Evolution in Kansas

Yeah, I know, kind of an oxymoron. However. . . .

I happened to see a headline for this story about the Kansas School Board yesterday, but couldn't follow up at the time:

On Tuesday, the board dumped the 2005 standards that had downplayed evolution and encouraged educators to teach that evolution was a controversial theory without sound basis. The new standards are the result of the 2006 election that gave a majority to those who voted this week to treat evolution as a bedrock theory underpinning biological science education. The standards represent the work developed and continually promoted by a committee of scientists and educators, even after being rejected in 2005.

Note that the Kansas School Board has rewritten the science standards five times since 1998. All because of evolution. The last time, they changed the definition of science.

Meanwhile, a couple doors south in Texas:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, used House operations Tuesday to deliver a memo from Georgia state Rep. Ben Bridges.

The memo assails what it calls "the evolution monopoly in the schools."

Mr. Bridges' memo claims that teaching evolution amounts to indoctrinating students in an ancient Jewish sect's beliefs.

"Indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion," writes Mr. Bridges, a Republican from Cleveland, Ga. He has argued against teaching of evolution in Georgia schools for several years.

He then refers to a Web site, www.fixedearth.com, that contains a model bill for state Legislatures to pass to attack instruction on evolution as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

If Kansasa and Texas didn't exist, we'd have to invent them. Or settle for Florida. (I know -- this originated in Georgia, but Georgia is so schizophrenic I can't quite get a handle on it.)

Chisum himself, by the way, although he believes in creation, doesn't hold with teaching religion in schools. Refresshing, isn't it?

(Thanks to Pharyngula for this gem.)