Hello and welcome to the skeptics guide to the universe. This is your host,

Stephen Novella. Today is June 15th 2005. With me this week are Perry,

DeAngelus, Yellow, Evan Bernstein, and Robert Novella. Good evening everyone.

First a little follow up on our favorite story in the news this month, the

evolution debate in Kansas. The board still has yet to make a final decision,

but they are fighting with each other. The three moderate members of the board

last out against the conservative members who are proposing the changes to

the science standards. You might remember in 1999 I believe it was,

Kansas had voted to remove evolution from the science standards in that state.

The 2000 elections saw some of the conservative, more conservative members

removed and the new board reinstated the evolution friendly standards. In 2004,

however, the conservatives again seized a majority of the Kansas school board

and now they are considering once again either watering down treatment of

evolution in the science standards or forcing criticism of evolution, some say

that they are entertaining, introducing intelligent design, which is a form of

creationism into the standards. What's interesting in the past week is that the board

members themselves are now fighting pretty diligently among themselves. One

member Bill Wagnon, one of the more moderate members, told the three most

conservative board members, the ones who are proposing the changes that they

were all doops of intelligent design advocates. He said that the intelligent

design is all based on absolute and total fraud.

Sounds like a bright guy. Unfortunately, he and his are in the minority.

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