Monkey Trial or Kangaroo Court?

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2005.

The hours passed, and the chilling phrases kept on coming: "security police," "fear and tension," "significant personal sanctions," "enforcement of the Rule," "suppression of evidence," "conflict of conscience," "trampling on those who believe man is purposed."

The man on the stage might well have been talking about life in a totalitarian state, but John Calvert, a lawyer who directs the Intelligent Design Network of Shawnee Mission, Kan., was describing the state of science education in America.

For three days in May, in a cramped auditorium across the street from the Kansas Capitol building, Calvert and his 22 witnesses -- scientists, philosophers, teachers, and other scholars -- painted a picture of evolutionary biology as a tyrannical, "naturalistic" discipline that can be salvaged only by letting the bright light of the supernatural shine in.

Witness Nancy Bryson told the story of how she lost her position as head of the Department of Science and Mathematics at Mississippi University for Women after she spoke out against evolution in 2003. After that, she said, other faculty members would slip into her office after hours to talk with her about the situation, saying that it was "not safe" to talk openly.

California high school teacher Roger DeHart testified that administrators reassigned him from biology to earth science because he had been telling students about what he called the "misrepresentation" of evolution as an explanation for life. When the controversy eventually forced DeHart to move to a different school, he was warned by one of his new colleagues, "I'll be keeping an eye on you." 

When parents complained that her by-the-book teaching of evolution showed "humanistic bias" and asked her for her personal opinion, Kansas high school teacher Jill Gonzales-Bravo could only tell them, "I don't feel at liberty to discuss it." She felt compelled to testify at the Topeka hearings, she said, despite her fear that it was "not really a [good] career move."

Creationism Reincarnated

For a brief period between 1999 and 2001, Kansas science teachers had labored under state standards that de-emphasized evolution. In 2004, voters once more gave conservative religious members a majority on the state's Board of Education; as a result, science standards are to be rewritten yet again, in a way that deprecates evolution and permits discussion of intelligent design. 

"ID," as it's often called, is the idea that natural processes cannot account for the appearance of new species of plants and animals throughout the earth's history -- that although genetic diversity may shift around a lot within species, the species themselves were designed by an entity outside of nature. 

Mainstream scientists are nearly unanimous in rejecting ID, which they say is just a reincarnation of old-fashioned biblical creationism, carefully articulated to avoid going afoul of the Constitution.

In March, a 26-member writing committee assigned by the Board submitted a new draft of science standards that was, well, standard stuff. But eight dissenters on the committee submitted an alternative version that included anti-evolution language. Board members who liked the alternative version decided to schedule hearings for early May in Topeka, to weigh the relative merits of the competing drafts. 

Calvert's witnesses turned out in force. Their side was coming off a big win in Ohio, where, in 2002, they had fought for and gotten a change in school science standards. They knew that Kansas, with a newly elected, pro-creation majority on its school board, would be an easy mark. 

But Kansas's mainstream biologists boycotted the hearings, comparing them to the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial." They said the outcome was already decided anyway, and that to defend evolution in what they called a "kangaroo court" would only give the proceedings a veneer of respectability they didn't deserve. 

'A Good Product'

At the hearings, witness after witness spoke of gaping holes in evolutionary theory, the power of ID to fill those holes, and ID's potential to give students the complete and exciting science education they deserve. 

Ohio biology teacher Bryan Leonard testified that he helped write a state lesson plan called "Critical Analysis of Evolution." He said he knows it's a "good product" because of the overwhelmingly positive reaction from students: "The key is to find out what students want and teach toward their interests."

Daniel Ely, professor of biology at the University of Akron, praised the Ohio plan, saying that when students are presented a subject in the form of a controversy and are permitted to argue one side or the other, they "take ownership" of the subject. "When I was a kid, we learned about Communism," he said. "You have to understand both sides." 

Philosophy professor Warren Nord of the University of North Carolina, declaring himself a "liberal in every sense," explained that justice demands inclusion of religious groups in classroom discussion, just as it has ensured that "women and blacks" are included. 

Stan Cox lives in Salina, Kan. He has a Ph.D. in plant breeding and cytogenetics and has been a plant breeder for 22 years.

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