The
By Ben Fenton, in
WITH strained good manners in the
cloistered atmosphere of St Michael's Episcopal church,
Kenneth Miller, a biology professor, is defending evolution against the
arguments of a casually-dressed young man wearing a sticker that identifies him
only as "Mark".
The audience watches the interplay like a
Politics in
The state splits five to three in support of scientific
orthodoxy but the size of that minority of Christian social conservatives makes
this meeting and dozens like it far more than a theoretical discourse: they are
part of election campaigns being fought fervently across the state. Controversy
sprang up last year when the Kansas State Board of Education, an elected body
that controls every aspect of schooling, ordained new "standards" for
science teaching that critics say wrote Darwin out of the curriculum.
The standards tell teachers what children must know for the
end-of-year exams. With growing emphasis on results, critics say there is great
pressure to teach only subjects in the standards. The Board appointed a panel
of experts to write the standards, but heavily edited the resulting document,
removing all references to
That triumph of Christian conservatives over the curriculum
provoked liberals and centrist members of the Republican party,
which dominates the state. Now, with a Republican primary due on Aug 1 for one
of four
Greg Musil, campaigning for the liberal wing, says the
board embarrassed the state and could harm its economy. He asks: "Who
wants to invest somewhere where the workforce is ignorant of science everyone
else takes for granted?" Phill Kline, a conservative candidate endorsed by
the same creation scientists who advised the board, avoids talking about
evolution at all, except to criticise Mr Musil for treating the voters as "country
bumpkins".
In the middle, hoping to sweep up moderates alienated by
both sides, is Gary Morsch,
a GP who believes in the theory of "intelligent design", which
accepts an evolutionary process but says God originated and guided it. He says:
"Sometimes an idea becomes so big and so widespread that it should be
taught in schools alongside the orthodoxy." In the multiplicity of
churches and community centres that dot the flatlands
of
"I wonder," mused Timmy Taylor, a retired farmer
who had travelled 40 miles to St Michael's from his
home near the federal penitentiary at
23 June 2000: Fossil of tiny flying reptile ruffles
scientists' feathers
5 November 1999: Teacher was 'sacked for Bible attack'
12 October 1999: Big Bang silenced by Kansas school board
6 April 1998: God and science slug it out on Internet