Witnesses criticize how evolution is taught

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FULL COVERAGE

EVOLUTION DEBATE

Day-by-day coverage of the evolution hearings in Kansas:

The evolution of a fight to the end

Day 4: Evolution hearings end on bitter note

Day 3: Critics say creationism is true agenda

Day 2: Groans and grumblings at evolution hearing

Day 1: Evolution education criticized

Live survey: What should be taught?

Two competing proposals
Last year, the board asked a committee of educators to recommend changes but eventually received two competing proposals. One, the majority plan, would continue the existing policy of treating evolution as a key concept for students to learn. The other, the minority plan, suggests more criticism of evolution.

Evolution says that species change over time and that such changes can lead to new species. Thus, different species, ranging from humans to monkeys to mice, branched out from common ancestors over the course of many millions of years. Intelligent design says some features of the natural world, because of their well-ordered complexities, are best explained by referring to the workings of an intelligent being.

Some science groups and many scientists contend the board is being pushed to adopt language that would enshrine tenets of intelligent design in the standards — even if that concept isn't mentioned by name. But intelligent design advocates say that's not true and argue that they're only trying to give students a more balanced view of evolution.

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"Public science education is an institution," Harris testified. "It appoints a teacher to be a referee among ideas ... Nobody would tolerate a football game where the referee was obviously biased."

Is criticism really stifled?
Irigonegaray repeatedly attacked Harris' assertion that the majority's proposed standards stifle criticism of evolution in the classroom.

Irigonegaray asked him, referring to the majority proposal: "Where in the standards does it say teachers and students cannot discuss criticism of evolution?"

Harris replied: "It doesn't say that. I think it's implicit."

Charles Thaxton, who lives near Atlanta but is a visiting assistant professor of chemistry at the Charles University in the Czech Republic, presented another criticism of evolution. He testified that there's no evidence that life formed from a primordial soup.

The "primordial soup" issue often comes up in the debate over teaching evolution, but scientific theorists have pointed out that evolutionary theory focuses on biological change over time rather than the chemical origins of life. During the hearing, Irigonegaray asked Thaxton whether he accepted the theory that humans and apes had a common ancestor.

"Personally, I do not," Thaxton said. "I'm not an expert on this. I don't study this."

Minority report
Later in the day, Jonathan Wells, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, concentrated on raising questions about evolution as it developed from the work of 19th-century British scientist Charles Darwin. Wells said that molecular biology, the study of animal and human embryos and the fossil record conflict with evolutionary claims.

Irigonegaray asked Wells whether only a minority of scientists agreed with his views about evolution. Wells acknowledged that was true.

"I enjoy being in the minority," Wells said.

Irigonegaray replied, "More than being right?"

Wells answered: "I prefer to be right. If that means I'm in the minority, then so be it."

Wells also acknowledged that he has been a member of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church since the 1970s.

"It's a typical ploy of my critics," Wells said later. "A person's religious affiliation is irrelevant in this."

Instead of testifying at the first hearing, representatives of national and state science groups held the first of a planned series of news conferences at the Statehouse. On display Thursday night was a wheelbarrow and two crates full of copies of scientific journals — to suggest evolution is well-documented.

“The only way we can make our point is to stop playing their game,” said Harry McDonald, president of Kansas Citizens for Science.

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