Day 3 of evolution trial sees lawyers wrangle
Topeka ? Echoing the famed “Monkey Trial” of 80 years ago, three days of public hearings about evolution culminated Saturday in sparring between opposing attorneys.
A State Board of Education subcommittee took testimony from critics of evolution who hope students are exposed to more criticism of the theory. The entire board expects to consider changes this summer in standards that determine how students are tested on science statewide.
John Calvert, a retired Lake Quivira attorney who helped found the Intelligent Design Network and organized the case against evolution, called himself as his own last witness. That led to questioning from Pedro Irigonegaray, a Topeka attorney representing advocates of continuing a state policy in which standards describe evolution as a key concept for students to learn.
Irigonegaray’s sharpest questions came over the Board of Education’s decision to allocate $5,000 to cover lodging and some other expenses for Calvert’s nearly two dozen witnesses.
When Irigonegaray asked whether that money normally would have gone to educate Kansas children, Calvert replied, “I believe that was the purpose of these hearings.”
Irigonegaray’s questions led to an outburst from the audience, where a spectator said he didn’t mind having taxpayers pay for witnesses’ expenses because the teaching of evolution is an important issue. The man declined to identify himself later.
Later, Irigonegaray elicited a few groans from the audience by saying he would not accept any money from the state, adding, “I believe that would be stealing from the children of Kansas.”
Kansas not alone
Battles over evolution also have occurred in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania in recent years. In Kansas, scientists worry the board is being pushed to include intelligent design in the standards, though language advocated by intelligent-design advocates doesn’t mention it by name.
| THE HEARINGS: A three-member subcommittee of the State Board of Education is taking testimony on how evolution should be taught.THE SCHEDULE: Hearings were in their third day Saturday and are to continue Thursday.WHY THE HEARINGS: The entire state board plans to consider changes this summer in standards used to test Kansas students statewide on science.COMPETING PROPOSALS: The board last year asked a committee of educators to recommend changes in the standards. It received two proposals, which are being debated during the hearings.DIFFERENT LANGUAGE: The proposed standards supported by a majority of the committee of educators would continue the state’s policy of describing evolution as a key concept for students to learn. The minority report says students should be exposed to more criticism of evolution.WHO’S TESTIFYING: Critics of evolution who want the minority language adopted. |
Calvert’s witnesses questioned evolutionary theory that life originated from a common source and that man and apes have a common ancestor.
Intelligent design says some features of the natural world are so complex and well-ordered that they are best explained by an intelligent cause. Irigonegaray derided it as “creationism in a new wrapper.”
Kansas school board members sought to avoid comparisons between their hearings and the 1925 Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tenn., in which teacher John Scopes was convicted of violating a state law against teaching evolution.
In 1925, attorney Clarence Darrow, representing Scopes, attempted to make creationism look foolish. In modern-day Kansas, evolution is on trial.
Evolution to be defended
Irigonegaray is scheduled to present evolution defenders’ case Thursday, but he doesn’t plan to call witnesses.
State and national science groups are boycotting the hearings, viewing them as rigged against evolution because the three presiding board members are part of a conservative majority receptive to criticism of evolution.
Calvert’s witnesses argued that evolution, as typically taught, promotes atheism. Calvert argued that excluding other ideas from the classroom favored a nontheistic religion — creating constitutional problems.
“Any time you get into a discussion of religion and you skew the evidence in one particular way, you get into a problem,” Calvert said.
Irigonegaray was skeptical and told Calvert, “I think we’re just going to go back and forth, and we’re not going to agree, and we’ll leave it at that.”
The hearing also became contentious when Irigonegaray questioned Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow and director of the Center on Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent-design research.
At one point, Meyer told Irigonegaray: “If you’re going to badger me, you’re not going to get an understanding of my views.”
Witnesses warned against defining science as the search for only natural explanations, saying it would stifle inquiry into whether design exists in nature.
“The cell, the basis of life, is composed of machines — literally machines,” Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, told the subcommittee.
‘Deeply wrong’
Some Kansas scientists watching the hearings said nearly all the science presented by Calvert’s witnesses was incorrect.
“It’s deeply wrong,” said Bruce Glymour, who teaches about the philosophy of science at Kansas State University. “This isn’t science. It’s politics.”
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