverage of the TX/CA textbook battles in the
press, at least in the Oregonian there was a ton of it. I've seen
two articles about the Kansas decision thus far, hardly seems overhyped.

As I mentioned above, it's really all about politics. The impact on
the politics around science education might well be far more important
than any actual impact on students in Kansas/

> I would take with some caution the figures on the percent of the
>public that does not believe in evolution. It is my experience that some
>of these people simply don't know what "evolution" is

Ensuring that people remain ignorant is just one goal of "scientific
creationists"...

>, and when asked more
>specific questions (e.g. did birds come from flying dinosaurs?) they often
>will give an evolutionary answer.

Hmmm...one considered by many scientists to be wrong, eh? :)

> The fascination of kids with dinosaurs, and their interest in the
>dinosaur to bird development is something we should exploit to bring home
>to them that change is possible.

Can't disagree with this.

> Incidentally, having grown up in southern Indiana, and having a
>grandfather who was a fundamentalist preacher, I have some feeling for how
>deep this belief is in the bible.

My father's roots are in southern Illinois, and he's non-religious,
vehemently so, based on his childhood experiences in that very
bible-oriented culture.

My mother's roots were in Brooklyn, and she's the reason my sister
grew up so deeply religious and the reason she's now an assistant
pastor in a fundamentalist church.

Go figure :)



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
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Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
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