Re: Kansas

I see that our own Keith Miller is quoted in a news story today on the
show trial being staged in Kansas:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/05/08/kansas.evolution.ap/index.html
It is too bad the story fails to mention that Keith is a Christian; as
written it does nothing to dispel the "Christian antievolutionsists
versus godless scientists" myth.

Actually, most articles have fairly prominently discussed that fact
that many objecting to the ID supported changes are Christians.

Below is one example from the Boston Globe.

Scientist puts faith in evolution debate
Professor in Kansas resists 'design' idea

By Nina J. Easton, Globe Staff | May 8, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan. -- As scientists who advocate the new ''intelligent
design" theory stepped to the microphone at an auditorium here last
week to argue that schools should teach doubts about evolution, a
49-year-old geologist sporting Birkenstock sandals and an early-Beatles
haircut sat quietly in an aisle seat in the back row.

The man is an evangelical Christian who says he was ''called by God to
be a geologist." But Keith B. Miller, a Kansas State University
professor, is also an ardent defender of evolution -- and thus one of
established science's most effective weapons in the battle to keep
intelligent design, creationism, and other attacks on evolution out of
the nation's public schools.

As the theory of evolution pioneered by Charles Darwin comes under
assault in communities from Kansas to Pennsylvania to Georgia, Miller
carries a message that plays especially well here: Faith, even
fundamental Christian faith, is not at odds with Darwin.

''I say I believe God [created life], and I want to find out how,"
Miller said. ''They say, 'God did it; end of discussion.' "

The Kansas state school board has been ground zero for the evolution
debate since 1999, when religious conservatives first drew
international attention by having evolution downplayed in the school
curriculum. Last week, the antievolution forces were back, arguing in
hearings concluding this week that doubts about Darwin be inserted into
school standards.

This time, Darwin's critics insist they are not religiously motivated
creationists, but are scientists who believe that certain things in the
universe, including human life, are too complex to be explained by
natural causes and must be the product of an intelligent creator.

They call this theory ''intelligent design," and while they resist
publicly declaring that a Christian God's hand is at work, they also
suggest that proponents of a key tenet of evolutionary theory -- that
changes over time can result in new species -- are atheists or secular
humanists.

Stung by these charges, scientists who support evolution are trying to
demonstrate that faith and science can exist side by side. ''I want to
dispel their extreme worldview that there is any warfare between
science and the Christian faith," Miller said.

But Darwin's advocates weren't the only ones attuned to image and
public relations. Last week, while Miller advertised his faith and
Kansas citizens fretted about their national image, intelligent-design
advocates used the hearings to establish their scientific credentials.

The courtroom-style hearings feature 23 speakers, mostly scientists
whose specialties range from biochemistry to molecular biology. Nearly
400 scientists have signed a statement taking issue with Darwinian
evolution.

John H. Calvert, the lawyer who runs the Intelligent Design Network and
opened the questioning of witnesses, dwelled on the scientific
background of each. ''Have you published peer-reviewed papers?" he
asked his first witness, biochemist and medical professor William S.
Harris.

Calvert established that Harris had conducted groundbreaking research
and ran a lab that received a multimillion-dollar NIH grant.

Calvert also tried to show that Harris did not fit stereotypes of
evangelical Christians, asking the witness whether it was true that he
was the ''lead guitarist and singer in a rock band?" With a sheepish
smile, Harris affirmed that he was.

Still, in this battle for the public's hearts and minds, Darwin's fans
were determined to deny the intelligent-design proponents the
scientific stamp of approval they craved. They boycotted the Kansas
Board of Education hearings, refusing to send witnesses. ''We are
calling on scientists to quit playing their game," said Harry McDonald,
president of Kansas Citizens for Science.

The direct combatants in this dispute over school standards are not the
only ones concerned about image. So are Kansas citizens, still reeling
from the negative worldwide publicity the state received in the 1999
hearings on evolution.

Bill Graves, a Republican who was then the governor, called the episode
''tragic." A moderate Republican candidate for Congress ran television
ads asserting that Kansas had been embarrassed in the eyes of the world.

In 2000, Kansas voters turned the state school board back over to
moderates.

Last week, some locals worried that scientists might reconsider their
plans to move to the state, while Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a
Democrat, warned the school board not to do anything to harm the
competitive chances of the state's schoolchildren.

Kansas, the center of the nation, is what author John Gunther called a
''kind of common denominator for the entire continent." But its flat
horizons have also been a seeding ground for tornado-style uprisings,
from Prohibition and the Christian right to socialism and militant
populism on the left.

Thomas Frank, a native and author of ''What's the Matter With Kansas,"
calls the state an ''early adopter," where ''various ideological
nostrums . . . were embraced quickly and ardently."

But those ideological nostrums have also been countered by an
all-American pride. Topeka was the defendant in the Supreme Court's
famed Brown v. Board of Education less because its schools were
segregated -- they were throughout the South in the early 1950s -- than
because local lawyers and housewives launched a challenge to the
system. Just a mile from this week's school board hearings, a two-story
brick schoolhouse, one of four ''colored-only" schools in the city,
stands as a memorial to that landmark 1954 decision.

In the fight over evolution in the public schools, McDonald argues that
Kansas became a high-profile battleground in 1999 because teachers and
scientists like him fought back; elsewhere, the antievolution forces
crept in quietly.

''The fight didn't start in Kansas," said McDonald, a retired biology
teacher. ''We made it the biggest public issue."

Still, the political winds have shifted to the right in Kansas. The
state has a long tradition of moderate, economic-driven Republicanism.
Now, religious conservatives are on the rise in the GOP.

That's where Miller, the evangelical geologist, comes in. If the
intelligent-design advocates who testified last week downplayed their
faith, Miller stressed his in order to demonstrate that orthodox
religion is not in conflict with modern science.

A 15-year Kansas resident, Miller has edited a science book,
''Perspectives on an Evolving Creation," in which he and other
evangelical Christians challenge intelligent design.

But because the scientific community opted to boycott the school board
hearings, anyone interested in Miller's views last week had to travel
to an aging Ramada Inn across town. On Wednesday night, about 100
people did.

Advocates of intelligent design contend that evolutionary theory takes
God out of the equation by concluding that all species change is
random, unguided, and explained by natural causes.

''Every other code we know came from a mind," said Harris, the medical
professor arguing in favor of intelligent design. ''To deduce that DNA
codes came from a mind is not irresponsible."

But Miller insists that ''science does not affirm or deny the existence
of a creator. It is simply silent on the existence or action of God."
He accused proponents of intelligent design of resorting to a ''God of
the gaps," whose hand is only visible when science can't solve life's
riddles.
Received on Mon May 9 00:43:00 2005