Evolution key issue for Kan. voters

[proud2BlibKansan]

TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas Board of Education members who approved new classroom standards that call evolution into question faced a counterattack at the polls Tuesday (today) from Darwin's defenders.

Five of the 10 seats on the board were up for election in the primary, the latest skirmish in a seesawing battle between faith and science that has opened Kansas up to international ridicule.

Last November, the Board of Education's 6-to-4 conservative Republican majority rewrote testing standards for public schools to incorporate language supported by advocates of intelligent design, which holds that life is so complex it must have been created by some kind of higher power. The new standards say that some aspects of evolution are contradicted by scientific evidence.

On Tuesday, three members of the majority faced GOP primary foes who support evolution. A fourth Republican conservative is retiring, and her seat was up for grabs.

more . . .
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_el_st_lo/kansas_evolution;_ylt=AlaGPTTNE847.4m1Jttvxxdh24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

[evlbstrd]

1. Oh, boy.

I can't wait to see those returns tonight. It'd be great to welcome Kansas back to the real world.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Yes it looks good so far

I am going out to Dennis Moore's party to watch the returns.

It will be great to see the freaks on that board gone. We could know as early as today that the board will no longer be a conservative majority.

[evlbstrd]

10. Don't go yelling at the helpless candidates, now.

We don't want to be divisive, do we?

[Big Unit]

6. Election Results Will Be Important

These contests will be very important for at least a couple of reasons. As Proud says, perhaps the Kansas St. Bd. of Education can rejoin the rest of the world by a moderate Republican turn-out that will repudiate the anti-evolution fundies. But, even if they don't defeat the fundies, perhaps the results pitting pro-science Democrats in the general election against the fundies will foretell many moderate Republicans voting for the Democrats, thereby dumping the fundies this November. Hopefully, the mods will vote with the Dems not only for the purposes of vindicating science, but also out of a sense of retaliation because of the defeat of the mods in the closed Republican primaries. Perhaps Kansas is in a win-win situation, in other words.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Hey BU!!

:hi:

I definitely think it is win-win. The mods here are embarrassed. The conservative pukes are falling all over each other scrambling to take the state. I have never seen so many campaign signs for a primary election! And the RWers don't have a snowball's (or should I say snowFLAKE'S) chance in hell of winning the governor's race. It is really rather comical.

[evlbstrd]

11. It could also be a portent nationally.

I'm trying to be optimistic.

[sarcasmo]

2. Kansas going back wards every day. One State I would NEVER live in.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. You must not have read the article

The elections today could do away with the conservative majority. That would be moving FORWARD.

Kansas is an awesome place to live. We just have a few oddballs, much like most other states do nowadays. Like PA has Santorum, GA has Ralph Reed, VA has Falwell, etc.

[bperci108]

12. But you ARE proud to live in MI?

Home of Militia-celebrity Mark Koernke and the tens-of-thousands like him?

I remember something about "glass houses".... :P

Seriously, this was once a very progressive state and will be again, once the fundie-whack-jobs are run out of here on a rail. I think folks have had about enough from them. Even the mega-churches are becoming infiltrated with liberal believers and these are the center of power for the far right here.

I wouldn't write off KS as a bunch of hayseeds just yet.

[sarcasmo]

13. Guns vs Bibles no one wins. I will take my Lakes over the flat land any

Day.

[sgxnk]

4. ID is NOT science

i am repeating myself here...

but...

this is so #$(#$#$#$!!!

ID is *not* science

sure, evolution is not a perfect theory (iow, there are holes in it - much like euclidean geometry had holes), but it is clearly -on an occam's razor basis - THE theory, it has consensus, and regardless - ID is not an "alternative theory" since it is not a SCIENTIFIC THEORY

it is NOT science, thus it cannot be an alternative scientific theory

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Well I am a proponent of the flying spaghetti monster theory

http://www.venganza.org/

"Letting the religious right teach ID in schools is like letting the Marines teach poetry in advanced combat training. As a scientist, I see these the relevancy between the two sets to be equal. If Kansas is going to mess up like this, the least it can do is not be hypocritical and allow equal time for other alternative "theories" like FSMism, which is by far the tastier choice."
-- J. Simon, PhD

[sgxnk]

9. well put

i was actually trying to come up with some analogy like that

like saying

ID is not an "alternative theory" to evolution any more than a ham sandwich is an alternative artistic style to impressionism

or something

i have no problem with PRIVATE schools teaching ID. although, they SHOULD teach it as philosophy not science

public schools should NOT teach ID.