August 3, 2006-- What's Right In (Topeka) Kansas?

Driving across the country, one does not have to be much of a geologist to notice how the earth is made up of hundreds of layers of rock, some sedimentary from long-forgotten seas, others from lava that flowed from ancient volcanoes. All you have to do is look out the window at the passing landscape. Most dramatic, of course, is what is easily seen at places such as the Grand Canyon where wind and water erosion have exposed what real geologists claim are billions of years of deposits.

Though wondrous, this landscape is far from benign. It is much contested territory. In the very Grand Canyon there are competing raft trips down the Colorado River, which in other days contributed mightily to the etched landscape--one led by a geologist who sees the rock formations as a living text for a floating seminar on modern geology; the other by Fundamentalist clergy who see a very different story written in the rocks, one that tells the tale of how God created the Earth in all its visible details.

Evolution? Creationism? Intelligent Design? Take your pick.

I am for certain very much anevolutionaryt. But confronted with the majesty of the mountains, rivers, canyons, sky, and of course the flora and fauna, all existing in some form of natural connectedness and interdependency, it is a challenge to think that what we see is all the result of random forces guided by just the instinct to survive.

But still, as hard as it is not to believe from this roadside evidence that there is some sort or intelligence at work here (forget the implications of the larger universe), some intention, in spite of the fact that the real evidence preponderantly supports evolutionary theory, it is good to get some conformation that the Fundamentalists are not invulnerable.

This confirmation comes from Kansas, which for decades has been at the center of attempts to purge evolutionary theory from the curriculum. Just this past Tuesday, in Topeka, voters ousted the conservative majority on their school board who had required that Intelligent Design be taught in local public schools. (See NY Times article below.)

And while they're at it, the new board members have indicated that they will attempt to have sex-education restored to the curriculum and look into why the current education commissioner was hired even though he had almost no background in education. I can help with that one--under the old regime he was a perfect choice since what was going on in Topeka's schools had very little to do with education. I assume, however, that the commissioner knew a great deal about indoctrination.

This school board election in Topeka follows the one that occurred last fall in Dover, Pennsylvania where, first, the federal court ruled that ID was not science but religion and thus could not be taught in the schools; and, second, the voters tossed out the entire school board and replaced it with one that vowed it would provide a curriculum useful to children in this world rather than the next.

So maybe some things after all will be up-to-date in Kansas.