Kansas Evolution Hearings

By JODI WILGOREN
May 5, 2005
TOPEKA, May 5 -
In the first of three daylong hearings characterized here as the direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified today about the flaws they find in Darwin's theory of evolution, transforming a small auditorium into a forum on one of the most controversial questions in education and politics: How to teach about the origin of life?
The hearings by the Kansas State Board of Education- one part science lesson, one part political theater - were set off by proposed changes to Kansas's science standards intended to bring a more critical approach to the teaching of Darwinism. The sessions provided perhaps the highest-profile stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which asserts that life is so intricately complex that an architect must be behind it. Critics argue that intelligent design has no basis in science and is another iteration of creationism.
Scientists who defend Darwinism are boycotting the hearings, called by the state school board's conservative majority. Nonetheless, a lawyer representing them peppered the other side's experts with queries both profound and personal.
"Can you tell us, sir, how old you believe the Earth is?" the lawyer, Pedro Irigonegaray, asked William S. Harris, a chemist, who helped write the proposed changes to the state standards.
"I don't know," Dr. Harris replied. "I think it's probably really old." ------------------------------­-------------------------
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