Will Kansas evolve?

A coalition of forces is gathering steam to try to reclaim the Kansas State School Board from the conservatives who took it over in 2004, and who put Intelligent Design and other theories “more adequate” than evolution into the state science curriculum. Both Republicans and Democrats are trying to show that Kansas is not the
hick fundamentalist outpost it’s being made out to be.

What’s amusing is watching the conservative candidates — four of the five seats up for election this year — try to wriggle over the whole issue, claim that religion isn’t part of it, and that it’s just a matter of .

Connie Morris, a conservative Republican running for re-election, said the board had merely authorized scientifically valid criticism of evolution. Ms. Morris, a retired teacher and author, said she did not believe in evolution. “It’s a nice bedtime story,” she said. “Science doesn’t back it up.”

“Science” being defined as … what?

The chairman of the board, Dr. Steve E. Abrams, a veterinarian and the leader of the conservative majority […]said his views as someone who believes that God created the universe 6,500 years ago had nothing to do with the science standards adopted.

“In my personal faith, yes, I am a creationist,” he said. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with science. I can separate them.” He said he agreed that “my personal views of Scripture have no room in the science classroom.”

Dr. Abrams said that at a community meeting he had been asked whether it was possible to believe in the Bible and in evolution, and that he had responded, “There are those who try to believe in both — there are theistic evolutionists — but at some point in time you have to decide which you’re going to put your credence in.”

I certainly respect Dr. Abrams personally held opinion. I don’t see, though,how he can assert that either his opinion on Scripture, on the age of the universe, or on “theistic evolutionists” can have no affect on the science standards he’s promulgated or on their attitude toward evolution.

Here’s hoping the good people of Kansas agree.