Kansas State Board of Education

Just when I think the major media are beginning to become a little more accurate in reporting on the evolution issue, something happens to bring me back to reality. Yesterday the international newswire Reuters sent out a story making the following preposterous claim:

The new science standards would… eliminate core evolution theory as required curriculum.

This claim is absolutely false. The draft science standards endorsed by the Kansas Board of Education continue to include evolution as part of the standard required curriculum. Indeed, the proposed benchmark on evolution is all but identical to the one in the current Kansas Science Standards. See for yourself:

The Kansas State Board of Education is scheduled to take up discussion tomorrow of the proposed revisions to the state’s science standards (although an actual up or down vote might not come until later in the summer).

The Board’s Science Hearings Committee, after hearing testimony from nearly two dozen scientists and scholars last month about how evolution should be presented in the classroom, will apparently recomend the adoption of the draft standards which call for students to learn more about the scientific evidence regarding chemical and biological evolution, including scientific criticisms raised in peer-reviewed science journals. In a one page rationale for their recommendation the committee states that it had “heard credible scientific testimony that indeed there are significant debates about the evidence for key aspects of chemical and biological evolutionary theory.”

Below is the complete text of their statement, which is available on the Kansas Dept. of Education website as well.