The Kansas Board of Education has approved new standards for teaching science in public schools that critics say strips evolution from its accepted place at the center of biological studies. The standards are general guidelines for local school boards, which may still decide to teach evolution. But many fear students won't be evaluated on evolution in state assessment tests. They also mention natural selection, the idea that advantageous traits increase in a population over time. The issue of evolution education continues to raise passions in American schools more than 70 years after teacher John Scopes was convicted of violating a Tennessee law against teaching it.
Evolution is the theory that all life evolved from common ancestors.
Those opposed to it say it contradicts the biblical account of the creation of life, and they object to the idea that human life resulted from a lower life form. More than a decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools cannot teach creationism, the theory that a divine being created the universe. Kansas is one of several states, including Arizona, Alabama, Illinois, New Mexico, Texas and Nebraska, where school boards recently have attempted to take evolution out of state science standards or de-emphasize evolutionary concepts. Critics of the Kansas board's action worry it took a step toward permitting schools to teach creationists' view that the earth is only a few thousand of years old, based on the Bible's account. Conservative board members said they wanted to make sure that schools teach sound science, arguing that evolution is a flawed theory that cannot be proven.