Or to use another film reference, it’s back to the future once again in Kansas, where the state board of education is set to have a controversy over the teaching of evolution for the, what, 4th or 5th time in the last 13 years? This time the fight is over a set of proposed national standards for science teaching:
Kansas is now among 26 states helping to draft new science standards alongside the National Research Council, with the goal of creating standard, nationwide guidelines. A first draft became public last month, and the Kansas board is scheduled to hear an update on Tuesday.
Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker said a final draft could be ready by the end of the year, and the board would then decide whether to make those standards the state’s standards.
But the decision may not be made until after the November election — in which five of the 10 board seats will be on the ballot.
Board member Ken Willard, a Hutchinson Republican, said he’s troubled by the first draft of the proposed standards. In the past, Willard has supported standards for Kansas with material that questions evolution; guidelines that he and other conservatives approved in 2005 were supplanted by the current ones.
Willard said the draft embraces naturalism and secular humanism, which precludes God or another supreme being in considering how the universe works. He said he intends to raise the issue Tuesday.
“That’s going to be very problematic,” Willard told The Associated Press in an interview. “They are preferring one religious position over another.”
Science standards that embrace naturalism — what a concept!
9 comments
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Sastra
June 11, 2012 at 12:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My feelings are, as usual, mixed. I am simultaneously frustrated and pleased. I do so love it when they falsify their own religion.
Bronze Dog
June 11, 2012 at 12:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Once again, I despair for America’s future.
eric
June 11, 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Just FYI, info on the standards, framework, etc., can be found here.
I think this go-around may be less of a threat than the last few. There seems to be enough mainstream Kansas voters to defeat the creationists soundly, when the issue is brought to the public’s attention. Historically, this has been after the creationists got elected and started changing standards. But with this guy publicly signaling that they’re going to change the standards, he may be helping Kansas prevent another cycle by shooting his own movement in the foot.
d cwilson
June 11, 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Okay, how the flying fuck did Kansas get selected as one of the 26 states? That’s like asking the president of the Flat Earth Society to head up NASA.
thisisaturingtest
June 11, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There’s that crap again- that secularism, which is, by (Wikipedia’s) definition, “the state of being separate from religion,” is actually a religion itself. It’s like the creationist re-definition of “theory” to argue that their silly ideas are science. It’s intended to elevate creationism (and, here, religion) to the status of equality with rational thought; but all it really does, in effect, is to degrade science and rationalism down to their level of irrationality. They’ll allow science and rationality to the point where it disproves their pre-suppositions- then, when their magic fails the test of rationality, say, “well, it’s all just a matter of competing worldviews, after all.” They somehow think equating science (in their minds) with their level of irrationality justifies the irrational.
Skip White
June 11, 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well of course they’re preferring one religious position over another. It just happens to be that that position is “religion has no place in the public school system’s science curriculum, per the U.S. Constitution.”
josephmccauley
June 11, 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When Kansas was rewriting their standards in 2004 (maybe?) one of my former neighbors (a legit docta of chem) claimed on the witness stand that evolution could not have happened in a particular circumstance because the chemistry didn’t work. As a scientist, he should have known to keep his mouth shut when he wanted to say “It can’t happen”, but his fundie side couldn’t help itself. I hope he gets to testify again as an unbiased expert.
Gretchen
June 11, 2012 at 9:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obligatory blog post from Gretchen (since I’m in Kansas right now) here.
Jack Krebs
June 12, 2012 at 8:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually this would be the third time, but I’m optimistic this won’t go anywhere. We’ve had a pro-science majority on the Board of Education since we overturned the last anti-science standards back in 2006, and chances are reasonably good that we won’t lose that majority in the upcoming elections this year.
Also, obviously things are different now in that we, as one state, aren’t going to change the standards themselves – the worst we could do, I think, is vote not to adopt them as our state standards, and then wade back into the mess of reviewing the current state standards (which are good) in 2014.
And to d cwilson above, Kansas has a very strong pro science education contingent of people on our Board and in our universities: fighting the battles we have has strengthened the resolve and skills of the pro-science people in the state. From that point of view, we’re a good choice to be one of the states working on the new national standards,