NOTE: The attached Guardian article indicates that
the future of science will be defended perhaps only by a
political movement to re-win the separation of church
and state -- and to win student minds to rational science 
once again -- we may have to see protest resignations
by teachers, defiance of medieval-like laws, and even the
handing out of dissenting leaflets explaining science
all over again to students at the school entraces, done
over the heads of fearful and superstitious authorities, 
forcing a discussion by students *outside* the classroom, 
if the teaching of it cannot be preserved within the 
classroom. Academic freedom is again at stake. America
must not become a national "Salem." -- Bob Fink

======================================================
GUARDIAN --UK -- Monday February 7, 2005

		RELIGIOUS RIGHT FIGHTS SCIENCE 
		   FOR THE HEART OF AMERICA
		------------------------------
     Creationists take their challenge to evolution theory
                     into the classroom 

"...this is really an attack on all of science. Evolution
is just the weak link."

By Suzanne Goldenberg in Kansas City


Al Frisby has spent the better part of his life in rooms filled with
rebellious teenagers, but the last years have been particularly
trying for the high school biology teacher. He has met parents
who want him to teach that God created Eve out of Adam's rib,
and then adjusted the chromosomes to make her a woman,
and who insist that Noah invited dinosaurs aboard the ark. And it
is getting more difficult to keep such talk out of the classroom. 

"Somewhere along the line, the students have been told the
theory of evolution is not valid," he said. "In the last few years,
I've had students question my teaching about cell classification
and genetics, and there have been a number of comments from
students saying: 'Didn't God do that'?" In Kansas, the
geographical centre of America, the heart of the American
heartland, the state-approved answer might soon be Yes. In the
coming weeks, state educators will decide on proposed
curriculum changes for high school science put forward by
subscribers to the notion of "intelligent design", a modern version
of creationism. If the religious right has its way, and it is a
powerful force in Kansas, high school science teachers could be
teaching creationist material by next September, charting an
important victory in America's modern-day revolt against
evolutionary science. 

Legal debate

Similar classroom confrontations between God and science are
under way in 17 states, according to the National Centre for
Science Education. In Missouri, state legislators are drafting a
bill laying down that science texts contain a chapter on so-called
alternative theories to evolution. Textbooks in Arkansas and
Alabama contain disclaimers on evolution, and in a Wisconsin
school district, teachers are required to instruct their students in
the "scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory".
Last month, a judge in Georgia ordered a school district to
remove stickers on school textbooks that warned: "This textbook
contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact,
regarding the origin of living things." 

For the conservative forces engaged in the struggle for America's
soul, the true battleground is public education, the laboratory of
the next generation, and an opportunity for the religious right to
effect lasting change on popular culture. Officially, the teaching
of creationism has been outlawed since 1987 when the supreme
court ruled that the inclusion of religious material in science
classes in public teaching was unconstitutional. In recent years,
however, opponents of evolution have regrouped, challenging
science education with the doctrine of "intelligent design" which
has been carefully stripped of all references to God and religion.
Unlike traditional creationism, which posits that God created the
earth in six days, proponents of intelligent design assert that the
workings of this planet are too complex to be ascribed to
evolution. There must have been a designer working to a plan -
that is, a creator. 

In their campaign to persuade parents in Kansas to welcome the
new version of creationism into the classroom, subscribers to
intelligent design have appealed to a sense of fair play, arguing
that it would be in their children's interest to be exposed to all
schools of thought on the earth's origins. "We are looking for
science standards that would be more informative, that would
open the discussion about origins, rather than close it," said John
Calvert, founder of the Intelligent Design network, the prime
mover in the campaign to discredit the teaching of evolution in
Kansas. 

Other supporters of intelligent design go further, saying evolution
is as much an article of faith as creationism. "Certainly there are
clear religious implications," said William Harris, a research
biochemist and co-founder of the design network in Kansas.
"There are creation myths on both sides. Which one do you
teach?" For Mr. Harris, an expert on fish oils and prevention of
heart disease at the premier teaching hospital in Kansas City, the
very premise of evolution was intolerable. He describes his
conversion as a graduate student many years ago almost as an
epiphany. "It hit me that if monkeys are supposed to be so close
to us as relatives then what explains the incredible gap between
monkeys and humans. I had a realisation that there was a vast
chasm between the two types of animals, and the standard
explanation just didn't fit." 

Other scientists on the school board's advisory committee see no
clash in values between religion and science. "Prominent
conservative Christians, evangelical Christians, have found no
inherent conflict between an evolutionary understanding of the
history of life, and an orthodox understanding of the theology of
creation," said Keith Miller, a geologist at Kansas State
University, who describes himself as a practicing Christian. 

But in Kansas, as in the rest of America, it would seem a slim
majority continue to believe God created the heaven and the
earth. During the past five years, subscribers to intelligent design
have assembled a roster of influential supporters in the state,
including a smattering of people with PhDs, such as Mr Harris,
to lend their cause a veneer of scientific credibility. When
conservative Republicans took control of the Kansas State school
board last November, the creationists seized their chance,
installing supporters on the committee reviewing the high school
science curriculum. 

The suggested changes under consideration seem innocuous at
first. "A minor addition makes it clear that evolution is a theory
and not a fact," says the proposed revision to the 8th grade
science standard. However, Jack Krebs, a high school maths
teacher on the committee drafting the new standards, argues that
the campaign against evolution amounts to a stealth assault on
the entire body of scientific thought. "There are two planes
where they are attacking. One is evolution, and one is science
itself," he said. 

"They believe that the naturalistic bias of science is in fact
atheistic, and that if we don't change science, we can't believe in
God. And so this is really an attack on all of science. Evolution
is just the weak link." 

It would certainly seem so in Kansas. At the first of a series of
public hearings on the new course material, the audience was
equally split between the defenders of established science, and
the anti-evolution rebels. The breakdown has educators worried.
With the religious right now in control of the Kansas State school
board, the circumstances favour the creationists. 

In a crowded high school auditorium, biology teachers,
mathematicians, a veterinarian, and a high school student made
passionate speeches on the need for cold, scientific detachment,
and the damage that would be done to the state's reputation and
biotechnology industry if Kansas became known as a haven for
creationists. They were countered by John James, who warned
that the teaching of evolution led to nihilism, and to the gates of
Auschwitz. "Are we producing little Kansas Nazis?" he asked.
But the largest applause of the evening was reserved for a
silver-haired gentleman in a navy blue blazer. "I have a question:
if man comes from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Why
do you waste time teaching something in science class that is not
scientific?" he thundered. 

Science teachers believe that the genteel questioning of the
intelligent design movements masks a larger project to discredit
an entire body of rational thought. If the Kansas State school
board allows science teachers to question evolution, where will
it stop? Will religious teachers bring their beliefs into the
classroom? 

"They are trying to create a climate where anything an individual
teacher wants to include in science class can be considered
science," said Harry McDonald, a retired biology teacher and
president of Kansas Citizens for Science Education. "They want
to redefine science." 

Religious right

Young Earth creationism 

God created the Earth, and all the species on it, in six days,
6,000 years ago 

Old Earth creationism 

The Earth is 4.5bn years old, but God created each living
organism on the planet, although not necessarily in six days 

Intelligent design 

Emerged as a theory in 1989. Maintains that evolution is a theory,
not a fact, and that Earth's complexity can be explained only by
the idea of an intelligent designer - or a creator.
=======================================

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