Natural selection in Kansas vote

KANSAS - Voters in Kansas will be casting ballots tomorrow in a hotly contested primary election where none of the runners has the name Bush or Gore.

At stake are seats on the statewide Board of Education, which ordinarily might not make for a very thrilling contest.

But at the heart of the race is a heated battle between evolutionists, who adhere to theories first expounded by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of the Species, and creationists, for whom the words of Genesis offer the only good explanation for our existence on the planet.

For a year, it has dominated politics in Kansas and in the state Republican Party it has pitted conservatives against moderates.

The controversy blew up last August, when the board voted to strike the main tenets of evolution and natural selection from state standards for teaching science in schools. Out went all references, for example, to the "Big Bang" theory of the universe's origin and to so-called macroevolution, which holds that different species, notably apes and man, have common ancestors.

The new standards do not bar teachers from teaching evolution, which holds that the world was created billions of years ago and that natural selection has shaped species. But they do not encourage it, either, and critics contend that that leaves a door open for teachers to propound the creationist notions that Earth is only 6000 years old and that humankind sprang from Adam and Eve.

Three of the board members who voted to downgrade evolution are now facing re-election. In each case, they face moderate Republican opponents who favour reinstating evolution to the curriculum. Because Kansas is overwhelmingly Republican, the victors are almost certain to win seats in the general election in November.

As it happens, last month saw the 75th anniversary of the celebrated "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee in which a young teacher, John Scopes, was prosecuted for daring to introduce the theory of evolution to his class. His conviction was overturned.

Several Hollywood stars, including Edward Asner, visited the University of Kansas last month to participate in a dramatisation of the "monkey trial." Sponsoring the event was the People for the American Way, a liberal - and pro-evolution - think tank. The president, Ralph Neas, noted that Darwin's precepts were under attack in dozens of other states as well. "But Kansas is today's ground zero in the battle over evolution."

"We do not expect or want any schools to eliminate the teaching of evolution," said Mary Douglass Brown, who represents the Wichita region. "Kansas children should understand this concept, but not as a fact. Why can we refer to the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity, but only to the fact of evolution? I don't think I came from an ape."

- INDEPENDENT