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Toto, we're not evolving anymore
Should we be wary of future doctors and teachers graduating from Kansas schools?
By Deborah Taylor-Hollis
Dateline: Kansas, Aug.12, 1999. Today the Kansas State Board of Education voted to change the curriculum rules for schools throughout the state, making the teaching of evolution in science classes optional. Either creationism may be taught in its place, or nothing about the origin of life may be taught at all.
I'd like to take this moment to thank the state of Kansas for its enlightened decision. It just made my life easier. By changing its science curriculum and creating an educational policy that does not require students to know anything about science, it has disqualified every student in the state from serious consideration for colleges nationwide, and from most science-based jobs forever in their future.
My son now has far fewer kids with whom to compete for great college spots and good jobs later on. I just wish I could get the other 48 states to follow Kansas' lead. My son could qualify for med school before he graduates from sixth grade.
The head of the Kansas State Board of Education said she "hasn't seen the evidence of the fossil record" showing any proof of the theory of evolution. She hasn't been looking very hard, but that is part of the problem.
Some people think that if they want to keep their faith they have to turn a blind eye to science. They cannot fathom a higher being who not only made everything, but also made us smart enough to find clues on how he/she/it did it. All or nothing is the purview of the shallow end of the alleged gene pool. They can see that their grandchildren have their grandparents' hair color, but can't comprehend why.
I don't care about Kansas. I don't have to live there, and I don't have the time to argue something that even Clarence Darrow couldn't prove in Tennessee in 1925. I do, however, want to make sure that people know what is happening in the world, and actually talk about it. Unlike natural disasters, this is something that can be changed. Unlike most things in our lives, this is something that, eventually, might personally affect each of you.
Sooner or later, a child with that kind of background will be handling your lab specimen, or raising your beef cows, or even teaching your grandchildren science. That may not sit well with you.
Americans decry the state of education, and we howl bloody murder when our children do not do as well as children in other countries on tests, in school or at business. Yet when a subject as volatile as religion begins to be broached, everyone shuts up, looks around to see who else is talking, and tries to slip out the back door quietly.
Some can take the view I started this column with: Hey, it's not MY kid's future, so who cares? But these days, the world is a small place. A man selling car parts in New Delhi can find a buyer in Palo Alto by 8 a.m. and ship them to his waiting arms by 6 p.m. that night (our time). I'd be very concerned about any doctor graduating from the state of Kansas in the next few years--or any teacher.
Other news in the same vein: On the same day Kansas stepped back in time, scientists announced that a dig in Australia revealed evidence of biological life dating back 2.7 billion years ago, the oldest evidence of life ever found on Earth. I could make a crack about Kansas being 2.7 billion years behind us all, or about sending that same team to find signs of intelligence in Kansas, or about separation of church and state not extending into Kansas, but that isn't fair. Its children will get the education the state wants them to receive, and the rest of us will judge the quality of that education on our own levels--and Kansas' children will bear the brunt of that judgment, not its ever so "inclusive" board of education.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
