TOPEKA ? A group of 38 Nobel Laureates headed by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel have asked the Kansas State Board of Education to reject science standards that criticize evolution.

In a letter to the board released today, the group from several countries said Darwinian evolution is the foundation of biology.

” … its indispensable role has been further strengthened by the capacity to study DNA,” the group wrote. (See entire letter.)

The conservative majority on the State Board of Education have accepted science standards that were proposed by proponents of intelligent design, which holds that the complexities of life point toward evidence of a master planner. A final vote on the standards is expected in October or November.

The Nobel winners, however, said intelligent design cannot be tested as a scientific theory “because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent.”

The Nobel winners also said science and faith are not mutually exclusive.

The signers of the letter from the New York-based Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity includes leading physicists, chemists and medical experts. Wiesel earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.