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The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States from May 5 to 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school science classes. The hearings were arranged by the Board of Education with the intent of introducing intelligent design into science classes via the Teach the Controversy method.[1][2]
The hearings raised the issues of creation and evolution in public education and were attended by all the major participants in the intelligent design movement but were ultimately boycotted by the scientific community over concern of lending credibility to the claim, made by proponents of intelligent design, that evolution is the subject of wide dispute within the scientific and science education communities.
The Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement, played a central role in starting the hearings by promoting its Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan[3] which the Kansas State Board of Education eventually adopted over objections of the State Board Science Hearing Committee, and campaigning on behalf of conservative Republican candidates for the Board.[4]
Local science advocacy group Kansas Citizens for Science organized a boycott of the hearings by mainstream scientists, who accused it of being a kangaroo court and argued that their participation would lend an undeserved air of legitimacy to the hearings.[5]
Kansas Board of Education member Kathy Martin declared at the beginning of the hearings, "Evolution has been proven false. ID (Intelligent Design) is science-based and strong in facts." At their conclusion she proclaimed that evolution is "an unproven, often disproven" theory. "ID has theological implications. ID is not strictly Christian, but it is theistic," asserted Martin.[6]
The scientific community rejects teaching intelligent design as science; a leading example being the United States National Academy of Sciences, which issued a policy statement saying "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science."[7] (See also List of scientific societies explicitly rejecting intelligent design)
On February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005.
- ^ "Kansas Evolution Hearings: Roger DeHart, Jill Gonzalez-Bravo, and John Millam". Talkorigins.org. Retrieved September 30, 2015.
- ^ [1] [dead link]
- ^ "Key Resources for Parents and School Board Members | Center for Science and Culture". Discovery.org. May 7, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
- ^ "Channel 6 Lawrence, KS – A Division of WOW". 6newslawrence.com. November 5, 2011. Archived from the original on July 14, 2006. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
- ^ Wichita Eagle, "Scientists Right to Boycott Evolution Hearings," March 30, 2005; "Evolution Hearings Rejected by Scientists," April 12, 2005.
- ^ Bailey, Ronald (May 25, 2005). "Unintelligent Design". Archived from the original on July 18, 2008.
- ^ "Reading: Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition | The National Academies Press". Nap.edu. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
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