Today the Kansas State Board of Education voted to weaken state science standards and include wording favorable toward Intelligent Design.
Kansas Schoold Board Ok's Evolution Language
A little history:
In December 2004, a 25 member committee, commissioned by the Kansas State Board of Education, and consisting of science professionals and educators, drafted a new proposal for the science standards in Kansas schools.
In March 2005, eight members of the committee presented to the board a different proposal, known as the Minority Report, with the most notable change being a different definition of science and scientific methods. In May 2005, the Board held hearings to discuss the Minority Report, and invited testimony from several proponents for Intelligent Design, led by the Intelligent Design Network in Kansas City. Evolution proponents for the most part refused to attend, but were represented by testimony submitted by educators. Although the hearings were intended for the whole board, only three of the “conservative” board members attended.
The Minority Report was ramrodded into the base standards in toto and was passed in the vote today.
Changes (quoted directly from the standards):
No significant changes are found in the standards in the grades K-7. Grades 8-12 introduce Life Sciences, and biological evolution. As expected, there are significant changes in that section of the standards. This includes several additions, including:
- In many cases the fossil record is not consistent with gradual, unbroken sequences postulated by biological evolution.
- The view that living things in all major kingdoms are descendants of a common ancestor (described in the pattern of a branching tree) has been challenged in recent years by:
(a) Discrepancies in the molecular evidence (e.g. differences in relatedness inferred from sequence studies of different proteins).
(b)A fossil record that shows sudden bursts of increased complexity (the Cambrian Explosion), long periods of stasis and the absence of abundant transitional forms rather than steady gradual increases in complexity.
(c)Studies that show animals follow different rather than identical early stages of embryological development.
- New heritable traits may result from new combinations of genes and from random mutations or changes in the reproductive cells. Except in very rare cases, mutations that may be inherited are neutral, deleterious or fatal.
- Whether microevolution (change within a species) can be extrapolated to explain macroevolutionary changes (such as new complex organs or body plans and new biochemical systems which appear irreducibly complex) is controversial. These kinds of macroevolutionary explanations generally are not based on direct observations and often reflect historical narratives based on inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence.
Kansas Science Education Standards – Draft 2 – As revised by State Board Science Subcommittee (July 12, 2005). Kansas Science Education Standards – Draft 2
So this questions common descent, microevolution and gene mutation.
Also notice the inclusion of a bastardized interpretation of punctuated equilibrium. Stephen Jay Gould is spinning in his grave...