Science Wins Tight Game

The fans were tense with excitement. At various times throughout the game, it looked like one team or the other might pull out the victory. However, backed by solid relief pitching and a two-run double to left in the 7th inning, the visitors were able to come out on top. Final Score: Science - 6 Intelligent Design - 4.

Ok, so it wasn't really a baseball game. It was real life. Still, the recent decision by the Kansas State Board of Education dealt another blow to the Intelligent Design community. Science, not the dressed up version of creationism, will be taught in Kansas public schools.

According to the Guardian,

School authorities in the American heartland state of Kansas have delivered a rebuff to subscribers to the notion of intelligent design by voting to banish language challenging evolution from new science guidelines.

In a 6-4 vote on Tuesday night, the Kansas state board of education deleted language from teaching guidelines that challenged the validity of evolutionary theory, and approved new phrasing in line with mainstream science.

It was seen as a victory for a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats, science educators and parents who had fought for two years to overturn the earlier guidelines.

The decision is rather surprising too. I've lived in Kansas before (Pittsburg & Newton) and I can tell you that it is a most conservative state. Kansas is what brought the world Bob Dole.

And I've got to give the London newspaper some extra plaudits. While far too many U.S. media sources tend to dance around providing an apt definition of intelligent design, the Guardian hits the nail flush on the head.

Teaching creationism in American public schools has been outlawed since 1987 when the supreme court ruled that the inclusion of religious material in science classes was unconstitutional. In recent years, however, opponents of the theory of evolution - first developed by Charles Darwin - have regrouped, challenging science education with the doctrine of "intelligent design", which has been carefully stripped of all references to God and religion. Unlike traditional creationism, which claims that God created the earth in six days, proponents of intelligent design say the workings of this planet are too complex to be ascribed to evolution. There must have been a designer working to a plan - that is, a creator.