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The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States from May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school science classes. The hearings were arranged by the Board of Education with the intent of introducing intelligent design into science classes via the Teach the Controversy method.〔() 〕 The hearings raised the issues of creation and evolution in public education and were attended by all the major participants in the intelligent design movement but were ultimately boycotted by the scientific community over concern of lending credibility to the claim, made by proponents of intelligent design, that evolution is purportedly the subject of wide dispute within the scientific and science education communities. The Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement, played a central role in starting the hearings by promoting its Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan which the Kansas State Board of Education eventually adopted over objections of the State Board Science Hearing Committee, and campaigning on behalf of conservative Republican candidates for the Board. Local science advocacy group Kansas Citizens for Science organized a boycott of the hearings by mainstream scientists, who accused it of being a kangaroo court and argued that their participation would lend an undeserved air of legitimacy to the hearings.〔Wichita Eagle, "Scientists Right to Boycott Evolution Hearings," March 30, 2005; "Evolution Hearings Rejected by Scientists," April 12, 2005.〕 Board member Kathy Martin declared at the beginning of the hearings "Evolution has been proven false. ID (Intelligent Design) is science-based and strong in facts." At their conclusion she proclaimed that evolution is "an unproven, often disproven" theory. "ID has theological implications. ID is not strictly Christian, but it is theistic," asserted Martin.〔()〕 The scientific community rejects teaching intelligent design as science; a leading example being the United States National Academy of Sciences, which issued a policy statement saying "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." (See also List of scientific societies explicitly rejecting intelligent design) On February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005. ==Background== The hearings were one of a number of Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns that sought to establish new science education standards consistent with conservative Christian beliefs, both in the state and nationwide, and reverse what they saw as a domination in science education by actual science, specifically the scientific theory of evolution, which they viewed as atheistic, in direct conflict to their religious beliefs. Kansas Board of Education elections in 2004 gave religious conservatives a 6-4 majority. In 2005, prompted by the Kansas Intelligent Design Network〔() 〕 and the Discovery Institute, the board sought new high school science standards. The revisions did not entirely eliminate evolution from instruction, but presented it as a theory greatly challenged and disputed, in line with the Discovery Institute's Teach the Controversy campaign. The new standards presented intelligent design as an alternative to evolution through the Institute's ''Critical Analysis of Evolution''. Board member Connie Morris sent a taxpayer-funded newsletter to constituents calling evolution an "age-old fairy tale" that was defended with "anti-God contempt and arrogance." Describing herself as a Christian who believes in a literal interpretation of Genesis, Morris wrote that evolution was "biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically, metaphysically and etc. wildly and utterly impossible."〔David Klepper, "Kansas School Board's Hearings on Evolution End in Acrimony," Knight Ridder Newspapers, May 12, 2005.〕 The Intelligent Design Network originally proposed over 20 pages of revisions to the science standards. Their proposals were rejected by the science standards committee (made up of Kansas scientists and educators) appointed by the Board of Education, and were also rejected by 12 independent scientists who reviewed the proposed revisions.〔()〕 Each side was invited to provide witnesses to testify before the board for intelligent design or evolution, with the taxpayers of Kansas covering the travel expenses. The scientific community refused to participate ''en masse''. The pro-intelligent design group, the Intelligent Design Network, invited 22 witnesses. Among these were a number of non-scientists, and a number of scientists with no professional experience in biology. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kansas evolution hearings」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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