Steve Abrams, the chairman of the Kansas State Board of Education, said he wasn’t bothered by today’s remarks made by a high-ranking Vatican official that “intelligent design” doesn’t belong in science classrooms.

The Vatican’s chief astronomer, the Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was “wrong” and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

“Intelligent design isn’t science even though it pretends to be,” the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. “If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.”

Abrams was part of the majority on the Kansas board that last week voted in new science standards that challenge evolution. Some critics say the new standards will usher intelligent design discussions into state science classrooms.

However, Abrams pointed out that the Kansas science standards do not include intelligent design.

“I don’t believe intelligent design belongs in the science classroom,” Abrams said. And, he said, the newly adopted standards, “allow critical thinking and analysis. It’s not about whether intelligent design does get in or doesn’t.”