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Kansas Board of Education Adopts Standards That Demean ScienceNovember 8, 2005 Kansas students now at risk of falling behind their fellow students Washington, DC - The Kansas State Board of Education has done a disservice to the state's K-12 students by voting today to adopt a curriculum that redefines science such that intelligent design/creationism and other supernatural concepts could be taught in science classes. While Kansas legislators and business leaders have worked to provide incentives and opportunities for scientists—for instance, by passing the Kansas Economic Growth Act, a $500-million investment in bioscience—the Kansas school board has worked equally hard to undermine those incentives. As expected, the board adopted science standards that question evolution, ignoring objections from an external review panel and from the original committee of scientists and educators tasked with writing the standards. Members of the mainstream scientific research community maintain that there is no controversy about evolution, a unifying principle of biology. "Unfortunately the Kansas State Board of Education is determined to disregard advice from the scientific community," says Dr. Marvalee Wake, president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. "The sad thing is that the students, particularly those interested in pursuing science careers, are in danger of falling behind their peers in other states and nations." For more information about AIBS officials' stance on the new Kansas science standards, please see the August 2005 position statement at http://www.aibs.org/position-statements/050809_biologists_speak.html.
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